Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013

It's that time again, time to share in the amazing Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Everyone who follows my blog will know which quilt I'll be sharing, they have shared its creation with me every step of the way! So, to new readers, I present, David and Jessica's Wedding Quilt:

They were decorating the marquee ready for their wedding breakfast when I gave the quilt to them and they were (thank goodness) absolutely thrilled.  I had thought about getting the hotel where they spent their wedding night to make up their bed with it but decided that, as they would have eyes only for each other, they might not notice it!

The various elements of the quilt design are related to David and Jessica and to episodes in their relationship.  I included the block "Florida Star" because they got engaged in Florida for example.  You can read more about the stages of design and creation by searching "David and Jessica's Wedding" on my blog.  I asked them whether they'd like me to make them a quilt and checked out their colour preferences but other than that they had no idea what to expect.  It was such a delight to make this quilt, thinking of them while I was stitching and putting "love into every stitch".  It wasn't all plain sailing as you'll discover if you read some of the posts about it but it all came out well in the end.  I even got it finished with time to spare, which I didn't think I would at one stage.
I did a lot more hand stitching on the Wedding Quilt than I expected to, finding it was a much better way to be in touch with the work and with my DS and DDiL, and I think I will continue in that way in future projects (but not that I'm abandoning the machine all together).
I hope you've enjoyed seeing this very special quilt and that you have time to look at lots of the other wonderful entries in the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I haven't entered for a couple of years but Amy's online festival was the reason I began this blog and I wouldn't be without it and my wonderful blogging friends and followers now, thanks Amy.
I'll end with a picture of the happy couple on their wedding day, 6th April 2013:

Bloggers' Quilt Festival, Autumn 2011

I am very late but, finally, here is my contribution to Amy's "Bloggers' Quilt Festival". The festival ends tomorrow but there will still be time to look at all the wonderful quilts.  I couldn't consider not taking part, even though I have been delayed by all kinds of things (including DH's germs), as it was Amy's BQF that got me started with this blog and as I am fast approaching my 500th post it seems fitting that this entry should kickstart the celebrations. 
So, which quilt to share?  Well, I have already posted about this quilt but it is one of my favourites and also one of my most recently completed so here is "Round and Round the Nara Gardens":

I couldn't manage to get a very square photograph of it but these are better than the original one I posted:

As you can see this quilt is made in Japanese-style fabrics (Nara Gardens) and I'm not sure the photos show it but I have tie-quilted it with a lovely green cotton thread.  This quilt lives on my guest bed and has been promised to several guests to sleep beneath but it didn't get finished in time.  You can't rush a good thing can you and it will be here for their next visits!  The design is a simple combination of Snowball and Framed Square blocks which I first made on a workshop with Jane Bottamley and I have used the pattern several times.  I wanted to make a Japanese version as soon as I saw the trellis effect that the combination of the blocks creates.
Thank you Amy for organising another great BQF, I'm off to look at more of the wonderful entries.

Friday Night Sew-In: Saturday Morning Report, May 2011

Thanks to Heidi and Bobbi for hosting another great Friday Night Sew-In.  (Click on the button right to join in next month)  This is as far as I've got with my scrappy floral picnic cloth yesterday.  I've used all the six inch squares I got from Susan, the Quixotic Crafter, and now need to find something suitably summery for the border.  I was tempted to head off to the LQS this morning but think I might be better off looking at dress fabric.  I'm going to have a simple six inch border with contrasting floral corners and then I'll need to think about quilting but I want it finished to use this summer so it'll be something straightforward.  I love it already, thanks Susan.
On the subject of florals, the Californian poppies are looking splendid in the garden at the moment:

Have a lovely weekend and can I add two massive thank yous?
Thank you to all the lovely people who visited here during the Bloggers' Quilt Festival and left such lovely comments about my Manatees quilt.
Thank you to all my wonderful followers from Online Quilting and Sashiko Started It who have clicked that follow button here at Piece'n'Peace, you're the best.

Bloggers' Quilt Festival, Spring 2011

Welcome to my post for Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival which starts today (now that Blogger is back with us).  Thank you to Amy for hosting another great festival, and to the sponsors for offering such lovely goodies.  When you've finished here there are lots and lots of lovely quilts to enjoy.
As you can see from the label (and I've just this moment noticed that I omitted a finish date - it was completed in August 2008 and was the fourth quilt I'd made) the quilt lives at our holiday home and is used by the grandchildren and by guests of ours there. 
It was the first quilt I'd made that used a bought pattern, it was "Yellow Brick Road" by Terry Atkinson which I bought, along with all the fabric for the quilt top, on holiday in Florida when we visited the Judy Hansen's Quilt Shop of Deland.  My DH and my friend's DH were very impressed with the coffees and the chocolate brownies that they enjoyed while Dorothy and I spent ages browsing, being advised and buying.  That morning we'd been to the Blue Springs State Park and had been delighted to see the manatees with their calves in the warm waters there.  When I saw a sample of this quilt hanging on the wall of Judy's shop I knew it would make the perfect holiday souvenir. 
As this was only my fourth quilt my focus was simple - follow the pattern carefully!  I also tried to balance the colours but think that the paler fabric is too stark in retrospect.  I also made a mistake by buying economy furnishing fabric as backing, thinking at that early stage in my quilting life that anything would do for the backing!  Hmm, I know better now.  The quilt is just quilted "in the ditch", for the first full size quilt I'd had under my domestic machine that was quite challenging enough.
I love this quilt for all it's faults and it is special as a holiday souvenir for me and because it is now part of the holidays of family and friends at the bach in Norfolk.

Blogger's Quilt Festival

"On the Broads in May, Stalham"

This wallhanging is my contribution to the Bloggers' Quilt Festival which is being organised by Amy. 
I made this wallhanging, "On the Broads in May, Stalham",  to be a reminder of a lovely day out on a boat in Norfolk and I did share it on this blog in it's early stages back in  February this year.

We sailed from Stalham Staithe and I wanted to capture the lovely bright greens of spring, the flashes of the electric blue kingfishers glimpsed along the banks and the yellow water buttercups. To capture the gentle movement of the water through the reeds I have used sashiko stitching and I machined the quilt together using a decorative stitch reminiscent of a wading bird's footprint.

I added some little butterfly and dragonfly buttons (I would rather have used the diamond and enamel brooch I saw, unpriced, in one of those antique shops where you have to ring the bell to be let in but I imagine it would have cost a great amount of 'fabric-money') and some Swarovski crystal beads and gold stitching to represent the glinting sun on the water.

I am pleased with this quiltlet, it looks the way I imagined it - I was not after a landscape quilt or a picture, but a representation of a time and place.  I suppose the appliqued, bias-tape "reeds" and, of course, the buttons, are the closest aspect of the design that is pictorial.  It will hang on the wall in our holiday 'bach' in Mundesley, Norfolk.

Thank you for visiting, please go over to Amy's site and you'll see where you can find other blogs displaying quilts this week.

Added 26 May 2010:

Some lovely visitors to BQF have left comments or emailed me asking to see some more detail of my wallhanging so here are a few more photographs and thank you loads for your interest and your encouraging remarks, I really appreciate it.

Here you can see the wooden dragonfly button, the sashiko style hand stitiching that was done with a Valdini hand dyed variegated 35wt cotton thread.

This picture shows the Swarovski crystals and the overstitching on the seams which I did on my Silver 9000E machine.

This is the best photo I could get of the handquilting in gold thread along the bias tape "reeds".  I used a Mettler Metallic thread for that.

Finally, the butterfly wooden button and some more of the sashiko style stitching.  I'm going to do a little sashiko tutorial on my Japanese textiles blog soon but there are plenty on the web if you are interested, it's very therapeutic to do.

Thank You To Everybody Who Visited Me Here

Note from Lis added 21 May:  Please note that my SMS Giveaway (please scroll down or click here  to have a look) is now closed and I will be announcing the winner this morning, Friday 21 May. 

Thank you to everyone who visited here, left lovely comments and signed up as followers.  I have been absolutely blown away with the number of comments I have received, it makes me feel really good inside.  I hope I managed to email you all individually to say thank you but I have been amazed at how many visitors I've had and might have missed somebody out or not been able to find an email for you (although I tried even if you were a 'no-reply blogger').  It has been wonderful to read all your ideas about Japan and to read your compliments about my blog, thank you.
I hope you enjoy the things I'll be adding in the future, including more information about my recent visit to Tokyo, the projects I have for the fabric I bought there and something about the traditions and culture of the wonderful country of Japan.  Of course I'll also be announcing the winner of my giveaway on 21st May, here on this blog.

Sewmamasew's giveaway day was a lot of fun and if, like me, you've spent a lot of time rushing around the web signing up for all the gorgeous giveaways I hope you'll come back and browse through Sashiko Started It at leisure.

You may be interested to know that I have another blog where I share my non-Japanese quilty work and my musings on life in Lincolnshire, it's Online Quilting.  The next big event happening there is the Blogger's Quilt Festival which starts on Friday (which is also Friday Night Sew-In so it'll be a fun and quilty day).  A lot of the blogs I've visited during Giveaway Day were fairly new ones so I'd like to take this opportunity to encourage those new bloggers to carry on blogging, it is amazing where it can lead.

Thank You Amy

Amy is organising another great quilt festival for us bloggers and it starts this time next week on 21st May.  It's a great opportunity to visit blogs you won't have seen before and see what other quilters are doing.  There are also lovely things to win.
It was Amy and her Blogger's Quilt Festival in April 2009 that got me started on blogging.  I found her site on Google and posted about my Norfolk Quilt as the first post on this blog.  Wow, how things have taken off from there.  I have some great new friends, lots of support and inspiration, I met up with some fellow bloggers on my recent holiday and I have taken part in lots of other online quilting events - how amazing is that in just over a year of keeping this blog?
So I urge you to go over to Amy's blog and see all the details for the Quilt Festival and take part if you possibly can, you won't regret it.  And a

GREAT  BIG  

THANK  YOU  

AMY

for starting me off on my blogging journey.