Meet Two Quilters: Christine Porter and Susan Denton

Happy 2nd Blogiversary to me!  I'll be drawing the winner of my giveaway tomorrow so you have time to enter if you haven't already.  Click back to the original giveaway post here, or enter at the end of this post full of yumminess.  Good luck, now sit back and enjoy some wonderful quilts.
Two of the lectures I attended at the Quilters' Guild conference last weekend were particularly inspiring.  Christine Porter (who will probably be familiar with from The Quilt Show spoke on tessellations and patterns in pavements and illustrated her talk with some pictures of stunning tiled floors in cathedrals here in England and others in Italy.  She has published a book about these, "Viva Venezia"  She had two of her quilts with her so that we could get a closer look.  This lovely one of irises was criticised by the quilt police for focussing too much on green!

This is her floor tiles sampler quilt, with a close-up of one of the blocks, isn't it wonderful?

The work of the other quilter who I found especially inspiring was already known to me as I had seen some of Susan Denton's work at Festival of Quilts last year.  A self-taught quilter, Susan obviously enjoys the process of combining colour, fabric and shape.  She has developed a lot of bargello style pieces, such as Musk Melons From Samarkand below and has now moved into wonderful landscape quilts with large hand quilting adorning them.  It was a delight to listen to her describe her quilting journey, closely related to her life journey and to her travels.  Oreiginally from Australia, she lives in beautiful Penwith in Cornwall and much of her current work is inspired by the landscape there.  I'll let the quilts speak for themselves:

Towednack Treasure

and detail

Treasure

Burren

and detail

Musk Melons From Samarkand

Green, Greener, Greenest

and details

Auvergne Potager

and detail

 St Ives Harbour 2

and details

I hope you enjoyed all those wonderful quilts and that your computer coped with this photo heavy post.  Don't forget to enter my 2nd blogiversary giveaway:

The dress code at the QGBI Gala Dinner was black and white.  
What is your favourite combination of colours and why?

To see what you can win, click back to the original giveaway post here.  Good luck. 

Fabric Postcards for Easter

I thought I'd give you a break from my reports on the QGBI Conference and show you what I've been making.  This is a set of fabric postcards for the BQLPC Easter swap and I'm quite pleased with them.  I love the way a set of cards looks when put together as a patchwork too - must put something similar on my to do list!

The design is based on a stained glass window I photographed when I was in Jerusalem with DS in 2009.  I always thought I would translate it into a fabric project and these Easter cards seemed ideal.

I tried to make the colours using fabric crayons and adding lace for texture but wasn't very happy with my first attempt:

so I raided my stash for a brilliant blue fabric, a batik and also a gold metallic fabric for a bit of additional texture.  NB There's an article by Chris Hammacott in this month's British Patchwork and Quilting magazine about texture in patchwork, very interesting.
Here's a quick "how I did it" in photos:

Mark the design on the background fabric in pencil

 Mark the lines with a Hera marker onto the fabric to be applied (below the background)

 Cut just beyond the marked lines

 Position the pieces and attach with fabric glue or bondaweb

 Pin bias tape into place around the awkward bits and iron into position

 Add the rest of the bias tape, iron to hold and then stitch it all in place 

(preferably while sitting outside in the sunshine as I was able to)

I backed the cards with calico and pelmet vilene, 

cut them to size 

and machine buttonhole stitched around the outside.

I couldn't manage the Hebrew text from the window

so added the words "Alleluia" in Pigma pen and

voila!

I've been alternating making these cards with short sessions in the garden today.  It's been so glorious and the weeds seem to be growing at a massive rate.  I sat and pulled the weeds and moss out of the cracks in the patio and then DH and I had lunch - including yummy asparagus and herbs from the garden -outside on a very tidy patio and admired our work, bliss.  I hope you've all had a good weekend too.

Friday Night Sew-In: Saturday Morning Report, April 15th

After a sunny day yesterday it turned chilly in the evening and so DH lit the fire, an excellent setting for this month's FNSI last night.  I worked on my Patchwork in Perspective piece that I started in Exeter last weekend.  It was the opportunity to join this great workshop with Lynne Edwards that was the main reason I was attracted to the Quilters' Guild conference in the first place.
I started my patchwork and quilting journey with Lynne, working through her two sampler quilt books to learn skills and techniques and discover what I liked (and didn't like) doing.  You can see my sampler quilts in the right hand side bar if you scroll down a bit.
It was a brilliant workshop.  Lynne is funny, talented and a very generous teacher.  We all came away with an accurately drafted block pattern for the Ohio Star in perspective and the skills and knowledge to draft other blocks in the same way and also to develop them into larger designs if we wished.  We sewed one side of the block - and they looked great displayed together on the wall (mine is on the far left and I'm sorry that the photo is a bit out of focus).

If you would like to learn more Lynne has written about Patchwork in Perspective in a new book called, "The Quiltmakers" and this is her sample piece for the workshop:

I also did a little design work and thinking for the current BQL fabric postcard, I need to get a wiggle on with these as they're due by Easter.  I'm basing them on a stained glass window I saw in Jerusalem, more about that later.  Hope you all had a good FNSI, I'm off to see what you got up to, have a good weekend and if you want to join in my 2nd blogiversary giveaway (on 19th April) please go to the post here, good luck.

Quilty Eye Candy from Exeter

Some Friday eye candy before we all settle down for Friday Night Sew In.  Not signed up?  Click on the shiny new button to the right and add your name to Heidi's list now!
These are all quilts that were entered in the challenge category at the Quilters' Guild Conference, as the weekend was in Exeter, in the West Country of England the theme was "Wild West".  I imagine giving that theme to my readers in USA would result in a rather different set of quilts.

Finally for today, this lovely quilt by Jenny Hutchinson, isn't it evocative of summers by the sea?

Right, time to get the dressing gown on, cosy slippers and a stash of yummy things to eat.  I'm working on the piece I started with Lynne Edwards last weekend, more about that to come.  Don't forget to enter my blogiversary giveaway, click here!

Cowslip Workshops and a Giveaway

Warning:  my posts are going to be photo-heavy for the next few days and full of gushing superlatives.

I'm just back from the Quilters' Guild Conference which was held in Exeter this year.  I've never attended this annual event before and didn't know what to expect.  I have to report that it was a fabulous weekend, helped in no small part by the most excellent weather, wall to wall sunshine.  The venue (Exeter University Streatham campus) was very good although a little steep.  It's all very well being perched gloriously on top of a hill and enjoying marvellous views but when you go down you have to come back up!  The workshop I did was great (more on that in another post) and the lectures I attended were very stimulating.

 These pictures were taken at the Gala Dinner, the dress code was black and white

There was an optional visit to the Cowslip Workshops near Launceston and that's mainly what this post is about.  I had to do a little shopping as it's rude not to and also it's nearly my second blogiversary. 

 Here I am outside the quilt shop at Cowslip Workshops

It seems amazing that I've been writing this for two years, it's been fantastic and I've loved making lots of new friends, sharing their quilting and non-quilting lives and getting loads of inspiration and help.  I saw two bits of loveliness at Cowslip that I thought would make good giveaway gifts and you can have the choice if you're the lucky winner. 
Choose from this lovely rotary cutter holder:

 or this cute egg cosy:

Not many hoops to jump through this time just leave an answer to the following question on this post (one chance), all my lovely followers get an extra chance as a thank you from me.  Good luck.

The dress code at the QGBI Gala Dinner was black and white.  
What is your favourite combination of colours and why?

Cowslip Workshops is a great venue for quilters with a shop full of yumminess,

in a beautiful setting in rural Cornwall.

Owner, Jo Colwill, had arranged a special day for us with a guest trader, Liz Drake, who had a wonderful stall full of thoughtfully presented antique textiles and brocante.

Jo, pictured here,

also allowed us to wander in her beautiful house and had prepared a very delicious cream tea for us.  For visitors there is a cafe/restaurant on the site which is visited regularly by local people and non-quilters such is the quality of the food.  It was a privilege to see inside the house which was full of the evidence of Jo's creativity:

There was also a very special exhibition on over the weekend which I will share with you in a separate post (with photos of course).  There is a good programme of exhibitions and special events plus a full range of great workshops at Cowslip.  If you're in England, or visiting, sign up for the newsletter to be kept up to date, I might see you there!
Finally, here's a photo of yours truly and friends at the Gala Dinner and a reminder of the giveaway question:

The dress code at the QGBI Gala Dinner was black and white.  
What is your favourite combination of colours and why?

Thank you Susan

I had a great package from Susan, the Quixotic Crafter this afternoon as I was lucky enough to win her IQD giveaway.  This is what she sent me:

lots and lots and lots (over 100) 6" squares of gorgeousness, all beautiful floral fabrics.  Thank you Susan, my thinking cap is on and I'm thinking show off those flowers and go for a fairly simple scrappy quilt, maybe for summer picnics, wouldn't that be a delight?  I wonder if I can arrange those squares to create a graduated rainbow effect?  Watch this space.

Mothering Sunday Early

I just thought I'd share these two photos with you.  The first was at Doughty's fabric roadshow in Lincoln this morning:

We arrived soon after opening and there was already a queue the length of the hall so we decided to go for the coffee and cake option first.  Unfortunately while we were feasting even more ladies (mainly) arrived and the queue got longer and the hall more crowded.  Those in the queue had their arms full of bolts of fabric and some had got chairs - for the fabric!  As the average price per metre was £6 it was no wonder.  DD and I both got what we wanted, purples for her (I'll be doing something creative for her new bedroom with those) and turquoise, cream and a touch of brown for me to use with Lynne Edwards on Friday (I'll share afterwards).  I didn't find anything for our panel Michelle but will have several more opportunities at the weekend.  I did manage an impulse buy that then needed two extra fabrics to go with it!  I'll be using those for a Global Piecers mug rug swap so I can't share those either! 
So, what's the other photo?  Well, after DD had bought me lunch it was back to her place for some gentle (ha ha) curtain hanging (as it was rather damp outside and the gardening was postponed).  I was really impressed to see how she is enjoying homemaking and sneakily took her photograph (she'll probably kill me when she sees it).

And I can report that she was pleased with her shopping list holder and immediately hung it on her kitchen wall, bless her.  A successful but tiring day, so Chinese takeaway for dinner!  Happy Mothering Sunday to you all for tomorrow.