FESTIVAL FEVER

One Day Just Isn't Enough

This week, as I am sure many of you know, was The Festival of Quilts up (or down depending where you are coming from)in Birmingham, it is my quilting highlight of the year, the one I save all my pennies for, the one I get huge amounts of inspiration from, the one I get back ache and bruises from, and this year was no different. I always find it incredible to see the wide variety of people that come to this event, literally every age group, race, both men and women, it is amazing to me how so many different people from all walks of life can be drawn together by bits of colourful fabric stitched together in some truly breath taking patterns and designs.

We set off at 6:30am, had one petrol pit stop and arrived promptly at 9am, this allowed enough time to sit down, have a sausage sarnie and hot chocolate whilst planning our route of attack via the trusty show guide. First stop was Quiltmania, to purchase the rather lovely premiere issue of Simply Moderne. The first 100 customers bagged themselves a free gift, a rather lovely set of Aurofil threads put together by the super talented Victoria Findlay Wolfe, so obviously Kerry Q and I made a mad dash straight over there. An extra bonus is that inside is a detailed spread of where to go for your quilty needs when in New York....I'll be there in 10 weeks time, it's like they knew!! Our next stop is always the wonderfully colourful Alice Caroline, for all our Liberty needs, and yes we need them!! Her infamous £1 a piece scrap baskets are always full of treasures and this year was no different.

We then zig-zag around all our other favourite places - The Cotton Patch, Lady Sew and Sew, Kaleidoscope, picking up a huge variety of delicious fabrics and a few sought after books/patterns before moving on to ogling the hundreds of beautiful quilts on display. Every year I am amazed by the talented people there are in this world, and the breath taking things they can create from such little pieces of fabric, rows and rows of stitching and just pure imagination. I think it's best if I just let the pictures do the talking....

I came away feeling a few things on Thursday, firstly in awe of these master pieces and the people who created them, secondly a little bit intimidated by their talent but hopeful that maybe one day with a lot of practise I might be half as good and thirdly very inspired with lots and lots of ideas for projects I want to create and make. It really is such a fab day out, there is something for everyone and even non-quilters come away feeling like maybe they should learn to sew. There are many great places to go and try out beginners quilting classes or less specific general sewing classes, many of them can be done online via websites such as Craftsy, but there are also a huge amount of free video tutorials on websites such as Youtube. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't sew, it has opened up my life to a whole creative world that has saved me from some very dark times and helped me to make some wonderful life long friends.

If you have been to the show, I'd love to hear about what you found inspiring and see all the lovely things you bought...it will make me feel less bad about all my spends!!

Happy Quilting

Kerry xx

DRESDEN PLATES AND HOLLYHOCKS

Sunday Shinanigans

This week seems to have just flown by, I have been making slow progress largely due to the fact that I am trying to many new things at once and there isn't a pattern I am following. I am really just making blocks that I find interesting or challenging, roughly the same size so I can smush them together with my eyes closed tightly, hoping it will magically look like a quilt when I open them!!!

So this weeks challenge was machine based applique, using the blanket stitch button on my machine...I think it will take a while yet for us to become friends but I am pleased with the result for a first attempt!

There are loads of flowers in the fairy fabric and I have used lots of floral fabrics already as my Granny loves them, so I thought I would keep up with the theme and make a block with Hollyhocks on it. I started by cutting out rough shapes that could be appliqued onto a stem like shape, in a variety of the fabrics I had already used.

I cut 21 squares using my main background fabric and mixed in one of my favorites- Moda French General, Feather- just for variety, it is such a lovely off white and blended in wonderfully. All squares measured 2 1/2 inches and were sewn together in 3 rows. 

All the 'flowers' were then placed along the stem getting smaller towards the top. I used Bondaweb to keep them from moving, as some of the pieces were very small I thought this would work better than pins!! It was very tricky trying to get the blanket stitch evenly around the smaller sections and admittedly I had to cheat in a few places but overall it turned out ok. Added on a quick border and that was another one done!!

I spend a great deal of time researching and 'just looking', I spend hours and hours on Pinterest, so much so that I am nearing 800 pins on my Quilty Pleasures board.......yikes!! One of the great finds I have had on there was a link to the Makeower website, where they have an abundance of free quilt patterns. I fell in love with one in particular- Dresden Plates and Downton Abbey- who wouldn't??

I started by cutting out all the pieces needed, this time I decided to use some of the lovely batiks I have collected for the fans and one of the large florals for the center quarters.

As I had 24 units to sew in half, the quickest and most efficient way was to chain piece them. A method I was taught that revolutionized my block making!! A great tutorial by Melissa Burt can be found over on Connecting Threads.

I followed the steps for construction as they were written and Voila! A twist on the Dresden.

I still have some places open in the Quilting Bee so let me know if you are interested and as always if you have any thoughts, suggestions or opinions about the post I'd love to hear from you.

Happy quilting!!

Kerry xx