Fat Quarterly retreat 2014

I managed to take a grand total of one photo whilst I was away. Very poor, but I will bore you with photos of what I brought back and the classes I took.

 

 

I arrived on Thursday and spent the day wandering around London, first stop was my hotel to drop off my case and fellow sewer Maureen on the desk, found me a room although it was only 10 am. I stopped at John Lewis where I bought some more backing (not the green Tula Pink I wanted though) and on Friday morning I accompanied the Manx girls - Nessie and Corine to Libertys.



 

 

It was then time to don my quickly put together badge, which received several compliments over the course of the weekend.

 

 

 

Once we'd checked in and been allocated a number for the evening's block party, it was time to collect our goody bag. Lots of lovely stuff from Love Patchwork & Quilting, Riley Blake, Moda, Makower, Soak, Janome and more. Since returning Lizzie has stroked the Elementary by Sweetwater candy and I have to buy some for her university quilt. The marketing worked its magic.

 



The first class of the day was with Brioni and we produced a four block panel ready to quilt. I chose colours to go in our new kitchen and it will be quilted and made into a cushion. The backing and wadding is already cut so it shouldn't be a big job.

After dinner at Ask, we returned for the block party where we put together a quilt top for siblings together. Trash contributed the purple fabric above, Betty a charm pack and Clare a Quilt Jane jelly roll. Not fabrics I'd choose to put together but they looked great and will please a young child. Brioni offered to finish the quilt and we quickly accepted her offer. Our group worked well together with Tess and I cutting, Sasha and Nessa pressing, Trash arranging and Betty and Clare stitching. A good way to get to know a few more ladies better.

 

Saturday morning was soon here and I was thankful for the electric fan I'd acquired from the concierge. My first session was with Jenny of Love Patchwork and Quilting about getting your work into print. The information was useful, thought provoking and beautifully presented. Then I did embroidery with Jo Avery and learnt a better way to do French knots as well as bullion stitch and a wrapped back stitch. a well thought out class and project.

Saturday afternoon was the popular class with Jen Kingwell of Amitie Textiles. We received both the full colour pattern and a quarter inch wheel during the class and lots of tips and tricks. I may even make this quilt but it will definitely be pieced by machine and pressed as I go along.

The sample swap was moved to Saturday afternoon and I swapped with Tess, Sue, Corine, and Renee. We were all delighted with our swaps and roared with laughter at receiving two Zakka trivets. I like this pattern so wasn't complaining. Off for Italian for dinner again and to meet up with Jo.

 

Saturday evening was busy and started with a small quilt market where I bought fabric from the Village Haberdashery, poppers from Eternal Maker and the green scrap from another shop.

 



 

Then it was Ugly fabric swap, scrap strip swap, quiz and raffle. I won a book in the raffle and learnt that there's a new Kona colour called cabbage about to be released.

 

 

Sunday morning and my last class which was from US teacher Amy Smart, who I spent my time persuading that she'd love to come to Jersey next time she's in the UK. I think I was successful. This was to be a fabulously fast tile quilt and I would have got further if the machine hadn't been playing up and I had to unpick and move machines. I plan to finish this one at the August Caesarea Quilters UFO day.

 

The end came too quickly for another lovely weekend with new friends and old. I then set off to West Hampstead for some more fabric shopping and a lovely lunch with April and her family and Corine and Nessie. I hope that next time the retreat will be at a cooler time of the year as travelling on the Tube was unbearably hot.

Happy birthday Jane

May your day be full of laughter and cake. I can guarantee the cake at least. Presents have been wrapped and are ready to deliver at Café Firefly.

I will also have the three sets of Cheerio blocks made for the Siblings Together group for Jane which were given to me at FQR and some Aurifil thread I ordered months ago which has just come to the top of my piles of stuff.

 

 

Mail seems to be getting back to normal around here. The boat that carries most of our parcels is out of action and packets that should have arrived last week, arrived yesterday. hooray, I now have some Cotton and Steel to stroke and a swimsuit for my holiday.

Stars for Clare

Clare from the FQR Bumbling Honeys was very generous to us this month and cut the fabric for us to make two simple but striking stars.

I also used the trimmed triangles to make some Half Square Triangle (HSTs) for her to play with and perhaps a block could be made for a label.

I pinned as always and had to keep reminding my self to stitch with the flying geese unit uppermost, then you can always see the intersection of the flying goose and you seam and wiggle if necessary to make it hit the spot.

We have just one more month and we've finished the second year of the Bee. Next year we are changing it slightly to cut down on costs and we will use stash with a few basic Kona colours specified - ash, snow and white. I'll try to remember to pick some more up at The Village Haberdashery next week.

 

 

What was Matthew looking at? Sigh.

Sunday Stash - Tula Pink backing

 

When visiting Nottingham, the one bit of advance planning that I did was to measure some of my WIPs that needed backing. Not that I had the list on my first trip to John Lewis, but we returned to take back Lizzie's suit for school as she had buyers remorse.

 

 Now to work out which backing is for which quilt. I spent a lot of time scratching my head working out how much fabric I needed for each quilt and I now realise I should have just used the Robert Kaufman app and then converted the inches into centimetres. The lady cutting was very patient and we chatted about Jersey as she's a regular visitor.

 

I thought I'd bought two pieces of this fabric by Tula Pink from her Fox Field range and is called Chevy lace in mint. Fortunately I wrote Aviatrix in the selvedge so I know what this backing is for. It's now cut and ready to piece so it's ready for when I finish the quilt.

 



 

And this is Petal by Tanya Whelan and is called Large Antique Roses. I think this is for my Wishes quilt - also as yet unfinished but I chose it for the dots as Bonnie & Camille fabrics which I'm using for the Wishes quilt generally have some dots in each range. Though it could also be for my Japanese X and +s.

 

 

I have two pieces of this green fabric for my Orbit and by deduction Siblings Together quilts. I need to get the backing for the Siblings Together quilt pieced as a priority. This is also by Tula Pink and is vintage Stars from Fox Field.

 

 By a process of elimination, the turquoise fabric by Tula Pink called Scribble from Fox Field is for my Japanese X and + quilt but I could possibly swap it for the Tanya Whelan dots if the pieces are the same length.  

 

 



Siblings Together Bee quilt - finished

Today is Monday and I leave for the Fat Quarterly Retreat on Thursday. Not even close to finishing it last minute in my book. I did decide to machine the binding instead of hand sewing as I hope that this quilt will be loved and well used by its recipient.

I did more preparation this time  for the binding to try and get a better result. Firstly I pressed the binding back from the front, which gave me time to check that there were no seam allowances issues on the front. Then I pressed the binding to the back. I've seen tutorials where the binding is glued to the back so I dug out some unloved 1/4" steam a seam tape which did the job very nicely, before stitching in the ditch from the front.

 

I dug into my scrap strip box to sew up a quick multi coloured binding to roughly match the fabrics the binding touched.



 

I used a simple pantograph called Allium that I've had for a while but not used before and it worked very well. Simple but it looks good.

 



Sunday Stash - Riley Blake edition

Look what arrived whilst I was away some Riley Blake fabric by Doodlebug for a quilt for Fat Quarterly. First a great red for the backing and you can't beat a stripe for the binding.

Then a bundle of Fat Quarters for my star blocks.

Such a cute selvedge.

And I did warn you there'd be more photos. Waiting in the queue to buy official photos. Lizzie's sporting Matthew's RAF cap. Didn't Cheryl Cole sport a similar look a few years ago?

Aviatrix progress

All of the butterfly blocks for my Aviatrix quilt are done. I did run out of some of the greys and had to substitute or piece which I don't think detracts from the piecing.

Here they are pinned to my design board which was the easiest way I could keep tabs on whether I had the right amount of each colour way. They look very cute. They have now been taken down and I need to finish piecing my rainbow stars in order to finish the piecing, quilt and bind it before next Thursday when I leave for the fat Quarterly Retreat, which reminds me - we have to do a blog post about ourselves for the FQR linky party - perhaps on Monday.

 

First of many proud Mum photos. My two stood outside the Premier Inn at East Midlands - great hotel with fantastic air conditioning.

Kilner pin cushion tutorial

 

 

We just arrived back from a few days in Nottingham yesterday afternoon and then after a quick dinner, I was off to a committee meeting. As my car has just been picked up for a service, we are confined to home today, so some unpacking is due to be done. Prepare for a lot of photos later in the week once my camera has surfaced from my suitcase.

 

 

Whilst we were away, a tutorial for Kilner pin cushions was published over at Little Thistle written by me.

 

Do pop over to see the tutorial and sign up for the Q3 finish along.

Sample swap for FQR

I have made four mini quilts measuring about 20" square for the sample swap at the Fat Quarterly Retreat. I'm hoping I'm in a group of four so that I can keep one.

 

Each quilt is similar but different using the Nested Churn Dash pattern sold by Quilt Jane over at Craftsy. Sign up for Craftsy using the affiliate link on the right. The pattern Is just $3. A brilliant price. There's another quilt along I was thinking of joining, but the price was over $10 so I'm going to figure the cutting instructions for myself.

 

 

The fabrics used are a mix of scraps from my scrap bags sorted by colour and that is especially true for the little four inch blocks in the centre.

 

 

Combined with some Fat Quarters of low volume fabrics from Carolyn Friedlander and Sweetwater.

 

 

I think this is my favourite as it has more variety of colour and I love the text fabric.

All ready to pack for the retreat once we're back from Nottingham. Do you have a favourite?

ST2 progress

A five by five block quilt is going to look much nicer. I have made two block this week and Claire is making a blue block which she has already posted to me. In theory I should be ready to piece and quilt this next week on our return from Nottingham.

 

I dug into my scrap strip box which we swapped at the 2013 Fat Quarterly Retreat. The strips are all 2.5" wide so they are the perfect width, then I raided my colour co-ordinated scrap bags. A nice quick make.

 

The purple block took about five minutes longer as I didn't have many purples in my stash, however a quick dive into the fabric ready for sale revealed enough to finish this block. I'm going to have to buy some more purples other than stitched circles and pearl bracelets!!

 

All of the blocks together waiting for Claire's block. The Postman hasn't arrived yet so it may arrive today.