Conference and playing with fabric

Last weekend saw me in Dundee, attending The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles Conference. This dramatic lighting shows the front of the hall used for the Conference. A marvellous place to meet.

This photo shows a little drilling stand. I think it has something to do with the V & A's new building on the waterfront standing in the River Tay. Behind you can see the famous Tay Rail bridge peeking out from the haar, a river mist.

I couldn't resist taking this photo of the underneath of the Tay road bridge. The colours were amazing.

The Tay road bridge as seen through the haar from my hotel window.

A gorgeous building from the centre of Dundee itself.

Some things bought from the traders at the conference. The book was bought from the delightful Katie Pasquini Masopust. She gave the after dinner talk at the Gala Dinner. Such an amazing speaker. She kindly signed her book for me.

I also bought this set of blocks. Colouricious is a company owned by a lovely lady called Jamie Malden. I was lucky enough to sit next to her at the Gala Dinner. I was really impressed by the way the company package their products. The sturdy plastic box housing the fabric paints above, and the delicious fabric bag for the printing blocks. Look carefully at the white picnic basket holding the goodies in the last photograph. Such a good idea.

Would you believe I won the contents of the three photos above? I did. I couldn't believe it either. I won two of the prizes in the Chinese Auction at Conference. It was overwhelming. I can see a wonderful playtime in my future............. I just need to abandon everything for a day or three to indulge.......... Oh yes!

Oh, I'm also playing with fabric making a picture for the Sky's the Limit group. Sadly, I can't post a photo just yet. Not until it is finished.

Sewing, painting fabric and knitting.

This is the fourth of my Journal Quilts for this year. This one adds the shades of red to orange, and is the April piece. I am slightly ahead of myself on this project having a number of others I really need to get started on. But I shall tell you all about those another time.

Yesterday, I had a lot of fun creating fabric for the labels to go on the back of each Journal Quilt.

Since I needed a really fine woven cotton for my labels, I used three sheets of my printable cotton. These were painted with Setasilk. I stripped off the paper since I do not intend to use these on my printer, and found the backs rather more interesting than the fronts. I suspect this was because the Setasilk tends to pool between the cotton and paper.

The papers were really interesting too. I shall keep these to use at some stage.

One brief warning. I ironed the fabric when it was still slightly damp. As a result I ended up with a sticky deposit on my iron. This was easily cleaned off, but could have caused a problem had I not noticed...................

The sky yesterday was so beautifully coloured. The deep colours of the rain clouds bring out the lovely moss covered bark of this tree. Such a delicious colour combination.

I love the textures of old rooftops and their chimneys.

Spring is definitely on the way with these lovely leaves just beginning to come out.

My brown shawl got finished too. I've got it round my neck as I write. Although the weather looks nice, it is still chilly.

Going to a talk, Journal Quilts and knitting.

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to be able to go along to a talk given by Audrey Walker of the 62 Group. It was held in the Ruthin Craft Centre in North Wales. It was a lovely journey to get there through some delightful countryside as you can see from these photos.

The talk was fascinating. June Hill, the curator and textile historian, was interviewing Audrey Walker. The talk ranged over the 50 years of the 62 Group's existence, and many examples of work by the various members was shown as a slide show. I am now looking forward to being to go and visit some of the exhibitions being held this year by the 62 Group.

From the wonderful work of a very talented group of textile artists to my own, much more modest pieces...........

Well, my first three journal quilts are completed and posted to the Yahoo site. The theme this year is "Shades of....", the first four being shades of red. I decided when I first read the instructions that I would use the year to make myself a series working through the colour wheel. So the first one, above is made up of shades of reddish purple.

The second is red and contains shades of mid red.

The third one is shades of paler red.

As you can see I added beads and buttons. I have added the complimentary colours of green and analogous colours of orange and purple. The calligraphy just gives a repeated pattern of all the colour names I could think of.

My shawl is almost completed. I just need to finish the picot bind off.

Knitting and sewing

The shawl is finished, and being worn. I am wearing it as I write this, and it is keeping my neck beautifully warm. My "Context scarf", to give it the correct name, is being worn by my tailor's dummy Aggie.

So what did I do? I went and started another one yesterday. The same pattern, but this one is knitted in a beautifully coloured sock yarn called Trekking XXL.

I popped in to my local wool shop yesterday and found the yarn amongst the sock yarns. I had wanted something with brown, orange and yellow in it since I wanted a small shawl to wear with a red jumper and brown skirt. It is lucky this design knits up so quickly.

Yes, I have been sewing too - quilting and adding beads, buttons and ribbon to my journal quilts. More hand sewing than machine work. Photos will have to wait until another time since I really need to get the first three finished and posted on the Yahoo site before posting the photos here.

I also have two blouses I really need to make for choir. I made one blouse some months ago, but it is deteriorating badly. The fabric I had used is the problem. It was a lining fabric which I hoped would be good enough and has now started stretching at the seams. I would have been happier had the stretching been caused by my being too big for the blouse. Sadly it is just pulling after having been washed a couple of times. So here you see the fabric I have bought to make two blouses. There is a rather pretty lilac and a brighter cerise colour. I bought these from the Fent Shop in Macclesfield. The fabric is a slubbed polyester and is much denser, whilst also being softer than my current choir blouse.

I shall be using one of these two patterns. Both were found in a charity shop. I shall probably use the McCalls pattern for the first choir blouse since the blouses are not worn tucked into a waistband. The Burda blouse will be so pretty for the Spring............ The next concert is next weekend, so I had better get on and make them.