Almost There!

Well, we are nearly ready to go to the Festival of Quilts 2018: sleepless nights, frantic finishing of quilts, preparing free patterns, chasing tickets, arranging rotas, and sorting out of private lives (yes, we do actually have lives outside Festival, although at the moment it is difficult to remember that) are almost done. Today we have hung up the last of our display quilts to drop its creases before packing.

This little beauty is called RATTLE and is made in OAKSHOTT's fabulous cottons with a large dash of batik. Come and see us on the Modern Quilt Group's desk of the Quilters' Guild stand right by the front doors at the NEC where we will be giving away free patterns and postcards and talk, talk, talking to everyone about Modern Quilting.

Now all I have to do is combat that 3am sudden wakefulness "what have I forgotten to pack?" and get on the road (very early in the am) to go and set up. At least we shouldn't have last year's challenges with the weather; desperation to get unloaded undercover before all the quilts got wet!

What else are picnic tables for?

So what are you likely to find many dedicated quilters doing a month before the Festival of Quilts? Despite it being hot enough to melt tungsten (at least that is how it feels) you will find us sitting under large bed quilts. Not because we all have masochistic tendencies (but hey, each to their own, I don't judge), it is because we need to hand-stitch down our binding. That's where the picnic tables come in - a cunning plan

You can't quite see him, but my little helper (large Chesapeake Bay Retriever) is also under the picnic tables (yes both) since he soon found this was the coolest place in the garden - as indeed it is!

I love Indigo!

Now, I never took a liking to hand dyeing - either product or process - but I have fallen in love with indigo. It's a quite magical and much more immediate process where you never know exactly what results you are going to get. The final colour/pattern depends on the basic fabric - silk, cotton or linen (wool works too), how you scrunch or tie it up, how long it is in the dye-bath and how many times you dip it.

Over-dyeing coloured or printed fabrics produced some interesting results too. I have an idea for a Modern indigo quilt floating about in my head using this severely limited palette. Must go and finish my stuff for Festival of Quilts so I can start on this!

Dyeing

Acid dyeing on wool. Not Modern, but still interesting.. Lots more about this on my Other Blog (click the picture)

As promised (did you hear the swearing?)

Well I finished trimming my blocks and proceeded to lay them out only to find that I had managed to make three of the blocks wrong - much swearing, cursing and unpicking ensued. I also missed two blocks off my making list completely. Once all these were remedied I think the end result was worth the fight:

The basic pattern for these blocks is available on my website (click on the photo to go there)

Oakshott Galore!

That lovely Michael Oakshott has been at it again. Every now and then he has a clearout and sends us a box or two of oddments - it's like being a kid at Christmas!

Being swamped by a veritable mountain of fabric is a little daunting, but by sorting into colour heaps we managed to reduce chaos to a rather delicious order. This lot is destined for student packs, samples for Michael and generally drooling over.

Sanity Questioned?

It is at this point in a project that I really start to question my sanity

126 blocks trimmed - only another 4 to go! Then I need to lay them all out and make sure I have got the colours in the right places or the 3-D illusion won't work. Fingers crossed. I will post later in the week...if it works...if it doesn't you'll probably be able to hear the swearing, wherever you are.