Quilts came home today

My Kona Bay 2009 challenge winner, "Butterfly Dance", and my Batik Beauties entry, "Fish and Chips" both came home yesterday, in time for show and tell at Chester Ps & Qs last night. As usual, I never got to show the completed quilts to my own groups, because they weren't finished until the last possible minute.


It is always nice to have quilts come home after touring. Grosvenor Exhibitions did a great job on the packaging, with loads of bubble wrap (which has gone to be recycled for packaging at our local Cats' Protection charity shop).

Next year's challenge is "Cherry Blossoms and Maple Leaves" for the Oriental Fabric Challenge (formerly the Kona Bay Challenge) and "A Batik Landscape" for Batik Beauties. You can get entry forms from Grosvenor Exhibitions. There's plenty of time left to plan and make your entries - the batik challenge has a set size of 1 metre and the other challenge a minimum size only (it doesn't have to be large) - so why not have a go?

Jelly Rolls... yum yum!

I decided I rather like Moda's Jelly Rolls - basically, I like the whole idea of being able to get a huge assortment of fabrics ready to use. Hancocks of Paducah had the one above in their "precut" websale and I ordered it to make another version of the ever popular new workshop quilt, "Super Strips". I wonder how I missed this range when it first came out?

However... I have another quilt sketched out on the computer that has been designed for 21/2in strips. The more I thought about it, the more this roll seemed perfect. Today I quickly worked out the cutting list and it fits the Jelly Roll with very little waste - at one point I thought I'd need to order another one, but it will work out with just one roll, although the design seems to need two strips of sixteen of the fabrics. The trick is to go through the roll and pair up as many fabrics with a different print but with the same colour background, then treat these two fabrics as if they are one. Prints that won't pair up comfortably with another can be used for another part of the design.

There is just one problem with a Jelly Roll - it simply isn't possible to see all the fabrics in one really well in a photo, as at least 60% of them are round the back of the roll. So it's great that Moda also show them like this -

When Jelly Rolls first came out, most of the fabrics weren't really my style, so it is great to see several Japanese retro ranges in the Jelly Roll format.

Grosvenor Exhibitions have chosen "A Jelly Roll Adventure" for their themed category at the Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate this September. There's still time to get your entry form sent in, as the deadline for entry forms is July 7th. One of the great things about Grosvenor's quilt shows is you can deliver your quilt to the showground just 2 days before the show opens - so you have all summer to work on it. This is also the show that has the amateur wholecloth quilting category, so if you enjoy making wholecloths (and aren't a professional quilter of course) you can enter a category solely dedicated to that quilting genre. The venue, at the Great Yorkshire Showground, is my favourite out of all the quilt show venues we attend - access and parking are easy, you don't have to brave the Harrogate rush hour, everything is on one level, there are delicious ice-creams (!) and you can nip into Sainsbury's on the way out. Maybe see you there?

Awards at Malvern

Here's a few photos taken on Sunday afternoon at Malvern. Somehow Debbie managed to get right behind Emma from Grosvenor Exhibitions, who was taking photos for "Fabrications" magazine - I should have pointed out that it probably wasn't the best place to stand! Look out for photos in the magazine. They'll be writing a review of the show.

EDIT - extra photos added from Sally Bramald. Thanks!

Kona Bay Challenge award -

Sampler Quilt award -
Piecing award -

Most of the Quilts UK awards are perpetual awards, so it is great to see your name added to an illustrious list of former winners and see how many well-known "names" of the quilting world are on there.

Gwenfai Rees-Griffiths, a very well known quilter from North Wales, scooped several awards, including First in the Bedquilts section and Best in Show. You can see her amazing quilt behind us in the photos.


I think we both gave Roger Cooling (Grosvenor Exhibitions) a few problems with our quilt titles - "Hakone Yosegi Sampler" from me and "Cwlwm Lafant" (Lavender Knot) from Gwenfai!