Village fete and a sashiko workshop in Perth

Here's a few photos from last week.  As it was our village fete in Kettins, I took some quilts along to see if people were interested in the idea of having a monthly quilt group in the village.  We had a good response so I'm looking into setting things up, hopefully for a Wednesday evening monthly, from September onwards.  I'll post more information about it once things are arranged.  The idea is to meet in the old village hall until the new one is built, and then move to the newer building.

On Friday, I was at The Peacock and the Tortoise in Perth for a 'Sashiko for Summer' workshop.  There were some lovely colourways - this bright blue cotton/linen mix is being stitched in red and will have cream accents when finished.

Fresh green stitched with dark blue and a very subtle cream on textured grey.

Workshops last week in East Sussex

For some reason, I couldn't get Blogger to load up these photos earlier in the week, so there's been a bit of a delay in posting about the three workshops I had in East Sussex from the end of April to the beginning of May.  I seem to have got around it today by using a different internet browser, so there will be a few blog posts in very quick succession!

The second workshop was with Burwash Quilters and we did 'Japanese Art Quilt Boromono'. As you can see from the photo above, creative people can't be tidy :-)  The group set up their sewing machines at one end of the room, but had their cutting tables in the centre.  It worked very well for this workshop, where we are alternating between cutting and piecing all the time, giving everyone plenty of room to arrange and evaluate their patchworks as they grew.  Here's some of the boromono, which are inspired by old Japanese rag cloths.

This quilter had lots of indigo and other hand dyes she had done herself and combined them with small Japanese prints and a lovely bold Indian recycled floral fabric, which reminded me of Japanese sarasa prints (which were Indian inspired).

The lilac pieces in this boromono are silk dupion, with a slight two tone effect - very difficult to capture the subtlety in a photo.  Mixing different fibres can add a lot of interest.

A great collection of old shirt fabrics makes a good boromono.  This one is complete with pockets and even a buttonhole strip as a diagonal applique.

Dorothy made TWO boromono in the workshop.  The first one will become a picnic throw and uses up furnishing samples.  The fabrics with the floating squares and grids give an interesting look when pieced in.

This is her second panel.  We did a fabric swap as the scrolling batik was perfect for a project I'm planning - the bold diamond motifs on white are one of my yukata fabrics.

Rusts, browns and creams make a harmonious colour scheme.

A large scale printed linen and a cream an blue check worked very well with some Moda patchwork fabrics, with a rather French feel to this patchwork.

I can't really have a favourite, but I love the yellow tsumugi cotton picking up on the same yellow in the Indian handprinted cotton here, and the use of the pillowcase bags (complete with a label)!

Large scale furnishing fabrics always work well for this.  The butterfly fabrics were carefully cut and positioned among all the florals while the large pale flowers make the dark fabrics more interesting.  There aren't all that many pieces in this boromono, but it is bold and has a very attractive sense of direction in the patchwork.

Very pale linen-type fabrics are framed by a stripe, which runs in both directions.  The light greens and blossom colours were all around in the countryside during our visit, so this has a strong Spring feeling for me.

There were a few more pieces I didn't manage to snap, but I'm looking forward to seeing photos of the finished panels. 

My other workshops were both sashiko - 'Sashiko for Summer' with Brede Crafters on the first Saturday and 'Sashiko Furoshiki' with Rye Creative Stitchers on the second.  The first two photos are from the first workshop and the rest from the second.  Lots of lovely fabric colours chosen for these pieces.

Quiltfest - workshops, trading day etc.

 

The last few days at Quiltfest have been busy.  We opened on Saturday for the first time in many years, and had two workshops at the Pavilion - 'Sashiko for Summer' and 'African Jazz'. These were not well attended, so we are unlikely to hold similar day workshops at Quiltfest in the near future. Those that did go to the workshops enjoyed them and produced some good work during the day.

 

  

Glyn got ahead before 'African Jazz', piecing some random strips from hand dyed plain cottons on Friday afternoon, which he then cut up and included in the two panels above. EDIT - I forgot to mention that those panels are going to become front seat covers for the recycled Range Rover seats that are going into the Landrover rebuild.

 

I have been working on a new Japanese Circles and Squares patchwork as a demo all week.

 

Trading Day today was busier than yesterday.  I didn't have time to take many photos.  Here's one of me with the Fanoe quilt we raffled to raise funds for the Quilt Museum, with the raffle winner.  I'm delighted the quilt has gone to a good home.

  

Probably the busiest day at the Pavilion for other things rather than Quiltfest was Thursday, when Sky TV had an engineers' conference - never seen so many Sky vans parked in one place!  There are sometimes other events on during Quiltfest, but there is always plenty of space to park on the other side of the building.

 

Sashiko for Summer in Lancashire

I had a great workshop with Phoenix Quilters in Astley, near Leigh, Lancashire today, doing 'Sashiko for Summer'.  Unfortunately, I totally forgot to take any photos!  I've asked the group to send me some pics of their finished pieces so, for now, here are two photos of the workshop samples.  We used Indian shot cottons from Fabric Freedom for the sashiko fabrics, so there was a rainbow of different colours used, and quite a few quilters used the coloured or varigated sashiko threads too.

Sashiko workshops in Hatherleigh and Gosport

On Sunday I did an 'Introduction to Shonai Sashiko' workshop session for Region 4 of the Quilters' Guild in Hatherleigh, Devon, and yesterday I taught the four designs from my 'Sashiko for Summer' workshop at Gosport Quilters.


There are fourteen stitches on my worksheets for 'Shonai Sashiko', selected from the dozens of traditional patterns because they are all achieveable by complete sashiko beginners and they also offer a good entry into the different kinds of hitomezashi (one stitch) patterns. Everyone stitches on small sample pieces, but even on these little 4inch squares, many stitchers manage to include more than one pattern, making mini samplers.


I forgot to take any photos during the workshop at Gosport, so I'll have to wait for some photos of the finished items. Here's a couple of photos of my workshop samples, so you can see two of the designs we used.



I got some lovely photos down at the beach though.


The texture of a pebbly flint beach is so interesting when you don't usually see them - so many shells among the flints, and so many natural colours. I took a lot of photos for my inspiration folder.


I wasn't so impressed the first time I saw a pebble beach - it wasn't 'proper' beach. This was a bit further east, possibly Brighton? I didn't have my bucket and spade with me this time.

Sashiko in Scotland - last workshop photos

The last workshop photos from the Scotland trip were filed in the wrong spot, so I didn't find them till today (my laptop had to be repaired when I got back from that weekend, so there wasn't a chance to post photos before going to Germany). The workshop shown is 'Sashiko for Summer' at Purely Patchwork, Linlithgow.


All the information on my hard drive was, luckily, recovered, including photos taken in a bluebell wood the previous week. It was quite magical. Unfortunately, I also discovered that I am allergic to bluebells, and had a full-blown hayfever reaction within about an hour!