A mixed bag....

It's been a bit of a mixed week....I've managed to finish a fabulous custom customer quilt...I can't show you just yet but soon...just finishing up the hand sewing of the binding....

I had a bit of a reprieve and quilted up a couple of tablet swatches but haven't got them coloured or bound just yet....this is relaxation quilting for me.....the goldy coloured fabric is shot with a turquoise thread, difficult to capture on camera and it definitely looks better quilted.

At Festival of Quilts I bought fabric and patterns to do a bit of dressmaking.  Years ago I worked in a sewing room for a time where they made dresses for that well known label of M and S.... love this purple fabric and have already cut out the top.....it's been a long time since I used my overlocker and guess what....yes,  I managed to snap a thread while pulling through, it took me ages to figure out how it should be threaded but got there in the end....of course I didn't get as much sewing done on Sunday afternoon as a consequence.

I was thrilled that Luana Ruben of EQuilter.com featured my quilt 'Inner Circle - Flower of Scotland' in her weekly blog/newsletter here http://luanarubin.typepad.com/luana-rubin/2013/08/creative-nudge-make-it-your-own.html

 Then Luana and Bonnie McCaffrey posted  videos of the Art Quilts from FoQ on YouTube, my quilt is first so it's easy to find....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BJAv1t9md0&rel=0

Robin has been working with and mouthing my young horse Willow. Willow is a four year old filly, her mother is my old riding horse Moth. I was there when Moth foaled Willow out in the field, Moth just lay and foaled right beside me.  Willow imprinted on me and thought she had two Mothers, that was special.  Our young friend Millie backed Willow last week, she was was very well behaved , just a little unsure.....Millie was very good too....lol....

Millie getting her leg over for the first time on Willow

Thanks Millie....

I have a fabulous applique quilt up next all Joe Morton fabrics......

The World Quilt Show 2013 or What came next?

It's been an eventful week.....

Monday...Driven home by the ever eventful Linzi....some week that was....quilts and quilting arrived home safe and sound regardless of the fact that some of our packaging had gone a stray....Thanks for a great trip Linzi.....

Tuesday.....I took the plunge and entered 'Inner Circle - Flower of Scotland' for MQX in Portland, Oregon, just need to wait and see if she gets through the jury process......

Wednesday....Tested the water to see if I could find a roomy in Portland and found Sharon from Arizona who has already booked a room for the show....sounds like we would get along famously....I've been planning this all year but looks like I'm seriously going now....

Thursday..... had news that my wholecloth quilt 'Flourish' has been honoured with a 'Best Machine Workmanship' in the Traditional category at The World Quilt Show in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA......how exciting is that....WOOHOO....The show was very well represented by British entries which gained 3 winners awards and 3 honourable mentions.

You can read my original blog post here, Flourish


Click here for the World Quilt Show 2013 Results page

I sent out a plea for someone to take a photo with a camera, you know, as in high resolution not on a cell/mobile phone and guess what, JL (you all know JL right, Janet Lee co-owner of Machine Quilting Exposition as in MQX Quilt Shows). Well JL organised for her quilt show photographer Jeffery Lomica to take some photos for me at the World Quilt Show. Jeffrey took some high resolution photos for me to keep. Wow,  these are sweet people, I wonder, is this what happens when you become an international award winning quilter?

Seriously....Thank you Janet Lee and Jeffrey....

The two photos below take you to my Flickr page where you can get a closer look at the quilting....

The back....

That's what came next.....

Festival of Quilts 2013

What a great time we had....of course it was a working trip but we all get a long so well and laugh so much that we hurt sometimes.

Once the stand was ready and the show was under way we were all more relaxed. We had many International visitors to the APQS stand...Linzi, Ani, and I along with Lilly LaPink (our sidekick who is such a great help on the sales table and tea trolley that we just couldn't manage without her), and Ellen helped out too. We were kept very busy demonstrating the machines. We did a bit of 'Swanning off' every now and then to see who was milling around through in the main quilt show area. As usual we searched out the best food  available in the area and had a 'Brummy Curry', visited the 'Middle of England' pub and had a Carvery on two evenings.  Believe me we would never go hungry along with full english breakfasts at our hotel I have to say at times we were a little stuffed....

Lilly LaPink

Our Quilt show entries were very well received, Linzi won 2 x 1st prizes and a Judges choice

My Inner Circle - Flower of Scotland won a Highly Commended, I think may be two HC's are awarded per category rather like an Honourable Mention.....

My little shelf is starting to groan with the weight of all the silverware and rosettes etc. It's time to box up the perpetual cup from the Scottish Quilt Championships 2012....I'm afraid it needs to go back to Grosvenor Shows so that they can have it engraved with my name before it goes off to the next lucky recipient in September. It's been a fun year.....I wonder what comes next?

Inner Circle, Flower of Scotland and Festival of Quilts 2013

Before I left home I uploaded photos of my show quilt, inspired by the theme for this years Scottish Quilt Championships in September which is Celtic Inspirations I started this quilt with my own design and drawings way back in January and have been working on it between customer quilts ever since, it's been off and on the frame numerous times it seems. Lots of design work on paper, then marking the quilt. The only place I could lay out fabric for a quilt this size is up in my loft where I had to be careful not to get other marks on the fabric and it was SO cold back then.

I started the quilting with the border and lyrics which are the first verse of 'The Flower of Scotland', the unofficial Scottish Anthem, there isn't an official Scottish anthem...

O Flower of Scotland,
When will we see
Your like again
That fought and died for
Your wee bit hill and glen.
And stood against him,
Proud Edward's army,
And sent him homeward
Tae think again.

The Circles were next...a bit tricky but eventually I got them done, then the flutes of the thistle and the spiky leaves, then all the fills...

It's white cotton sateen with a green mottled backing fabric, lilac binding with green piping.
Cotton batting with a layer of wool on top, I used MagnaGlide bobbins with White Glide thread with Green Superior Metallic around the leaves, the quilt measures 75 x 79 inches approximately.

I painted the details with Inktense Pencils and added a few Lilac and green crystals to add a bit of sparkle.

Here it is 'Inner Circle, Flower of Scotland'

OK, Linzi, Ani, Lily LaPink and I are already here at Festival of Quilts.....we've been busy setting up the stand for APQS Longarm machines.... if you are coming to the show be sure to check us out on stand P14, near to the food outlets, don't forget to come over and introduce yourselves we will be pleased to see you....

Before

 After

Casseopeia AKA Cassie

Well, you all know about UFOs...right?

I started this star sampler at least ten years ago as a technique builder, it was only the second top I ever started.   I pieced it block by block over a twelve month period, some blocks were easier than others but when it came to the borders I was never just happy with them.  First off the corners never matched properly so I had to take a piece out then the colours didn't match up right so the top was enclosed in a polythene bag for a couple of years while I thought about it.
I wasn't really quilting during this period just entertaining myself at times, I think those borders were taken off three times in all.  I always liked the colours and fabrics... the outer border fabric is the tie fabric as it's in every block....it's Monet's garden, it's difficult to see but there are tiny white cottages too.
I am really a self taught quilter, that's obvious if you could see the seams on the back of this top...good job it is all now enclosed out of sight, I would definitely make a better job of the piecing now but at the end of the day this will be a quilt that will get used and loved.

I finally got the top to a stage where I was happy to quilt it but recently I have been so busy that finding time to quilt my own quilts has been a little difficult... but hey ho!

So I entered the quilt in Festival of Quilts...that was the push I needed to get it quilted, it isn't perfect, which quilt is but I still love it?
It's around 96 x 80 inches, I used Hobbs Polydown over Simply Cotton wadding/batting...the poly wadding so that the white background fabric stayed white ...I seem to have a passion for quilts with white backgrounds?
White Metro thread and colours to match the fabrics in the stars with white  MagnaGlide bobbins on all of the back which is a white on white fabric, unusual for me I didn't get a photo of the back.....that will have to wait now....
All freemotion handguided with lots of ruler work....on my APQS  Millennium....

So here are one or two photos....lol....

 I wondered why I had added this pink fabric, it's only in two blocks, but in then end this turned into my favourite block....go figure....

I am really happy that now this top is a quilt!

Can you tell?