08/02/2009 by Erica.

I was thinking that I had not done very much this week so I decided to review - and I have done loads! It started last weekend when I taught a workshop on Contemporary Approaches to Hand Quilting to Tove Quilters. I did a workshop on traditional hand quilting for them last year but contemporary approaches really lets people’s imaginations start to run. Much as I love traditional hand quilting, many people find it hard - the rocking, the evenness - whereas thicker threads and bigger needles and almost no rules means everyone can find a way to suit them. It was very satisfying for me and I got some very positive feedback.

This week I had my boys at home on three days as the school was closed, but I still manged to finish no less than three projects! The first was just a row for Potter Patchers Row Robin project - I pieced some stars, not my usual sort of technique but I was pleased with the result. The next project was the January challenge for Loose Threads - Under the Ice - using lovely blue and turquoise sheers on lutrador. I had lots of samples which worked beautifully. Unfortunately when I used my technique on the bigger piece it looked like the frilly waterproof knickers that baby girls used to wear over their nappies! Back to the drawing board, a new technique and it is done, remarkably quickly - I work well under pressure.

Finally I finished a double bed sized kaleidoscope quilt that I started in November 2007 at an Edwina MacKinnon workshop. It is hand quilted (traditional style), I used blue and brown batiks and wool wadding that was a joy to stitch. As I always bind my quilts as early as possible - always way before the quilting is finished - over a year of quilting seems to finish with a quiet sigh rather than a fanfare of stitching the binding. But I shall take it to Show and Tell at Hexagon Quilters which is on 19 February. The speaker is Jan Hassard and I am going to her workshop as well - one big quilt finishes, another starts? We’ll see….

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01/02/2009 by Erica.

Doughtys annual visit to Charvil Village Hall is on 16 February 2009 at Charvil Village Hall.   I can rarely make it as it is always half term week and I take the children to visit my Mum in Wales, but it is an excellent event with loads of fabric, and refreshments organised by Meadow Quilters.  Its open 10.30 to 2.30.

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23/01/2009 by Erica.

I had a sort through my samples this week to find things suitable for a workshop on contemporary hand quilting that I am teaching next week.  I am not prepared to admit quite how many UFOs I turned up but I did find several pieces that need just a little work to finish.  Sometimes I simply run out of inspiration; several of these pieces need just a final flourish of some kind and at the time I simply could not find what that should be.  But with the passing of time I now know just what some of them need, so they are now in my WIP pile.  But one piece is absolutely hopeless - just wrong colour, design and quilting - and I have bitten the bullet and put it in the bin.  

 So now even more projects on the go, and another starting next week - a row robin with Potters Patchers.  Nothing else finished (other than my husband’s yoga mat bag) but two quilts getting close. 

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14/01/2009 by Erica.

Well I have finished my first project of 2009 - the log cabin cushion. But only just so no photo yet let alone wrestling with how to publish it on the site. I will try next week. The cushion is for the Hexagon Quilters AGM challenge, the AGM is tomorrow so I have finished with time to spare! I have also made a yoga mat bag for my other half, not very exciting but one up mending my eight-year-olds trousers, which are still waiting.

Went to see the Diversity’s ‘Naked’ exhibition at Harvey Gallery in Guildford on Monday - lovely.

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07/01/2009 by Erica.

…but I have worked on both old and new projects! My children are back at school so I have been able to get a few concentrated hours in. The other bonus about term time is the walk to and from school, its an excellent time to think through what I have to do next and consider ideas.

I was bit thrown last Friday when Mary gave Loose Threads the first challenge for 2009, not because it isn’t exciting - I feel very inspired by it - but because it is another item on the list. But I usually find that the more I have to do, the more I manage to achieve. The pressure inhibits my tendency to fiddle about. Anyway, its the Hexagon Quilters’ AGM next Thursday (15 January) so top of my list of UFOs is my log cabin cushion. The top is pieced and nearly quilted so next time I blog it should be when I learn to download pictures. Fingers crossed!

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31/12/2008 by Erica.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I am thinking about my resolutions for 2009. The first should really be to complete all outstanding projects, which I do want to do. The problem is that I am really looking forward to the new challenges that Loose Threads have planned and as soon as our programme of journal style work starts the old stuff grinds to a halt. On the other hand, having unfinished projects can be a burden mentally as well as taking up workspace and storage areas which are limited in my small home. So I will be trying to do both by allocating one day a week to finishing works in progress, and one day to new work. Any other time I get to sew I will try to listen to my heart…My other major resolution is to blog on a more regular basis, ideally weekly. Hopefully this will also get me to the finishing line on more work and I can put up pictures as I go. The third resolution is to learn how to publish the photos!

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01/11/2008 by Erica.

Now the exhibition is nearly here I have realised that I shall have an opportunity for some sewing other than hanging sleeves!   I am hand quilting a big kaleidoscope block quilt which seems to be going on for ever but is lovely and warm to stitch, but I have another quilt in progress as well.  This involved cutting up a rather nice tie dyed panel that I bought a couple of years ago but I will retain the pattern of it in the finished quilt.  It was hard to cut into such a beautiful piece of fabric but as Janet Twinn told me: “there is no fabric too good not to be cut up”.  

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10/09/2008 by Erica.

Its less than two months to go to the exhibition in Guildford and I have spent all day working a wallhanging that isn’t even going to be shown! But it does bear the words: “Just Get On With It!” which is exactly what I feel I should be doing at the moment. I have stitched on a couple of hanging sleeves for pieces that are going in, and I have pulled out another piece that I would like to show as well - if I can finish quilting it in time.

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