finished!

Finally, my "vintage" quilt is finished.

I am pleased. It's not a perfect piece of quilt-making by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the overall impression is pleasing and I'm happy with the layout and fabrics. After I had bought the vintage bundles in St Ives I had some doubts and felt I'd been overtaken by holiday fever and the need to buy something; they seemed a bit dull and dated. After I chopped them up and added the plain central squares from my stash it started to work though, and I was especially pleased by the addition of the turquoise fabric, which just seemed to lift the whole thing and give it a bit of zing.

The backing is an old duvet cover which had ripped and has been dyed in cold water dye.

I still need to get to grips with machine quilting. I don't seem to be able to avoid creasing and puckering of the backing fabric.

Still, overall I'm happy and felt confident enough to take it to the village fete-style, 'Best of Malago' at tonight's WI meeting.

patchy progress

After what seems a very long time I have managed to get back into my sewing workshop this week. It felt very good to be busy down there again and I've made some progress on a patchwork quilt.

The patterned fabrics are so called "vintage" fabrics from a retro shop in St Ives. I think I recognise them as 1970s bedlinen. The plain fabrics have been mined from my own fabric stash.
Influenced by Jane Brocket's visit to Malago WI last year and her book The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking, I've used a Half Log Cabin design for the squares.

Now that the central patchwork rectangle has been put together I'm just planning to add borders until I decide I've done enough.

learning to love you more

I need to start this post by explaining that several months ago I did something I had never expected to do - I joined the WI. A friend mentioned that a new group was starting in my area and did I fancy going along to see what it was like. I mentioned it to daughter R and she had heard about it too and decided to come along as well. It turned out to be a very well attended and lively meeting, with a committee of enthusiastic 30-somethings. Having been very much a rural/market town sort of organisation it seems that the day of the urban WI is dawning.

Anyhow, that preamble is to introduce the fact that Malago WI are taking part in the SouthBank Arts Trail and to make it easy for a disparate, not necessarily arty, group of women to take part they have adopted the Learning to Love you More website. This is the brainchild of artists Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher, who have put together a series of assignments that anyone can carry out. I have chosen the task "Make an encouraging banner"and have had a lot of fun putting it together using hand-made felt. After the exhibition's over I may actually hang it on the garden fence to encourage all the veg growing I'm planning to do!

The heading picture is a close-up of the lovely soft, woolly, felt