Pentrich Patchworkers and Barbara Chainey

And to Pentrich last weekend, to hear Barbara Chainey talk.  The event hadn't been very well publicised, but when I arrived, I remembered why.
Pentrich is a lovely little village, and the village hall is small.  With the chairs set out, there was enough room for 7 chairs side by side, a narrow aisle, and then another 2.  So a maximum of 9 people across the whole room.  I didn't count the rows back, but I'm sure that you can work out just how weeny the room was.

Teas and cake were being served, at the princely sum of 50p for a beverage, and 50p for a cake. 

Yes,  any cake at all from this whole selection.

The slices were enormous (and I'm sure it would have been rude not to have bought some...).

The hall was decorated with quilts - some still works in progress - that the Pentrich patchwork group had been doing as a round robin.  They'd drawn up a basic plan of rectangles and squares, placed their chosen fabric into a bag and then swapped it about, having blind faith that a year later their fabric would be returned to them, but now in a series of blocks to be assembled.

The variety was amazing:

At 2.00, Barbara took the floor, and spoke effortlessly for just over an hour about herself and her quilts, showing examples not just of her own work, but quilts that are in her collections. 

At the end, we were invited to 'rummage' about in her quilts, and there was a stampede to get up close to some of these amazing items.

To be honest, I was so busy having a good look at everything that I forgot to take my camera out.....

This is a small section of a quilt dating back to about 1880, I think, and bought at the Houston quilt show a few years ago.  It's now falling apart as it's so fragile (so perhaps allowing it to be mauled about by curious ladies with sticky hands isn't the best thing for it - just a thought...).

I love the colours.  The blocks aren't particularly difficult, but the stitching is beautiful - and all handpieced and quilted, of course.

I recognised this one at once - it's by Linda Straw, about whom I blogged last week.
The photos here are ones that I took - for others, I suggest that you take a peek at her blog, where she seems to be gradually uploading a lot of delicious images that are full of inspiration.