Home again

Well, I finally got going.

Note the essentials for a weekend in a large city - spade - in case of snow, small suitcase with minimal amount of clothing in - and plenty of fabric (green box, blue bag etc)!!! However, you'll also be able to see a brown bag in the middle. Guess what's in there?

Hmm.

It's Jim's Christmas presents for his family. Let me check.

Its February - and I'm just about to deliver his presents to his sister.....

Whenever I think that I'm too disorganised, I remember what sort of man I'm married to....

Guess what? The UK being a relatively small area, there was snow in Milton Keynes as well!!!
Here's all my lovely luggage, waiting to be wheeeled - oops, no, dragged into the hotel. Note (a) the small amount of clothing needed and (b) excessive amount of fabric required......

I was a little bit worried in case I didn't have as good a time as I did last year - I needn't have worried!!! After a welcome drink (or two, or three), and supper, the first task was to make a name badge.

And this is what I (apparently) look like:

Saturday started with an early morning class at 7am. The project - a pincushion, made on the machine.

But hey, why make your life easy??? Why not hand sew the central motif on??

And so that's why I didn't finish mine. That's it on the right...

And on to the main event on Saturday. Now, I already had Barbara Chainey's book, but hadn't even attempted anything from it - it looked too daunting - but I forced myself to read it before class actually started - and suddenly it all became clear!! It was as though a lightbulb had switched on inside my head!!

So the way it works is this - you stack up your fat quarters - any amount, it seems to me, but I think you need at least 6, and cut them according to a strict pattern.
You end up with a variety of squares, triangles and rectangles - and then you play around with them, mixing and matching shapes until you get a block that you're happy with.

But what was also explained to us was that if you were unadventurous (yep, that's me!!), you could lay out a design that you like, and switch some of the fabrics about. So, for example, you'd have your design laid out, and with one stack, you'd take the top fabric, and put it to the bottom of the pile. With another stack, you might take the top two and put them to the bottom of the stack - and so on.

The key appears to be to not disturb or try to interfere with the order in which the fabrics come up.

Believe me on this.

I tried to rearrange them - and then had to go back to the original arrangement -which is why my stacks look very messy....

I had several 'wobbles' about whether it would work or not - but you know what - even with the same block, it looked absolutely fine. It's easy to forget that what seems very intense in one small 8" block disappears and fades away when there are several laid out.

The variety was enormous - and the possibilities are immense (you'll have to look in Barbara's book for the exact details).

At the end of the day, from 8 fat quarters, I'd made 16 8" blocks and had another 8 laid out ready to sew - so if I hadn't stopped at this point for supper, I'd have had 24 blocks completed - and wasted only about 1" strip of fabric (which has gone into the scrap bag).

I'm definitely going to use this technique on some of those delicious bundles of fat quarters that I've bought in the past and then have done nothing with. At present, they're sitting in my sewing room, only seeing the light of day once in a while - better to get them used and on their way (ready for more stuff...).

Other people had completely different looking blocks - just look at them all above here.

Everyone who had taken part was asked to put 2 blocks out on the floor - you can see what's been achieved and how different the blocks look with the different fabrics.


How big can you go with triangles???

In the evening, we had a talk about the tentmakers of Egypt - a tradition that's dying out very quickly. It dates back over 4000 years, and is only done by men, with designs handed down from father to son.

Barbara had brought some of her (very) extensive collection to show us - and best of all, there was the chance to look at them AND handle them afterwards - it was SO great to actually have the chance to look closely at the stitching - and once again - what looks great from a distance, or even 6" away, starts to look a lot less impressive when viewed at very close quarters - so why oh why do we keep beating ourselve up about the quality of our stitches all the time? Barbara was very keen to stress that the Egyptian tradition was one of making work to display, not to impress - they are intended to be hung up in tents for ceremonial use.

And so to bed. Eventually. A lot of gossiping to be done...

Sunday - another early start, to make a small bag,. Once again, Mrs Faff here didn't get it completed - I've got the wrong size cord in, I think - I'm going to pull out the thick black cord and replace it with something finer.

On Sunday, it was our chance to mimic some of the classic designs. Barbara has published books with these patterns in - but I really really found it hard.

This is the end of 6 hours work.

Yes.

Honestly.

And it doesn't look much better close up....

How small can you go? This is Mong (I think) appliqué from South East Asia.


A selection of pincushions and small bags - look - there's my unfinished one!!! complete with needle still stuck in it.....

Barbara Chainey and Sally White (organiser of the quilting retreat).