Rainbows and Blue Sky

And a Storm at Sea on the way!

What a wonderful day at Festival of Quilts on Saturday! 
It really is quite overwhelming, even though I have been so many times now. You just want to see everything at once and hardly know where to start. (Many thanks to our lovely Ann Kelner for organising the coach again.)

It was every woman for herself, as we all went our separate ways after agreeing to meet up for lunch. This year I decided to have a good look at the main quilt display first, before hitting the trade stands. It was all good - not all to my taste of course, I'm definitely not a modern girl! But there were some stunning entries in all categories. Most astonishing and inspiring was the display of miniature quilts by Japanese artist Kumiko Frydl. Now I like to work with small pieces, but hers were something else - just exquisite! Much as I'd like to try something like this, I have decided that if I don't start using bigger pieces up soon, I will never make a dent in my stash.

With this thought in mind, I started shopping, trying hard to resist all the lovely fabrics on display.  I didn't have as much of a 'list' this year, but have promised to make a 'rainbow' quilt for my friend's little lad, so I could fully justify buying these solid colours for that. I thought solid rather than print for a boy and I have several variations of Storm at Sea in mind. That will be a fun project. 


The rest of my shopping was mostly confined to essentials... some spare bobbins and needles for Auntie (my long arm machine)... and some interesting new rulers for the long arm, from Crafty-UK. I'm looking forward to trying these out as the choice of tools is so limited in this country. Look out for spirals and curves appearing on my quilts soon! I also bought an open toe quilting foot for the Brother as I'm determined to have another go at free motion on the domestic machine - I am embarrassingly bad it!

Looking at all the lovely fabrics and projects on the stalls made me think about the fabric I already have and how I could make something with it myself. So Instead of coming home with a full shopping bag, I came away with a mind full of inspiration and I can't wait to get started! Oh I did indulge myself with one little charm pack of Edyta Sitar's new collection for Andover Fabrics called Blue Sky. Oh come on! That was very restrained!



My 'Mystery Quilters' have been working well and some of them have finished already! Have a look at my Facebook Group, to see pictures of their progress. Don't forget to visit me at ENGLISHQUILTER for more details if you would like the full instructions and I will send you the PDF (for FREE until the end of August - NB: Don't try to buy it - just send me an email request via the contact page). 

Next up on the frame is another massive quilt top from Susan Mashmoor, with more metallic thread! So you might not hear from me for a couple of weeks!. 

Happy Quilting Everyone!

Janet

www.englishquilter.co.uk   

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