frayed at the edge

6&6 in 2018 : July report

 This is a slightly different report this month, but I am sure Meredithe will forgive me for going slightly off-piste from our challenge.  As I mentioned before, I have been doing a lot of quilting for my lovely friend Margaret, the Queen of Appliqué, and if you are a regular reader you will have seen the photos from the exhibition in my last post.  But I thought you might like some details of her wonderful work, and how I did the quilting

 

having quilted-in-the-ditch round every square (and there were a lot of squares!) I then did a very simple meander, which doesn't detract from the marvellous appliqué

 

I could quite happily have kept the finished quilt on the bed in the guest bedroom!

 

the members of Abbey Quilters wear sashes when they are on duty at the exhibition - usually just made of strips of fabric - but of course Margaret had to stamp her own style on her sash

 

with tiny Sunbonnet Sue figures on the front

 

and colourful squares on the back

 

she then made this sash for her friend Ivy, who is the Queen of Hexies

 

I may have uttered a rude word or two avoiding the buttons as I quilted!

 

then she made a sash for Sandra, the Linus Lady

 

how cute is this!

 

then it was on to one of her penguin quilts.  Someone had offered to quilt it for her, but she only quilted the dark green sashing and the tartan outer border

 

which meant the background fabric of the blocks was loose and droopy

 

you can see the difference already, between the quilted left side, and the unquilted right

 

having quilted all the blue parts of the backgrounds, I then had to quilt the white parts.  This was the most wrinkled one

 

what a difference the quilting made!

 

and here is the finished quilt, looking much better

 

if you read my last post, you will know that Margaret made this one after a chance remark from her husband Stan, who said he would need to chain her up to stop her buying fabric

 

she thought it was boring with three windows with bars, so she unpicked some of the stitching on this one and added the dog!

 

her "convict" Sunbonnet Sues are so cute

 

the back of the quilt shows the quilting round the figures

 

a detail of the stitching

 

I was holding my breath as I finished the quilting on the outer black border, as the thread almost ran out

 

and the finished quilt hanging in the exhibition

 

I did manage one new little project this month.  What do you think I made with some fabric and crushed walnut shells?

 

a little pyramid weight, for holding dressmaking patterns in place

 

I hope you have all been busy this month - do pop over to Meredithe's blog, and after reading her post, scroll down to the linky thing to see what everyone else has achieved.

 

 

A girls' day out!

On Saturday morning, Malcolm dropped me off at my friend Sonia's house, as the two of us were heading up to Kelso for Abbey Quilters' Exhibition.   As you know, I have been busy for the last few weeks quilting some of the wonderful work of Margaret, the Queen of Appliqué.  In this post I am just showing you her work in the exhibition, but if you pop in next Tuesday for my end of the month report on the 6&6 challenge, I will show you some details of the both her appliqué and my quilting.  We start with Sunbonnet Sue and Friends.  This is a big quilt, and I somewhat exhausted at the end of each session working on it!

 

Margaret's husband, Stan, remarked recently that the only way he could stop her buying fabric would be to chain her up.  That chance remark led to this whimsical wallhanging!

 

I quilted this one last year, for her grandson Harry.  Only Margaret's imagination could have penguins playing on the beach!

 

this one is a three-person effort.  Margaret made the quilt top (I should have mentioned that all her work is done entirely by hand!!), then someone offered to quilt it for her, but they only quilted the sashing and borders, which left the blocks looking saggy and wrinkled.  That was where I came in, using dense quilting to flatten out the blocks

 

this one has yet to be quilted

 

it's a pity that there wasn't room for this one to be hung, to show it off properly - I hope to quilt to it soon

 

I don't know how Margaret thinks of all these wonderful designs

 

this one is so cute - if she asks me to quilt it, I might just forget to give it back!

 

I can't show you any of the other quilts from the exhibition, as there were signs up saying that photos were not to be put online, but Edith, who as always created lovely floral arrangements for the tables in the coffee shop, gave me express permission to share a couple of photos with you

 

and of course, you know that we quilters always have wonderful home baking! 

 

and to tempt you to come back next week, here is a little sneak peek

We should have known better .......

 .……. than to decide to have a day out on the day that the schools broke up for the summer, because of course that meant that it rained!!  There was the odd spot of rain as we pottered round Corbridge, enjoying the old-fashioned shops

 

you can buy everything you need for the kitchen here (and quite a lot of things you never knew you needed until you saw them in the shop!)

 

there are lots of places to eat, and we finally decided on Café No. 6

 

where we shared this very tasty ploughman's platter

 

the road climbed and climbed as we drove through the rain along the old Roman Military Road, which served Hadrian's Wall.  The sat-nav informed us that we had reached 892 feet above sea-level

 

we called in at The Sill, which has now been open for about a year

 

there are lots of very interesting and informative exhibits, but we were more interested in going up on to the roof to see the scenery

 

normally at this time of year, the fields would be green, but the long hot summer means the view is more brown  than green

 

the rain had gone off, but there were still lots of threatening clouds hanging over us

 

some people who live "down south" like to say that it is "grim up north" ……. but if this is grim, I would rather live here!!

 

on the way back to the car, I stopped to take this photo - a gnarly tree, a falling down bit of wall, and a little bit of higgledy piggledy fence …… and there are even some sheepies in the distance

 

I just had time to snatch this photo as we drove past on the way home - this is the famous Sycamore Gap

 

tomorrow I will be heading up to Kelso with my friend Sonia, to see the Abbey Quilters' exhibition.  That means I will finally be able to show you all the quilting that I did for Margaret, the Queen of Appliqué, so do pop in again on Monday to see her wonderful work.  Have a great weekend, love Anne 

A grand day out!

Last Wednesday, we headed south to Seaburn, to visit the amazing Lucy Locket Land.  Lucy and I were blogging friends some years ago, but we somehow lost touch.  But then I came across her on Instagram, and was delighted to find that she has opened this wonderful shop

 

everywhere you turn in the shop, there is so much to see

 

luscious yarns, cute kits

 

more yarns, more kits

 

and while your head is still spinning from all the gorgeousness ……. what is this?  Another room stuffed with more goodies!

 

this corner has all sorts of patchwork delights

 

while Malcolm enjoyed some coffee and biscuits, Lucy and I talked and talked, catching up with what we have been doing since we read each others blogs.  She has been running some excellent workshops, and I hope to be able to go to some of the upcoming ones.  Malcolm expressed an interest in  a basket making workshop - could we see some competitive basket making!  And totally uninterested in all the talking was the exceedingly cute Pippy the Shop Dog!

 

 

Hot, hot, hot!

Hello everyone,

I've just popped in to say that it is much to hot to think about blogging!!  However you can still keep up with what I'm doing on Instagram (@annetaydon).  I'll be back when the weather cools down a bit!

Love Anne