Townscapes course by Gillian Travis

Last month I attended an amazing course at The Bramble Patch.  (I'm sorry for only getting around to blogging about it now.)  It was quite a journey for me and my friend Rachel.  Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I am a home bird.  I like being at home and in Sheffield and I don't like travelling.  I love to visit different places but I find long journeys off-putting, so Rachel did a good job of convincing me that the two and a half hours on the motorway would be worth it.

Rachel was so right!  The course was inspiring and I learned lots.  Gillian's work is like nothing else and it was clear to see why she has won awards and why she tutors around the world.  My favourite piece she showed us was of Yorkshire, so this was literally "right up my street."  Please check out Gillian's other work here.



She really encouraged us to have a go and taught us how to break down a townscape.  I felt exhausted at the end of it.

One of my most favourite places in the world is Whitby in North Yorkshire.  It's about three hours to get there, but that's one journey that never bothers me because I know what awaits me when I get there is nothing but bliss.  I went there in October with my husband and had as good a time as ever, so it was clear that I would work on a Whitby landscape on this course.

I tried to capture the Abbey, the Georgian houses (which I adore) and the fishermen's cottages on the cliffs.  My work looks nothing like Gillian's (wow is she talented!) but I think it's an acceptable first attempt and she did manage to get me to do some free motion embroidery (never an easy task!)

This is no where near finished but I am going to have to put it on the back burner for the time-being as I have lots of other sewing commitments at the moment.  It's definitely something I want to come back to, but I will need to have a day to myself and be in the "zone".

As for The Bramble Patch, it on its own was well worth the journey.  It is such an inspiring place - great teaching facilities, amazing fabrics, long arm quilters on the go and helpful staff.  It is clearly a destination shop and one I will be visiting again.  Inevitably I bought some bits and pieces and found some backing fabrics in the sale section.  I came home tired but inspired on lots of levels.

Thanks for stopping by.

Meadow Quilt - a finished quilt

It's been a while since I made such a large quilt and what I love about this project is that it simply evolved and I never imagined it would be this big.  I got the fabric, which is largely Meadow by Beth Studley by Makower, about six weeks ago and initially made the six large blocks which shoulder the log cabin blocks.  I then decided to practise log cabin in different shapes (hexagon and diamonds) and started to put these together with sashing.  Then I decided that I needed to add some length with scraps and friendship stars, which are always trusted favourites.  I thought that would be the quilt front completed but then I attended a class on making cathedral windows so as I had enough fabric left in the red and grey daisy chain I felt this would be a good opportunity to practise this more difficult block.  This quilt seems to document my own learning in the past couple of months.

I had forgotten how difficult it can be to quilt a large quilt on my humble machine so I was relieved when the quilting was done.  I approached the quilting in a similar way to the sewing and piecing.  It was only when the walking foot was on and the quilt was there that I decided what I would quilt.  This quilt has ended up being an exercise in quilting different shapes.  I've quilted hexagons, triangles, squares, diamonds and stars.  After my recent courses in free motion embroidery I wanted to quilt curves and circles around the cathedral windows, but I bottled it because I just didn't feel practised and confident enough.  The triangles I quilted around the curves do look good, however, so I don't feel too disappointed with ducking out from the more skilful technique on this occasion.

I love setting out to finish a project by a particular date and then succeeding.  My intention was to have this finished by Friday and I have managed that.  It's my mother's birthday shortly so this will be her gift.  It will look lovely in her house, so for once I am also meeting birthday gift deadlines as well.  She's been waiting for a quilt for a while now but I think it has been worth the wait because this shows more intricacy than I have perhaps done otherwise.

Crafting Saturday

Today really has been all about crafting and it's only tea time!  I'm really tired out.  Crafting is relaxing but it can also be tiring.  I feel exhausted right now so I'm not sure I will spend any more time on the sewing machine today.

This morning I went to pick up a parcel of fabric which I purchased on Thursday from Fabritastic.  It was the first time I had bought anything from there.  I'm impressed with the service - I put the order in on Thursday and the following day there was a parcel note from Royal Mail when I came home from work.  The fabrics and postage were also both reasonably priced.

The first lot of fabric is all by Aneela Hoey by Moda.  Most are from the Hello Petal range and a couple from the Posy range.  I should have bought the cats ages ago when I first saw them in January but I didn't and since then it's been difficult to source them.  I love cats and most cat fabrics so these are a great addition to my stash.  I keep pinning quilts with low volume fabrics so I am starting to collect some of these as I anticipate using low volume fabrics against bright coloured fabrics soon.

The elephant fabrics are by Michael Miller.  I've had them before in the robin's egg blue and in limeade (not pictured here).  I'm now adding orchid and sky blue.  I think these will end up in children's quilts and are good staples to have in.  The fabric on the left is also by Michael Miller, it's Ant Maze and will go perfectly in a boy's quilt I have in mind to make soonish.  I like to put boxes of fabric together to marinade so I can see them together; this helps me to figure out the patterns and style I want to pursue.

Now today's fatigue hasn't come from just collecting fabrics and putting them together for photographs.  Today I've been on a free motion embroidery course at a local craft shop, Craft Den.  I had a great time and was pleased to come away with a canvas which is ready to put on the wall.  I didn't find free motion embroidery easy but it was enjoyable and I feel that I did some "skilling up" and that with practice I would get better at this.  I'm not usually a fan of applique but I actually enjoyed this style of sewing over the top.  As a new sewer I know there is plenty for me to learn and today's class certainly got me using new techniques.  I'm feeling rather pleased with myself.  My husband is going to paint my craft room tomorrow so I think this canvas will find a home on the walls there this week.