Quilts (and lots of other things) at Hever!

On Sunday 18th September three of us (CB, CD, HW) went to see the Quilters' Guild Region 2 annual exhibition (the 20th) at Hever castle. This year it was held as part of a Country Life at the Castle event so there would be a lot to see.

 

 

This years challenge had the theme 'In an English Country Garden' into which 25 quilts were entered from Region 2 members, one of them by CD. Various techniques had been used to interpret the theme giving rise to an interesting exhibition of small quilts for which 3 prizes and 3 judges' choice rosettes were awarded.

The main exhibition consisted of 68 quilts of varying sizes and techniques. With so many lovely pieces of work it was difficult to pick only one to vote for as your Visitors Choice. CB and HW chose a Wholecloth quilt started at a Lilian Hedley workshop and CD chose an appliqued rose sampler. Both had been hand quilted to a standard we all envied. Better keep practicing and who knows we could be the envied ones in a future show. There was a Round Robin challenge with several people in a group working on each quilt in turn. These are always interesting to look at and interesting to work on too, so we thought we would discuss the possibility of doing one ourselves next time we get together.

 

    

Also in the marquee there was a table for the Young Quilters with work on display from students at Babington House School to inspire and encourage 'would be' young quilters. The Contemporary and Traditional Groups had nice displays. The Quilters' Guild had a table selling all sorts of quilty stuff including calenders, patterns, bookmarks, notelets and more. If you missed the 'Put 'em ins' at FOQ then you could pick one up from here. There was also a lovely raffle quilt made by Bromley Quilters in aid of the Quilters' Guild.

The traders were in a separate marquee along with the demonsrtators this year. There were about 10 traders selling fabric, haberdashery, books and sewing machines. Two of our favorites were there Creative Quilting and Daisy Chain Designs. There were also thermofax printers selling screens and hand-dyed fabric, felt makers, weavers, ceramics, woodturners, face painting, an art exhibition and outside there were demonstartors for basket weaving and trug making, a stall selling plants and one promoting organic vegetable boxes. There was also an area where you could have a go at Archery. Last, but not least, were the beekeepers and chickens. I think HW may have found the chickens more interesting than the quilts as she came away full of enthusiasm for keeping her own chicken coup in the very near future. Those little Bantums are cute, they look like feather dusters on legs.  Although the bee keeper outfit was also an attraction for HW!

                   

   
In between all this we were entertained by Elizabethan Musicians and dancers, ate our lunch sitting in the sunshine by the moat, went for a stroll around the lake and gardens and had the treat we can't do without - a cup of tea and slice of cake, quite a large one at Hever! All in all a good day out which we thoroughly recommend.

 

              

 

Photodump - as Hever is so wonderful!!  And yes those mushrooms are ten feet tall ....

 

                    

                   

                    

                   

                   

 

Yes, yes ok you are right....

 

 

Anyone know what breed this little lovely is...

 

 

 

Saturday Quilting - September 2011

In addition to our classes of varying kinds we do try and meet up once a month for a general get together and some quilting (or an appropriate craft that takes our fancy at that moment in time).  The day is spent admiring the work in progress, new projects and if we have been very hard at work, admiration at completed projects.  The day can be spent putting the world to rights, maybe a little moan from time to time - it's even been known for a tear to flow but more often than not - a day of fun and much hearty laughter.

Now normally there can be four or five of us but for this meeting we were joined by another quilter EL.  So six quilters - with UFO a plenty, food and bags  - we all headed round to HW for the day.  The six of us joined NW (youngest son), AW (oldest son - with friend - well you know if Mum can have five friends to play ..........) and PW (DH of HW). 

After a quick cup of tea and a good catch up - projects were removed from our bags and we all cracked on.  

HT decided to finish the Project Linus quilt.



HW - also finish the Project Linus quilt she was working on and then completed the Colonial Knots card from the FoQ workshop.



CD - worked on a Hand Applique project.



AB - hand quilting - progressing on a Jenny Barlow (http://www.quilt-with-jenny.co.uk/) workshop we had all done earlier in the year at Creative Quilting.   http://creativequilting.co.uk/


CB - did a little bit of crochet in the morning and then after lunch carried on with a pre marked whole cloth quilt.



EL - who is fairly new to the quilting game wowed us all with her first completed hand quilting project.  (How fab to have a completed project to show at your first meet!!!).



Lunch was provided by everyone - Minted Pea Soup - a Jamie Oliver Recipe - from AB http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/search/soup. Homemade Bread - CD.   Apple Crumble - an HW recipe - apples from the garden!  Strawberries - HT - Tesco's I think !!!  Extra large cookies came from EL - which where enjoyed with morning tea - and Lemon Drizzle Cake  - CB - an attic24 recipe - with afternoon tea! http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/baking/.    It is a fact that we have never gone home hungry from a quilting day - and another known fact is we can sometime survive with out eating for the rest of weekend after a really good quilting day!



Come back soon for Hever Quilt Show update - off to Hever tomorrow - I know a whole weekend of quiltiness!!!

FOQ 2011 - Festival of Quilts

   

Three quirkies were brave enough to enter quilts in this years festival of quilts at the NEC, Birmingham.  So of course we had to travel there to see them!!

HW

    

CD

CB

The FoQ goes on for 4 days, but when you need to work to pay for your quirky habits it can only be sampled at the weekend, so for the quirkies this meant up and out for 7:30 am.  Quirkies don't do early starts easily.

We pulled into the carpark at the hotel we'd decided to stay in at 9:30am, plenty of time to double check that our reservation was noted as a late, 9pm check in (you will need this information later!) and jumped onto the courtesy bus over to the NEC in time to join the longest queue in the building to get in through the main door.... and ta-dah! We were there!!

The quilts are simply overwhelming, so many, so fabulous, so many, so colourful, so many, so textured, so many ....... simply so many.  Did we tell you how many there were?

As well as the quilts there are the galleries devoted to a quilter, group or theme...... Jennie Rayment's (http://www.jennierayment.com/)  was lovely and two quirkies felt a little smug that they have a whole weekend workshop booked in with Jennie for later this year.

The other thing to overwhelm is the workshops....at a previous FoQ one of the quirkies had missed out on all the workshops so she thought she'd try to book into five on the basis that she would get at least some of the five she fancied.  Well the fates had other ideas so she finished up with all five workshops and spent the greater part of the festival sitting and learning:

                  

         

Paula Doyle : Mini Mosaic - Green Mountain Quilts Studio : http://www.greenmountainquilts.com/
Sandie  Lush : Colonial Knots : http://www.sandielush.co.uk/

Jenni Stewart-Anderson : Rag Rugs : http://www.jenni.ragrugs.freeuk.com/
Lucy Garvin: Hand Sewing with 12 Weight Thread : www.wonderfil.net
Dawn Cameron-Dick : Invisable Machine Applique : http://www.morningstarquilts.com/

The quirkies day ended with each of us in a separate three hour evening class. Fortified by baked potatoes we set out to learn as much as we could from a focussed 3 hour class. 

Transfer Dyeing :  Mary Gamester : http://www.mary-gamester.co.uk/

  for CD 

Bella Lane : Goldwork : http://www.bembroidery.co.uk

  for HW.

Evening Star - Fondation : Norah McMeeking : http://www.bellabellaquilts.com/

 for CD

Satisfyingly tired we boarded the courtesy bus back to the hotel ready to prop up our  feet and quaff grape juice.....Quirkies do grapejuice well.

But oh - what is this ?

It seems that the silly hotel people have ignored the 9pm check in time on our booking and given the room away!  Quirkies aren't amused by poor service, but it seems as though we have to grit our teeth and bear it and find our weary way to the alternative room (I can state that a few choice words were uttered but are not printable),  which proves to be our hobson's choice.  We eventually got our grape juice - served by a fabulous barman who recognisd that unhappy quirkies need cold wine in cold glasses served by cheeky jokes.  Quirkies like cheeky barmen.

Day 2 brought more workshops, more shopping and more viewing of quilts.

By the time the quirkies started to queue in the main hallway to collect their quilts they were sufficiently quilted out to need muffins and tea for sustenance.  Quilts collected (hyper efficiently) from the organising staff, loaded into the car and off back along the M40.  All things considered a good run back into London for a Sunday night - home just in time to unpack and stroke all the fabric and thread bought for future projects......


Some our Fave's from the weekend....