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| Our Goal - The Infinity Square Quilt |
It's a rare event for the Quirkies to be all together in the same place at the same time these days - so imagine a whole weekend of fun, laughter and quilting with new skills thrown in!
We congregated at the Chichester Park Hotel the penultimate Friday night in July (22nd) for a weekend with Jan Hassard teaching us infinity squares.
The evening started off with a talk by Jan who showed us an amazing number of spectacular quilts; some of us felt daunted already. But the highlight was meeting up in the bar for some catching up and laughter - even if some Quirkies didn't recongnise EL over from Florida (no worries AB).
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| HW ogled this one |
At least one Quirky seeing an alternative quilt pattern decided she might have preferred it; Jan indicated it is easier than our infinity squares believe it or not.
Saturday morning we lugged our machines up a flight of stairs, set-up, got out our supplies and were straight into the project with the aim to make at least six (6) squares for the weekend - ha ha.
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| Step-by-step board of instructions |
We had very brief written directions, but a step-by-step board which really helped. And Jan was very encouraging to each and every one of us. This quilt does require precision cutting and sewing, so some of us were more advantaged than others - and ripping out required by all!
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| fabric audition |
EL had a melt-down about her fabric choices, but ended up doing two slightly different squares. Here is an 'audition' of the background colour (background in this case meaning the 1 inch solid colour stripes between the multi-coloured strips). CB kept her calm and pointed out a few basic tips - many thanks!
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| Empty, hot workroom at lunch break |
There were 16 of us in all, the room a bit cramped and the air conditioning non working on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year in England. But onward we cut, pinned and sewed.
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| Rogue Block |
This quilt requires 32 fabrics in 4 colourways (gradations of one colour) and sew into strips as the 'pre-work'. One on the course, chose an alternative route for their fabric (one fabric with graduated colours) which resulted in very different blocks.
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| HW's work in progress; love the brown |
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| CW - first out of the gate with a completed jewel block |
By the end of Saturday our blocks were beginning to take shape.
The food was lovely and the weather beautiful if hot; the hotel swimming pool was utilized by four of us Saturday evening. The other two Quirkies took a walk around the local environs. Our waiter doted on us and after dinner drinks were in a lovely courtyard with plenty of flowers for the bees much to HW's delight.
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| Jan's cute machined fabric boxes |
We were joined for dinner by another Jan, who does machine sewn boxes; something EL had read about, made contact from afar and lo and behold Jan lives nearby. So she and her boxes stopped in Saturday eve and again to check our progress on Sunday. Quilters are lovely people.
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| The class effort minus TS |
Sunday morning we were all keen to crack on and by 3 pm the group had produced a range of lovely squares. Only Pat got all 6 done . . . but fun was had by all.
Much joking was evident about making placemats vs quilts from the blocks - but all will go to use in one item or another.
All too soon and we had to drive home, taking various routes through the country side and AB guided by TagNav. Our August get together shall surely see much progress on these quilts.
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| Modest HS handiwork |
PS. Just for the curious - here's EL's squares with the two different background colours - and oops I just spotted the mistake in the one on the top - do you see it (easily made, done by others on course and thankfully easily fixed). So you can see how the choice of fabrics really impacts the squares.
Jan described the top one as summer and the bottom autumnal - the one inch squares came from an American 'honey bun' fabric roll (except for the yellow/orange ones). A honey bun is the cheats way to get 32 coordinating fabrics!
