Thursday 7 November 2013

Just a bit of fun

Just as a bit of fun, I am posting a link to a list of  '100 Things a quilter should do before they die' which I cam across today.  How many can we all tick off?

I should just say it is a US website so going to the big quilt show in Houston might be a bit unrealistic but you could always swap that for the NEC!  At the moment, I haven't managed either of them but I hope to make the NEC next year.

Denise

Friday 25 October 2013

Julia Gahagan's Website

Hello,

Good to see so many of you at the sewing evening last Tuesday.  I thought it was a good evening.  I actually got some sewing done too!

I just wanted to post a link to Julia Gahagan's website.  She is our next speaker on 12th November and she is doing the workshop on 16th November.  Hopefully, the website will give you a taste of what it is she does. There are still a couple of spaces on the workshop if anybody is interested.

Home Grown Textiles Website - I have linked to the workshop page but it you click on her first link on that page you get some pictures of what she does for various workshops.  We are doing Christmas Patchwork Projects.

Saturday 19 October 2013

More news!

Hello,  I hope you all enjoyed Sharon Garrick's talk last time.  I thought she had done some beautiful work and it was a great reminder to me at least, that a quilt does not have to fit a bed to be a quilt.  Small quilts can be just as lovely as great big ones.

I have again updated the Programme of  Events.  I think the best news is that Julia Gahagan's workshop has been moved from Wednesday 13th November to Saturday 16th November.  I know some of those who work during the week were hoping that there would be some Saturday workshops so we managed to get this one changed as it will be our first workshop. The theme is Christmas Patchwork Projects.  We would love as many people as possible to come along and we hope it will appeal with Christmas fast approaching.

The other piece of news is that Janice Beech will be coming on 26th November to show us her quilted postcards and to show us how they can be made.  The Quilters Guild are after postcards for their AGM in April 2014 to be held in Portsmouth and the postcards will be sold to raise funds.  This is a link to their website for a bit more information - Quilter's Guild AGM

The 26th November is a sewing evening and Janice won't be doing a talk.  Instead she will have display boards of postcards and will talk through the process of making the cards with those who are interested.  Please bring along your sewing as normal.

Finally, not so good news.  Quilters' Dream have had to pull out of doing the December talk so we are looking for a replacement.  We will let you know when something has been arranged.

Looking forward to seeing you all on Tuesday.

Denise

Tuesday 8 October 2013

Programme of Events has been up dated

Just to let you know, our programme of events has been updated to show some more speakers and workshops after Christmas.  This can be seen on the Programme of Events Page.

Looking forward to our talk with Sharon Garrick this evening.  Should be very interesting.

Sunday 6 October 2013

Our First Quilt Challenge

We thought it might be a nice idea to get started on our first challenge.  We decided not to do anything too big and ambitious so we are asking for a round quilt, between 12"and 15" in diameter with the theme of "Carnival". Hopefully the inspiration for this is obvious!

You can use any technique you fancy, draw inspiration from any source.  It is really up to you.  The date for submission is the first Tuesday after Christmas, i.e. 14th January 2014. We aim to have an exhibition in Spring/Summer 2015 so these mini quilts will be our first steps towards that.

Don't forget, if you are having a problem or are stuck for inspiration, I am sure that the rest of the group would be happy to help.

We look for to seeing the finished articles.

Denise

Friday 20 September 2013

We did it!

Well we did it!  We have had our first meeting and we are up and running.

I think we had about 15 people in the end.  It was a little bit chaotic to begin with.  We had to work out how we were going to do things but people helped out as we needed it and we had a great evening.

We started with refreshments including homemade cake which was excellent.  Then Jude our chair said a few words and introduced our speakers Hazel Ryder and Terry Donaldson.  Jude and I know them through our City and Guilds course - they were our fantastic tutors.  We were so glad they agreed to be our first speakers.  It was easier knowing they understood that it was our first meeting and we were nervous and that it could have been a bit shambolic.  Most importantly, we know they are great speakers and have a lot of work to talk about.


This is Terry and Hazel with Hazel's Welsh quilt.

We passed a very pleasant hour and half being shown the various quilts  they have made through the years, starting right at the beginning when they were first learning to quilt.  It was interesting to see the development of their work and how it has changed as their skills have developed - no more bought fabrics these days.  Most of what they use is hand dyed.   Between them they have wracked up an impressive number of awards from various quilt shows.

They have finished running City and Guilds now and instead, run their own course through their business InStitches.  If anybody is interested they can find more details here here on their website..  I would highly recommend them.

Next time we have a sewing evening so if anybody is interesting in coming along for a bit of sewing, a cup of tea and some chatting you are most welcome.  7.30pm, Carnival Hall Basingstoke.  Hope to see you there.

Denise

Friday 6 September 2013

Baking for the meeting!

It's our very first meeting on Tuesday 10th of September and as well as providing two excellent speakers, Denise and I have decided to start the meeting with refreshments: tea or coffee and homemade cake.  So far we're providing cherry cake, ginger cake and Dundee cake.  We're asking for donations for the Roundabout Quilters' funds for the refreshments.  There's also going to be a raffle, drawn at the end of our meeting.  All we need now is lots of people to come along!
Jude

Wednesday 4 September 2013

How it all started.

We are a new quilting group so I thought I would just share the story of how we came to be.

In September 2011, I started a City and Guild course in Patchwork and Quilting in Odiham, a course taught by Hazel and Terry (who incidentally have kindly agreed to be our first speakers).  I had done 4 leisure courses before but wanted to go beyond the basics and actually make something!  I had a load of notes and samples but only one quilt which I made at my first ever course, 15 years ago.  It was a Christmas sampler quilt which doesn't see the light of day for 50 weeks of the year. In between courses I didn't have the confidence to make a quilt by myself so the bag full of samples stayed a bag full of samples and got left at the back of the cupboard.

On the course I met Jude who is the Roundabout Quilters chair this year.  She was very keen to join a quilt group but found that there wasn't anything local that didn't have a waiting list.  For various reasons I couldn't go to the group anyway so we hatched a plan to start our own!

To be honest, I didn't think we would actually do it - it seemed a bit daunting really, but thankfully Jude is not easily put off and at the end of our course we started work on Roundabout Quilters.  Now we are coming up to our first meeting and I am fretting about whether anybody will show up!  It is a bit like having a children's party and wondering if anybody will turn up or whether we would be here with a mountain of party food and no children.  Of course they usually do show up so I hope we have a good meeting next week.

Just to liven up the post, I have added some pictures of our assessed pieces for City and Guilds, taken at our exhibition.



This is my table runner - non-block using Japanese folded squares.



This is my quilted bowl machine and hand quilted on silk.




This was Jude's final quilt - bed sized and all made with hand dyed fabric.  Not the best photo I am afraid.  It is so big I had trouble getting it in the frame!  



A few of my samples.
This was Jude's pieced wall hanging.

Thanks for reading.

Denise

Sunday 18 August 2013

Welcome to Roundabout Quilters

Hello!

Welcome to the website and blog for Roundabout Quilters.  We are a new quilting group from Basingstoke and we hope to use this blog as a source of information and as a place to show off some of the work we have been doing.

Our first meeting is on Tuesday 10th September 2013, at the Carnival Hall in Basingstoke.  We are starting out with a talk by Hazel Ryder and Terry Donaldson who are quilt makers and teachers.  They have a wealth of experience at making and exhibiting quilts and we are really looking forward to seeing some of their work.  Everybody is welcome.


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