Christmas is coming ..

As I was looking in the attic for the quilted advent calender I noticed how tatty my quilted tablemats were. Well they're over 20 years old and looked very sad. I have several Christmas fabrics so I decided to make some new ones - it will also help in my quest to use up some of the fabrics that fill several boxes in my workroom.

Random strips of fabric were sewn together. I used a heat resistant wadding which was lovely to machine. As you can see the quilting is very close together which produces a really firm surface. I have made ten and am in the process of making a larger one for the centre of the table. They measure 30cm x 24cm each.

We have a cat and he has a quilt to sit on in the living room (well, okay he has three as we've had three cats). I noticed that these are a bit worn now - the oldest is about 25 years old and decided that he should have a Christmas one. So that used up more fabric.

As you can see - a very simple design with simple outline hand quilting.

I thought I would also keep you up-to-date with the progress I am making on my machine quilting. The next two pictures show printed and quilted samples which I featured in August but now you can see that I have finished the edges.

Since returning from Portugal I have started work on the larger piece of fabric but got sidetracked by the Christmas goodies and other things. This is as far as it goes .... 

 I have stitched round all the motifs and completed all the text. The vermicelli (the wiggly stitching) is about half completed. Its fun to do but I really need to do it in good daylight.

Duxford Quilt Show

At the beginning of the month I went to a show at Duxford Air Museum. It was quite small compared to others I have been to this year but there was some lovely stuff on show.

I really liked this simple but effective adaptation of a quilt design by Karin Hellaby from her book 'Magic Pillows, Hidden Quilts'.

Another simple but effective quilt was 30 @ 30degrees by Maggie Howell. It seems as though it would be good for using up scraps of fabric.

One of the guest exhibitors was Greta Fitchett. She produced some wonderfully detailed work. This first one is called 'Aberdeen Harbour' and I love the way the image has been divided up as though it is reflected by a window. I also really liked the close machine quilting, I have been using this in my work a lot lately.

Another beautiful quilt was 'Venice Water and Glass'. The use of colour is stunning.

'Moroccan Pots' had so much detail in it that I have included a close up photo as well.

'Volubilis' is another quilt with so much detail. I really love the use of lots of brightly coloured hand dyed fabrics, net, buttons and the mixture of machine and hand stitching.