May 2017 - Foundation piecing

This months meeting covered Foundation piecing. This technique is useful for small blocks using scraps and larger blocks using points and/or circles. The blocks are stitched in reverse, so an ability to think backwards is an asset. The demonstration was given using 4 inch blocks as they would be easy to stitch by hand at the meeting.

4 inch seaside foundation pieced blocks

4 inch Garden foundation pieced blocks

4 inch foundation pieced blocks - heart, triangular log cabin and fish

6 inch foundation pieced blocks

There were some other projects being tackled.

UFO from the Paula Doyle Giant Dahlia workshop

Hexagons made by members, destined for a Linus quilt

House quilt pattern from an old magazine

Sewing machine mat from hexagons

More works in progress included,

Jellyroll bag from workshop

Steps quilt, backed with fleece, ready for quilting

Twist quilt, shows how different a pattern can look with a different choice of fabrics.

Twist quilt with fuchsia coloured sashing between blocks of 'busy' fabric

The previous two pictures show, some of the variations in pattern achieved using the same block and some imagination.

Finished Jellyroll bag

Lastly, here are two finished boxes from our March workshop.

Circular zipped boxes

This is by no means all that was going on during the meeting, one lady was working on her Charm square bag and another getting to grips with Cathedral windows.

Jellyroll Workshop - April 2017

This was the second of our workshop mornings for this year. We were looking at projects for using Jellyrolls. You buy them because you like the colours, or are given them as a gift, and are unsure about the best way to use them. You can find a lot of inspiration on the internet, but you can't beat a get together with like-minded people to discuss colour options and patterns.

Colour options

This was an ambitious workshop as there were four projects to chose from and 14 participants. Some quilters decided to use fabric from their stash rather than jellyrolls, two more decided to use charm squares for the bag pattern.

The popular project was the bag, we did discover a mistake in the pattern, fortunately not a disastrous one.

Jellyroll bags

Charm square bags

The Steps and Twist quilts were taken up by the rest of the group.

Steps quilts

Twist quilts

Participants using stash fabrics had put some thought into how they would work together in the chosen pattern. The jelly rolls worked well, as you may expect as they had been chosen from a fabric range. Even the rolls that looked less interesting laid out on the table, were making up into lovely bags once chopped up and rearranged.

Good progress was made by all participants and we had a great time. We look forward to seeing the finished items.

The fourth project was a very simple strip quilt, perfect for stash busting and Project Linus.

Jellyroll Strip quilt