Of fabulous patchwork at WI

I spent the start of the week at the WI's Denman College teaching Happy Scrappy Patchwork which I always enjoy. I have a somewhat non conformist approach to patchwork and try to convey this to my students and I hope that the results speak for themselves. Five students with five totally different outcomes and not a fat quarter in sight.

Lots of laughs had by all!

Am back there teaching the same course May 15 & 16 and you don't have to be a WI member to attend so why not check out details on the Denman website :
http://www.denmancollege.org.uk/courses/crash-course-in-machine-patchworking/12992

And don't forget if you fancy learning hand patchworking I'll be at Les Soeurs Anglaises in August :
http://www.lessoeursanglaises.com/events/patchwork-pearls/

Laying out cut panels  - note the hints of leopard print and brown velvet

70's retro meets Gees Bend - great fun

One panel nearly done and second one started

Three down one to go and then some more stripes for filling in the gaps,
fabrics used included Liberty prints from her wedding

Fabulous selection of fabrics will result in.....

A wild and glorious piece using Mexican Day of the Dead
inspired fabric and some Indian sari

Impressive panel ready to be wadded and backed and edged
and then claimed by Grimblethorpe, her cat!

Gloriously sunny panel - love the dots and spots

Sunny start to the week

What a beautiful morning, so frosty I dribbled boiling water over the car to melt the frost. Low mist hung over the fields on the school run and the sky was gloriously blue with hints of pale golden clouds and vapour trails.
Home and packing the car ready for a couple of days at the WI's Denman College. I'm teaching Happy Scrappy Patchwork which is great fun, hugely rewarding for me and my students and so creative.
I take lots of resources to inspire them and I always include a stack of my favourite patchwork books and a couple of my photo albums which are full of images that could inspire a project.
My most treasured book is 'The Quilts of Gees Bend' - what a joy,  it makes me smile every time I pick it up
So I am looking forward to a productive course and may be we'll squeeze in a game of Scrabble!

Magic light

I can not resist grabbing my camera when I see 'magic light moments'. Light is fluid, constantly moving and changing, within a matter of seconds sometimes the scene can be altered, so when these fleeting moments of exquisite loveliness occur I'm  there.
I took these shots yesterday in a beautiful, ancient antiques shop in Whitchurch Buckinghamshire. Parts of the building date back to the 15th century, and the architecture includes patterned brick work, lovingly carved and polished wood, stone, and wattle and daub. It's imbued with a fantastic sense of its past and has been sympathetically restored by the present owners. The combination of the building, its contents and the swathes of sunlight  was truly magic.

Pre Christmas stitching

Just before Christmas I got a call from a friend in the village, who wanted to treat herself to one of my cushions. She had a specific palette of colours in mind, although after I invited her to come and throw fabrics about she shifted on the original colour scheme. She wanted a mix of textures too, so I raided my velvets and after abit of umming and arring came up with this. The back incorporates the front of a pyjama top and handily, the buttons allowed for the easy access when it came to putting the pad in.
Fun to do  and the best bit is she loves it...and so does her fabulous orange cat.....

My fabulous cat testing sitability of fabric!

Measuring up back 

Stitching - first project on freshly serviced machine - joy!

Ta-dah!!!!

Packing up Christmas

Taking down the Christmas decorations is not the jolliest of activities and one that it's hard to get the rest of the family enthused about participating in. However, it has to be done and to be honest I quite like carefully wrapping up my favourite baubles in bubble wrap and tissue paper and putting them into hibernation ready for the next time, when they can emerge all sparkly and bright and full of festive cheer.
Packing away Christmas comes in several tiers, taking the decorations off the tree and wrapping, putting wrapped decorations into shoe boxes various and assorted, putting shoeboxes together into much lager boxes. Sealing those to discourage mice investigations.Taking these large boxes out to the annex and finally opening the attic and hauling them into the darkness ready to Christmas 2014.
Then there's taking down the Christmas cards, selecting favourites for inclusion in Christmas card scrap books - very useful resource for teaching - and putting the newly acquired cards - thanks to sales - away with list. Note to self must be warm and dry as some of the envelopes had stuck themselves shut having spent the year in the shed!
And that's it! You would never know that it had happened....

Here's to 2014!

Apologies for slightly belated New Year greetings. Yesterday was such a foul day with rain and greyness all day, we hunkered down and watched snippets of 'Big', 'Sound of Music', 'Harry Potter' (no idea which one!) and ate alot! So today is a big improvement and I've decided to include some of my photos on the blog - I don't mean pics of projects which I already do, but my observations and visual notes.
I am a push over for beautiful lighting and the cottage often offers up moments of magical light. This is the scene in the kitchen this morning.

H A P P Y  N E W  Y E A R ! ! !