Welcome to Saturday Quilting Bring & Share. Bring along your project(s) and settle down for a time of sharing in the inspiration, tips, projects and news patchwork-quilters have been circulating through our Worldwide Quilting Community. Just click on the links below to join in, leaving an encouraging message in the comments boxes of blogs you visit to be part of the sharing.

My parents celebrating their Diamond Wedding Anniversary during lockdown 2020. They are holding the congratulations card signed by the Queen.

Family News In the UK we are celebrating Mother’s Day this Sunday. For me this is an event which triggers good memories and a sense of well-being. I know it can evoke quite the opposite range of thoughts and feelings for other people and my heart goes out to you if this is the case for you. I’m fortunate to have grown up in a happy home and to have found a loving, reliable, forgiving man to marry. We’ll have our 36th Wedding Anniversary later this year; before that we’ll be welcoming our first Grandchild into the world; and we are happily preparing for our Child #2’s wedding in September. All of these family events are also being eagerly anticipated by my lovely Mum. We are hosting a little family get-together today in honour of her 84th Birthday. Yep! She was born six months before the outbreak of WW2. And tomorrow, Mothering Sunday, she and I (and my Dad) will be treated to a roast dinner cooked by my DH and Child#3.

Sewing Room News Being quite busy outside of the sewing room I’m glad to have an easy-to-pick-up-and-put-down project on the go. These are the foundation blocks to make a Spiders Webs & Stars scrappy quilt as taught by Carolyn Forster at the Sewcial Retreat last weekend. I brought home sixteen completed triangular blocks.

Earlier this week I cut out sixteen more of the foundation triangles from light-weight, sew-in interfacing (these will be left on the backs of the blocks, avoiding the task of tearing away paper foundations); used Carolyn’s template to cut out more of the wedges from a left-over piece of extra-wide backing; and had a quick sort through my bags of stripy fabric scraps.

Now the pile of partly constructed blocks sit next to my sewing machine along with the fabric strips. I can nip into the sewing room to stitch a few strips whenever there’s a short break in other activities – a welcome sewing ‘fix’!

Carolyn Forster in full flow!

Carolyn’s teaching theme for the Sewcial Retreat was ‘Utility Quilts’. As well as showing us various techniques and patterns designed to make the most of fabric scraps, Carolyn demonstrated several types of ‘big stitch’ hand quilting using 12wt threads. I’m thinking I might have a go at big stitch quilting in the star shapes of the Spiders Webs & Stars quilt….

Here’s a selection of blog posts to click through to and enjoy:

Bernie has made a comfort quilt from third-hand blocks sent to her via someone she follows on Instagram. Bernie has a real heart for making quilts to gift – to family, friends and charities. I love the way she took a pile of abandoned, scrumpled blocks under her wing, repaired seams, pressed them back into shape and created a quilt design to make the most of the blocks, all to provide a gift for a stranger going through tough times.

Another technique I’ve yet to try: Foundation Paper Piecing using reusable Freezer Paper templates. Rebecca Bryan shares a tutorial and a link to her free guide to using Freezer Paper for FPP.

Nicola has posted a lovely detailed tutorial in response to readers asking her about ‘placement templates‘. I have to confess that when I read the title ‘Piecing with Placement Templates’ in Nicola’s newsletter I read it as piecing with PLACEMAT templates 😀 I can assure you no placemats are involved in the tutorial but you could use the technique to make a patchwork placemat…

It often pays to pick the ‘low hanging fruit’ in our WIP and UFO piles in order to push some through to motivating finishes. Mari has been doing just that. Her choice of machine quilting designs look attractive without being time consuming.

Following St Patrick’s Day lots of variations of the Irish Chain patchwork design have been popping up on social media. Krista used a 60° Diamond ruler to make a very attractive Irish Chain table runner. Her blog post includes a step-by-step tutorial showing how she cut and pieced her design.

Linking with Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday. She has another finish to celebrate and there are lots of inspiring posts to click through to via the link-up 🙂

Happy Stitching!

Allison