Three days of patchwork – keeping it real

Just three days into the week and I’m feeling like I’ll never be able to bring this blog up to speed with all the ups and downs of the patchwork and quilting whirl I’ve been experiencing!
First things first: a morning with the ladies of the monthly craft group I help to run with a friend. Twenty of us got together on Monday, our scheduled activity: ‘Show and Tell’. This was an opportunity for us all to bring in the craft activities we love but that don’t fit well into a 2½ hour meeting (we generally like to try out techniques that produce a near-finished object within one meeting). It was a revelation to see the varied crafts on display including beautiful dolls house rooms with handmade furniture and little dolls dressed in replica Georgian and Victorian costume (complete with miniature handmade lace); a variety of wonderful knitting and crochet techniques; a quick demonstration of hand stitched Cathedral Windows blocks; and much more besides. I gave a 10 minute talk about how I discovered patchwork and quilting, showing a few of my quilts including the recently finished scrap quilt.
Monday became a long day with various errands to be run following Craft Group. In the evening I slipped into my sewing room but instead of finding peace amongst the projects, books and fabrics I found myself feeling overwhelmed. Too many projects on view, I was tired and couldn’t prioritise or think straight to sort through the muddle.
Next day I took another look in the sewing room and decided to tackle the largest of the projects I had underway. The quilt top already measured 64½” square but needed three borders to be added. I kid you not, it took me the best part of the day to attach those borders. It was a slog – all that measuring (with the quilt top spread out on the sitting room floor), pinning and then manhandling the top through the house to my sewing machine. And the pressing of long seams too…

I was having to grit my teeth, reminding myself how fortunate I am to have whole days dedicated to creativity! I even started to wonder if I’d had enough of patchwork and quilting, false stop! Thankfully I recalled my show and tell experience of the previous day – I’m a fairly reserved, quiet person but once I’d launched into talking about my obsession I found great difficulty in stopping! No! I wasn’t losing my love of patchwork & quilting, I just needed to push through attaching those twelve border strips… Once that was accomplished I could tidy my room and, more importantly, regain a sense of order in my mind.

That evening the scrap quilt came out again – show and tell at the meeting of Roundabout Quilters. We had a fun evening with a talk about Civil War quilts by Yvonne who visited us from her shop, Village Fabrics. She brought along a selection of their beautiful quilts, many of which had been block of the month projects hosted by the shop. Yvonne has a team of talented people around her, between them they now produce their own patterns and BOM projects. If you get the chance to visit the shop in Wallingford you are in for a treat, there is a huge range of fabrics and notions plus the little town itself is very picturesque with an abundance of tea shops 🙂
Today (Day three) I’ve been back in the sewing room tackling the latest pair of blocks from the Chocolatier BOM run by Purple Stitches. I’ve never pieced a Drunkards Path block and as I’m supposed to be leading the BOM workshop next Tuesday I thought I’d better apply myself! I read some helpful tutorials online including this one by Lee Heinrich, ate lots of yummy chocolates, grabbed some stray fabrics and set to work.

I took my time and by the fourth unit I understood the process and could start thinking about the information I should include in the workshop demonstration. So now I need to write up the class notes – I’m thinking I will take along some scrap fabrics so everyone can make a test block and get a feel for curved piecing before getting stuck into the BOM fabrics 🙂
Three days; highs, lows and such a great mix of people and projects. No wonder the obsession continues 🙂
Linking with Lorna for Let’s Bee Social.
Allison