"My Quilting Journey" - talk at Chepstow WI on Thursday 28th June 2018

Date: Thursday 28th June 2018

Time: 7.30pm

Place: Chepstow Methodist Hall, Chepstow, NP16 5DA

Entrance: £4.00, (Chepstow WI Members FREE)

Contact: chepstowwi@gmail.com

Come and join me and Chepstow WI on Thursday 28th June, where I will be giving a talk about my quilting journey and my path to becoming a professional, award-winning  longarm quilter.  I will be talking about my interest in textiles and my journey to becoming a longarm quilter.  There will lots of quilts to see and I will be explaining what is involved in longarm quilting.

Quilt made by Margie

Here is another cheerful Kaffe Fassett inspired quilt made by Margie. See especially how she has cleverly used the Kaffe Sunburst print for her border.  For this quilt we chose a traditional Baptist Fan digital quilting pattern and to help speed up the finish, I also sewed on the binding as part of the Fabadashery longarm quilting service.

With the sun coming in, the texture of the Baptist Fan quilting really shows up well.

'Baptist Fan' digital pantograph designed by J Schick

Quilts UK, Malvern 2018 - Best Bed Quilt, Best Piecing, Best Sampler Quilt Awards - Dear Jane made by Frances Meredith

Quilts UK, Malvern 2018 - 

The last few months have been really busy, not only helping my customers to complete their quilts to show at the Quilts UK, Malvern 2018, but also adding the final touches to my Dear Jane quilt which I have been hand piecing since 2015.  I did the final stitches on the scalloped border just the day before I delivered it to the show!  As you can see the effort was all worthwhile as I was successful in receiving awards for Best Bed Quilt, Best Piecing Award and Best Sampler Quilt, as well as a Judges Choice certificate.

 Dear Jane quilt made by Frances Meredith

Yes, the quilt top is hand pieced using English Paper Piecing, but I relied on my APQS longarm quilting machine to custom quilt it, stitching in the ditch of every piece and designing my own pattern for the edge triangles.

'On Ringo Lake' Bonnie Hunter 2017 Mystery Quilt, make by Eirwen. Semi-custom quilting

'On Ringo Lake' Bonnie Hunter 2017 Mystery Quilt, make by Eirwen

If you visited Quilts UK, Malvern 2018 you would have seen Eirwen's beautiful 'Ringo Lake' Bonnie Hunter 2017 Mystery Quilt.  Eirwen used the same colour scheme and pieced the tiny patches perfectly.

'On Ringo Lake' Bonnie Hunter 2017 Mystery Quilt, make by Eirwen

Eirwen asked me to quilt each block separately, rather than an edge to edge pattern which would cover the whole quilt and I am glad she did.  So this is a semi-custom quilt.  Firstly, I stitched in the ditch along the sashing, using a ruler to keep the structure of the quilt.  Then I placed a very simple block pattern, 'Lana's Block', in the centre of each block.  Once this had been done I did a very simple curved ruler pattern in the sashing which seemed to pull the quilt together.  If you have some ideas of how you would like your quilt to be finished, be sure to let me know as I am always try out new things.

Quilt Block designed by Lana Cororan

Little Coxwell Quilters - Quilt UK 2018 Display

'Little Caswell' made by Lynne, custom quilted by Frances Meredith

If you are heading up to the final day of the Quilts UK 2018 Malvern Show, take some time to admire the beautiful quilts on display by the Little Coxwell Quilters.  I have had the pleasure of custom quilting several quilts for the group, so it was lovely to see them again as a group.  Above is the 'Little Caswell' quilt made by Lynne and below Di Ford's Antique Wedding Sampler quilt made by Pippa.  

Di Ford's Wedding Sampler quilt made by Pippa,
custom quilted by Frances Meredith

The display of quilts by the group are delightful and well worth a look.

African Quilt in aid of The U Foundation, made by Natalie, winner at Quilts UK, Malvern 2018

African quilt made by Natalie,
winner of the Charity Fundraising category Quilts UK, Malvern 2018

Congratulations to Natalie for winning First Prize in the Charity Fundraising Category at Quilt UK 2018 at Malvern this weekend.  Natalie has made this quilt to contribute to the fundraising for the U Foundation, a charity which reaches out to help others in developing countries, particularly rural Africa.  

'African Samba' digital pantograph by Apricot Moon

Natalie cleverly used the bright fabrics from Africa to create this stunning quilt and I helped to finish it off.  Appropriately we chose to quilt this large quilt on my longarm quilting machine using a digital quilt pattern called African Samba.  If you would like to find out more about the U Foundation or make a donation you can visit their website www.theufoundation.org

Detail - African quilt made by Natalie

Signature Block Quilt, made by Catherine and friends

Signature Block Quilt, made by Catherine and friends

Have you ever made a Signature Quilt?  Have you ever wondered how you would quilt a Signature Quilt?  A Signature Quilt seems like a great idea until you wonder how you will quilt it - this is where a longarm quilter can help out. Here at Fabadashery Longarm Quilting I have had the pleasure of quilting several of these quilts and they are especially interesting to do because of the special messages that everyone has written.  They take a lot of organisation, the right fabric pens and a few rules. Obviously  not everyone follows the rules ...  but that just adds to the personality of the quilt.

Signature Block Quilt, made by Catherine and friends

This is the quilt pattern which Catherine cleverly incorporated all the signed blocks into.  The most important part of a quilt like this are the messages on each block, so the longarm  quilting needs to be minimised, so as not to interfere.  On this occasion we used a very fine Bottom Line thread, which is almost invisible.  The pattern chosen was the ever popular, Dragon Wings, which is not too dense and carried on the theme of dragonflies which featured in some of the fabrics.  This combination ensured that all the messages remained clear to read and the present could be used as a quilt, bringing comfort to a friend in need.

'Dragon Wings' digital pantograph