I am sat surrounded by the smell of slow-roasted pork shoulder, it's rubbed with a paste of coriander, fennel seeds, peppercorns, lemon and garlic and smells seriously gorgeous!!
On Friday I attended my first session of the quilting group I mentioned in my previous post. Any apprehension I had about attending on my own had been eased by the lovely welcoming emails I had had all week from Wendy, one of the founders of the group.
A warm welcome greeted me from all the ladies and they delighted in telling me I was the youngest and therefore "the baby" of the group. As someone who is approaching 40 this year, it was music to my ears!!
Wendy showed me the instructions for the quilt I was to do as my first, a simple one made from nine FQ's of fabric- I chose an assortment of Tanya Whelan fabrics with a little CK thrown in, in shades of pink, blue, red and white.
The ladies showed me how to cut accurately and I chatted, cut, drank tea, cut, ate cake, cut and made new acquaintances (hopefully soon friends).
I finished cutting my FQ's when I got home and soon had this:
Yesterday, each row was sewn up and then sewn together to make a block and when I had done them all I arranged them out on the bed to see how I wanted the completed quilt to look. As I did this I realised I somehow had 10 blocks not 9 - which meant I must have started with ten FQ's - I mean I *know* I am bad at maths but I can usually manage to count to 9!!
So, the leftover one was put to one side and I sewed up the blocks:
What looks like plain red actually has white pin spots & the "plain" white has tiny flowers....
Typically for me I am not loving the colours :0/ - I don't think I should have used the red -which looked nice when they were folded FQ's but not so much now.
Although, looking back at the quilt I used as an example on my previous post the colours are similar:
It now needs a border (I'm going to do a 4 1/2" border in plain white) and then I have to make a "quilt sandwich" with the backing and wadding before pinning, tacking (yuck) and then machine quilting. Wendy has kindly detailed everything I have to do for that to keep it all flat and so on, but I think I am going to be a chicken and wait until the next meeting on Friday.
Next Sunday (15th) there is a Quilters & Fabrics January Sale at Farnham Maltings at which (I am told) you can get some bargains so Mr G is going to take me up there. Then at the end of the month Mum and I are going to pop along to Ardingly Spring Quilt Festival where there will be lots of fabulous quilts to admire as well as trade stands.
In other news, there maybe a little bit of change coming here to shabby chic HQ as well, will tell all when/if I know more later....
hugs,
S x
