A wonderful weekend

I am just back from a wonderful weekend in Lille - lots of shopping and good food. What more could one ask for.
Here are some photographs of the local architecture

A magical courtyard near the Opera where they were holding a book fair

A typical street scene - notice all the cobbles - they are absolutely everywhere.

The west facade of the main church which has been totally rebuilt over the years.  A great use of modern design to complement the mediaeval church.

Fantastic decorative detail on lots of the buildings

I could so move in here tomorrow.

Just love the charcoal grey paint.

Slightly made building and there were huge plants behind the first floor window giving a Day of the Tryffids look.

This was created by filling in one of the many canals to create a small lake where there were locals fishing.

Just loved the detail on the pavement in one of the main streets - perhaps I should have copied it entirely for my racing track quilt.

On the sewing front, I managed to find two quilting shops and another full of buttons and beads - but more of that tomorrow.

Spent a lovely day hand appliqueing the third block of my Roseville quilt. I should be able to finish it this weekend.

More photographs tomorrow but on a different theme.

Hoffman batiks

Have just discovered a blog referring to the Hoffman range of batiks where as you scroll down you can see the names and inventory numbers of all the recent Hoffman prints.  Don't think I will be printing all this out but it is a very useful tool. 

Enjoy!

Fabric swatches

I have not had time to do any sewing so have nothing new to show you.

I was browsing Sandra Leichner's blog and she referred to a marvellous new idea (perhaps it has been going for ages) that Robert Kaufman fabrics have introduced. You can print off all the fabrics with their inventory numbers.  I think this is a great idea for keeing track of the batiks you have in your collection. I don't know about you but I seem to forget what I have got when I am at the shows and just buy more - only to get home and find I already have that fabric. I reckon that if I printed off a few sheets of the collections I like and mark those I have at home, it would save me a huge amount of money and stop the stash increasing. All stashbusters should be happy with that. I am not on "no buy" but am trying to keep the increase down to a dull roar. I think this is particularly useful for batiks as they do not have any registration marks but it is also useful for printed collections.

Anyway I hope you might find this useful.

I am off to France for a long weekend and so will not be blogging for the next few days. I need a break as I have been doing too much preparation work for too many projects and not achieving a great deal.

Happy quilting!

Progress

I have finally managed to sew all the sixteen blue blocks for the Beth Ferrier quilt

and I am nearly half way towards completing the 117 small circles. I am doing them in a variety of blues and will post a photograph when they are all complete.

International Quilting Day

I spent the day at my local Guild's regional day.  What a fund of inspiration. We had an inspiring talk by Gail Lawther on her series of New Zealand quilts.  All the techniques she used was fascinating and needless to say I succombed to buying her book. But the good news is that I have finally decided on the design for the next BQL skinnny challenge and have made a very small sketch with lots of notes so that I hope to be able to start it next week.

The other lecture was on the Amish people and their quilts by Jan Jefferson (I could not find a website for her) but she has written several books on the life and customs of the Amish people. She was brought up in Lancaster County and was accustomed to their way of life as she grew up. It was fascinating and she managed to put flesh on the bones of the usual stories one hears.  I was fascinated by the fact that although they stand for simple and functional objects, they have a long tradition of hand quilting in very decorative styles - i.e. feathers etc., instead of plain straight quilting.

Needless to say I managed to find some fabric to buy but in my defense they are all for my students at the Centre - one of them is sewing a purple/mauve quilt with pink highlights and she has rejected most of the fabrics that I have in my stash so I thought I had better get some more for her to choose from. Hopefully none of them will end up being added to my stash at all.

Here is a photograph of a quilt that Liz Turner has made in my Thursday class. It is her third quilt and she even quilted it on the machine.

Congratulations Liz - it looks marvellous.

Here is also a quilt by one of the members from the Centre - she chose the fabrics (it is a navy not black) and has worked so hard to achieve this.

I did absolutely no sewing all weekend and hope to have a bit of time to do some this week. Will let you know.

Racing Track top

Finally, I have finished sewing the top for this quilt. All the freezer templates have been removed and now I am ready to layer it up for quilting.

Now I am off to start on the blocks for the Beth Ferrier quilt and the 117 small berries that are needed - thank goodness for the craft tool that can cut the 3/4" circles out of the washable fusible. It makes life a lot easier.

Racing track 2

I sat and thought about the corners of the quilt top for ages last night and eventually decided to change it.

I made a curved template for the blue and used the overall pattern for the outer piece on the block. I think it looks much better and gives a proper impression of the chicane effect I wanted.  I have all the pieces ready to be glued and will then create the blocks using machine applique.  Hopefully the top will be finished by the end of the week.
Enough sewing for today - I am off to enjoy myself with friends for lunch.