This month, November, was an entertaining evening meeting entitled 'Finding Ruby' with our speaker Julia Caton, also known as Jules.

Her story about her transatlantic quilt adventure was fascinating. It all started when she found some 1930's signature quilt blocks, whilst on holiday in Texas. Interesting as the blocks were in themselves, the story continued when she, knowing nothing about quilting at that time, found a group of people to guide her and help her sew these blocks together and make a quilt, and later when she did some research into the makers of the original signature blocks. Hence, Finding Ruby, one of the 1930's ladies who signed her pink and white pieced block.

Julia kindly bought along copies of the journal that was published about this project for everyone, as well as the finished quilt. She also bought along a second quilt commemorating 'Yorkshire' made by the same small group of people working on this project, who met to sew, and become friends  just as the first ladies in Texas must have done.

                                                 
                                                        Julia and her signature block quilt

Last month saw us making wrap-a-round aprons with Myra. A very practical piece of kit.

The November meeting is a speaker, Julia Caton. The title of her talk is Finding Ruby and is the intriguing story of a Transatlantic Quilting Project which began when Julia found some old quilting blocks on a trip to America.
Come along and find out more on the 22nd of November.

By popular request we are making a change to the programme for the January meeting and instead of colonial knots I will be demonstrating how I design and makes my patchwork pieces. I was lucky enough to be the overall winner at the Great Northern Quilt Show 2017.
My entry Triptych Silver Birch Wood is shown below.

Autumn is now well on the way and we have survived hurricane Ophelia.

The new programme has been distributed to members and also put on the blog.

September's meeting was a real treat with Beverley Usher bringing along her family quilts to show us. All the quilts in her collection were made by her grandmother. Beverley has her own blog about the collection and there is a link to this on the meetings review page, alongside a couple of photographs to whet your appetite. Please do follow this to find out more.

Next month Myra will be showing us how to make her wrap-a-round apron. All the members should have had access to the pattern so they can cut it out before the meeting. I will be making one so that I have something to wear when I am painting or dyeing fabric, as I have ruined T-shirts when doing this in the past.

We also have a couple of interesting speakers on the programme so take a look and come and join us if you are in the area. We would make you most welcome if you did.

Summer is nearly over and next month, Wednesday 27th September to be precise will be White Rose Quilters first meeting of the new programme. There are still a couple of things that need to be finalised and then I will put the new programme on the blogg.

Last week I took all the baby quilts, that the members had made last year, into the Special Care Baby Unit at York Hospital. The staff thought they were beautiful and thanked the group for their generosity and hard work. We have another charity night on the programme for next year, making fiddle finger quilts for people with dementia. More information will be given out later.

Our first meeting in September is a 'show and tell' session by our speaker Beverley Usher who will be telling us about her grandmother. This talented lady produced many quilts in her lifetime and Beverley will be showing us a selection of them. It will be worth your while to join us for the evening if you are interested in patchwork and quilting as it is not often that one comes across such a unique collection of old quilts.

So enjoy the rest of your holidays and see you in September

Trying to catch up with the blog before our AGM in July

This month the meeting was all about dying and other methods of creating an image on fabric.
Myself and Kate and Kathleen spoke about methods we had experimented with and took examples of work that we had created. In the confines of a church hall it is not easy to do workshops on this subject as it is messy and wet, and probably not to everyone's liking, but it can produce some startling results that can be incorporated into quilts and other pieces of work.

Next month is the AGM a time to review what we have done in the past year. Hope all the members have learnt something new to add to their skills but more importantly enjoyed the meetings

The April meeting was a fun evening with Heather Chalkley making fabric postcards.

Heather brought along her postcard collection to show us along with her anecdotes of when and why she received them. Yes they can be stamped and sent through the post! There were also some she had made herself to illustrate different techniques and finishes.

Heather also provided the kits to make the postcards and as we sewed them by hand the evening was a pleasant mix of chatter and craft.

These would also be a doddle to make on the machine and can be done with children or grandchildren so are very adaptable.

Next meeting May 24th
'American Feed sack and Depression Era Quilts' a talk by Janet Bottomley
Do come along and join us if you are in the area.

The March meeting was a sewing evening. Kate Smith introduced us to Inlaid Patchwork.
The work is done using either felt or wool material and was popular during the Victorian era. I have seen several quilts on display at the Bankfield Museum in Halifax, sewn by military gentlemen who used the woollen material that their uniforms were made from,

so I was intrigued to see how it is done.
We produced very simple designs as we only had a couple of hours for the project but I would be interested to try something more intricate in the future.
Below is a sample of the technique being worked and there are more pictures in the meeting review section.

Our numbers are growing, we welcomed another member to the group this month.

Because of this and the fact that some of our new members are also quite new to the craft of quilting we gave a quick introduction to the techniques of Trapunto, Shadow Trapunto and Shadow Quilting at the February meeting.
No photos. Sorry. But it was a pleasant evening of chat and hand sewing.

Show and tell gave us more quilts for York Special Care Baby Unit so I am collecting quite a pile now and hope we can deliver them later in the year.

We are also running a workshop in April, and will be using a wedge ruler to make a patchwork circle. This can be used to make a cushion or a tote bag. A big thank you to Crafty UK for their help with the wedge rulers.

This is what it is all about.

January came and went and saw us doing our bit for charity.

Again it was York Hospital Special Care baby Unit and this time we are making small quilts for them. Each small miracle that spends time in SCBU is given a small cover to shield them from the bright lights and strange noises that surround them. Whilst they lie cocooned in their incubator the cover is placed over the top and it later accompanies them home. A little bit of normal comfort in a strange and stressful situation, both for the baby and their parents.
Members used the time at the meeting to work on these quilts and I hope by the July meeting we will have a big pile for a special 'Show and Tell', that we can donate to the unit at a later date.
So keep up the good work everyone.

This month, February 22nd, we are trying our hand at Trapunto and Shadow Quilting. Another evening to craft and chat with like minded people.