Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (if a bit late)

Yesterday saw me wrapping up Christmas and putting it back in the loft til next year, so I am now back to a bit of normality and can put a post on the blog.

We had our usual Christmas Bash for the December meeting and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

This year we decided to forgo making anything as in the past this has proved to be a bit of a rush. and  given that we also had our Faith Supper, Secret Santa and Challenge Fabric Show and Tell, to make time for as well.

Instead, we decided to do a Crossword Quiz, which proved to be a bit of a teaser. Each answer was something to do with patchwork or Quilting, but the answer that seemed to elude everyone was Foundation. Well I had forgotten that old fashioned underclothes were referred to as foundations!

The Show and Tell of everyone's items made in the challenge fabric was interesting with a great amount of ingenuity and variation in ideas being portrayed. There are a couple of photos below.

Then everyone tucked into the Faith Supper and everyone had as usual been very generous. It was delicious and more than enough to go round.

Lastly, as Christmas is the time for presents, the Secret Santa gave everyone a small gift to take home.

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.