The evening meeting on June 26th was full of chatter as it was spent doing a relaxing hand sewing technique.
We welcomed Dororthy Baird who showed us how to do Red Work and brought along lots of samples of her work to inspire us.
We heard about the history of the work and then had a chance to sew ourselves as Dorothy had bought us some small pre-marked designs of Christmas motives to try. 

Everybody hard at work on their sewing.

Dorothy's samples of the Red Work designs that we tried sewing for ourselves.

Thursday 23rd of May was the meeting for which we had to change the date. due to the hall being taken over as a polling station on that day.This meant that some members had made other plans and could not attend. Nevertheless, we had a good meeting the following week on the 30th, and explored curved piecing.

The results can be seen below:-

The evening of Wednesday 24th April was spent revisiting log cabin with Liz and Myra. Just loved the quirky nature of the blocks and how quick they were to do.

 At our next meeting in May we will be looking at curved piecing and trying our hand at drunkards path on the sewing machine.

The patchwork fabric pieces will be provided, cut with great accuracy on a sizzix machine which will hopefully make fitting them together easy.

Members will need to bring along their machine with a 1/4 inch patchwork foot plus sewing cotton. A light grey coloured cotton will be the most suitable to match all the fabric colours.

Please also bring your usual sewing kit, an electric extension lead and an iron if you have one that you can carry.

The next meeting is on Thursday March 28th. This is an afternoon Sit and Sew session.

The committee have arranged to do a demonstration of foundation piecing as part of the programme.

The last Wednesday night meeting was the change in the original published programme. The group borrowed one of the Quilters Guild's travelling trunks and wearing white gloves were able to closely examine some old quilted items. A review of the meeting can be seen by clicking on the meeting review section of the blog where a photo of a very demure Brigit wearing a quilted bonnet can be seen.

Hope to see people on the 28th. 1-00 pm  to 4-00 pm.

The programme has had an alteration for the February meeting as unfortunately Pam is no longer able to run a workshop for us on that date, Wednesday 27th February 2019.

Instead, we will be examining one of the Quilters Guild Travelling Trunks. A chance to see and touch some older quilted textiles.

Also a reminder that the Spring Quilt Festival at the Great Yorkshire Show Ground, Harrogate, is on this coming weekend, 22nd to 24th February 2019. A chance to see some stunning work and indulge in some retail therapy.

2018 ended with our Festive Meeting on 19th December

You can read about this in the meetings review section but here are a couple of the tree hangings made at the meeting

Our next meeting is an afternoon Sit and Sew session on Thursday January 24th

There has been a change to the original program and Liz Briggs will lead a session on Linus Quilts.

Don't forget to bring your Name Badge that you made in the November meeting, so we all know who you are. Some of us have terrible memories for names, and it gets worse as we get older

November was a sit and sew meeting.

The new committee would like to get to know everyone's name so with this in mind the meeting was spent sewing name badges. Gina bought along some ideas and members also tried out different techniques. There was a lot of chatter and a show and tell. More ideas were generated for future meetings especially this lovely table centre by Carol.

 Next month is our Christmas Party, on Wednesday 19th December 7-30 to 9-30 pm
It is being organised by Pat and Gina. There will be:-

A drop in workshop Make a little tree  or Santa's sock. Please bring basic hand sewing equipment.

Secret Santa For those who want to take part, please bring a wrapped present,ideally something to do with sewing (patchwork, quilting or embroidery),approx value £5

Supper A faith supper, please make it finger foods as it can be tricky to eat.

Please note the amended programme for the January meeting Thursday January 24th Sit and Sew Linus Quilts with Liz Briggs

The group do not have any workshops organised other than those in the meetings.
Please talk to a member of the committee or send the blog an email if you have any ideas or suggestions.

We had a very interesting meeting in October with Brigid Ockelton. Brigid is one of our newer members and has an extensive collection of antique quilts some of which she brought along for us to look at in October. The quilts that she showed us were to illustrate the history of patchwork and how different styles have changed over time. It is interesting to reflect that early patchwork was an occupation indulged in by the upper classes and they too designed their quilts and used new material in the execution of the craft, and it was never just a way of using up scraps left over from dressmaking.

As this talk used quilts with an emphasis on patchwork I am hoping we can see more of Brigid's collection in the future when perhaps we can concentrate on the quilting side of the c raft.

Our next meeting is Thursday 29th November and it is a daytime meeting 1-00 to 4-00 pm. Gina Smith will be guiding us in making name badges for ourselves.