Nantwich Fabric Sale

The annual Nantwich Fabric Sale seemed busier than ever this year - I'm sure the door raffle ticket numbers reached over 700. There wasn't much time for a photo of my display. I had the Quiltfest banners and flyers with me so I could promote February's exhibition too. "Fish and Chips" is going to be displayed for the first half of the month at the Royal International Pavilion, along with DeAnne Hartwell-Jones's quilts, as part of the "Made in Wales" section of the exhibition.

Because my stand backed onto the bar entrance, I couldn't use the longer quilt stand this year. Luckily we had packed the two lighting stands, so the smaller pieces I displayed could be grouped into two shorter sections. The projects below are all from "Japanese Taupe Quilt Blocks" (just spotted that the Australian and USA editions have slightly different titles - "125 Japanese Quilt Blocks" and "Japanese Taupe Quilts" respectively - so confusing for me!)


I spotted a few must have items for various projects, including a super Paisley print with a "Turkey Red" coloured background and two Moda Jelly Rolls I was after - "Twiggy" and "Arcadia". I used the "Twiggy" range for the "Retro Revival" blocks in the forthcoming "130 Little Quilt Blocks" ("130 Mini Quilt Blocks" USA) - from a layer cake of 10in squares - and wanted a Jelly Roll of the same fabrics for a frame quilt project, using up the leftover layer cake pieces. "Arcadia" was used for the new version of the "Masu" quilt which will be included in "Japanese Quilt Inspirations" (due out in May 2011) and I want to make a second version with the Jelly Roll strips in a slightly different sequence and be able to use the fabric for another frame project. There's two "Arcadia" Honey Buns, a charm pack and a layer cake in my stash too, bought when I thought I might have enough time to make a third version of another quilt from the same book. I guess that could be described as "having your layer cake and eating it"...

It feels like it was a long day but very enjoyable, as I meet so many quilters I know at this one day event. Roll on next year!

More photos from Nantwich

Carol sent me some more photos from Nantwich. I'm glad she had her new camera with her! Here I'm demoing making the miniature hinagata kimono.

She also took some extra photos of the quilts. These are higher resolution, so please be patient if they slow down the blog loading, but if you click on them, you can see much more detail in the quilts. The photo of "Kyoto Dreams", the small wallhanging with the Utamaro geisha and Japanese room, has lots of detail in the photo. You can almost see the individual beads in the centres of the cherry blossoms.


As well as quilts, I used the "anti trip" chairs (covering the quilt stand legs) as a convenient place to display some cushions. I have quite a lot of cushion covers and they take up a lot of room to display on a table, plus somehow they never look quite right. It would be great to have a sofa as a demo space sometime!


Here's a photo of the reproduction fabric I mentioned in my last post. I love it! The second fabric is from the original quilt which inspired my (hoped for) recreation.

Nantwich Fabric Sale quilt display

I took everything needed for displaying the quilts - except my camera. One of the quilters from Wrexham Quilting Circle, Jane, kindly took these for me (you can see one of Jane's quilts in "Compendium of Quilting Techniques" (UK edition)/"200 Quilting Tips Techniques and Trade Secrets (USA edition), in the section on English paper piecing).

As I took the Oriental Log Cabin Sampler quilt to Chester Ps & Qs last Wednesday, as a sample for the Log Cabin workshop I'm teaching there in March, it ended up in a different bag and I forgot to take it today as originally planned. However, I don't know where I could have displayed it anyway! Two metal quilt stands measuring 3 metres each had quilts on both sides and there were also smaller quilts on both sides of the two lighting stands.

I would like to add more quilting to several of these quilts, including "The Denman Kannon", "Kasuri Sampler" (side by side on the right in the first photo), "Butterfly Dance", "Kamon Sampler (left above), "Super Strips II" and "Takarazukushi" (second photo from top). Hmm, that's most of the quilts on display...! There's room for a bit more quilting in the border of "Fish and Chips" too. Perhaps those are projects for next winter.

My demo for today was a bit different, as I was making a hinagata kimono, a miniature kimono sewing sampler that shows all the steps for making a real hitoe (unlined) kimono but is only about 18ins long. I'm teaching this next Saturday at Serendipity quilt shop in Bovey Tracey, Devon and thought it would be nice to have an extra workshop sample. Plus I had a yard of a Kona Bay print that seemed just right for making hinagata. Although the background is black, I sewed this using cream thread, so the stitching can be seen.

Today seemed busier than previous years and I couldn't get away from my demo table very much. There was a little time for shopping in the afternoon, when I got several great Japanese style fabrics for backing some forthcoming quilt projects. I like to keep a good selection of backings in stock so to speak, so I can use a different one on each quilt, keeping it appropriate to the quilt theme and colours whenever possible, and enabling me to identify individual quilts from the back. So long as any joins aren't down or across the centre, where the quilt it likely to be folded, I don't worry about having a pieced back.

The best find of the day was a repro stripe print that is the best solution I've found for the Turkey Red utility quilt project. I had already found another possibility, but this one is even better. I'll post a photo once I've unpacked the car - it's raining right now and I don't want to get soaked!

I've been promised some more photos, so will post those when they arrive.

Nantwich fabric sale on Sunday 18th

I'm launching the new book at the fabric sale on Sunday. So if you'd like a signed copy, see you there! I'll have some of the quilts from the book on display, plus some of the step by step techniques, and will be demonstrating sashiko.

Quilters and Fabrics

January Sale

Sunday 18th January 2009

10am - 4pm

Nantwich Civic Hall

Cheshire CW5 5DG (Market Street - Parking Available)

with Exhibitions and Demsonstrations including Wrexham Quilting Circle, Alsager Patchwork & Quilters, Sew & Sews, Pinfold Group, Beartown Quilters

Plus many stalls with fabrics and related items

Admission £2.00 (Partners and children free)

Enquiries at Homecraft Quilted Designs

tel: 020-8742 3685 or mcg@enmarcon.demon.co.uk

Some more dates for your diary - I'm going to be demonstrating every Tuesday at - Quiltfest

Absolutely not to be missed....!

Sashiko, applique and a new projects

Predictably, today was much quieter at the exhibition than yesterday, so I was able to get on with a quilt project when there weren't any visitors about. I am finishing the applique on a small quilt called "Kyoto Dreams", for the "Land of the Rising Sun" Kona bay fabrics challenge at Grosvenor Exhibition's spring quilt shows. Deadline for delivery is next week, so not much time. Luckily, the set size is only 30in x 24in, so it isn't too big. I couldn't resist making a wallhanging for this themed competition, as I like using Kona Bay fabrics in many of my quilting projects. Many of the Kona Bay fabrics are large scale prints and, compared with some Japanese quilt fabric brands, they look quite bright, but there are plenty of more subtle fabrics, including tone-on-tone prints and even plains in their range. They also produced some excellent panels recently, including a selection from Utamaro ukiyo-e prints and some panels from kimono designers in Kyoto - beautiful quality prints. The large butterflies and "geisha" are broderie perse applique by hand (sorry for lack of accents on the words!) Minimum amount of Kona Bay fabric has to be 75%, so I am on target. My "other" fabric allowance is taken up with the ombre shaded pink/burgundy for the beams, shoji and fusuma frames and tracks, and the stripes for the tatami mats. The photo shows work in progress, with the first arrangement of butterfly and flower appliques - these have been changed slightly. I am planning to hand quilt it, although this might not be as dense as I would like. I really need 48 hours in the day.

I will be demonstrating sashiko at the Nantwich fabric sale at the Civic Hall, Nantwich, on Sunday, January 20th. Hopefully the new projects will be back from David & Charles in time for my display. I will have the new book for visitors to preview and will be giving away free postcards of the book cover. There's more event information here - http://www.thequiltingweb.com/Whats%20on.htm

My other new projects, which I will only be hinting at for now, are new things on the book front... so keep checking the blog for updates from time to time! Suffice to say that bags are involved!

Kimono sewing demonstrations at Llangollen are going to include resewing a woman's wool hitoe (unlined) kimono as a man's, changing the sleeve details. I hope to post a photo of this when it is finished.