Easter Sunday

Happy Easter everybody, hope the sun is shining in the sky today for you!

International Quilting Day

Last week I went to the 'The Third International Quilting Day' in Barnsley - I thought this was a 'big' title until I found out that in America on the third Saturday of March Quilters fundraise: hence the International bit.  The day was organised by Janet Bottomley of the Yorkshire Modern Quilt Guild, you had to pre-book and do a bit of prepping: but what a fantastic day!

Before we attended the day we were asked to design and make a block based on the colours of Black, White and Lime on no particular theme.  These were then to be exhibited, voted for and then raffled as a set to be made up as a quilt.  I produced 2 which I'm not even showing here - the quality of the work was so high I felt very inadequate!  And the 3 photos above show the exquisite work on display, unfortunately I've not got a photo of the winner: it was of a Panda - but not the panda in the first pic.
This was one of the quilts produced last year from the donated blocks....again, look at the quality!!!!!

There was 2 activitys during the day and this was our favourite - in fact we were beside ourselves with excitement doing it as my friend Ruth also happens to be a teacher and it was a great feeling having somebody teaching us!   We did a hand sewn block of foundation piecing to produce a 'half pineapple'.  We drew the block onto calico and then using 1" scraps we produced the block by hand sewing.  Here's some pics of the process ....

     

And this is the potential outcome - should you decide to produce more blocks.....

How fabulous are these....

After this activity we had a bit of lunch and listened to the 'Show and Tell' where quilters exhibited and talked about their quilts....

Very impressive!

And there was an ongoing raffle, a silent auction and we had been asked to donate unwanted fabric, books and any other 'crafty' stuff.......so I had a bit of retail therapy and bought these.....

It was a fantastic day with about 100 like minded women and we managed to raise over £1000 for Barnsley Hospice.  If you read this Janet thank you SO much and we are gearing up for 2014!

A week on the Isle of Mull

We have just had a week in Mull and stayed at the gorgeous Treshnish cottages in the North West of the island.  We had fabulous weather - 5 days of glorious sunshine... unbelievable at this time of year....  we walked and mountain biked most of the week and ate well, we were able to get lamb and beef off the farm....our cottage was gorgeous: just 2 cosy rooms.....and we were snuggly warm as it was really cold outside.....we spotted eagles, sea eagles and otters.....I took my sewing machine and ended up having to schedule an afternoons quilting - as we didn't have any bad weather to keep me in....hubby says I should always take a sewing machine now as it will guarantee fine weather....but also took my knitting and sewing....took too much: but hey ho...

So this was our gorgeous cottage 'Shieling'

And this was its interior

These are the 'Haunn' cottages which were a mile down the road - and equally as lovely....

Treshnish Farm had some very happy hens - there's no foxes on the island - that produced yummy 

blue eggs........

The Treshnish Isles which we looked out to - I thought they looked very Japanese like a pagoda....

and Ben More - the only 'Munro' on the island

And this was the local beach - Calgary Bay - on a very busy day...

And this was the local town ......Tobermory.....

and now we are back in Yorkshire and its very cold and very snowy...roll on Spring!