Posts

Regular Customer Anne wins ‘Quilt now’ competition

Last month I spent a day at Janome HQ in Stockport as one of 8 lucky winners of a Quilt Now magazine competition entitled The Story of my Quilt. Cindy Cloward of Riley Blake Designs led a workshop showing us how to do a block from their Sweetie Pie quilt.
As a keen, but novice quilter, I was very excited to be there but slightly apprehensive in case I was out of my depth but Cindy and everyone at Janome, EQS and the magazine publishers made us feel very welcome. We were all thoroughly spoilt with gorgeous cakes, a lovely buffet lunch and lots of quilting goodies to go home with.
Cindy started the day with a presentation about Riley Blake which she runs with her husband Brett, and her own needlework and quilting experiences. She showed examples of her quilts and talked about the Riley Blake designs and the process of printing fabrics. Cindy left us in no doubt that the quality of the fabric is paramount in quilt making.
We then went on to making our blocks. We cut 16 pie slices and sewed them all together to make a pie unit and then chose a fruit for the pie centre, which we appliqued onto a piece of pin dot material which in turn was appliqued onto a pin dot pie block. The room was a hive of activity with all of us working at our own pace but hoping to get the block finished by the end of the day. Cutting mats, rotary cutters and machines were set up for each of us. All equipment and materials were provided and ironing boards were on hand for the constant pressing of seams.
As we worked, Cindy asked each of us to share our quilt stories which ranged from a quilter’s husband doing a quilt just to prove he could, to a lady sewing together all the bunting from her friend’s wedding to make a stunning quilt.
My story began with me enrolling on a quilting workshop with Caroline Francis-Payne here at Millie Moon (their first:  was it really 9 years ago?!) and getting the quilting bug so that every subsequent family event has had to be commemorated with a quilt.This included my son going to uni and how I had to sew his festival wristbands onto his quilt and how I am, 5 years on, still sewing festival wristbands on to his quilt!
I left Stockport for my long train journey back to Frome feeling tired but happy, with armfuls of quilting paraphernalia and a starting block for my Sweetie Pie quilt!

Anne, 3rd from the right

AE
A big thank you to Anne for sharing her day with us. If you would like to have a go at patchwork and Quilting then get in touch. We run regular classes and workshops for beginners at the shop. Have a look on the website or give us a call 01373 464437