I've been a member of Cambridge Quilters for two and a half years and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. The talks, the workshops and meeting new, like minded people. Every January when we regroup after Christmas our current Chair sets a challenge for the coming year. This isn't compulsory but quite a few join in with the plan.
Last January Susan Ross put forward the idea of working in groups. We each had to make a 'block' then place it in a bag, with a few notes and possibly some fabrics, then pass it onto the next person in the group. We could set some 'rules' and eventually the bag with it's contents would come back to the first person with a number of finished blocks.
With the big Egypt exhibition on at the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge I decided I would like some new place mats for my dining room. This room has a bit of an Egyptian theme already, between the curtains and the framed papyrus paintings on the walls. I found some suitable fabric in my collection and set about making a 'block'. I stipulated the finished size I was looking for and said 'no appliqué' please as I thought the mats would get washed a fair bit.
So here is the piece I made. It took me about an hour. I kept it simple and based some strips around the motifs based on tomb paintings. I think I bought the fabric almost ten years ago.
This next piece has delightful 'flying geese' blocks which look like pyramids. Whoever made it added some turquoise fabric from their collection. I concentrated on free motion quilting the turquoise panels. There were six placemats made in total but only a selection shown here.
This one below is my favourite. Paper pieced by Elaine in the group. She must have spent quite a bit of time on this one!
I decided to stipple quilt in the black background as I felt I didn't want to detract from the motifs. So with a bit more quilting, making and applying the binding, not to mention hand stitching it all in position, my six placemats were complete.
Still recovering from my trip to the Festival of Quilts....more next week
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