July 2020 Cambridge Open Studios is cancelled - Open Windows instead

As membership secretary to Cambridge Open Studios much of the winter months are spent interacting with members both new and old, creating lists and planning, planning, planning.  

The 2020 yellow guide was almost ready to go to the designer when we had to cancel everything.  

I wasn’t planning to exhibit this year but almost 400 others were.  

Chatting to  member Kate Green to pick her brain on how she uses social media, we talked about how it was a great pity not to do anything this summer. Kate thought about this and asked if  the COS management team would support her plan to organise  a local ‘Open Windows’ emulating what was already happening in Brighton and York where artists started to display art in their windows. 

Of course, Kate has the green light and I agreed to do the emails. Up to date we have 140+ artists on board, the website features a ‘virtual’ window and  splendid animation created by Bob & Carol Banks in Ely. Other members have volunteered to do the maps and plan out a social media campaign. 

Visit www.camopenstudios.co.uk

Finally, my window display. 

New Altar Cloth for The Leys School Cambridge

Recently, my dear friend Lynda showed me the patchwork piece she designed and made. It was, I think, her first ever piece of patchwork. She designed it as as new altar cloth for the chapel at the Leys School in Cambridge where her husband, the Reverend Clifford Meharry is retiring at the end of June as chaplain and teacher after 20 years of service.   With the end of term looming I offered my services to quilt and bind the piece. 

With much time on my hands, it was both an honour and a pleasure to do this for my friend. 

So, how should I quilt this piece?  The fabrics used were a mixture of old and new fabrics, mostly interfaced to give them some support. The prints were busy and after a bit of trial and error, I came the conclusion that free motion quilting would detract from the design. I wanted the crosses to really sing. 

Here I had a go at stitching 'in the ditch'. Didn't like this. Free Motion Quilting didn't work either as the quilt was rather heavy and the thread simply disappeared. 

Here is a close up of me using my walking foot and a built in stitch called 'serpentine' where I adjust the width of the wave as a well as the stitch length.  

Here are the settings on my new Janome machine which has a nice wide arm. Still getting used to used to it. I use stitch #20 adjusted from the default with a longer stitch length and a wider 'wave'. 

Here I am in my studio quilting. 

I wear textured gloves to make it easier to move the fabric around

Here is the finished altar cloth. Doesn't it look great with the stained glass?