Silverware for Prometheus
June 28, 2012
Somehow I never seem to end up with good pictures from the awards. I feel for Vicky who has to try and get some good pictures for the magazine. Hopefully some of the other winners do a better job of looking presentable 
Anyway, this one is Roger presenting me with the Fran Jones Longarming award. I hope she approved of the quilt. She can’t come and check up on it any more, but I think of her, and the help she gave me when I was starting out whenever I see the trophy I won for Miss Baltimore. It’s one of those important awards. The ones that carry far more weight and meaning than people would expect.
Usually I try to get a picture with me holding the trophy in front of the quilt, but with 3 cups and a plat that wasn’t going to work. Fortunately the big cup comes with a box, so that helped a bit. The ones I am holding are slipping, and slipping fast.
Just to make things more fun is seems everyone’s cameras were playing up, so different people have pictures from different parts of the event. I am very glad there were a lot of people with cameras and indeed phones. The first two were taken by Angela from Patchwork Corner on her phone. This next one is from Vicky at Grosvenor, she takes the magazine photos. The plate is the wholecloth award and I really like the fact it comes with a stand.
Finally there is a picture of my stand with it’s trophies. When I’ve won things in the past I’ve left them on the Patchwork Corner stand to save me carrying them around. Doug, being Doug, tells everyone they are the prize for the best stand at the show. Given they hadn’t got a stand this time and I have, I guess that means I won best stand this time
Prometheus, some better pictures (I hope)
June 25, 2012
As ever if you click on the images you will get a bigger version and they are big. I hope this will mean those who haven’t seen it can get a good look at the stitching. I’m sorry there is nothing I can do to show you the size. This thing is huge. Well to be fair it’s about the same size as a lot of my bed quilts, but as show quilts go it’s on the large side.
Once upon a time I entered a quilt to this show that was too wide for the frame and too long. It dragged on the floor and looked like a curtain. It wasn’t good. Since then the organizers have bought bigger stands and until this quilt everything I made fitted.
Last year I came to Sandown and started asking what they could hang if they had to. Their official maximum was smaller than the fabric I was going to use. Well, they had planned ahead and bought extension units for the frames. Height wasn’t a problem. Width was more trouble. So we cam up with a plan. The quilt had to have a special sleeve. It has gaps at the points that the support bar for the quilt needs to be attached to the base frame unit. It also had to be hung on the end of a row. So there is a limit to how many monster quilts they can hang in one show. On the other hand they can, and will, hang these outsize beasts, so if you’ve got a monster quilt lurking how about entering it into the show next year?
This quilt is made from a single piece of fabric. Yes, it’s huge. No, it doesn’t have any seams. No, I didn’t dye it myself, do I look that stupid brave? It was dyed for me by Heide Stoll-Weber. I don’t know if she will be up for dying more of them but you can always ask her when she is at the Festival of Quilts in August. I had actually planned on using the fabric for both the top of a quilt and the binding, but when it came I couldn’t cut it. So I worked my design into her fabric. I’m very pleased I did.
The photographs actually probably give you a better idea of the shading of the fabric than you get in real life. There are places on the quilt where the thread changes the colour you see a lot, interestingly the camera picks up the background colour more.
The quilt contains about 16-18 cones of thread, in about 10 different colours. There is no actual trapunto it has two layers of wool wadding throughout the quilt. The trapunto effect just comes from the amount of quilting in the background.
At the moment the quilt is very stiff. If (when) it gets some real use it will soften up. Greek Fossils, the test piece for this quilt, has softened a lot and it has just been rolled and unrolled for a couple of years.
The quilt is pretty much reversible. The bobbin thread is the same colour as the top thread every where, so yes when I change one I have to change the other. The backing is a black and grey floral fabric, but you can’t see much of that any more We think there are between 400 and 600 hours work in the whole thing.
I think that covers most of the questions I got at the show. Please do ask if you have any questions I haven’t covered and do click on the images to get a closer look.
The National Quilt Championships – Prometheus
I still haven't unpacked my camera, though I have got the longarm back in the house so it isn't on the camera any more. For now you will have to make do with this close up of Prometheus with it's ribbons. They are for longarming, wholecloth, 1st place bed quilt and champion quilt (best in show). There is also a judges choice there, but I won't risk spelling the judges name until I have it in front of me.
Thank you
June 24, 2012I’ll blog properly later, but right now something important. I’d like to thank everyone who helped this weekend. I’m not even going to attempt to name you all because I know I would miss someone. So if you think I might mean you, I do Everyone who helped in any way. Those who did the heavy lifting, a special thanks, but those who found me the rather large space I needed, those who handled the beast of a quilt, those who just kept me sane. Thank you all. Same time next year?
My stand – edited
June 22, 2012
Here is my stand at the National Quilt Championships Sandown. As you can see I have the longarm with me and I am quilting during the show. I’ve got some Ferret Bites (mini and not so mini quilts) and my new pattern. I have talked to many people today and my throat is already getting sore. Just as well I was given some Scotish candy today to help soothe it. It has been good to meet friends new and old though.
Hmm, I’ve just seen the images (posting from the phone) my quilt stand is looking really saggy. I hope it makes it through the show. The pieces of fabric around the bottom of the shelves are the wholecloth blanks I was talking about earlier in the week. They are like colouring books for quilters. I’ve given you some outlines and your job is to fill them in with whatever designs and colours you want.
In the first photo you can see my new banner. I hope that will survive the weekend as I rather like it. Yes I stole the idea from the comics industry, and? It works for them why not for me Hanging on the front of the frame I have my first van project, which I quilted recently. I thought it would be a good splash of colour and it’s proving very popular. I may need to get in some of those kits.
Anyway, my printer is finally playing ball so I will have the extra signs I want for tomorrow. Then, at last, I can go to bed.
I can see my house from here
In fact from Sandown you can see a lot of London. On a sunny day I am fairly sure I can see my house. The rest of the time Wembley is about the best I manage.
Coming along
June 21, 2012
It's getting there. My machine is up and running (I am working on a couple more of the wholecloth blanks). I've got an amazing space I just hope I can do it justice. Can't wait to see you all. Oh apparently the beast was OK to hang and looks good. They are still judging to I haven't seen it yet, but I'm pleased they are pleased.
This is too early
I don't do mornings, well not from this direction at least. I can live with being up until the early hours. However early mornings are part of the job for quilters and today is one of them. I'm heading to Sandown with my longarm to go and built my stand. It's kinda exciting. I've not done it much which probably helps. On the other hand I've not done it much so the odds are I've forgotten something. At least I will be going home during the show so I have a chance to collect things I need.
The van is really full. I've got my longarm in here (yes I really am going to be quilting all weekend at the show) and quilts, and shelving and well stuff including the kitchen sink. To be fair the van always has a kitchen sink 
I've got our passes and the tickets for my guests so I probably have the most important stuff.
Now a handy tip for anyone coming to the show on Friday and using the M25. If you stay till the end of the show you will catch traffic. Lots of it. So you might like to comsider an early dinner. I discovered the Beefeater at Chessington (pretty much at the theme park) is really good. The staff are amazing, the food good and they have a big car park. I went there on Tuesday and was impressed, it also meant I followed rush hour home instead of being stuck in traffic. Result.
What’s in the box?
June 18, 2012
I’ve been being mean on facebook (I’m Ferret Capri there if you want to find me) and taunting people about a delivery I had today. I told folks it was a heavy box and the contents wasn’t as bright as Tet had feared. I also told them it was the result of mating stars with maths, which is true in the loosest possible way. It was actually a box full of my latest pattern. You may have seen my Fractal Stars quilt at shows and Tet’s will be at the National Quilt Championships this weekend, so this seemed a great time to launch the pattern. I’ve tried listening to what people want from their patterns, it’s bound like a book. It lies flat when you open it and has a large font so you can read it while it is propped up on your desk. Lots of diagrams and full colour through out. Oh and it even tells you a little about fractals.
The pattern will normally be on sale for 7 pounds but just for this weekend, it will be 5 pounds at the show. We are very proud of our new arrival, and I hope you will love it too.
PS. That’s Tet’s quilt on the cover!
Sandown is coming!!
Many of you will have noticed that I have a soft spot where the Sandown Quilt show is concerned. It was the first show I ever went to, entered or won at and it is my local show. Of course I love it. This year is going to be really special for me, I’ve got a demonstration space there, and I am going to be bringing my longarm along. This means that people will get to see that I really do move the machine about by hand. It’s not the flashiest set up, but it’s what I can fit in my house and it does the job.
When I was at Quiltfest in Wales earlier this year I quilted lots of A4 pieces which I called Ferret Bites. They were very popular, so I will be doing the same at Sandown. They are a chance for you to buy a little quilt to use as you see fit. I know some ladies were going to make a bag with them and some were just going to put them on the wall. I think they might make good covers for folders too, but I haven’t had time to try it yet.
I’ve also made up a few (and yes I do mean few) whole cloth blanks, or bare bones. The pictures today are of one of these I have started to fill in. The blanks come with a large design stitched on them with a thread that matches the background fabric, so they are really hard to photograph. The idea is you can then play with the fun part at home on your machine, adding colour and texture. I had thought it might be a good way for students to learn the feel of the bigger designs and one came up with the idea of couching a thread over all the outlines. I think that would be great, not only would it look good but it gives you the feel for the pattern. Perfect. I was worried they may not be perfect enough as I just stitched them freehand as the mood took me. However my students saw that as an active advantage, it shows it can look good without being perfect and they felt it gave them more leeway when adding their stitching. Works for me as a plan. If they prove popular I will make more and I will consider running classes where we fill them in. It was just one of those ideas you have when you really should be getting up in the morning, but so far it seems to have been well received.