Update Time

Well, what can I say, July and most of August have come and gone. As usual I have been busy,  with a lot of driving up and down motorways ( more of that in another post). I've managed to fit in a lot of sewing related trips ( accounting for some of the driving) including FQR in London, a shisha and kantha embroidery workshop, also in London, FOQ at the NEC and a day of longarm quilting using templates ( rulers) with Kim Brunner  at The Cottonpatch.

The classes in FQR retreat this year were fantastic! I won't say much , as it has been said in other peoples posts( Hadley did a great summary here  and here and here ) and I'm a bit late in the day but I learnt  masses in such a short space of time. Of course I haven't finished any of my samples, and I can't find my Thomas Knauer knots anywhere, though they must be somewhere in my sewing room. Jenny Kingwell is truly amazing and her quilts in real life were just stunning and so much better in real life than the photo's can convey.

After FQR retreat my shisha and kantha workshop was a real disappointment. It was meant to be 3 days and I only went for the first day. Life's too short to waste on poor classes. After the intense and focused teaching in FQR retreat it was like wading through treacle. The teacher was very pleasant but disorganised and this is all I achieved in one whole day of sewing:

I enjoyed my brief trip to FOQ and managed to meet up, if only briefly with tons of people. As usual I vowed to organise myself to visit on more than one day. It was  fantastic to see the LMQG stand with all their beautiful work. I completely missed the EMQG entry ( sorry Moira!).And I managed to resist buying too much but I did buy the microtech needles recommended by  Phillippa Naylor. She was demonstrating FMQ on the bernina stand. I really want to do one of her residential courses as she is so talented.
I spent one day at The Cotton Patch in Birmingham learning how to use rulers on the Handiquilter. This was very instructive and Kim Brunner is a very good teacher and had some great patterns which she shared with us. How about these as filler patterns:

 

Or the smaller version:

 

 

I now need to practice, practice and practice all I learnt to improve my skills. Oh and of course, I need to buy tons of new rulers .I'm glad I'll have something to ask for, for Christmas ( there I've said the C word ;0)) 

 

I have done some sewing as well. I've made my bee blocks:

 

 

These are  the July blocks for together@do.good stitches ( we had a break for August), and this

 

 

for FQ Bumbling Honeys for July. These are the August blocks:

 

 

I also perused t'internet and made a Superhero Cape for the 3 year old next door. I adapted this pattern by making it a bit more rounded in the corners and adding a Superman logo with his initial. Here is Harri, in his underpants , modelling it though he's approx. twice as tall as Haydn.

 

 

Needless to say, the recipient is over joyed with it and his friends have been fighting to borrow it. I may have to make some more!

 

I have a Q3 FAL finish to reveal in another post and I've made good progress on my medallion quilt.

 

 

The next round , after the flying geese is going to be this churn dash

 

 

If you are still with me up until now, I think that's enough. That's the trouble with not doing regular posts.