Strings galore

Isn't it amazing how the flowers bounce right back, the coating of snow doesn't seem to have hurt these polyanthus - maybe it just killed all the bugs.

I had a pretty busy weekend, prison on Saturday where the class went well and we have lots of quilts and tops to take to Wellington Guild meeting this week for Show & Tell.  We get so much support from quilters it is a buzz for me to take work along so people can see what happens to their donations of fabric.

Earlier I mentioned that I have been doing string or strip piecing for a long time, here is proof positive - my office in the family business, several years ago.........

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a typewriter - not a computer - on my desk, with its own strip pieced cozy; on the back of the chair a quilt and two little ones on the wall.
At least the typewriter was electric.........

Now in the eighties, no self respecting quilter was without string pieced, quilted garments - I had this jacket, and I remember feeling conspicuous wearing it until I got to Cuba Street in town, when I was overshadowed by some of the regulars........

And the back view

Also it was reversible, inside out it looked like this

You can see that Quilt As You Go is no novelty for me!  Though I did make one recently and learned a valuable lesson - do not use compressed batting!!

Ah yes, this one shows the binding not sewn on - boy, that was not easy and some of those joins are almost lethal.  I need to hammer the batting down to make it possible to sit on the quilt.

See it is finished - I love the back, those old fabrics - four pieces are part of a rather worn embroidered table cloth - I'm pretty sure I had those in a proper pattern...... I must have moved them around as I joined them - oh well............

One of the things I did early on was cut out the shape of an apron - yes, this was in the days when it was ok to wear an apron to protect your clothes, use as a basket, wipe noses or mop up blood etc. etc. - I then covered the base with strips; first in the traditional vee, my Christmas apron - a big lop sided and that's before having a tipple!

Then with the strings fanning out from one position -

Then I wondered if it were possible to change direction on the one apron -

And it was, and then another vee - chevron I think it was called, different colours -

After teaching on Saturday, a friend and I went to Pataka, had lunch at Kaizen - and they were having a day celebrating all things from Wales.  They had a display of handcrafts -

Two hexagon quilts and the Celtic knot that we were told was very old, and samples of  embroidery.  As we ate our lunch we were serenaded by the choir, unaccompanied and just lovely to hear. 

I couldn't resist snapping this lady draped in a flag, what a great emblem it is!

It seems ages since my last blog, so I am rattling on a bit.  Will close now and attend to pressing matters like answering emails, sending promised photo to a friend, doing the dishes.......

My thought for today comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "There are not days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination."

We will talk again soon, thanks for stopping by and for the lovely comments.
June