September's meeting

Firstly, we welcomed two new members, Pam and Joan. 

Last month's bring and buy proved a great success and Jenny was please to report that she raised a wonderful £45 of the Parkinsons Society, a charity close to her heart. There was a resounding 'yes' to the question 'shall we do this again next year then?"

Our shown-and-tell seems to be getting longer and longer so we may have to rethink this for 2015. Meanwhile, this is September's show-and-tell, including some finishes!!! One lovely bed runner is not begin revealed now as it is a gift and we don 't want to spill the beans here!

Innocent hats by Barbara & Katie

Advent Calendar by Pam

Pam's 'album cover' quilt

Quilt-in-progress by Lesley

Batik runner by Tina

Blue & white quilt by Tina

Quilt-in-progress by Rosemary

Folk Art Applique by Lesley

Next month we'll be starting on out Secret Santa mug rugs.

(It looks like Blogger's messing up again the layout of our photos!)

August 2014, Bring-and-Buy Sale

With so many of us having bits and pieces at home surplus to requirements, this month we held a bring-and-buy sale.  Needless to say, we all went home with different bits and pieces, none of us really making a huge dent in our own stash!!!!

We welcomed a guest, Janet, a good friend of two members. Janet has soft furnishing remnants for sale - fabrics, trims etc - that are ideal for smaller patchwork and quilting projects, in particular those lovely purses we're all so keen on.

Jenny needed two tables; one for her own sales and another for the sale of donations to her from family members no longer able to stitch, the proceeds from which are destined for the Parkinsons' Disease Society. 

This was great fun and something I'm sure we'll repeat.

As always, we like to show off and here is this month's show-and-tell ( I expect Blogger will do all sorts of strange things again with the formatting, hey-ho!!!!):

Quilt in progress - Vera

Raggy quilt - Vera

Baby quilt - Michele

Baby quilt - Jenny

Log Cabin birds - Barbara & Katie

Cushion - Natalie

Runner in progress - Gemma

Pom-pom scarves - Anne

Christmas tree 1 - Rosemary

Christmas tree 2 - Rosemary

Sampler - Tina

Apple Core sample - Tina

EPP sample - Tina

July's meeting

Hot enough for you? As it's a little cooler just now I, for one,  am feeling more comfortable and energetic enough to write the update for July. Will it last though?

As expected, our Sewing Bees made it into last week's Brentwood Gazette as the newspaper published a round-up of the Brentwood Arts Festival events.

This month, we moved on to our fourth mystery block, the Log Cabin block. With 17 people taking part in the challenge, that's a lot of folders, several of which are bulging already. 

As usual, we saw some lovely pieces at show-and-tell:

Karen's bead embroidered bag

Elaine's bag #1

 

Gill's quilt in progress

Elaine's bag #2

Wendy's crazy patchwork & embroidery

Maria's cushion

Heather's quilt-in-progress

Lesley's bag

Tina's bag

Tina's quilt

Tina's purse

For next month, we've decided on a bring-and-buy as we've all got crafty bits and pieces that are surplus to requirements for one reason or another. Hopefully, they'll be just what someone else is looking for!

Village Fayre & Brentwood Arts Festival

The group has supported two events in recent weeks. 

Warley Village Fayre is held on the last Sunday of June each year. The group was invited to attend last year at quite short notice and declined, but promised to support it this year. Quite a few visitors stopped to chat and we made a few sales in between showers. All-in-all an enjoyable day, made better by the addition of the back and two sides of the gazebo to protect us from the blustery showers.

Brentwood Arts Festival  - as an affiliated group to Brentwood Arts Council, we hosted two sewing bee events as part of the arts festival, yesterday and today. It was lovely to meet so many friendly and talented people, and to see the variety of crafts - knitting, crochet, patchwork, gold work, embroidery, Hardanger work, lace making, mixed media work. We welcomed 12 visitors yesterday and a further 14 today and are chuffed to bits that so many made the effort to join us. The local newspaper turned up today too to take some photos for an article about the arts festival.

June's meeting

Yet again, loads to see at our show-and-tell this month, such a talented group and so many other sewing/textile skills to share:

Machine embroidery and welt felting:

Machine embroidery - Wendy

Machine embroidery - Wendy

Wet felted bowl - Wendy

Knitting and crochet:

Crocheted bag -Tina

Knitted animals - Katie & Barbara

Purses:

Purses - Karen

And, last but by no means least, patchwork and quilting:

Paintbrush roll - Heather

English Paper Piecing - Tina

Flying Geese - Michelle

Flying Geese - Rosemary

Advent calendar - Maria

We're looking forward to attending the village fayre in Warley on 29th, and to hosting the sewing bees on July 10th and 11th. The latter are part of of the Brentwood Arts Festival. Do have a look at the programme that's on the festival website as there are some 45 different events across music, drama and visual arts. For those of you reading this and looking for 'textiles', there will be textile pieces in the Art Trail that starts June 28th for two weeks, Windmill Patchwork & Quilting group will be opening their meeting on July 7th with an exhibition of work and the "The Brentwood Bombers" yarn-bombing group will be exhibiting at West Horndon railway station. Details of the Art Trail venues/artists and all the Festival events are on the website, including details of how to book tickets to ticketed events. 

May's Meeting

We welcomed new member Michele, taking our numbers now to 23. Even though we do car share quite a bit, the car park is getting quite full now so we will soon be introducing a waiting list.

Nevertheless, do still get in touch in you're interested in joining us. We are one of the few groups that welcomes absolute beginners and is happy to do some teaching. If we can't accommodate you immediately, Maria may be able to let you know about new groups starting nearby or, perhaps, help you start your own new group.

On the 'up' side then, in addition to the lovely embroidered purses from last Sunday, and despite the lovely hot weather recently and being able to get outdoors more now, the ladies have been busy stitching; take a look:

Bag -  by Anne 

Crocheted pincushion - by Chris

Quilt blocks - by Heather

Tea light mat - by Lesley 

Fabric postcard- by Karen

I know we're a patchwork and quilting group, but it is lovely to see all the other crafty efforts by the group members. As we saw with the free machine embroidery, sewing disciplines can be mixed-and-matched so it's great to find out about, and maybe try, new things.

And, after the success of out first weekend workshop, it looks like we'll now be planning another. This time it'll be a 'bag day'; more on this later as the plans firm up.

Creeping up on us fast, we're looking forward to Warley & Childerditch Village Fayre coming up on June 29th, followed by the Brentwood Arts Festival July 5th - 12th ........ and in there somewhere will probably be our first Christmas themed project for 2014.