October

I've been out every day and most evenings for at least one week and this is the first opportunity to post the update from this month's meeting.

We welcomed a new member, Jacqui who we first met when she came along to one of our Sewing Bees during the Brentwood Arts Festival back in July.

Our thoughts are now on the programme for next year so we had a bit of a brainstorm to come up with ideas - and there were quite a few! These have all been sorted out and it looks like the ideas can be grouped into a number of one-day workshops as well as some great ideas for our Wednesday meetings. More on all of this once we've firmed up the ideas.

On to show and tell then. A very talented bunch with examples of not only patchwork and quilting.

Jenny's Xmas hanging

Vera's little quilt

Tina's table mat

Tina's mug rug

Tina's table mat

Tina's table mat

Wendy's applique

Wendy's stump work

Wendy's xmas hanging

Denise's santa

Natalie's doorstop

Heather's bed quilt

Pam's quilt (in progress)

September - more photos

Two more show-and-tell photos from September's meeting. For some reason, these had not uploaded to my laptop and were still sitting on my phone. Lovely pieces both of them.

Mixed media by Wendy

Framed machine appliqué by Pam

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.