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.

Machine Embroidery Workshop

Well, these photos just go to prove that you can do free machine embroidery/quilting if you give it a go, and nine of the group did give it a go today under the guidance of Essex based textile artist Alex Waylett. All bar one had done some free machine embroidery/quilting before so, for those of you who are still a bit reticent to drop those feed-dogs and go for it, this just proves you can go from the absolute beginning to a beautiful embroidered/quilted purse in a day.

Anne's

Chris's

Gemma's

Pam's

Elaine's

Karen's

Shirley's

Tina's

Wendy's

Well done everyone.

April

This month we kicked off with our first AGM. As well as review of the year, we looked at the group's constitution and agreed a few changes to take the group forward. The new constitution will be uploaded shortly.

On to the much more interesting stuff.

Firstly, we welcomed new member Sam taking us to 22 registered members. 

And what have we been making since March, I hear you ask?

Lesley's been busy again. As well as a 'worn and washed' quilt (no photo), she's started this one using flannels; it's gorgeous.

Heather's almost finished this super satchel for her daughter.







Anne has decorated small papier mache boxes that she plans to fill with chocolate eggs for Easter gifts.

Barbara has designed an 'Elmer the elephant' cushion; are you all saying 'aaaah'? Barbara created her own pattern for this and added a gusset to create some depth.







And, we don't just do patchwork and quilting. Wendy is also a member of the Embroiderer's Guild and is working on this lovely button sampler. 

We also took a look at what's involved in making fabric postcards. Will anyone be brave enough to put them in the post though? 

Maria won these two in the postcard tombola at Quilters Guild AGM & Conference in Portsmouth last weekend.

March

Well, March's meeting saw the first 'swap' of our group mystery block challenge. With 17 people taking part, this is going to be a challenge, not least having to number and swap the folders for the first time, trying to avoid mother and daughter members getting each other's folders! 

The next challenge block will be based on triangles so, for those fairly new to patchwork and in response to requests to learn techniques at group meetings, we looked at half square triangles (HSTs) and quarter square triangles (QSTs). Good luck everyone!

Last month the photos I took were useless. I have some better ones from this month's show and tell.

Anne's made a lovely bag (and is working on a second one).

Jenny's made progress on her pretty bed runner.

Denise has been knitting for Easter.

Barbara has completed another miniature quilt.

And Heather's made a raggy bag.

Next month, we'll have a go a fabric postcards.