Friday 7 June 2013

Ferretting around the Cotswolds

What's not to love about the Cotswolds...



 

Clean air, limestone buildings, quintessential Englishness...and my favourite shop in Burford has a FANTABULOUS sign outside...


So I did! - before getting on with the real reason for the visit...

A few years ago I discovered this lovely place - Farncombe estate - that runs all sorts of weekend courses, including the occasional quilting one. About a year ago my beady eye spotted a course, large whole cloths on small machines by one of my favourite quilters, Ferret. 

Now I've made a whole cloth quilt in the traditional hand quilted style - here it is hanging at the NEC festival of quilts in 2011...


It took 9 months or thereabouts and even now I'm jolly proud of it.  It earns its keep on the end of the bed keeping  my feet warm most nights.  But I'd really like to make a king sized bed sized whole cloth quilt.  But at that rate it would take me the better part of 7 years to make... so the promise of a faster way to make a bigger quilt on a machine...something that might just make your jaw drop...a bit like this one...

Prometheus by Ferret.
Well ...it was an opportunity not to be missed!

Friday night started with design...and oh how I instantly wished I'd paid more attention to the instructions as to what to bring.  A little more fore thought and I might have had less head scratching and crazy maths to work out how to  limit the designs in my head to the silly, suddenly surprisingly little piece of fabric I'd brought with me...I can't tell you how many times I checked the maths and wished I'd paid more attention in geometry classes...

 

It would be oh so much easier if I could only remember where I'd left my pencil...


Saturday morning dawned and we were greeted by the most marvellous views of the Cotswolds...

 

 

Who could fail to be inspired to get on with the work in hand...

Even if it involved "borrowing" some "acquisitions" from the dining room, bar and bedroom...


Resorting to the old fashioned "tape it to the window" method of design transfer...


 Auditioning top and bottom threads...

 

And finally....it took two attempts ...getting my head around the actual "join as you go" technique of cheating.


But I got there in the end and I predict me and this "cheating" approach to producing a large quilt will go a long way together....just watch this space...

The day finished with a gorgeous sunset... I wasn't alone trying to capture it on film...


Take it from me it was infinitely better than my photos show...




Maybe I should have had that large glass of wine first.. might have improved my photography skills...It certainly meant I was well rested and refreshed for Sunday morning and felt wonderfully calmed by the calm cool greenness of the estate and the sound of the wind gently whispering through the trees...





Sunday morning's lesson was all about filling stitching techniques... and how to progress from circles and pebbles, to hearts and marbles and leaves ...

 

To something all together more ambitious...

 

I confess to starting out keeping it simple...but we'll see how far I get when I finish this off at home...


I can only just begin to tell you how much I've enjoyed this weekend.  I've learnt SOOOO much, laughed so much and all in such a gentle relaxing inspiring situation and company.  In fact I feel as though my feet have hardly touched the ground all weekend long...


















1 comment:

  1. Wonderful write up - cannot wait to see the finished wholecloth quilt. Remember is does not matter that it's small now - with a little bit of 'cheating' you'll have a king size quilt before you know it!

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