A wonderful weekend!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of learning from and being inspired by about 20 other quilters.

Bev and Linda organised 2 days of fun, hand stitching, talk, yummy food, friendship, sharing and inspiration led by Marg Sampson-George from Sydney.

I have been drawn to the Jane Pizar quilt for some months now and when I heard it was one of the quilts Marg was offering I jumped at the opportunity! You can see a picture of the original Jane Pizar quilt here on Barbara Brackman's blog. I love the centre medallion, but also the huge variety of smaller blocks which surround it.

Both mornings the drive up to Linda's was beautiful with sunshine contrasted by frosty roadsides and fields. As I drove and the sun warmed the leaves of the overhanging gum trees small droplets of water fell on the car.

We were greeted by a spacious, well lit room with large tables and a cozy, warm fireplace. (which I managed to sit nice and close to!!)

Marg shared with us several of her stunning quilts and while talking about each of the quilts she dicussed their background history, colour and fabric selection and how they were constructed. All of Marg's quilts had an enormous variety of fabrics with different weaves and from different eras, but the fabrics all worked together.

As we chose a pattern and began selecting fabrics Marg came around and spent time helping each of us individually with our fabric choices. Everyone had bags, baskets or even small suitcases of fabric!!

Several times during each day we would walk around the room and admire what everyone was making. The variety of fabrics was enormous!

So far I have completed the inner circle of diamonds.

  

Once again I have chosen lots of French General fabrics, but there are also some Dargate fabrics and other repros. Although many people construct this section using English Paper Piecing I made templates and hand pieced.

Most of the fabrics have been selected for the 2nd round.

At the end of Sunday several people brought quilts from home for a show-and-tell.

Thank you Bev, Linda, Marg and everyone else who was there on the weekend! The best weekend in ages!!! :)



I have rarely used Google Reader in the past, but I have signed up for Bloglovin and claimed my blog (see previous post) There is a new button in my sidebar.
After reading Chookyblue's post I will probably use Feedly, just in case sometime goes awry with reading from my blog list or dashboard.

Back soon with lots more sewing. :)