Sorrento Sunshine and Stitching

I’ve been very fortunate this year to have spent five, yes five! weekends away sewing with friends, the latest being this last weekend having been invited down to Sorrento to stay with the lovely Linda and friends.

We were blessed with superb Spring sunshine and apart from stitching, spent some time meandering the main street, indulging in shopping, and enjoying cafe life!  Very pleasant indeed.

Linda’s beach house is just charming; loving restored and extended, it’s a great place for entertaining and I can see why she and her family and friends enjoy their stays.

I badly covet these ginger jars

There are two of them; I just can’t understand why Linda won’t let me have one!!

All round the house are displays of beachy/nautical/summery inspiration

there was lots of reading (of the quilt type!)

and, of course, quilts!

As well as the finished variety there was plenty of evidence over the weekend of quilts in the making!

Bonnie is progressing well on her applique

Bev was working on a gorgeous red and white applique – which I just luuuuurve!  (Several pics here and no apologies!)

The quilt is from Mary Koval’s Favourite Blue and White Quilts book which Bev is making in red and white instead.  It will be stunning, I’m sure you’ll agree!

Made the acquaintance of the absolutely delightful Sue, and I now have another convert to hand quilting (yippee!!), as well as a new friend.  Sue and I spent a little time over the weekend learning and teaching hand quilting on an antique quilt top Sue purchased from Mary Koval when she was here a little while ago.  Must say Sue is a very apt pupil and picked up the technique pretty quickly.  Can’t wait to see how the quilt looks when it’s done!

Doing a little investigating, we think the blocks may have been made by one person and then put together using the green fabric by someone else; there are 2 distinct styles of stitching used, also the blocks are well made and the borders appear to be a little haphazard in their execution!  I did think I’d taken a photo of the whole quilt, but I must have been dreaming.  I’m sure Linda will have one on her blog soon.

The other photo I forgot to take was of Di’s gorgeous hexagon quilt she is making for her granddaughter – apologies Di!  The hex’s have red and white gingham centres with pretty pink, red or green surrounds – just delightful.

Linda was a woman on a mission working on the last quilt for the Quilts in the Barn exhibition at the beginning of September.  Very quickly this pile of fabrics

became rows of tumblers like this

and by weekend’s end most of the rows were together.  Hoping it’s at the quilters now Linda!!

And what did I get up to?  Well I needed some instant gratification (waiting  on the next installment of Beguiling Billings!), so took the sewing machine and a couple of different sets of fabrics.

This jelly roll (which is “Nest” by Tula Pink) had been sitting around for a long time, and I’d seen a pattern around the traps I liked, so undid this

created this mess

and in one day made this

(I would have liked another round on the blocks, but needed a second jelly roll for that.)  Think I’d like to hand quilt this with pearl thread in a variety of colours.  What do you think?  Then just bind it for a snuggle quilt.

And the second project? Over the years I’ve picked up some Japanese fabrics and had decided it was time to make a “something” with them.  This “something” had obviously been playing around in my head as I woke one morning last week with a block design in mind – I do like dreaming in quilt language!  This weekend was the perfect time to experiment with the idea and I’m pretty pleased with the results.  Here are the fabrics:

and here is the start of the blocks:

Not sure if they’ll go that way or this

Need to make a few more – plenty of fabric for that!

We ate exceptionally well over the weekend (thanks to all the chefs!); on the sweet side of things, I’d made hedgehog to take down.

It’s strange tho’ that it doesn’t all fit into the container (no, I don’t have a bigger one……. not that I’m admitting to anyway!) so there are always just a couple of leftovers, and as B is not a hedgehog fan…..

And Di brought down this fabulous chocolate cake she’d made

Yes, with it’s own special sauce and lashings of cream……. I know, I know, I’m off for a walk!!

Thanks for a great weekend girls!!

Happy stitching

Meredithe