Tuesday 31 August 2010

Flower brooches


When I stay with my sister during the Festival of Quilts it has become a custom that on the Wednesday evening I lead a session for the village craft group.  This can be quite a challenge as it is a very mixed group: one quilter, a weaver (my sister), an upholsterer, a professional milliner, someone who only works in white, people who only hand sew.  You get the picture.  They have very different skills and interests but I have now learnt that what they like to do is make something that they can finish or nearly finish in the two hour session.  In the past I have variously gone too fast, assumed they all  know about rotary cutting and have not given tight enough instructions. This year I think I finally got it right.  We made flower brooches from tubes of fabric with buttons for centres.  There was an article in a recent issue of Quilting Arts www.quiltingarts.com which I used as the basis for the design but I simplified it.  The quilter rotary cut everyone's fabric and some people made them by hand while others used the sewing machine.


Here are some of the results.






And finally the two I made as samples: the plain blue one was made without any wadding and no sewing on the tube, the patterned one was made entirely by machine.


We agreed that those of us going to the Festival of Quilts next day would wear them but my sister and I never saw any of the other members of the group so we don't know if they did.

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