Friends and Fabrics

 

This fabric bundle has been sitting on the cutting table for several days now but is still pristine and uncut. I have a plan in my head to make a Spring quilt using these lovely soft greens and yellows but the motivation to sew has just not kicked in yet. I've been having far too much fun, since I finished work, meeting with friends, tidying the garden and generally chilling out in this Spring heatwave we're having at the moment!

Last week I met up with a new friend: Helen from France. I met her in the discussion group of the 'More Patchwork Illusions' class I took on Quilt University. She was over here visiting her parents in York so we arranged to meet in the Aroma Coffee Shop in Haxby - well worth a visit and the cakes looked delicious.When I arrived I easily recognised her as she was waving her quilt block  in the air! We had a lovely natter until closing time. I hope we can keep in touch and meet up again sometime. This week I've  been out to lunch and coffee with friends - it's great to have the time to catch up.

This morning was very exciting as I met another new friend - Nel who is an artist and fabric designer living just a few miles away. She phoned to make contact with my quilt group because she was looking for someone to help with block designs to use with her fabrics. She has designed the gorgeous 'Happy Go Lucky' range of fabrics for Free Spirit.

She brought her fabrics round to show me. Here are a couple of the colourways:

I'm afraid my photos don't do the fabrics justice because the sun was casting shadows. The colours are so bright and cheerful. I'd downloaded fabric images from the Free Spirit website to I could show here a block design I had played with in EQ7. We had fun trying out different colour combinations and I'm going to make up a block or two for her to see how they look.

Nel has an excellent website and blog where you can see a gallery of her art and the wide range of items featuring her designs. Click here to pay her a visit. She'll be the featured artist on the Cotton Patch stand at the festival of quilts this year and exhibiting at other events such as the Chelsea Flower Show so do watch out for her.