A Day Near the Seaside

Challenge Quilt from the Region 14 Day

Well I did go quite near the seaside but not quite within sight of the sea! I spent yesterday near Scarborough at a Quilters Guild Regional Day which had a seaside theme and had a lovely time. In the morning I led a group of members through making fabric postcards:

We traced pictures, coloured them with wax crayons, ironed to seal the wax, then stitched. The results are pretty aren't they? I'll be sewing a satin stitch edging around them to finish them.

Other quilters were busy blanket stitching:

Or cutting out, stitching and stuffing seaside themed creatures.

All of these lovely things are for display at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August. Our region will be hosting the breakfast event on the Saturday morning and all the fun activities and displays will be based on a proper Yorkshire seaside holiday! 

A regular event at the Regional Day is a challenge. Here were the items on display this time:

I'm afraid I can't tell you who made all of these fabulous quilts as it's a secret to allow everyone to vote for their favourite. I left before the end so I don't know which was the winner but I thought they all deserved a prize! We also had a wonderful show n tell but I wasn't in a good position to take photos at the time.

In the afternoon we had an inspiring talk called 'Journeys in Stitch' from Gillian Travis who told us about her travels around the world and showed us the quilts she was inspired to make. Gillian had brought with her an astounding number of journal quilts and some of her prize winners too. I thoroughly enjoyed her talk and found her work fascinating. She is well known for her townscapes:

My favourite are her Felt Flowers which won a first prize at the Festival of Quilts a couple of years ago:

Gillian has been working with a friend of hers in India to commission some special printed fabric for flower making kits and will be selling these at the Festival of Quilts this year. I plan to be first in line!

I came away with a bit of shopping too. Well it would have been rude not to buy something from the traders who were there!

These gorgeous Tilda fabrics were from Daisy Crafts whose shop is in Whitby. I also bought a Tilda book because ot was on special offer and I couldn't resist a bargain. From the bring and buy table I purchased a couple of Fons and Porter magazines which are difficult to get hold of around here:

So I came away a very happy bunny!

I can thoroughly recommend the regional days and they are open to everyone, not just Quilters Guild members. They are well organised, welcoming and friendly and lots of fun! The next one is on November 17th at Clifford Village Hall. Visit the Region 14 events page for more details of local events.