Guess where I've been....

to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham that's where.   

And guess who got to take a class with the Fat Quarterly crew.  Well... two of them anyway.  Katy Jones on the left and Tacha Bruecher on the right did a really good job of entertaining teaching us all we ever wanted to know... and more... about paper piecing. 



You can  see a photo of our class on Katy's blog.    I'm the one trying to make two lattes levitate by the power of thought.   Sally should have been in the empty seat but she'd gone to buy a glue stick.  That girl does not use thread if she can help it.  Chris .... on the right of the empty chair... might actually be asleep.  She was exhausted poor thing.

I bet you'd be ready for a nap if you'd just spent two days desperate to see everything there was to be seen in here....

I'd have loved to show you lots more happy photos of the three of us (Chris...Sally and me) getting up to high jinks at the Festival but as we are all prone to ducking behind pillars or running for the nearest exit whenever there's a camera about... I'm afraid I can't.    Take it from me though.... lots of laughs were had.  Lots of lovely lattes were consumed. Each day of our trip was rounded off with good food and copious amounts of Vino Calapso.  And each night we went to sleep dreaming of quilts and the goodies we'd buy tomorrow.   That was after we'd taken the indigestion remedy and painkillers that is.... amazing how many body parts ache when you're the wrong side of 50! 

There was a grand total of 1179 quilts entered in the various competition categories.  It's a mammoth task get round them all.  Especially as there's also a couple of hundred traders tempting you with everything you could ever want... and more.  

 

Here's a photo of a special favourite of mine.....

 

 

   

the winner of the Traditional Quilts category  'Hearts Desire' made by Deborah Kemball.   

You won't believe it (alright you would) but I bought her book Beautiful Botanicals a while back.    If you love applique then you really should add it to your library ... you won't regret it.

I did take more photos of other quilts that caught my eye for one reason or another.  In fact I took way too many to include in a post without blowing the gubbins out of my computer.    Because I didn't want you to miss out.... I figured out how to add a Flickr Badge in my sidebar.    Wow... even I'm impressed with me!  So.. take a minute.. grab a cup of tea click on it and take a look.   There's bound to be something there to get your creative juices flowing. 

The trip was lovely and I wouldn't have missed it for the world... but it's still nice to be home.   Especially when I get to do this....

tramp about the garden in the pouring rain rounding up fugitive cows!.  Seems we do have greener grass on our side of the fence after all.

Now!  Right here.... right now... I promise to blog again tomorrow and show you all the goodies that came home with me. 

Till then....

Hugs

Josie X