I’ve a few sewing dates in my diary which I’m pretty excited about…

Festival of Quilts; 9th – 12th August at NEC

I’ve wanted to go to the Festival of Quilts for a couple of years but it’s always clashed with another date or I’ve not been able to get time off work. This year I’m going!! For the first time ever at a big show I’ve also booked a two day ticket and a couple of workshops!!! The show is held in Birmingham (where my daughter is at Uni) so I’m getting the early morning train down on the Thursday so I’ll be at the NEC for 10am when it opens. I can wander round the show in the morning, then in the afternoon I’ve booked two 1.5 hour workshops, both as it happens leaning more towards embroidery than quilting.

It’s tiring going round shows, so my theory is that by having three hours sat down I’ll then be rejuvenated to carry on wandering round! I’m staying in an Air B&B a couple of miles away for the night, so I can then return on the Friday for another wander round before Helen picks me up after lunch to drive home! I’ve even got a project to buy for as I’ve promised my niece a quilt!

If anyone fancies meeting up for coffee, let me know 🙂

Butterfly Brooch; 25th August at Fabbadashery in Halifax

This workshop is by Emma Frith, it’s to embroider a beautiful butterfly brooch. My plan is not to use it as a brooch, but to make another three and mount them like a tradition butterfly display. Lets see how the first one goes before I make too many plans!

Great Northern Quilt Show; 31st August to 2nd September at Great Yorkshire Show Ground

This is a much smaller show but there’s still plenty of stalls and an excellent exhibition of quilts. I’m not sure what day I’m going yet but I’ve promised my mum I’ll take her again, though this time I might take a wheelchair for her.

Raggedy Ruff BOM from September

I like to do Block of the Months to learn something, whether it’s basic piecing like the first couple of Pat Sloan ones I made, or lots of new techniques like with the Splendid Sampler quilts. Sometimes I choose a BOM to learn a specific technique (and because I love the design!) so I did the Down the Rabbit Hole to learn to do applique properly.

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed an absolutely beautiful quilt on one of the facebook pages, it has British wildlife and flowers all around the quilt, it’s just gorgeous, when it was finished the maker mentioned that she would be offering it as a BOM, I was signed up within half an hour! She uses raw edge applique with machine embroidery, I’ve never done machine embroidery before, so that was a good reason to sign up. On her website (Raggedy Ruff Designs) she has some beautiful free designs, so I’m hoping to have chance to try one before I start the actual quilt. This free swallow pattern gives you an idea of what the quilt is like.

Sew Up North; September 29th in Leeds

This is a bloggers meetup, going round the fabric shops in Leeds, the organisers Becca and Sally have had to make it ticket only as the final venue is limited to 150, tickets are free but you do need to register. Whilst I’m local to Leeds so the shops are my usual haunts it’s great to meet up with everyone and chat sewing all day! Becca and Sally also work really hard to get lots of sponsors, so there’s a great raffle at the end and lots of money is raised for Yorkshire Air Ambulance. There’s always a swops table to, piled high with fabric and patterns!

There’s so much happening in the next three months, it’s pretty exciting 🙂