I was meant to be walking from Addingham to Skipton today with my walking buddy, along the route of a Roman road. However it’s persisting heavily, we’re fair weather walkers and setting off in heavy rain with no respite in sight for several hours is not our idea of fun. So what is a girl meant to do but retreat into the sewing room…

At the end of July it should have been the Festival of Quilts, a huge show down in Birmingham, I went a couple of years ago for the first time and loved it. Obviously this year the actual show was cancelled but the organisers have done their best to make an on-line event. I was particularly interested in the workshops, I signed up for two on line workshops, one with Wendy Dolan and one with Jenny Rayment. Although they were live we got a link so we could watch it any time until the end of August.

I watched Jenny’s workshop live, it was called Folding Circles, a Floral Fascination. I really enjoyed it, she came across as really friendly and approachable, keen to share her skills. She goes at quite a pace, so I’d be very surprised if anyone managed to keep up, but as you could re-watch it as many times as you want this month, it really didn’t matter. In the end I just enjoyed the demonstration and stitched afterwards…

We started off with six squares of one fabric and three squares of two others. I chose three batiks from my stash. Basically we stitched them together and cut into circles so we had one colour on the back and half and half on the front. We used a 60′ triangle to mark the stitching lines and stitched them together into a circle. Then it was a matter of ‘playing with fabric’ as Jenny puts it, stitching points on the circle to get the flower effect. This was my circle as I stitched the first set of points together…

Having stitched my flower I felt it was calling out for a bit of embroidery and embellishment…

I blanket stitched round the petal edges, added beads to the stitched points and then started adding sequins and pearls, together with embroidery using fly, chain and feather stitch. The centre looked a bit messy, it needed something adding, so I rummaged in my bead box and stitched a cluster of beads over the middle where everything joined up.

I was pretty pleased with my flower and decided to make it into a cushion. I found a Voyager fabric remnant (our curtain shop in Otley has some good sales!!) which went perfectly colourwise. I’m still not 100% sure the style goes but it will suffice! I used a simple running stitch around the flower and then echoed it with a second row on the background…

…and there it sat, waiting to be finished until this morning. I squared it up, cut an overlapping backing and stitched it together. I’ve used a pretty ribbon for the ties, it’s really a Christmas one as it has mistletoe on it but I decided the colour went well and it wasn’t blatently Christmas!

I’m getting quite a collection of cushions in my conservatory now.

I really enjoyed Jenny’s workshop, the circles are one of the projects in her recent book ‘Material Magic’ too. I might even be tempted to attend one of her retreats at Quilt Sandwich in Bridlington, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her name on their website.

In the meantime I need to watch Wendy Dolan’s workshop…