After my talk we were then treated to the excitement of the raffle draw and a great 'show & tell' session with a fabulous variety of quilts. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did. Unfortunately I was not able to write down the names of the makers, so I give my apologies.

After all that excitement there was time for tea and delicious homemade cake (you probably know how I feel about cake) before we all said farewell.  

My wholehearted congratulations to everyone at Moonraker Quilters for hosting such a great day.
 

Moonraker Quilters
Meeting Day: 3rd Wednesday of every month, 2pm-4.30pm
Venue: Southbroom Parish Rooms, Devizes
Contact: Sue Daniels
Email: tony.daniels1941@gmail.com
Phone: 01380 729721

Thanks for reading.

I am delighted to extend a personal invitation to you 
to attend my first solo UK exhibition 

'Here and Far'
at Midsomer Quilting
 Opens 1st May until 11th May 2015


10 am until 4 pm daily (Sunday 10.30am)

I very much look forward to meeting you if you are able to visit.


 I shall be at Midsomer Quilting every day from 10 am until 4 pm 
 1st May until 11th May 2015.

As you can probably imagine, my sewing machine is busy busy busy! Time is flying and the 1st of May is rapidly approaching. Hanging sleeves and labels are all over the place - I keep asking myself why I leave these jobs to the end! 

If you are not familiar with Midsomer Quilting it is a fabulous shop in the small village of Chilcompton in Somerset run by three lovely people, De, Chris and Birgitta. It is located in the grounds of Norton Green Garden Centre and has lots of free parking and easy access for wheelchairs. The shop is incredibly well stocked and has comfortable seating and endless free tea and coffee for those who wish to take a break from shopping, enjoy a chat or for those accompanying hardcore shoppers. The map below will help you find the shop; zoom in for more detail.

Midsomer Quilting, Norton Green Garden Centre, Chilcompton. BA3 4RR

Thank you for reading. I very much hope to see you soon!

Here they are at last - a long time coming, but for me, a cause for celebration. The first 4 of the 8 'Wiltshire's White Horses'.
I have really enjoyed researching the horses, discovering their stories, walking to them and making the quilts. 

So this is how I used them on the White Horse quilts; very simply with a freezer paper stencil.
It isn't very sophisticated, but it gave me a perfect, clean edge to the grid reference numbers I wanted beneath the name of each horse. Using the pencils allowed me to carefully apply colour exactly where I wanted it. 
I used the following colours; shiraz, poppy red, chestnut and saddle brown. I applied the color onto the dry fabric and then simply brushed over with a gel textile medium. I chose textile medium as I did not want any colour to bleed under the edges of the freezer paper stencil - otherwise water would have been fine. The pictures below show my process.

The great thing is that once dry, the ink stain on the fabric is permanent and it can be further worked on and the colours will not mix or blend. 

So autumn is here at last. Happily it took a long time to arrive, but the nights are starting to draw in and I thought about putting the heating on last night!

So, whilst I was sat in front of my sewing machine yesterday, busy quilting a mountain, (more on that in another post) I started to think in earnest about a series I have wanted to make for a long time. The White Horses of Wiltshire. 
I started my research for this series in the spring, when I went in search of a few of the horses.

Being a mostly rural county of England with lots of beautiful countryside, Wiltshire is characterised by its high chalk downland and wide clay covered valleys. Salisbury Plain is famous as the location of the Stonehenge and to the north you can find Avebury stone circles and other ancient landmarks. Personally, I find these ancient monuments fascinating, but I am presently even more interested in some not-so ancient marks made on the earth that seem curiously overlooked - the 8 visible white horses scratched into the chalk hillsides.

As a child I remember looking out of the car windows, keeping an eye out for the sight of a white horse on a hillside. I remember being very puzzled by them - they made no sense to me, but they were huge and interesting, and sometimes we even stopped the car and walked the hills to sit on the horse's nose. 
Many years on it is still fun, although the steepness of the slope and the slippery chalk is much more of a challenge than it used to be. I was sliding down the nose like crazy in this picture!

Over the next few days I intend to work in my sketchbook, developing my ideas for the series. If the weather is good I also hope to go and walk the hills to a few of them and take some nice photographs to use too. 

There is a fantastic website with lots of great information about these hill figures;
http://www.wiltshirewhitehorses.org.uk/ , but apart from that there seems to be very little else. I must say I am rather puzzled. They are even poorly marked with regard to road signs - I think Wiltshire is missing a trick here, as I am sure I can't be the only person who thinks these horses are worth a visit! 

So - over the next few days I will post some of my sketchbook pages and share the development of this series as it unfolds. Hopefully I will convince others of the beauty of these curious creatures!