Thursday, May 21, 2009

Electric Quilt Workshops from Barbara Chainey

If you've ever thought that you're not making the most of EQ6 or you want to get started with Electric Quilt as a beginner then this is the class from you. Well-known quilt teachers Chris Franses and Barbara Chainey have teamed up to bring you a hands on class using "their favourite quilt design program" EQ6 - their words not ours!




From blocks.....


to quilts!

All this creativity will be happening in Stone, Staffordshire which is easily accessible from the M6 and A34 - just one hour from Birmingham, Manchester, Chester, Shrewsbury, Worcester and Leicester.

The workshop is on Saturday 12th September 2009 and will run from 10am to 4pm. Places are limited to 12 students and the cost is a bargain at £40 - just think about how much fun you'll have designing quilts, playing with colour and enjoying their famous chocolate biscuits throughout the day!

Further details and for how to book - visit their website - http://www.chrisandbarbara.co.uk/

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Friday, June 6, 2008

Quilts UK at Malvern Roundup

Things were so busy after the Malvern Show that I never found the time to post some of the pictures from the show. As usual it was a great opportunity to meet with our customers - being fairly local to the show its always nice to see some familiar faces and of course for our mail order customers to finally put a face to a name!

Talking about putting a face to a name...I was delighted to meet Lee Cleland at the show. She was buying some items on the stand and with a distinctive Australian accent it was clear that she wasn't originally from the West Midlands or anywhere near it. I actually remember where I was when I first opened the book "Quilting Makes The Quilt" which Lee wrote in 1994. I was totally amazed by the effect of different quilting designs on the same patchwork design. It was really inspiring. Lee told me she'd made all the quilts in the book (which quite frankly must have been a huge amount of work) and that the book is still in print 14 years later. I did feel a bit like a groupie when I took a picture of Lee and Barbara Chainey (they are great friends and Lee has been staying with Barbara on her trips to the UK) on Barbara's stand. Although Barbara is very much a hand quilter and Lee is totally into machine quilting they share a lot in common (including a great sense of humour!)






Jane Hopkins, winner of the Large Wallhanging category, received the Cotton Patch Cup - here she is with Geoff Sewell from The Cotton Patch in front of the Cotton Patch stand.


For the past few years we've had the same crew of people working at the show and with a few additional members of staff we'll also be at the Festival of Quilts in August. For those of you who don't know us we are (from left to right). Nik, Liz, Pam, Angela, Denise and Diana.




We brought more items than ever before to the Malvern Show (although there are always some things we wished we brought!) - a very full Omnigrid and Clover stands show just some of the miscellaneous products we had on offer.






Like all shows the setup day (usually a Wednesday) is the culmination of many days of planning and packing - so to go from this to...




.. this in the space of seven hours usually involves quite a lot of hard work. Thanks have to go to all the other staff who help us on setup day - Alan, Adam and David for example (very useful for the heavier items and for driving the vans).

Thanks must also go to staff back at base - we top up stock every day and throughout the day call up with a long list of what we need. And of course the mail order has to continue even when we're at the show!










At the end of the day we appreciate every single customer who stops by - it makes it all worth while. Plus for Adam, Denise and Alan the lunchbreak on setup day had the bonus of a fabulous view!

We look forward to seeing you next year.

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