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Threads of Silver

West Bridgford Patchwork Group presents their latest exhibition of group work

Threads of Silver

12 women and their quilts,
25 years of sewing  and friendship

at the Friary United Reform Church, Musters Road, West Bridgford, Nottingham

September 2008, Saturday 13th 10am-6pm; Sunday 14th 1pm-6pm.

Refreshments, Sales - in aid of the Friary Drop In Centre

New Column title

My column in The Quilter, the magazine of the Quilers' Guild of the British Isles, has been running since Autumn, 1990. Having started as 'Wrinkles and White Hairs', it  has more than once been renamed. With the arrival of a new Editor at the magazine, it was felt that the time had come to take a fresh look at it again.

Due to pressure on space in the magazine, the column will now appear twice a year and readers may have already noticed the new name - 'Snippets'.

This was one of several options proposed by Anne Beaven & discussed at great length, as those who shared the same breakfast table in the hotel at the 2007 AGM in Scarborough could attest. However, the content will basically remain the same and your contributions continue to be essential to its continuation.

Lastly, a big thank you to everyone who wrote in to ask that the column should continue!

Sixtieth Birthday Quilts

In January 2007 when I reached my 60th birthday, I was stunned and delighted to receive a collection of little quilts from many of my quilting friends. The form of the project was to make a quilt the size & shape of a plastic cutting ruler - as you will see, some people had 24" & some 18" rulers! A member of the group had been involved with a similar project elsewhere. This proved to be a good idea allowing everyone freedom to use design ideas and techniques without concern over whether the final works would sit well together.

It was suggsted that they would be useful (as well as decorative) when I go on teaching or speaking trips to illustrate various techniques & indeed have so far received a very warm reception everywhere they have been shown. In case you are wondering, there is a perfect space between two doors in my home where I can hang them, one at a time. It is fun to switch them about to suit my mood or the season.

Everyone who contributed to this collection has chosen colours or themes that they thought would appeal to me but I can also see something of themselves in there too. Please visit the Gallery, Sixtieth Birthday Quilts to enjoy them for yourself!

Colour catchers are back!

Regular readers of my column in The Quilter will hopefully recall my enthusiastic recommendation of 'colour catchers' to avoid nasty accidents when washing quilts (or any other items). The first of these products that I discovered was called a "Dye Magnet" and used to be available from Lakeland either in store or by mail order. It looks like a piece of white towelling and can be used repeatedly.

When this product vanished off the shelves I switched to using and recommending the Colour Catcher, produced by Glocare. Their product looks like a sheet of non-woven interfacing and after use looks as if it is only waiting to be included in a piece of textile art! It is recommended for single use only, though my own experience is that after using on a load of fairly light coloured items, it seems to work satisfactorily on a second darker load. However, this product is smaller in the wash and has been found sometimes to be the cause of problems in washing machines, having been sucked into the pump and causing flooding as the result of blockages. Column readers may know that a quilting friend, when we were chatting about this on the way to a quilt group meeting, suggested putting the Colour Catcher into a laundry net as a preventive. This is what I've been doing for the past few months.

However, the news is that the Dye Magnet is back! Whichever of these products you can manage to find will reward you with piece of mind when washing by avoiding those unwanted 'dyeing' accidents. Even so, best advice for washing quilts is to always use the coolest temperature possible - remember many modern machines offer switches to reduce the usual temperature for your chosen programme - and always to use a colour safe washing product.

Also try to dry the quilt as quickly as possible. I had a pieced quilt with fabrics that I knew had been pre-wshed and yet i found that on some patches traces of pink or yellow dye had bled through onto the backing where the layers were snugged together by the quilting stitches. I often held this up as an example in my 'wrinkles' talk even though the staining wasn't a problem on the front. I am now pleased to report that, having needed to wash it again, the addition of a Colour Catcher has even managed to remove the staining from the backing fabric!

Hurrah for products that do what they promise!!