Exhibition & Sale Day

Yesterday went off without a hitch I am very glad to say. The weather was lovely (even though the forecast was diabolical) so at least no-one got wet on our numerous trips backwards and forwards to cars to unload all our goodies. The hotel room we had our exhibition in was great, loads of space to display quilts. It really is difficult to know what to display and what not to, we have amassed so many over the last year, but you just can't put everything on show, so a little picking and choosing had to be done. I still think it's nice for the ladies who come to classes to be able to showcase their work in public. It's a nice morale booster, and the work is so well done it deserves to be on display.
The quilt pictured above was a Row of the Month quilt that has just been completed by Ena McKay. She has done some lovely hand stitching on this quilt, especially around the birdhouses in a multi-coloured embroidery thread to represent vines, and also around the beehives. This was a really popular class and all the quilts looked wonderful.
Above is a Japanese influenced quilt called "Konichiwa" and uses a fairly large print which really did not want to be cut up into small pieces, so I left it in large strips to show how you can incorporate bigger prints into a quilt. I have to say that although I love hand quilting I have not had much time to do this quilt justice, so really must make an effort to add some stitching to it soon. (Ah for more time in the day) The quilt in the background is our part of our Burns collection. We have designed a range of pieces around Robert Burns (being local to our area) and this is the first time they have been on display. We had some very generous compliments on it yesterday from members of the public, both quilters and non quilters alike.
This piece is our pride and joy at the moment. It is our Nordic quilt, based on the St Ninian's Isle treasure from Shetland. Thistle Be have been given permission by Kenneth Rae of Shetland Silvercraft jewellery to use his father's designs to produce this quilt. Each design has been produced as a brooch and we had to follow his exact drawings to reproduce each piece. Our classes for this quilt start on Wednesday this week and we are fully booked, so it shows how popular it is. I'll post later on how it went.

So after the mad couple of weeks we have had today I have decided to take it easy - I thought I'd have a long lie in, maybe breakfast in bed, you know the sort of thing, but oh no - I've been up since 4.15 am this morning. I just couldn't sleep. Someone asked me yesterday how I get so much done and I laughed and said "It's called insomnia" I might have known I've jinxed myself!!! Never mind I should get loads done before I collapse in a heap and snore for Britain - here's hoping.