Barbara Chainey quilts

Vintage wholecloth -

Barbara — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:27:13 +0000

More rummaging in The Cupboard this week, ostensibly to extract the main stack of Tentmaker pieces to take to Stirling this weekend, so I thought I would quickly take pictures of 2 more vintage quilts while there was space to manouevre – things are getting quite cramped in there! The first quilt I brought out is my very first purchase from Jen Jones way back in the mid-1980s, so it’s been in and out of The Cupboard many times and is often overlooked in favour of newer acquisitions. Small and square this is quite typically Welsh with the simple shapes, spirals, circle medallion at the centre, wool wadding/batting. Front and back fabrics are a furnishing weight twill weave. Lots of bearding and pilling of the wool wadding too!

The second quilt is heavily worn and really beyond practical use, but is a great example of the simplicity and scale used in many wholecloth quilts in the early 20th century. A deep border, a reversed running feather down the centre and some traditional rose motifs alongside – it all looks good.

As always, I’m way behind on blogreading and commenting, but I did just want to welcome all new followers – thanks for joining in!

Quilt round up from Denver

Barbara — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 02:55:43 +0000

Way behind with intended regular posting so I’ll try and catch up a little with a second batch of pics from the Denver trip. I was in the mile-high city to teach a 3day class for machine quilting supremo Harriet Hargrave with the delight of staying at her home included for good measure. As you can imagine, there were some seriously good vintage quilts to enjoy as well as a side trip to the quilt museum in Golden where there was an exhibit of old and new quilts featuring machine stitch. The “new” was represented by a selection of work from Sue Nickels and Pat Holly. I think you will enjoy some of the following -

and from the exhibit -

I was rather taken with this porch as a potential stitching spot – shame the house was not for sale! (no, it’s not Harriet’s home).

So it’s back to domestic things for a few days and getting ready to travel to Scotland next week – more packing!

Denver notes

Barbara — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:18:53 +0000

A few thousand miles from middle England, good weather, great students, well-stocked shop to teach in, a museum quilt exhibit, drive through coffee, and a beautifully decorated home stuffed with vintage quilts. A heady mixture indeed – add in a dear friend and more brainstorming quilty ideas than either of us can handle, and you’ll know that I’m having a great time. Here’s a few pictures taken over the last few days to give you a flavour of it all starting with the shop Harriets Treadle Arts -

Back home in a few days carrying ideas and inspiration – happy quilting!

Quilting on the move

Barbara — Tue, 28 May 2013 08:25:44 +0000

Quite a few miles to put on the clock this week – down to The Bramble Patch tomorrow and then London – Denver on Friday. So the bags from Quilts UK and Denman are unpacked, laundry done and now it’s time to look west and work out exactly what needs to go back into the bags to carry me through a 3day quilt design class. When Harriet & Carrie first suggested this last October, I wrote out a rough list and lesson plan -

and now it’s really going to happen – and it should be a lot of fun. As always I will feel obliged to take more personal projects than I will ever have time to start or progress in any spare time hanging around at airports or after class -

plus a couple of small bags from the Antique Rose Star project, some “proper” quilting and some basic drawing supplies. Who said anything about travelling light? Then there’s all the other vital stuff that we can’t live without – and all the cords, wires and chargers that accompany them….

Quickly looking back to last week at Denman – a short “taster” class on Essentials of Hand Quilting and a good time was had by all -

Well done everyone – remember, I’m expecting Great Things from you all!

There’s always something to inspire at Denman – this time it was a tile in the bathroom (there’s probably a quilt design book waiting to be compiled based on Bathrooms around the World) -

also a little scribbling in the notebook during class -

a little messing around with mirrors during class -

a wonderful display of samplers in one of the corridors -

So, onwards it is, with a quick word of thanks to all followers of this blog – I really do appreciate you being there!

Quilting up close

Barbara — Mon, 20 May 2013 06:03:42 +0000

Just before I arrive at Denman college to teach Essentials of Hand Quilting I thought I’d show you the embarrassingly small amount of quilting that’s been achieved during the last four days at the quilt show. I’ve talked to a lot of people during this time and answered a lot of questions but I have to say that the standard of my stitching has suffered. This is inevitable given all the distractions but it has made me realise that time is marching on ..! This negative pickiness is exactly what I will be tackling in the next two days in class – we are all hyper-critical of our work, usually on a stitch by stitch basis, and it doesn’t help or improve anything. So here are some uncomfortably close pics of my demo piece as it developed during the show – crooked stitches included.

There’s no firm plan for the end result of this design, I’m just going to let it dictate it’s own terms. Probably lots of texture, closely spaced lines, fine yarn cording the double lines which will disguise some of the crooked stitches. The original motif was taken from a furnishing fabric, sketched out by Lee Cleland and used as a handout when we presented a lecture on quilting inspiration a few years ago. Never throw anything away!!

Another show almost over

Barbara — Sat, 18 May 2013 05:48:41 +0000

My favourite quilt show of the year – Quilts UK at Malvern. I have had the same spot in the main hall for 20 years, and this year is no exception. It’s been busy since the first morning and by day 2 I was very close to selling out of all the books I had for sale – thank goodness I had ordered extras of the 2 new Little Treasures pattern books (I hope to have these available on my website in a week or two).

Once the show is open there’s no chance for me to take any pictures of anything, so I usually make an early start and whizz round the quilt exhibits. There is a LOT of eye candy this year in addition to the competition quilts, exhibits of quilts by Liz Jones, Gwenfai Rees Griffiths and Sally Bramald being particularly noteworthy. My runaround the quilt aisles began with Andrea Stracke’s entry – I arrived in front of her quilt just as the third ribbon was being pinned in place – well done Andrea, another well-deserved win!

Turning the corner I paused in front of this quilt just as the ribbons were being pinned on it too – the overall champion quilt by Pauline Barnes

Liz Jones’s quilts are stunning at any distance

Gwenfai’s work is always meticulous

Sally Bramald has carried a number of machine quilting techniques forward with quality and style

I’m putting this post together in my lovely temporary home – the view is something like this

and I’ve managed to leave my showguide booklet behind, so the next few glimpses will have to be anonymous and uncredited for the moment. Hope you like some of the details that have caught my eye -

I’m going to stop at this point and get ready for day 3 and whatever it may bring, including remembering to bring the showguide back with me to add in the credits above and perhaps a few more pictures. Have a great weekend.

POSTSCRIPT Day 3: Some interesting technical issues with this post and the pictures which I hope are now resolved.

After the show

Barbara — Thu, 09 May 2013 08:45:49 +0000

Travel certainly broadens the mind but I’ll swear that sometimes it addles the brain. Days of careful list checking and packing still resulted in a simple technical hitch in Holland last week – forgetting the cable/charger for the trusty laptop. So much of the after hours catching up and writing that I had planned never happened. Surrounded by more technology, wires and other gadgets than I can bear to think about, I still didn’t manage to get pictures across the whole of the Expo Veldhoven show. I just had a lovely day teaching and two days demo and quilting chat, with good weather and good company. It’s a really hard life! Here are a few more pics to give a flavour of my view of the show, starting with the car park ….

a glorious back for an African themed quilt

Petra Prins exhibit – some fabric and templates from Petra’s booth returned with me.

Di Ford exhibit – Di’s new book Primarily Quilts, 19th Century Inspiration, also returned with me.

Joyce Dawe exhibit, flying the UK flag.

Trying out the new gadget on demo stuff you’ve seen before -

and trying out a delightful app for said gadget -

So, back to more bags and interesting piles of “stuff” to get ready for Quilts UK next week. Straight after that I’ll be teaching a short course at Denman College – there may still be one or two places available. Off to put some samples together …..

Quilting at the show

Barbara — Sat, 04 May 2013 21:09:44 +0000

A brief post from Quilt Expo Veldhoven just to try out my new gadget (you can probably guess what it is). The show is excellent, 500 quilts, traditional, art, modern, vintage – a stunning display. Of course a little retail has been indulged in (you can probably guess what that was) and the class on Essentials of Hand Quilting went well. A proper post when I return but in the meantime just a few stitching close ups, starting with my demo sample. You’ll see that I’ve worked a double line on one half of the design but not the other so that I can show what a (subtle) difference this can make -

Above is a detail of Andrea Stracke’s award winning quilt which was hung in a much better position this year and looked splendid.
My room mate is making hexagons and trying to decide how to set them together

and I’ve managed more progress on that Antique Rose Star but no photos this time. One more day and it will be time to pack and head for home. A picture of my friend Wil Fritsma and a glimpse of her exhibit at the show concludes this bulletin …

More close up stuff

Barbara — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:30:40 +0000

There’s a small lull in the packing proceedings for my Veldhoven trip so I’ve quickly taken a few more close-ups of three more quilts as they came out of The Cupboard. Again, no agenda with regard to stitch quality or size, just interesting (I hope) glimpses of the work of anonymous hands.

First up is the Hawick Hearts quilt which I showed here quite some time ago after it had been laundered. The top and back fabrics are a medium weight cotton twill, medium thickness cotton batting. Date – somewhere between 1900 and 1940, rescued from the back of a van being used as a wrapper for antique furniture.

The next close-ups are of a quilt I was given by Shiela Betterton, well-known for her work at The American Museum in Bath. This was one of Shiela’s family quilts, the top and back fabric are heavy cotton sateen, a similarly heavy cotton batting. I always find it interesting to note how the stitches are almost completely obscured by the texture of the heavy batting after a lifetime of use – they’re only just visible.

As you can see from the “blurrier- than-intended” picture above, the machine stitched edge on this quilt is very emphatic!

The third quilt is one of my favourites, one I use frequently in class (and travelling to Veldhoven with me). Welsh, 1930′s, bought from Jen Jones in 1994, medium weight cotton sateen front and back, carded wool batting, stitched with green thread, folded bias-cut frill inserted in edge.

Just to mix up time periods here are some close ups of samples of my quilting (which are also going to Veldhoven!). It’s probably appropriate to record that I’m a big fan of making things easy for myself and I usually choose a lightweight cotton for the top and back (Oakshott is a huge favourite) and Hobbs Polydown, Thermore, Legacy Wool battings.

So, off to finish the packing – happy quilting!

Close-up quilting

Barbara — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:37:27 +0000

From the top of the stack of quilts in The Cupboard comes a satin crib quilt, unused, wool batting, guesstimated date 1930s. I use this piece as a hands-on class sample to point up some of the differences between wool and cotton battings, simple patterns and non-turning corners – it started me off on a happy half hour taking close-ups of one or two other quilts and then onto close-ups of some of my own stitching. I encounter the stitch size obsession so often in classes that, just for interest, I included a small ruler as a reference in many of the shots. There’s no point to prove, no pictures of entire quilts, just to observe that the size and quality of anyone’s stitch is dependent on so many variables – the top fabric, the batting, the backing fabric, the needle, the thread, the experience, the age, the quilting culture. And I can’t be the only one who enjoys just looking at quilted texture up close and personal – can I?

The next quilting detail is provided by a quilt made around 1910-ish, probably North East, cotton top and back, dense and compacted cotton batting.

Just from the above I think you might agree that, if you want to make a major impact with your quilting, choose shiny fabrics! It certainly makes an impression and adds some wow factor. For good measure, here’s a close-up look at the quilting on the red and white strippy I showed you recently. Heavy fabrics front and back, thick cotton batting, most definitely not easy to stitch through this quilt sandwich -

And jumping forward to the present day, see how easy we can make things for our quilting with much lighter weight fabrics, much thinner battings ….

I can almost feel a whole series of posts coming on – let me know if you can stand the thought of more close-ups. After all, there is an entire Cupboard to deal with -