It’s November at the EMQG

Another month has gone by and this one marked our return to our New Lanark retreats. It’s been 18 months since the last one, which was 3 weeks before lockdown and the idea that people were fighting over toilet rolls caused much hilarity. Little did we know what was coming! We have a huge function room to ourselves (it is really a very bright room but most of the daylight gets absorbed by the world’s most hideous carpet)

This is the sewing room on Saturday morning, everyone working away on various projects 

This is the sewing room half an hour later when word got round that there’s a maker’s market in the car park

Mags wondering how it’s possible that she’s been here for a day and has only completed 15 projects

 

Sheila’s Halloween project underway. It might possibly be finished by next year 

Lucy’s lockdown quilt is almost big enough to cover the carpet

Lucy looking cheerful despite not being allowed to go to bed until she’s finished the quilting

A really clever idea by Audrey to make this beautiful holly, and one which we’ll all be stealing straight away and claiming we thought of it ourselves

Karen has almost finished another storage container to put some of the the large pile of stuff on her table

Lucy celebrating finally being allowed to go home after finishing her quilt

Everyone trying to hide from the staff as they try to get them to leave 

The misery of having to leave our lovely retreat and the constant feeding of our faces was helped by having guild night to look forward to. And this month we are featuring our favourite lockdown quilts

This is Karen’s finished quilt from the Sheila Frampton Cooper workshop. Please note that there is not a single bird in this piece. We applaud her attempts to break her addiction

This is Catriona, one of our new members. This is her own design

                

                 This is one of Barbara’s many lockdown quilts

This is another of the lockdown QAL quilts. This one belongs to Heather, who not only made the quilt, but also corrected all my quilt maths in the design 

This is an illustration of the ingratitude of people’s children. This lovely quilt by Audrey was made for her french bulldog-owning daughter. She was so delighted with it that she put it straight in a cupboard. Audrey has now repossessed it and is planning to disinherit her daughter

At last! This is the full size and complete finished lockdown QAL by Lucy!

Last seen gracing the carpet from hell as it was dragged from sewing machine to ironing board by the increasingly weary Lucy

                              And this is the fabulous back!

      Juliet’s choice of lockdown quilt was her gynaecologically   themed piece made during Irene Roderick’s Zoom workshop 

This is Helen’s stunning rainbow version of the lockdown quilt

Apparently the Festival of Quilts judges didn’t like the background fabric in Jo’s lovely quilt. Obviously no taste

This is from Avril, another one of our new members. This is her Avery garland quilt which she worked on during lockdown

And this is Mag’s lockdown quilt, and so recently taken off Barbara’s longarm that this was the first time Mags had seen it

And this is Barbara’s other recent piece of work. It’s our Quiltcon community challenge quilt, finally quilted and bound and all ready for it’s trip to Arizona

That’s it for this month. Next month is our Christmas 

party night, complete with our bottle bag (obviously containing a bottle!) swap

 

It’s October at the EMGC!

That means that it’s finally time for the Challenge from the Chair! This was announced about 18 months ago, just before lockdown. Each member of the guild had to produce a block 20” x 20” which illustrated their favourite book. Any technique could be used but you could not use any words. 

It produced a huge variety of titles, some of them containing very few words, given that their target audience have an average age somewhere in single figures.

 And given the fact that people had 18 months to complete this you will be left wondering why many of them don’t seem to be 20” x 20”. 

Or even square. 

I think there will be very few hands going up to volunteer to piece these together into a quilt!

Anyway, despite all that they are all clever, inventive and utterly brilliant. But there can only be one winner (more on that later!) and that winner is-

 

Janet with this interpretation of The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough. One of many blocks featuring birds. Beautiful work! Janet won a gift voucher donated by My Bearpaw. 

Second place was-

 

Kristen’s version of the Tiger who came to tea by Judith Kerr. She also won a voucher to spend in My Bearpaw. 

This block had an equal number of votes as Janet’s block but it was done by Mags (who is the Chair!) so she very graciously disqualified herself but it’s still a fabulous piece of work. 

 

Mags’s version of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Extraordinary and, knowing Mags, probably took her about 10 minutes 

Next up is the winner of the Chair prize for Mags’s favourite. The winner is-

 

Suzanne with The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett 

The rest of the entries are below. I’m really sorry if I missed any. In no particular order-

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassick Gibbon 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

This is Jo’s interpretation of Oranges are not the only frby Jeanette Winterson. This is not actually Jo’s favourite book but one she managed to cobble together from an orphan block the day before the meeting (despite the 18 month timescale)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K Rowling

(I was recently told by someone that if I hadn’t read the Harry Potter books then I had lost my soul. I pointed out that if she thought that these were aimed at adults then she had lost her marbles)

Watership Down by Richard Adams. 

Cross Stitch (Outlander) by Diana Gabaldon

This one caused some confusion. When Audrey told us the title Mags thought she meant that it was cross stitch embroidery and was then looking at the block (which contains no embroidery) with a puzzled face (who said no different from normal?)

The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle 

This was one of two entries depicting this book. The other was done by Lucy who seemed to have gotten a bit confused as to the nature of the challenge and had made a block the size of a caterpillar. It was disqualified immediately 

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

The first of TWO blocks(!) made by Pauline in a futile attempt to win two prizes

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

50 Shades of Grey by E.L James 

The Night Circus by Eric Morgenstern

Unfortunately we never got to see this lovely cushion in the flesh as Katie couldn’t come to the meeting

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

This won Margaret the prize for least guessed book. Not a single person knew this title!

The Light between the Oceans by M.L Stedman

Another lovely rectangular block

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks

Lord of the flies by William Golding

A lovely piece of tapestry from Irene

 

Out of Africa by Isak Denisen

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassick Gibbon

Our second version of this book and both equally amazing pieces of sewing

Three things about Elsie by Joanna Cannon

 

The tiger who came to tea by Judith Kerr

The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Definitely the best book ever written!

Thanks to Mags for setting the challenge and to everyone who took part

And as if that wasn’t enough we also had some show and tell!

 

Fiona did this lovely elephant family during lockdown

 

 

Both of these cushions were done by Barbara for her grandson Magnus, whose first words are most likely to be “Elizabeth Hartman”

This is Anne’s stunning version of the guild’s QAL during lockdown 

Sheila hardly ever finishes anything so we thought we better get lots of proof of these lovely projects that she made in classes at the recent Festival of Quilts. She has also recently become Dr Sheila cleverclogs so we have to sit up straight and listen to her now

And that’s everything for this month. Next month will feature a lockdown show and tell!