Category Archives: Festival of Quilts

Quick and Easy Organza Flowers for Festival of Quilts (NEC Birmingham)

When asked to do two one hour slots on the learning curve at the Festival of Quilts I was stumped by what I could offer. This meant my brain had to gear up and extract yet another project from thin air and these simple flowers that are made to look quite complicated were born.

Based on what I normally do they are much simpler and the need for a soldering iron is an option for these as they can be achieved to the same standard with or without using one.

They are great because this is another project that uses up all my waste scrap organza and makes me feel good as every last bit of organza is working for me and not going on the studio floor or worst still in the bin.
The sewing thread is simple black machine thread and its colour acts as a strong contrasting edge showing off the simple flower design which is only enhanced by layering several shapes together and adding some beads to their centres and making some beaded and wired loops to splay out from behind. They make stunning corsages and are relatively quick to make. I tried them on quilted and appliqués squares and they looked stunning as they were in relief to the appliqué and instantly I had another project to further there use.
They would look lovely as decorations to evening bags and quickly make a fascinator with a few feathers added.
Anyway the ladies at the show hopefully were excited enough by my samples to take their stitched flowers home and finish them completely to see their potential.

I’m now off to make some more flower arrangements to decorate the quilt I am inspired to make for my stand at Alexander Palace and to launch these delightful flowers as a new kit.

 

 

Festival of Quilts

What a fantastic exhibition and show.

The quilts were out of this world and the craftsmanship so impressive. I felt quite inspired to come home and relive my patchwork days and make a quilt.

The heat zapped books that I taught on the learning curve went down well although I nearly died of embarrassment because I had the time of my second class in my head for 1.30pm and it was infact 1pm. (Moral of the story is I should of checked after teaching the first class) I was ten mins late and could have really kicked myself.

The long and short of it was that the keen ladies stitched like they had the wind behind them and luckily for me, caught up to achieve fab little book covers (I owe them all and thank them for their understanding). I won’t be making that mistake again as my teaching nerves won’t stand for it.