Delighted to announce that Anne Bennett and I are hosting a new initiative at Greenbelt this year! The Greenbelt Quilting Bee will take place on the Saturday afternoon of Greenbelt, 3-6pm, in the Christian Aid venue. (The Christian Aid theme this year is to do with making a home-from-home for refugees, so making a snuggly quilt seems particularly appropriate).
We will be making a Silent Stars Quilt, to reflect this year's Greenbelt theme. The idea is that ANYONE can have a go, from experienced quilters/sewers to children and complete novices!
How can you get involved?
Various ways!
1. If you are a complete beginner, just turn up and we will show you what to do! You can either do the REALLY simple (particularly child-friendly) option and simply draw a star on fabric, cut it out, and then add it to our quilt.
2. If you want a bit more of a challenge, you can learn English Paper Piecing. This is a traditional patchwork technique where small pieces of fabric are folded around paper templates, then sewn together edge to edge. Here is my daughter holding a demonstration star:
4. Finally, if you are already an experienced quilter, there are two ways we would love you to get involved!
4.1 You are invited to make a star block, or star of your choice, in advance, and bring it along to Greenbelt to add to the quilt. All stars will be appliqued/quilted-as-you-go onto a quilt 'blank', so size is not critical. To guide your colour choices, we will be adding the stars to a navy blue background, so bright colours that would stand out will be best, and if you are using a background for your block, choose dark blue/black shades ideally.
4.2 And PLEASE, come along and join the bee and add your voice to ours as a guide, companion and instructor to those who are completely new to sewing! You don't have to be an expert, but if you can thread a needle and have ever quilted before you will be able to help explain the simple techniques to complete beginners.
