Welcome

Welcome to Vicarage Quilts - thank you for visiting.

I offer several services: longarm quilting, patchwork and appliqué workshops and small items made to commission. In the past I've also made quilts to commission as well as Church or School banners for Walking Days and permanent display.

Please visit the pages listed on the right hand side to find out more and email me with any queries.

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Six and a half weeks in...


 


Just before I started my new job (love my new job!) I visited Yarndale with a group of lovelies from our Stitch and Chat (spelt B*tch really but you can't put that on the Church notices) group, and came home with a gift from everyone, which was very kind of them all.  Thank you lovelies!  Of course, it's a gift that requires effort, so I'm happily crocheting away in my spare moments (seconds) - not sure if I'll have the scarf ready for this winter at this rate! 


The new job is full time.  I believe I mentioned that would be the case in a previous post.


What do you know: full-time is busier than part-time!


However, I'm not exactly slacking on the making front.


Remember my using-up-scraps post?


Well, they're all used up...  Just need to get this quilted, and then our en-suite has a spangly new bathmat.  Which it desperately needs...


Two lap quilts quilted too, a Golden Wedding Anniversary gift and a little pink girly quilt on which I seem to have quilted drunken butterflies.  Oh well.


 More butterflies tomorrow evening, as we're having a mini-workshop: pictures soon!


So, six and a half weeks into my new job.  More planning is equalling (not quite) as much sewing and making, but I'm getting a balance.  Less dusting is happening though.  Weird, huh?

Monday 28 October 2013

Appliqué cushion workshop


We had another workshop here at the weekend, which reminded me that I'd not blogged about the previous one - oops!  In September three clever ladies spent a day at the Vicarage and went home having made an appliqué cushion top, quilted the top, and learnt how to insert a zip concealed behind a decorative flap on the back of the cushion.  They all went home with a nice squishy cushion and feelings of accomplishment!


 Mena...


 ...Barbara...


...and Gill all looking suitably pleased!

I'm re-running last Saturday's workshop this Saturday too, for a couple of participants who were on holiday, so when I've got everyone's pictures I'll do a post about that too!

Sunday 13 October 2013

Adventures with my staple gun!



 





I've always used a ironing board for all my patchwork-pressing needs: it didn't really occur to me to do anything else.  Over the summer holidays I acquired a staple gun and had an idea, all in the same week - and now I'm the happy owner of a pressing table, that can double as a cutting table.  I don't know how I managed without it, especially for pressing quilt tops and backings before quilting them - you can see in the last photograph that a width of fabric fits easily.  I used a cheap Ikea table, tin foil, part of an old woollen blanket and cotton furnishing fabric. I tested the cover fabric carefully before using it of course, and it's fine with the heat of the iron. I did give myself staple-gunner's wrist making it, but it was worth it!   It was a real boon at the cushion workshop we did last month too, although I scared the ladies about bondawebbing their appliqués onto it accidetnally, so we had to cover the cover!  Pics of the workshop results coming up soon... 

Sunday 6 October 2013

Changes


Changes afoot in the Vicarage!

For the last seven and a half years I've worked in the office of a local CofE Primary School.  It's been a lovely time and I've made lots of great friends amongst the staff and also the parents of the school.  I've worked three days a week, term time only, and so enjoyed a lot of free time to devote to Vicarage Quilts.

Tomorrow I start a new job, working for the Diocese, and it's full-time: no school holidays and five days a week.  A big adjustment!  I'm really excited about it but I think some things will have to change in the way I run my little business.  I'm going to stop quilting big quilts for example (anything over a lap size), and whether or not I can take on commission quilts and banners will depend on what else is going on at the time.  However, I'm carrying on with workshops and little makes, and small quilts.

On Friday evening we had my leaving do at a local restaurant and I decided to make each colleague who joined me a little heart keyring to say thank you for - well, everything.  I put their menu choices inside the cards, and used them as place markers. 


As you can see, there were a lot of them, and I also made some for those who couldn't be there on the night.  Surely it's normal to make thirty five keyrings in the last week of your job, when you're tying up all your loose ends and training up your replacement?  No?  That will be why I felt tired last week!

Monday 2 September 2013

Using up scraps


Over summer I had a tidying up urge - well, a clearing up / organising / streamlining urge really. 


I decided to make a concerted effort to put all the scraps of fabric that I can't throw away, to good use instead.  Strips were cut...


 ...and pieced...


..laid out in order...


 ...pressed...


 ...trimmed...


...but tomorrow term starts again and I'm back to work.  However, that doesn't usually dampen the sewing imperative, so hopefully I'll soon have the rest of the process and a finished item to show you!

Tuesday 27 August 2013

Embroidered canvases


As promised, my 'exciting' method for finishing stitcheries - well, I was excited, because it entailed the purchase and use of one of these:


So that I could do this:


and make lovely speedy projects like these:


All smoothed nice and flat and stapled firmly in place, and easy to hang!  (Val and Mike, sure you're not reading but if you are this is not a late Wedding gift, it's an early first anniversary gift, so stop looking at it please...)


Thought you'd like another look at my shiny beast of a staplegun.  I have another, slightly larger project underway with it at present: more soon!

Saturday 24 August 2013

Stitcheries for the shop


Recently I've made some tiny embroidered wall hangings; they are sometimes referred to as 'stitcheries' I've noticed. 
 

I asked Donna if she'd like to try some in the shop and we decided to give it a whirl!


I took them in on a Wednesday, and got an email from Donna on the Friday to say a customer had ordered a house stitchery, personalised with their name.  So, worth trying!


They've got little ribbon loops at the top to hang them up...


...so you can pop a peacock on your wall and smile at him as you pass by.

 

They were really fun to make, and as is typical in such things, as soon as they were done I found a much more exciting way to finish them off....


 ...but you'll have to wait for another post before I show you - making more samples!




Saturday 10 August 2013

Bev's Cath Kidston quilt


Do you remember the pictures from the first Basic patchwork workshop I ran?


Here's Bev trying to hide behind her quilt.  It came back to me, so I could quilt it for Bev.  I had free rein, so I went for an all-over flower meander to complement the floral CK fabrics Bev had chosen.


The photo in the garden is in bright sunshine so the colours don't look as vivid as they are in real life.



 I had great fun quilting big loopy petals all over the quilt.


 It's amazing how, once a quilt is quilted, it can look so different.


Now all Bev has to do is bind it.  Go Bev!