OAST POST OAST QUILTERS NEWSLETTER

Volume 21 www.oastquilters.co.uk Number 4 - July 2019

TODAY’S MEETING Our next meeting

Thank you to today’s Hostesses: Saturday 21 September – Open Day Pieceful Patchers, Castle Wall and Bear’s Doors open at 10:00am Paw Morning Speaker – Novelist Liz Trenow. Talk – The Forgotten Seamstress and the Joy of Today’s Traders are: Silk. Little Lavender Patch, Daisy Buds and Crafty Liz’s novels are set in her native Colchester and Mastermind. involve the local silk industry. For “The Forgotten Seamstress”, set in Buckingham Our Speaker today is Angela Daymond Palace during the Edwardian era, she Angela Daymond is a very qualified textile artist collaborated with Lynne Edwards on the design and teacher with an emphasis on handwork and of a quilt which she will bring to show us. especially stitching which she values for Afternoon speaker will not start before 13:30 its simplicity. She is inspired by her Fenland Afternoon Speaker – Jan Hazzard surroundings and is interested in natural dyeing Talk – Colour and Illusion especially woad. She runs regular workshops Jan Hassard returns to us in the afternoon and and her students get to enjoy the therapeutic is bringing her own quilts, a dazzling and a qualities of hand stitching in her classes. contemporary counterpoint to her vintage Talk: Colour my World collection. Her workshop, Scintillating Scraps Take a trip around the world looking at how and Scrap Logs, has proved so popular we have people have used traditional plants, animals and booked a second day, so get in touch with our minerals to colour cloth for centuries around the workshop organiser, Victoria, if you want to sign world. The process of natural dyeing has up or swap Sunday for a Monday. changed very little over time. You will hear about traditional European plant dyes, travel east to Workshop - Scintillating Scraps and Scrap view tribal mud resist dyeing and to the blue Logs indigo vats from Japan. Sunday 22 September at Petham Village Hall CT4 5RD 21 July Workshop Slow, Slow, Stitch, Stitch, Monday 23 September at Littlebourne Slow Memorial Hall CT3 1ST Lower Hardres Village Hall Congratulations CT4 5NP Chaucer Quilters entered In this workshop eleven quilts into Sandown you will use the soft this year and won five prizes colours of naturally on three of them. Sue dyed fabrics and Homan won the Hand threads. This day is all about learning how award and also therapeutic and relaxing hand stitching can be Judges Merit for her White whilst creating your very own masterpiece. You Quilt. Gill will learn about traditional quilting stitches, Cannon won Kantha quilting, Japanese Boro and third in the techniques. The combination of cottons, silks Miniature and linens with varying thickness of threads will category and also got a Judge’s give endless design possibilities. You will be merit in the Theme category. able to continue stitching into your work after the ALL of us contributed to a 70th workshop. Birthday Cat quilt which got a

third in Group Quilts. DATES FOR YOUR DIARY An exhibition well worth a visit The American Museum in Bath has a special exhibition of 20 brand new Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably designed quilts. These stunning quilts have been inspired by the Museum’s world-renowned collection of antique American quilts. Kaffe, Brandon and their design team, worked closely with the chief curator, Kate Hebert, to select quilts and these treasures were then reimagined and recreated using fabrics designed by the team. The exhibition, Kaffe Fassett’s Quilts in America, is open until 3 November and will provide a unique opportunity to see the old and new alongside one another.

The Old The New

Textiles from the Edge Book Sale Edgy Stitchers (CQ Kent) The Library will be holding a Book Sale at the 17-19 September 2019 September meeting. Upper Gallery, Creek Creative

1 Abbey Street, Faversham, ME13 7BE UFO Day

Open 10am to 4pm Sunday 23 November

Lower Hardres Village Hall, CT4 5NP

£7 Bring your own lunch, mug and extension

lead, as well as your UFO, sewing machine –

oh and cake! Contact Ingrid Hudson on 01303

230117 or email [email protected]

East Kent Embroiderers’ Guild

Residential Weekend 17 - 19 April 2020

The Clifton Hotel, The Leas, Folkestone.

Sew Pretty the Rose

Tutored by Pam Buck

Various hand stitches techniques to

produce beautiful items to treasure.

Including work inspired by The Historic Full board, en suite rooms £450

Dockyard, Chatham For further details, including photographs, or to

www.creek-creative.org book a place please contact Ann Sparkes

[email protected] [email protected]

Young Oast

The next Committee Meeting The Committee would like to extend our thanks …will be on Monday 9 September at 7.00pm at to Christine Duke for all her hard work with the the Thanington Resource Centre, CT1 3XE Young Oast group of quilters. Her commitment to, and involvement with, the group has been Rye Creative Stitchers’ Quilt Show much appreciated. The meetings for the Young 14 and 15 September 10.00am – 4.00pm Oast are temporarily suspended while the A show for the whole family, Entrance adults £1, Committee explore a new venture. children free. There is disabled access, sale of work, traders, raffle for a quilt, children’s Oast Quilters’ Reserves Policy challenge and refreshments The Committee has approved the above policy St Mary's Centre, Lion Street, Rye TN31 7LB and it can be accessed via the Oast Quilters’ Raffle Quilt on show TODAY! website.

Here are a few pictures from a couple of recent very good local shows Quay Quilters’ Exhibition

RAFFLE 2019 Please visit our stand today and buy a raffle ticket to help support the good work of Project Linus. Tickets £1 each Community Interest Company No.08422226 There are three prizes each comprising: Warm Company wadding donated by Andrews Agencies plus a selection of fabrics donated by Lewis & Irene Do remember our slogan: 'A quilt is a hug you can keep'. www.projectlinusuk.org.uk Pam Sawyer Project Linus Area Coordinator South East Kent [email protected] 07557886997

Hostessing at meetings In order to provide a well-run meeting each time, Oast Quilters appoints two or three groups to hostess the meeting. Full instructions are given Abbey Patchers’ Quilt Show in the Membership pack and also on a laminated card in the refreshments box. We appreciate that sometimes life gets in the way of attending an Oast meeting, but the groups for hostessing each meeting are appointed at the beginning of each year providing plenty of notice. If any group knows that a particular meeting is not suitable for them, we can always allocate another meeting in the future. Groups hostess once every other year. When approaching the appointed meeting, if it is realised that the majority of members cannot attend for one reason or another, the group representative must contact the Chairman and the Membership Secretary so that we have the opportunity to request assistance from Independent members. Hostessing numbers are critical, particularly at the end of each meeting when they are needed to help tidy up. Non-attendance of a hostessing group will result in their being rescheduled sooner than would otherwise have been expected.

Oast Post The committee requests in order to reduce Workshops wastage, if you have access to the internet, A polite request - if you attend one of our please don’t take a hard copy of Oast Post as excellent workshops, please take a few minutes Oast Post can be found on the Oast Quilters’ at the end to help clear away the tables and website. www.oastquilters.co.uk chairs, and to check lights, water taps and heaters are turned off. Thank you.

The British Quilt Study Group is a specialist Another nineteenth group within the Quilters Guild (QG). It century American promotes research into all aspects of our quilt was brought patchwork, quilting and appliqué heritage. With by an American a fascination about the stories behind quilts, I lady and was a booked an introductory day (Exploring family quilt. The Research) which took place at the QG’s block pattern was Headquarters, in York at the end of June. The ‘Ohio Star’, which day was led by Isabel Dibden Wright, who has was appropriate been stitching for more than 35 years, and her because there was wealth of knowledge about quilts was amazing. every likelihood The first talk was about quilt based research; the that it had been made in Dayton, Ohio. The what’s, the why’s and the who’s. Then Isabel yellow fabric was still a strong yellow with some gave an intriguing talk about how to look at a fading on one side. The brown centre squares quilt, with especial regard to examining the and the binding had faded considerably. The fabrics used to try and find a date range. entire quilt was hand sewn and hand quilted.

A 1930’s unfinished quilt top with a very padded centre had a sad tale to tell. It had been made by a We had been asked to bring a quilt to study and lady when she was engaged to be married, and one lady, not a quilter, had brought two when the engagement was called off, it appears wonderful quilts, one of which had been bought the quilt was cast aside. Such a shame, since it at auction from the Hannah Hawkswell estate. was testament to a great deal of careful work. Hannah had farmed in the Dales all her life, on The ‘piece de her own. It was a hard life, but one that was resistance’ was a highlighted in three television documentaries. tester bed hanging (it The quilt, which was double-sided, reminded me would have gone of the Gee’s Bend Quilts since it was put round the canopy at together with literally, any piece of fabric to the top of the four hand, including fabric samples, pyjamas, posts). It is five metres blouses and so on. Some of the pieces were long and dates from pieced! The quilt was filthy – and it had 1780 – 1820 and is a obviously never been washed as some of the very prestigious piece. tailor’s chalk markings were still visible. The piecing was done We were able over papers, so that to compare and indicates a very well- contrast an to-do family with American access to paper. It contains a wealth of different 1930’s quilt fabric patterns, ranging from dress prints to big (bought for block prints; every design is different and the £3.00 at a cotton is really good quality. It is absolutely Leeds market!) exquisitely made, with fussy cutting and some with an English curved piecing and must have been the work of one of the a gentlewoman. same era, It was a superb day and I came away on cloud which was in nine; full of ideas for further research, and I the QG collection. The American quilt was ‘signed up’ for membership of the British Quilt composed of soft pretty colours and contained Study Group that very evening. fabrics which were definitely bought for the quilt Liz Coleman (in that there was a significant yardage) and the English one was brighter, with more variety in the fabrics (scraps) to make up the pattern.