Wednesday, 10 August 2011

MIAMI in Somerset

I stopped off in Somerset, en route to Devon for a week in the rain to see my friend Joan Taylor. It's always inspiring catching up with Joan, seeing what projects she has on the go and admiring her horticultural and sewing skills.

When I last visited her, this chair was an upholstery work in progress. Joan is a real perfectionist and she spent hours fiddling about with different fabrics and re-doing her work if it wasn't up to her discerning eye. The final result is a really great patchwork-style chair. This is a great way to use up those odd pieces of fabric and creates a completely unique bespoke piece.

Joan has been working on a small quilt. She meets with a group of friends to do sewing projects together and they decided to try convergence quilting in their session last week. This machine quilting technique involves sewing two or more strips of fabric together, then these are cut and pieced again. She's going to send me some instructions, so when she does I'll share them with you on the main website.

I also enjoyed looking around Joan's garden. She's self sufficient in vegetables from her large veggie plot, which provides her with plenty of fruit and veg to freeze, eat fresh or preserve in her delicious jams and chutneys.


and she also has a lovely cottage garden, full of flowers, shrubs and herbs. She wasn't happy that I took this photo as the lawn has been suffering from the lack of rain recently. Let's hope it's greening up again nicely now - it certainly poured while I was in Devon.


I look forward to having a go at convergence quilting myself soon.

Have you visited our main website? www.makeitandmendit.com

Clare F


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