Siblings Together Sewing Evening

(There’s still time to enter my Fugly Fabric party giveaway).

At the end of a busy week what better way to spend a Friday evening than sewing with a group of great ladies?  You may remember back in March I helped to run a Dress A Girl Around the World evening at my friend Rachel’s house.  Following the success of the evening I thought that they might all like to turn their hands to patchwork to help make a quilt for Siblings Together.

I had a bundle of Sew Cherry FQ’s:

I spent most of Thursday cutting the FQ’s into pieces ready to be sewn and I was so grateful for the rotary cutter sharpener that I recently bought!

Friday evening came and I went round to Rachel’s with a pile of fabric, sewing machine and a couple of sample blocks made up. We spent a bit of time sorting fabric into piles:

And then the ladies got sewing:

There were 9 of us (I think) and 8 machines, there was at least one person who hadn’t sewn for a few years but I quickly showed her what she needed to do and how to work my machine and they were off.

I had taken my ‘special design sheet’ along (aka old bed sheet) and we pinned up the blocks as we went, which was a real visual motivator (and impressed Rachel’s husband Rob every time he popped his head round the door!). I think this photo was taken within the first hour (judging by the light outside).

I did hardly any sewing (kindly allowing someone else to use my machine) and spent much of the evening sorting fabric into piles ready to be sewn. I was worried that we might be left with a pile of brown fabric at the end and didn’t think brown blocks would look so great!

So almost the end of the evening and the sheet is full of blocks – enough for 2 quilts!

But then there were some confessions and some ‘dodgy’ blocks:

And yes I did make them unpick and sew them again, because surely that is the best way to learn! All in all they did a wonderful job, so much more fun than me sewing them all on my own at home and so much quicker.

So a very big thank you to Rachel for hosting us, Hannah, Esther, Jo, Chloe, Catherine, Rachel and Fi (I think I got all the names right – apologies if not!). Now I just need to sort and sew them into 2 quilt tops, baste, quilt and bind – eeek! Here’s hoping that 2 siblings will have happy memories bound up in them too.

If you would like to support my quilt making efforts for Siblings Together just click on the donate button at the top of the page – thanks.