Our New Sewing Venue

In the New Year we, the good ladies of Apple County Quilters changed our venue from the cold, dark and dreary hall that we had been using to the beautiful light and airy Orangery at Nynehead Court in Somerset. Nynehead Court is a private nursing home in a Grade II listed building and the Orangery is part of the set up and hired out to anyone who would like it at a reasonable cost. There is underfloor heating and it stays cosy, when the sun came out the windows high in the roof suddenly opened to let a breeze in.

Opposite the Orangery is a very pretty sandstone church that is part of Nynehead Village.

This is the walkway to the church. Those branches made some interesting shapes and in Summer I imagine it will look very different and provide welcome shade.

The grounds are simply amazing with beautiful manicured gardens and woodland walks. The sun was trying to break through the snow threatened clouds. Notice that there is a little bit of blue sky. It does so much to make you feel better.

Showing you the activity inside.

To my right  Sue was busy cutting up quite a collection of batik fabrics. The observant of you will notice that the rotary cutter is lefthanded.

Sarah is busy making a quilt from the new Jelly Roll book by Pam and Nicky Lintott.

Marie loves all things pretty and is making a Valentine's cushion, her work is always beautifully stitched. Bernina's seem to be the order of the day .

This is Janet Kittow who loves hand stitching and who refused to look up at me.  For the past two exhibitions Janet has won the Viewers Choice Rosette and they were well deserved. Here she is finishing off a past challenge quilt. Better late than never and far better than mine as mine still is not even sewn up.

You can see how nice and light it is in this room and how busy everyone is.

At the other end of the room are nice comfy chairs where we decamp when we eat our lunch and sit and chatter and discuss various proceedings. I adore and wish I had somewhere to put that magnificent painting. It is a giant but looks almost real it is so beautifully painted.

 

We are all so happy to be there in the delightful surroundings and know that it was a good move. Now we sew ther all day rather than the half day that we used to have. Dotty Dolly also use it for their workshops.


It has been a while coming but today I finally finished sewing on the binding for Daisy's quilt. It has taken me  far too long and as this is the smaller one of the two quilts  the bigger one most definitely will be machine quilted, simply. Attaching binding is for me one of those tasks that sometimes is a pain but this time it went on like a dream with no unpicking and with the corners all neatly filled. I used perle thread no.8 in a deep lavender for the daisies and a rose for the other quilting. I am not over keen on the big stitches as  the tightly woven fabrics were not easy to stitch through. However, it is now done and can be crossed of the list. I shall be able to hold my head up high when I next visit the Worn and Washed stand and say that I have at last used up one of her bundles. Yay!

Hope you enjoyed the visit to our new venue.

 

Happy Stitching.

 

Shirley.