First meeting in our new venue

 We were sad to have to leave our old venue of Crescent School, but we are delighted to have found another venue in Dunchurch Village Hall.  It’s quite easy to find on the main Rugby Road through Dunchurch and has great parking.  Phil was very friendly and helpful to us, and made us very welcome.   The main room was perfect and the whole place was clean, modern and well set up.  

We had a great turnout of about 70 people, but although it looks busy in this photo, we only had six chairs per table, and provided plenty of ventilation.  

Here is a different view of the hall, showing how spacious it was. 

Our speaker was Karen from Quilter’s Den in Warwick, and she proved to be an interesting and enjoyable speaker, with lots of lovely quilts to show.  

Here she is with her ‘pop up shop’ which was perfect for those of us who had been recently starved of retail therapy.  She had a good selection of fabrics and I managed to go home with a few beautiful designs. 

Unfortunately, Caroline was indisposed, but luckily Julie was able to step in and run the raffle.  The raffle, cake and magasines money all goes to our nominated charity, so. Is quite important! 

The next meeting will be on the 5th February, which will be out 21st birthday party.  We will have three different workshops and some fun games, as well as cake!  You will need to bring a sewing kit and a small wadding off cut, something like 6” x 8”.  I’m sure most people have that.  See you in 2022. 

So good to be back!

 It was so good to be back with our Rocheberie friends on Saturday!  We had been concerned about the parking, but in the event there was loads of room, both in the car park and on the road.  The venue was an ideal size for our first meeting (39 people came) and the kitchen and toilets were lovely! 

We limited the chairs to just six per table, and some people wore masks but because of the large room, and having the doors open, everyone felt safe.  

There was room for the Linus rummage box plus two other sales tables, and everyone enjoyed the familiar friendly atmosphere which always pertains at a Rocheberie meeting. 

We just had one demo, hexagon hedgehogs, which proved to be quite popular.  The show and tell was of the usual excellent standard, and so was the cake!  

The next meeting will be at Dunchurch Village Hall, on November 13th, and our speaker will be Karen McIlwraith from Quilters’Den in Warwick.  She will bring her pop up shop, so lots of chance for retail therapy!  

Meetings 2022

February 5th 21st birthday party

March 12th Michelle Moody

May 14th Carolyn Gibbs

July 9th Ami James

September 10th Mark Francis

November 12th Kathleen Laurel Sage 

We’re Back!

 It’s hard to believe that our last Rocheberie meeting was in January 2020, which is nineteen months ago!  Nobody thought the coronavirus pandemic would last so long.  Of, course, it’s not over yet, but we are starting to get back to normal activities.  Most people were aware that Crescent School were having difficulties accommodating us.  We understand that their priorities are education, rather than hiring out to quilting groups, but as we have been there for over 20 years, we were hoping to work something out.  We started to look for another venue which could accommodate between 70 and 90 people, had a kitchen and car parking and was in Rugby.  This proved more difficult than you might think, as lots of venues have weddings and birthday parties, sports clubs, dancing lessons or other regular activities on Saturdays, have in house catering, and the ones in the town have no decent car parking facilities.  However, the committee have decided to move our meetings to Dunchurch Village Hall, which should suit us well.  The only downside is that they are already booked for our September 18th meeting, so we will hold a one off social meeting at St Peter and St Johns Church on Clifton Road in Rugby.  We will open at 9.45 as usual and have demos, raffle, cake, sales tables and show and tell etc as usual, but there will be no speaker.  Here is a photo of the church, and we hope to see you there! 

January 2020

We were lucky with the weather this year - no snow and no ice - and so lots of people were able to come to our January meeting.  We were lucky enough to have the clever Sheena Roberts as our speaker. 

 

Her subject was one close to my heart.  Just because someone is a very talented person (quilter) doesn't necessarily mean they are a good teacher.  As a teacher myself, I have been appalled at the behaviour and reported behaviour of some well-known quilters at workshops, and am amazed that people pay good money to waste their time, and then never say anything to the person involved.  Sheena was very modest, and felt that while her work was not exceptional, the work she encouraged her students to do, lead them to greater creativity and achievement.  It was a very interesting talk. 

 This year we are thinking of ways to be green, so Caroline showed how to use confetti scraps to make new fabric using soluble Vilene.

Chris had brought sewing related items which had been donated to charity - a prime example of reuse. 

 Gaynor was manning the raffle, the prizes of which had been wrapped in newspaper. Our charity this year has yet to be decided.  Well vote for it at the next meeting.

Quite a few people entered our ugly fabric swap.  The idea was that other people's fabric is always nicer than yours, so by donating something you think is ugly, may well turn out to be useable to someone else.

 Here is the hall, busy as usual.

 There were members' sales tables too, so there was chance to bag a bargain from someone's cast offs.
Next meeting we will have a green 5" square swap.  Cut a green fat quarter into 12 x 5" squares and put in a named bag.  At the end of the meeting, your bag will be returned to you with 12 different green squares.  If you want to bring more bags, you'll get more squares!  there will also be examples of ways you can use your squares too!  See you in March.

November meeting

The November meeting was an exciting one, because apart from our lovely speaker, Sue O'Riordan, we had our very popular fabric challenge!

Here is Sue with some of her fabulous ice dyed fabric.  Lots of people were interested in learning more about this technique.  Sue became particularly interested in dyeing when she embarked on a City and Guilds course.  She showed how her imagination was stimulated by doing an extended course in quilting.  Day classes are great fun, but don't often lead to more new things.  I'm not sure she convinced our members that C&G was for them, but you never know! 

It was a busy morning, with a sales table and three demos.  I showed reusable Christmas bags, Di an integral zip and Alison some lovely Christmas ornament ideas. 

Forty people took challenge kits and thirty five people brought entries!  Here are some in no particular order.

The brown was a bit challenging for some. 

But it goes well with yellow. 

And pink. 

Rail fence variation. 

Another March hare. 

Bright pinwheels and coffee and cream. 

A gorgeous scrap quilt and Hickory, dickory dock! 

Sorry this one is dark.  It's a dark pineapple! 

You can't go wrong with square blocks! 

Here is a small duck quilt, a cushion and a bag. 

We hung the quilts from skirt hangers on the tops of notice boards. 

Such a variety of ideas! 

What a clever idea to use a Dresden Plate as a clock! 

It was hard for me to get good photos of all of the quilts due to the width of the corridor. 

This woven effect is intriguing.

Two quilts using rectangles.

 A great log cabin quilt and another using a similar technique. 

And the winners?  Third prize went to Jacquie with this cog like design. 

Second prize to Jo, with this stained glass window idea. 

And first prize to Gaynor for this beautifully designed and balanced quilt. Well done to everyone who entered, and especially the winners! 

Happy Christmas and a healthy and productive New Year. See you in January! 

September meeting

We had another very enjoyable and busy meeting in September.  

Caroline has kindly taken over the raffle from Hilary (big shoes to fill!) and started off with a fabric raffle.  Several people put their marker on various bundles of fat quarters, although I don't know whether they were lucky enough to take them home! 

Julie did a demo on how to use selvedges.  They look great as book covers, and certainly make my diary easier to find in my handbag. 

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Our trader was The Button Bank.  They brought a delicious selection of buttons at very reasonable prices, and some lovely novelty fat quarters.  If you missed them, search out their Facebook page. 

We had another of our popular fabric challenges.  Jacquie had bought two half yards of fabric plus a cot wadding for those who were willing to make something for the next meeting.  We will vote for the best ones in November and there will be prizes!  Previously, we have struggled to find recipients for the last few bundles, but this time we had no trouble.  I'm looking forward to the entries at the next meeting. 

 Our speaker was Sarah Humphreys.  She's actually the daughter of Hilary Jackson, who spoke to us earlier this year.  What a coincidence!  Her work ranged from traditional to modern, and she also gave us tips on how to use technology to develop our quilting.  Here she is in front of her entry for a competition themed 'English Royalty' where she chose the national treasures, Katherine Hamnett, Vivienne Westwood and Mary Quant.  All queens of fashion.

Here we can see Carolyn who is ahead of the game.  She showed us how to make log cabin Santa decorations.  It's never too late to get ready for Christmas.  

See you at the November meeting. 

Catching up

I'm really sorry that I haven't been keeping the blog up to date, but here are the last two meetings.
In May we had the pleasure of the company of Diane Gaffney who brought lots of examples of 'Clothes for Ceremonies'.

 Here is Dianne, ready for her talk.

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 Here is Di, who is slim enough to model this fabulous outfit!  She looks so elegant!  Diane dressed several people up in outfits, showing us how they are worn, and allowing the audience to examine the details of the fabrics and the embellishments. 

This skirt was richly embroidered and appliquéd, and was a real masterpiece! 

Diane brought goodies for sale.  There was jewellery and lots of different fabrics. 

This picture is out of sequence, but shows people busy sewing, knitting or chatting before the talk. It's always a treat to see what everyone is up to! 

Then in July, our speaker had a family emergency and had to cancel at short notice.  Luckily our own Jacquie stepped into the breech and brought just a few of her quilts to show us.  We all love seeing quilts, so we were delighted!  She is one talented lady and kept us entertained with her chat. 

Here are the quilts before she started her talk!  Thank you so much for bailing us out so capably, Jacquie.  You are a star!