Welcome to Celia Eddy's QuiltStory, the first port of call for anyone interested or involved in patchwork and quilting.

Hello and Welcome to Quiltstory.

I've been exploring the delights of those ready-cut strips in Jellyrolls. Their actually quite good value as most of them cost around £23 and contain the equivalant of about three metres of fabric. I haven't finished any quilts using them, but apart from the obvious uses - Log Cabin Quilts and Roman Stripes, for example - they're ideal for making those rather complex Bethlehem Star blocks which involve making pieced diamonds. There are also some Jellyroll patterns available on the Internet, so if you haven't dived in yet why not give them a try?

This year I'm running a series of Workshops from home, mainly for 'beginners and improvers'. The May Workshop will be on anInterlaced Star pattern typical of Moorish tile designs in places like the Alhambra. It can be worked by hand or by machine. I know from visiting groups and giving classes and workshops that there are more people out there than we usually recognise who prefer to work by hand, enjoying the advantages of 'portability' and also the sense of intimacy with your work which only leisurely hand-sewing can give. The sewing machine can become a real slave-driver, and it can also mean isolating yourself from family and fireside. So teaching the various hand-stitching techniques is a great pleasure to me and reminds me of how much hand-sewing I used to do, and how much I loved it. Most members of my Brown House Quilters Group work entirely by hand and you can see some of their work on my Patchwork and Quilting blog: blog

Recently I was offered the chance to put any work which I want to sell on to a newly-created website which aims to give artists and craft workers a show-case for selling their work. As mine is the first example of textile art to appear, I don't know how much interest there will be in it but thought it worth a try. You can see my work here: artrealart

The re-location of The Quilters' Guild of the British Isles to its new home in York will take place later this year and is expected to be opened officially in the summer. Keep looking at the Guild website for updates: QGBI Don't forget, too, that because the Guild has regional branches nationwide it's easy for visitors to UK to find information on the website about Guild groups and activites country-wide, and UK residents can find out what's going on wherever they may live.



If anyone would like details of my Workshop Programme for this year, please e-mail me and I'll send them through.

Best wishes

Celia

Loch Lomond Quilt Show
14/05/2008 - 17/05/2008
location: Loch Lomond, Scotland
more information: www.lochlomondquiltshow.com

Quilts UK
15/05/2008 - 18/05/2008
location: Three Counties Showground, Malvern, Worcs.
more information: www.grosvenorexhibitions.co.uk

National Quilt Championships
20/06/2008 - 22/06/2008
location: Sandown Exhibition Centre, Sandown, Esher, Surrey
more information: www.grosvenorexhibitions.co.uk

Minerva Quilts 08
14/07/2008 - 13/09/2008
location: Minerva Arts Centre, LLanidloes, Mid-Wales
more information: 01686 413467

Festival of Quilts 2008
14/08/2008 - 17/08/2008
location: NEC, Birmingham
more information: www.twistedthread.com