An expedition

 My new travel backpack and I headed off to Ipswich for a long weekend to attend the Quilters Guild AGM. This was a three day event organised by local volunteers with a programme of classes, outings, some exhibitions, a small trade area and a few meals. It was awkwardly sited at an out-of-town wedding venue so I ended up spending £30 on taxi fares (and it would have been more but I managed to share or cadge a few lifts) but apparently they really struggled to find a suitable location.  

The train gods smiled on me and I had an easy three hour journey down there, changing in London, and went straight to the venue from the station.  After giving away money to the various raffles and fundraisers, I headed for my first class which was meant to be a carousel of eight tutors over two hours. They announced that we could choose four, but then made it even more complicated by only  having half of the tutors teaching at one time. This inevitably meant that popular classes were over subscribed and I actually only to got to do three hurried mini-workshops:  to make a gathered Japanese flower, a simple little pouch to be decorated in future with embroidery, and an origami-folded pincushion top a la Jennie Rayment.  After that I attended an interesting talk by the Quilt Study Group about aspects of British quilts, and then took part in the Social Supper.  Not a lot of food but it was quite social as our table tried to follow the convoluted games for which we had been instructed to bring fat quarters and jelly roll strips.  So I ended up with a couple of new FQs. The person who won the table's jelly roll strips understandably didn't want them as they were an extremely mixed bag so we decided to donate them to the Linus charity stand at the event.

The FQs from the Social supper, a pink FQ I won in the tombola, and the goodies from our goodie bag

The half-started mini-projects from the Carousel, and a couple of FQs I bought in the trading area. I also bought a couple of kits from Euro-Japan to make a little purse and a kimono wallhanging (not pictured)

Saturday morning was the well-attended AGM (probably because there were no other events scheduled) during which I did a lot of knitting on my pale green boucle t-shirt. I finished the back and started the front.

The back of my t-shirt, a bit crumpled from being stuffed into my bag

 In the afternoon I was booked on an outing to the Warner Textile Archive, which I think would have been very interesting but due to a series of mix-ups and an unfortunate road blockage (burst water main) we had very little time at the actual archive.  Bless the volunteers for all the hard work they put in to arrange this weekend which couldn't have happened without them, but the communication and organisation were a bit shambolic at times.  Today was a gorgeous sunny day for our outing to see the famous site of the Sutton Hoo archeological dig, however once again due to apparent lack of planning, we had virtually no time to actually see the exhibitions and house and were given a truncated but still quite interesting tour to the royal burial mound field. I think DH would find Sutton Hoo interesting so I hope we can take the caravan down that way, perhaps next year, and have a more leisurely visit.  I had seen the film 'The Dig' before going, so it was quite interesting to see the real place.

A sculpture of the iconic helmet

Our tour guide at Sutton Hoo, in authentic Anglo Saxon regalia.

When we got back, I found out I had won one of the handmade bags in the Chinese Auction which is this very useful holdall bag so I was quite pleased.

I'm glad I attended the weekend despite the occasional organisational wobble. It felt good to reconnect with other quilters after the last couple of years and I even bumped into a woman from my very first tour to Paducah in I think 2005, we recognised each other right away and had a lovely chat. I chatted to several nice people, saw some great quilts, learned some new things, had a nice walk around the historic Ipswich town centre on Saturday night plus saw a lot of scenic Suffolk on the bus tours, did some fabric shopping, and got to practice 'being away' some more.  I need to start getting ready for Paducah which is only three weeks now.

Month 11 of the Australian BOM has shown up now - they even look exciting when they are still in the packet.

This week I tried out another of the Sew Sweetness Minikins 3 pouch patterns. This one is the Palomino Pouch in the large size. I used a novelty fabric covered in pictures of classic British pubs and DH thinks his dad might like it for carrying his medications in - I'll save it for his Dad's birthday.

I had a lucky find in a charity shop this week: a pair of pincushion dolls both dressed in shattered silk gowns  Their bases are padded cylinders perhaps for hat pins or sewing pins, and one sports a very dashing padded hat which may have been a pincushion.  I may make new gowns for them, likely to fit over the originals so those are preserved.  I don't know what date they are, possibly 1920s or 30s?  There are no markings on them.

And finally, some fabric arrived this week. I had ordered some 'A Celebration of Sanderson' fabric in the Rose and Peony  Medium, Bright colourway because, in the photo, the multifloral looked like the border fabrics we used to see in the 1990s.  But now it's here, it's a lot more vivid than I thought, more like day-glo neon. I also ordered a couple of coordinates, but I feel a bit like I need sunglasses for the lot of them. Not sure what it will get used in, but hopefully something. It will certainly be bright.