April Club Night

Our speaker at the April club night described himself as a lover of the written word.  Des Schollum owns a bookshop specialising in rare second hand books, and has a passion for collecting the handwritten notes and letters of famous people.  He then frames these fragments of handwriting, together with a picture of the person.  Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, Lord Nelson, Hardy, and Queen Victoria were some he brought along to speak about.  My personal favourite was a snippet of handwriting from Queen Elizabeth 1st, but then I am a real lover of the Tudor period.  It is wonderful to reflect that these famous people in history had sat down with pen and paper in hand, considered what to write, then put their thoughts on paper.  Then, so many years later, or centuries in this case, these historical fragments still survive. 

Fragment of writing by Queen Elizabeth the 1st

Des Schollum greatly admires Odette, the war heroine who was captured and tortured, and spoke about her life.  He became very friendly with Odette’s family and after their parents had passed away, the daughters sent Odette’s French Legion of Honour scarf to him.  The family must have been very sure that he would honour this family treasure.

Des with Odette’s Legion of Honour scarf

Show and Tell is always a highlight of our monthly meetings, where we get to see what everyone has completed during the month.  Sylvia endeavours  to have a neo-natal quilt finished each month for the hospital, and this one was so cute.  She found the red-work designs on the internet, and had fun stitching them.

   Red-work neo-natal quilt

Cathy hasn’t been quilting very long, she told us,  and and is justifiably proud of her sampler quilt in warm country colours.  She mastered all sorts of techniques on this quilt, such as  appliqué, paper piecing, crazy patch.  It then took her  five months working solidly each night doing hand quilting to complete her sampler quilt.

Cathy’s star sampler quilt

Margaret showed us a bright and happy charity quilt which will be given to the Hospice.  Club members stitched the four patch blocks, then assembled the quilt.  All fabric, batting, and the commercial quilting service was donated by our local shop, Thimbles and Threads.

Quilt for the Hospice

With the wedding of her niece coming up, Jess stitched her a lovely little memory quilt as a gift.  The lace used is left over from her niece's Mum’s own wedding gown, and the little squares are the same fabric from the bridesmaid’s dresses from the long ago family wedding.  What a delightful little treasure so full of family history.

Bridal party fabric in this little quilt

All in all, another very pleasant quilt club night, with a very interesting speaker, show and tell to inspire us, and good company.