Region 1
London, Middlesex

Welcome to Region 1: From Your Regional Co-ordinator

Welcome to Region 1.  Geographically we are the smallest of The Quilters’ Guild regions but what we lack in area we make up for in enthusiasm.  We hold 3 Regional Days a year in central London in March, June and October where we have a combination of speakers and demonstrations plus traders and displays.  In addition to our section of The Guild website we have our own website (see below) which includes more information about quilting in the region and many useful and interesting links.

2009 Highlights

The year started off with the long planned Group Leaders meeting where each group local to Region 1 was invited to attend and share problems and ideas.  The day was one of the coldest of the winter and our location turned out to be on the route of an anti-war march but neither of these factors prevented the group leaders from coming and taking part in a very successful half day session. 

In March we held a Regional Day with an International flavour to celebrate International Quilting Day.  The speakers spoke about fabrics from south-east Asia and quilting in Mongolia.  For June Regional Day we welcomed Helen Deighan who told us about her lifelong textile journey as she encouraged yet another group of quilters to go off and start dyeing.  Lilian Hedley was our inspirational speaker in October.  On the day before Regional Day one of the local traders hosted Lilian for a hand quilting workshop.  Demonstrations in the afternoons of June and October Regional Days covered many diverse topics from machine quilting to markal sticks. 

The annual raffle quilt is the region’s main fund raising activity and 2009 was a record year as far as ticket sales was concerned.  The quilt was a beautiful single quilt with houses and trees on a yellow background, made and donated by Barbara Laine.  Altogether the quilt raised nearly £1400 for the region.

One highlight of the year was the great pleasure of seeing one of our YQs scoop the YQ first prize at this year’s AGM.  Leonard is a regular attendee at Regional Day and he represented the region admirably. 

On the subject of YQs, on the hottest day of the year 17 London based quilters turned up at a private girls school to teach nearly 100, year 7 girls (11-12 year olds) how to make a small quilt.  Despite the heat and the strange teachers the girls had a great day and ended up with many small quilts which linked together with hooks and eyes and are destined to hang in the school as a memento of the day for years to come.

As always Our Patch has kept the region’s members informed of what to do, where to go and what they missed.  The September issue suffered extreme delays due to the postal strikes but one good thing came out of it – we sent out our first e-mail bulletin to make sure that no-one forgot to come to Regional Day.  

October found Region One enticing stitchers from around the country to join The Guild, or at least buy a raffle ticket, at the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace.  Over the four exhausting days we provided information, handed out leaflets and flyers and made many new friends. 

2010 starts with Regional Day on the 20th March, see the events section for details.  I hope to meet you there or at one of the other events in the region this year. 

Carol

Region 1 Website

Region 1 has its own website at: www.qgr1.co.uk

The website is co-ordinated by Cathy Corbishley Michel.

You can email her at: qgr1@yahoo.com