January

The first meeting of each year is always a sewing day for charity. Despite the cold weather, lots of people turned up for a very enjoyable morning of sewing 8.5 inch blocks which will be joined together to make quilts for St. Wilfred’s Hospice. Also Diane Levantine came to accept our donation as a result of funds raised at our show last year.

February

Penny Bicknell made a welcome return to talk to us about Scrappy Quilts with a Modern Twist. We all have loads of scraps though the big question is what is a scrap, when do we decide it is no long a piece of fabric just a scrap! Fortunately, Penny had lots of ideas to use up small pieces of fabric whether you had one of a particular pattern or loads already cut into small pieces. She had plenty of examples and everyone enjoyed the afternoon.

February Workshop

The following day, there was a workshop with Penny which was enjoyed by all who attended, using up scraps of all sizes to make something new.

Charity Sewing Day

After our successful sewing for charity day in January where we made loads of 8.5 inch blocks, 10 of us got together to sew them all together. We were a great example of team work and got a great production line going and put tougher 8 quilts during the day. Though we still need to quilt and bind them, we were delighted with our work and showed the members at our next meeting and all agreed.

March

Everyone enjoyed a great talk from Maria Hearne, she has been sewing for many years and offers a variety of courses but is new to giving talks but we would never have guessed. She had lots of tales to tell, some were happy and some were sad but everyone enjoyed listening to her very much. She brought along her sister Lisa to help show us the large array of quilts she has made and explained each one as the photos here show.

April

yy This month our speaker was Trish Grammar and she explained the story of Shweshwe fabrics. Trish was born and bred in South Africa. Her parents moulded her interests, her father was an engineer and her mother was a keen needlewoman. Trish developed her passion for Shweshwe fabric and having moved to the UK in 1996, she still retains that passion. The colours of the fabric are so vibrant that all the items she has made are very striking.

April Workshop

The day after her talk, Trish led a workshop using Shweshwe fabrics to make summer hats. she had washed the excess starch from our fabrics and we (mostly) chose two
fabrics as the pattern makes a reversible hat. The fabric is a contrary mixture of soft and firm – it stitches well, holds its shape but thetas also crumple up to fit in your pocket.

Made from 3 shapes, crown, side and brim, as deep as you like – the hats could be made in various sizes. Putting the pieces together was a matter of careful folding and pinning but as you can see in the photos, they all turned out very well.

May

We saw a wonderful collection of Mini quilts from the specialist group of the Quilters Guild, known as the Handbag Collection. For the Group’s 20th anniversary members made mini quilts on the theme of China, this could be the country or cups and saucers. These were exhibited at the Festival of Quilts but we now had the opportunity to look at them in greater detail. Inspiration varied but the piecing was very precise and interesting. Anne Bone did a great job or showing groups of the mini quilts and then giving us time to get up and look more closely and admiring the great ideas and precise work before moving on to the next batch.

June

This month Helen Sill came to speak to us in Lavant Hall. Helen is a very talented lady who is passionate about her subject, cloth. Twenty years ago she started working as an artist, tutor and embroiderer having already gained a foundation degree, she decided to do some research and travel to Gujarat, India with the intention of studying how the nomadic communities operated and researching their textiles. This led her to meet many of the local artisans who are traditionally mainly men. They keep the women in their place.

Helen discovered that there are many different ways of stitching cloth tocreate patterns. In Gujarat they are creating different artifacts from the cloth that they weave, stitch, dye or embroider. Some of the methods used go back hundreds of years. Helen explained in detail many techniques that are used – Rogan painting, Batik, Tie dyeing ( Bandhani design), Jacquard and Ikat
weaving, and Block printing.

July 2025

Our 40th Birthday meeting in July was a great success. More than 40 members came along and enjoyed strawberries and cream, Prosecco and an amazing Birthday cake made by Cake Magic in Berstead. We were joined by members of staff from St. Wilfrid’s Hospice and we were delighted to hand over 14 quilts, made by our members and they were just as delighted to accept them to brighten up the bedrooms at the hospice. We had a free raffle with some great prizes and memories of several members who were there at the beginning of Chichester Quilters. Everyone enjoyed the meeting and look forward to our next meeting in September.

September 2025

This m eating was a sewing and learning day. Various members of Chichester Quilters including Lesley, Gill, Elizabeth and Sally volunteered to run a little workshop to show a new technique. Everyone enjoys these days as apart from being able to spend a couple of hours sewing, it gives an opportunity to chat to different people

October 2025

Helen Steele came to speak to us about her screen printed fabrics which not only does she design but prints as well. She explained how she got into screen printing, how her designs have evolved and her plans for the future. She brought along plenty of examples for us to look at along with a lovely selection of her fabrics which were beautifully packaged and presented for us to buy. The following day, there was a workshop for members to attend so that they could try screen printing for themselves using the hoop method and could take away a panel they had printed.. There was also the chance to mix some inks to understand how colour works. A fun day had by all

NOVEMBER 2025

We were very pleased to welcome the first Chair of Chichester Quilters, Rosamund Champ to our November meeting. She started the group 40 years ago and came along to tel everyone the story of Chichester Quilters which was wonderful.

Samantha Boot was our speaker for November and her talk was titled The Perfection of Imperfection.

Samantha is a textile artist and quilter, her work is undertaken mindfully and hand stitched preserving the heritage craft of sewing. Her work is often based on recycling and sustainability as she reuses fabric and embroidered items as part of her work and often stitches words into her pieces to remember places and events. Lots of questions from her audience and everyone enjoyed her talk.

Rosamund, 1st Chair of Chichester Quilters with an early poster for a quilting show and a Quilters waistcoat she made along with poster for an early Quilt Show.

Chichester Regional Show

Each year the Quilters Guild, Region 2 have a regional day which is held in Chichester and many of our members lend a hand running the show. There are interesting speakers with quilts to show and various others quilts on show as well.

These quilts were from speaker Joy Harber

and these were from the Master Quilters Course

December

Our AGM was efficiently dealt with and we enjoyed refreshments with mince pies and Christmas Cake. Our member Lesley Syme brought along some of her antique quilts for everyone to see and we had a free raffle organised by Marilyn.