The Quilt Quine

Sunday, 9 March 2014

Beads and Pirate Ships

http://www.bonniemccaffery.com/vidcasts/092.html

(link above to vidcast)

Contrary to my decision to concentrate on quilting, I was in school for two days again. One day I was the visiting Science "expert", ad-libbing lessons on the human circulatory system, magnets and the senses. Two days later I was muddling along in an infant class, reading pirate stories.

Freya successfully applied for a tall-ship expedition from Amsterdam to Aberdeen with deaf and hearing teenagers from UK, France, Germany and The Netherlands. Since the trip is only a month away, there has been a flurry of sourcing sailing gear and making travel arrangements. I decided that I will fly out with her and visit a few museums in Amsterdam before waving her off on her adventure.

We visited the Great Tapestry of Scotland at the Art Gallery in Aberdeen after shopping for Freya's thermals and were very impressed by the interpretation of the drawings and skilled stitching. There were many other enthusiastic visitors and it would be well worth a second visit to notice more of the clever details.

I spent much of the rest of my time quilting a large, modern customer quilt and getting the a large double-wedding-ring ready to start next week. I am getting a steady stream of quilts in at the moment without even doing any advertising. I could probably give up school-teaching altogether but it just seems a prudent idea to keep my teaching skills up to date.

I decided that I would need to sew beads onto the leather skins that I have quilted in odd gaps of time that I have. Some of the tiny stone chips take around an hour to sew onto relatively small circles!

Bonnie McCaffrey posted a link to a video-cast interview of me that she filmed at FOQ last year. I actually thought that she may have forgotten about it… I come across as quite bonkers, to be honest. My accent is a peculiar mix of posh Radio 4 with the odd very Scots word.

A Facebook friend posted a picture of the front cover of Generation Q Magazine which mentions the article about "The Quilt Quine's Hoose". I hope that they send me a copy because this magazine is not available in a digital format and it is not currently on sale in the UK.

I tried to crack on with my E-Book on Friday but I felt a bit like a headless chicken, having not looked at it properly for some time. I will try to do far more with it this week although I have an additional project to squeeze in for a ruby wedding table runner and I am being tempted by some very funky Japanese linen that I want to use in a quick and simple "just because" quilt. Although I have seen a very clever square-in-a-square layout online that creates a secondary star pattern, with no instructions or dimensions, of course;)

Sunday, 23 February 2014

Fish n Sheep

To add to the stress of a mid-term holiday, I also had to contend with new dog-owning neighbours, a flock of sheep in the field that was empty last week and a ban on walking down by the river since it is now the salmon fishing season. Wellington has never been terribly interested in dog biscuit bribes for coming back promptly and the increasingly geriatric Mabel gets lost in the undergrowth if we explore anywhere new.

I knew that a planned quilting schedule was out of the question but nevertheless, I completed some useful tasks. I am mightily impressed to report that my business spreadsheet is up to date and I finally got around to adding some more photos to my Flickr photostream. I'm sure there are hundreds more photos hiding in my my computer somewhere but at least my Flickr page is a little more organised than it was;)

I worked on a log-cabin star medallion quilt for a customer who wanted me to "keep things simple" - it may look simple but stitch-in-the-ditch on a long arm is far from easy and Because I forgot to use invisible thread, I had to be extra careful not to wobble off-course.

Rather than put away the leftover Drunkard's Path blocks in a drawer never to be seen again, I sewed them together, added some strips, quilted it with freehand lines and rustled up a quick cushion. Because I didn't bother with piping it was ridiculously easy and I wondered why I don't make cushions more often.

Fergus and I installed the Apple TV gadget without too much trouble then Fenella had great fun interrupting repeats of "Top Gear" with Youtube video clips of fluffy animal from her Ipad in a different room. Just to keep me grounded, I dutifully waited in the school car-park for Freya to finish one of her mock-exams for half an hour before I realised that I had not read the clock correctly and had arrived over an hour too soon.

I spent an entire day and evening quilting the dark pink leather skin for one of the summer totems. The edges would not lie flat and where bulky wrinkles formed and I broke 3 industrial needles. I had to trim off the offending sides in the end and will just re-cut an approximate sheep outline when I am ready to bind it. Now I just have to patiently wait until all of the gems and crystals arrive in the post before I start sewing them all on with my bendy beading needle.

Since my husband still had not got around to fixing my broken Kitchenaid mixer, I decided that I should just try and do it myself. The instructions were excellent except that they failed to mention how much brute strength and forceful hammering would be involved to take the body apart. It took me several hours to replace the chewed worm gear, repack it with grease and get the awkward little pin back in its correct place but I got there in the end and felt triumphant. It seems to work again but the true test will be kneading bread dough. I think if it goes wrong again I will simply order a new one!