Beetle Mania

A smug week in my workshop is inevitably followed by an interrupted week where almost nothing gets stitched at all. In my defence, I have several good excuses including trips into town for Nell’s violin exam, an orthodontist visit, a driving lesson and a day in the classroom. Fergus was lying around with tonsillitis and I had to find the best insurance quote for a learner driver as well as making multiple trips to the Post Office with my eBay packages. 

I hand stitched the voile overlays onto the Purdah quilts and hoped to assemble the entire piece but hit a major snag. The original black wool shawl was wide enough to cover everything up before I accidentally felted it. The backup shawl proved to be a smidgen too narrow and the whole thing did not look very arty. I considered buying a replacement black wool shawl and wondered how my internet history must look after searching for burqua, hijab, dupatti, and various other garments that I did not know about before. They were all too fancy or too narrow so I came up with a plan B. I found some ex-military, black wool, uniform suiting on Ebay which I will use as the shawl/dupatti and then I will appliqué on the almost ruined, original shawl into which I have cut out Purdah screen hexagonal holes. This will need to be hand embroidered onto the new “shawl”, which is not my forté. Just as I had thought I was on the home stretch, this project looks like it will involve a lot more time.

The ONLY other sewing that got done was making 2 very basic ladybird cushions for the back seat of Freya’s new car, a modern VW Beetle, that would match the tartan travel rug and ladybird key-ring. 

Freya was delighted to receive an unconditional offer to study International Relations at St Andrews University! I am very proud of all of her hard work and immediately offered to make her a “Going to Uni” quilt. Interestingly, she told me that her favourite quilts are those made from random, vintage feed-sack prints that I purchased on Ebay. This looks like a good excuse to order some retro prints and spots to recreate my favourite feed-sack quilt using my rehashed 30’s block. Studying the original quilt, it is obvious that I will need dozens of different fabrics, including some ugly ones! I have even sourced some 1930’s style ladybirds. It will be fun to make a quilt that is not for a competition or book project;) Although I do have one or two other projects that ought be finished first… (Ha-Ha-Ha!)