Pretty Random

The Postie brought me a copy of “Pretty Patches” magazine with a super article about The Quilt Quine and my Ebook, “Deviant Quilting”. Let’s just hope that helps to boost my sales because my first loyalty cheque was only just short of a fish supper!

An irate customer phoned me to demand where I was because she was waiting for me at my studio while I was at school teaching mathematical Probability to some under 12’s. We both seemed to have different days marked on our calendars which was unfortunate. I had enjoyed my bonus “free” day to complete the appliqué on Purdah and decide whether to order a big bag of black beads when she didn’t show up as expected the day before;)

One of my clients, who lives as an ex-pat in Nigeria, came back to Scotland for a brief visit and brought me an amazing bag full of African fabrics. I had told her that I wanted to have a go at a quilt that I had seen in an Amy Butler supplement which was a take on Japanese folded patchwork. It is a quilt as you go project so I immediately cut some large circles to have a go! I think it would be better to use a very thin wadding but I decided to use up some leftover pieces of 80/20 so it is a little bulky. I expect it will soften up with washing or general use. The magazine project was not actually quilted, except at the seam joins and where the flaps were sewn down but obviously, I thought it would look better with some quilting and machine embroidery. I was so enthusiastic about my new project that I went ahead and cut out enough fabric and wadding to make an entire single quilt, despite having other projects to finish first… 

Inspired by having an entire quilt ready to construct in kit form, I went ahead and calculated the required number of pieces for 20 blocks of my 1930 reproduction quilt that I still don’t know whether to call “Grumpy Goose/Bloody Mabel”. It took a whole day to raid my stash of plaids, spots and vaguely feed-sack style prints plus whatever else might go. It will be a pretty random quilt, including all sorts of prints, checks and polka-dots. There is a possibility that it could be an ugly quilt but I am hoping that it will look charmingly scrappy. I intend to put the pieces for each block into 20 poly-pockets which will take a while to organise. The original quilt has some very co-ordinated blocks but also some garish ones that obviously used up the dregs of someone’s scrap bag. I wonder how long I can resist the temptation to work on one of my “kit” quilts while I still have to complete the black Purdah shawl?!