Norfolk in Midsummer

 

My drive down to Norfolk took 11 hours this time, due to roadworks and some heavy rain. There was of course, no sign of rain in Norfolk where the grass is already scorched. I’m not sure the last time I experienced a dry summer solstice and it has been HOT. My plan is to sit in the shade when I am not meant to be somewhere and dew the tiny bells onto the prairie points for my FOQ entry. 

Nella and I had a day in London which is just under 2 hours away by train. We had a really nice day but tried to fit too much in. We did not do any sightseeing or museums on this trip. Near Liverpool Street Station is an eclectic collection of posh shops, smart flea market and street food at Spitalfields Market. To be honest, you could just mooch around that area all day. We also headed to Chinatown because Nella wanted to go to a Miffy pop-up shop. We had lunch at the trendy Seven Dials Market then made our way to Covent Garden which was very busy. I was over ambitious in wanting to go to Fortnum and Mason, followed by Liberty and rather wished I had opted for a calm exhibition of some sort instead. Fortnums was full of over-priced Coronation fruitcake tins but we did have a refreshing break at their ice cream parlour. It was pricey but worth it for a nice sit-down. 

I was a bit disappointed by Liberty, which I don’t think I have been to since the 1990’s. Maybe it was because it was late in our day or because Liberty is not as exclusive, or because the cotton lawn was almost £30.00 per metre. On the train back to Norwich I made a note of what we had particularly enjoyed and jotted down ideas for a future trip.

I have missed the reliability of East Anglian summer weather - here everyone has all their doors open to let in cooler air but at my house in Scotland I open the doors to let in warmer air;) It is so nice to eat outside all the time, not just occasionally. It is sweltering though!

This coming week Nella and I plan on wandering around in Norwich and going to the seaside. She will pack up her stuff to come back home for the summer. I hope she does not find it too boring and chilly back home. Mind you, if it is then she will look forward to returning for the new term!

Help ma Boab! - Staying out of the Sun

This week has been high summer for all of the UK and even here it has been in the mid twenties with clear blue skies. I stood no chance of getting sunburnt because I have been in my workshop all week pushing on with “Help Ma Boab” aka the mirror quilt. I am off to Norfolk next week so I knew that I had to get as much done as possible before I go so I don’t have to stress about it while I am away and then rush to finish it when I get back.

My original vision was for straight-line quilting and I was tempted to come up with some fancier quilting but decided to stick with my plan for a change. It took me around 20 hours to complete all of the ¼” lines with a ruler on my longarm. I had to make sure they were accurately placed and even though I was very careful there is still an oddly spaced line or two. My hand and arm ached as I am not used to that kind of quilting endurance these days. 

I spent another day couching on the silver accent macrame cord up and down the seam lines (not to hide any dodgy piecing because it was nearly perfect!). The quilt had become quite rigid as I had used 2 layers of wadding so it was quite a challenge to fit the quilt under the sewing machine for the long seams.

I decided to block it while we had hot weather and it had held its shape quite well. While I waited for it to dry I made up some binding samples, a bit like I had done with Rainbow Warliors. There will be a LOT of layers right at the edge so I have decided to add a single-fold binding. It’s not going to be a bed quilt and the Quilt Police don’t need to find out. 

I have now got all of the finishing components ready - the binding is made, the hanging sleeve is cut, the silver lamé flange has had gold ricrac attached, so I just need to hand sew micro bells onto the prairie points with invisible thread. I think there should be a special prize for ingenuity in making a quilt label. My Mac computer does not easily create curved text so I had too think of another way. I designed the text around a circle using Cricut software but my Cricut Joy was too small to draw the label the size that I wanted. I took a screenshot, resized and printed onto fabric attached to freezer paper with my printer. Then I made a reverse appliqué hole and put a spare block from the quilt behind it. Next I did some metallic stitching and kantha then had the brainwave of making the label circular. I keep thinking about what the maker of my Indian tunic scrap would do if she had the same access to trimmings that I do…!

Jings, Crivens, Help ma Boab!

Since the nights are light and none of my kids are home just now I have been working long hours on my Circles quilt. The deadline for the FoQ competition entry is midnight on Monday and the quilt has to be finished and sent to the show by about July 24th. 

Suddenly I needed to get it going and order the backing fabric and decide on further embellishments. I had to decide on a name, write an artist statement, list materials and techniques, declare the size, and upload a photo - all on an unfinished quilt. 

I used my industrial heat press to flatten the blocks in case I stretched them with an iron. I defied Quilting Law by pressing the seams open and decided that they were definitely flatter and easier to line up. I had made the blocks deliberately oversized but some of the rings were JUST outside the seam allowance after being trimmed so I decided to gloss over that by couching some sparkly yarn down the seam lines. Laying out the blocks on my table was mind boggling. I could not work out whether to group the blocks according to colour or try to make a regular pattern. In the end I went as random as I could. I was very careful to pick the blocks up exactly as I had set them down and joined them in diagonal rows to create an on-point layout.

While I wait for the backing fabric to arrive I will get on and make some fancy prairie points and see if I can be bothered to make many, many tiny tassels to insert into the binding. I have also ordered some tiny bells (but no tiny pompoms)…

“Jings, Crivens, Help ma Boab!” is a phrase used by Scots cartoon characters in Our Wullie and The Broons to express exasperation, frustration and / or amazement. It is thought by some linguists to translate to Jesus, Christ, Help me God. Modern texters might just type ffs!

The quilt has now been named “Help ma Boab!” Perhaps it should have been something more arty like “Glimpses”? but the first idea appealed to me more.

Finally got a-ROUND the circles!

Almost my whole week was spent stitching around a seemingly never ending supply of circles. Some of the circle-squares had 8 processes - reverse appliqué circles, stick silver lame to reverse (some with ricrac), blanket stitch around the silver circles, sew in thread tails, cut and heat press coloured and metallic rings, zig-zag or triple stitch around the coloured rings, sew in thread tails, stitch around the big zig-zag rings twice with silver thread, kantha-style stitching around many circles. Finally they can be carefully pressed and trimmed, then pieced together. 

The next dilemma is whether to add blue sashing as “punctuation”. The trouble is that I will feel compelled to embellish the sashing in some long-winded way… I was getting quite bored with the hand-stitching by the end!

Two customer quilts got done and I had a day in Edinburgh giving tuition to a new Q20 owner. That machine was fixed in a table, not moveable on a frame so it was not my usual longarm quilting skillset. I know how the machine works, of course, but the method of quilting and some operations are a bit different. 

Summer is racing on now that June has arrived. I need to decide if I can get the quilt ready for FOQ and I must work out a rough plan for Nella’s summer holiday. I can’t work out where the time goes!

Gradual Circle Progress

 I decided that since I only officially had one customer quilt to do last week, I would crack on with making progress on my circles. I finished all of the machine stitching but the large zigzags did not seem very stable to me. I had reduced the tension substantially so the bobbin thread would not show on top. I decided that the answer was to secure the zigzag stitches with a double trip around each circle edge with silver thread. The process for each circle square is quite long-winded and I wonder if anyone will even notice. It took almost 2 days to sew in all of the loose thread tails and secure them. At least I got to watch some telly on the iPad - I particularly enjoyed “The Good Karma Hospital”, set in Kerala. It has made me want to visit India again!

The second 110” square quilt got quilted in one long day this week. Its maker stayed for the duration. I kept it simple, using the computerised pattern, “Stacked Snailz” otherwise it would have taken considerably longer. 

Fergus and his two pals had their first gig in 4 years, opening the evening at Cafe Drummond in Aberdeen. There were a couple of minor technical issues that the audience did not notice, a good turnout and their set went down really well. The floor was just as sticky as it was pre-pandemic and it was great to see Fergus back enjoying the music scene. I intended to film it  with 2 of my tiny cameras but it was too dark to press the right buttons so my footage was patchy. I spent an entire day afterwards nerdily fiddling with settings and researching mics for recording music so I hope to get another chance to be the official videographer;)

A Painter's Temperament

I was meant to have a low-key week in preparation for my Talk and for getting the caravan ready to meet Freya and George in Perthshire at the weekend. I decided to put Fergus to work painting the kitchen and the very dodgy coat cupboard. He started off as a reasonably willing apprentice but as the week wore on and the number of coats of paint went beyond normal he became less enthusiastic. My supervisory role became more involved… 

The red walls needed 5 coats of paint and I switched to using masonry paint after finding that it was effective over the damp patches (after treating them with mould killer). It was not an easy job and the girls asked why I did not just do the back door area and re-coat the kitchen in its original dark red. The results are far from perfect and messier than the original job that I last did 23 years ago but the whole area looks bigger and fresher. 

I got a big quilt done for a friend who has just bought a new house in between coats of paint.

My Talk seemed to go down well and was reportedly quite funny but I still have to refold all of the quilts which just got shoved back into their suitcases at the end of the evening. 

I did not spend long getting the caravan ready for its first outing of the year but nothing crucial got forgotten and it was a good practice for more ambitious trips. Typically, I could not get the electricity or gas going on arrival, partly because I had forgotten how it worked but I figured it out in the end. It was rather a damp weekend and I was glad that I was not sleeping in a tent. We walked about 8 miles on Saturday and took Nessie to the pub. Not much sewing got done but I finished reading a book - The Muse by Jessie Burton - and it was super spending time with Freya;) The only drama was being waved at by other caravans on the way home because someone had opened the loo window and I did not check All the windows before I left!

Has Spring Even Happened?

 

I took Nessie to the beach at Stonehaven on Bank Holiday Monday. It was busy with volunteers doing a beach clean-up operation. The tide was out but it was pouring with rain and pretty breezy. I had decided to leave Nessie’s raincoat at home so we both got soaked. At home the wild cherry trees are already dropping their blossom. Because it has been so damp and grey I had not even noticed that they actually had any flowers. In Norwich Nella has been experiencing thunderstorms and heavy rain and so far does not believe that Norfolk is one of the driest parts of the country. 

I have unwrapped any caravan in readiness for a weekend trip to Perthshire to meet Freya. It seems to be dry with only a couple of cobwebs and the fake ivy has come unstuck from the bathroom walls. Nella is not keen to go on a caravan road trip with me this summer so I will just have to go on short trips instead. In theory I would like to drive it down to Norfolk and beyond but that seems like a daunting solo undertaking.

I have been busy all week with customer quilts and an enthusiastic new longarm pupil. While all that was going on I worked on my small rainbow/lamé squares. After I sewed in all of the ends from the machine blanket stitching I stitched around the rings kantha-style. My fingers ache because they are not used to so much hand sewing! There are 150+ squares still to do then I need to decide how much more machine sewing will be added. The deadline for FoQ entries is June 12th and the fee has gone up since I last entered as it is now £18.00 for non members of the Quilters Guild, plus postage each way. 

This week I am presenting a talk to the Aberdeen Patchwork and Quilting Group. I hope they have forgotten what I spoke about previously. It has been posted as an evening that will be funny - at the very least I need to make sure that my USB stick slideshow is working and that I have the correct quilts. 

Don't Make Me Paint the Kitchen!

 

My wonderful blue fridge conked out after 26 years and I got fed up with traipsing across to the garage every time I wanted milk so I ordered a new, orange one. It is NOT the same. I guess I will get used to it eventually but it has reminded me that the last time I painted the kitchen was 23 years ago. I really ought to freshen it up but that will highlight the disgusting ceiling, covered in stains and cobwebs, and that is a job I do not wish to tackle until it collapses.

I had also considered painting my room but I decided an easier way of cheering it up would be to create a plant window. I hope I can keep them alive - some like water while others do not.

I don’t know why I never thought of it before but this week I watched some telly on my iPad while the quilt machine was running. I avoided stuff with foreign subtitles and managed to do some hand-stitching. While The Coronation was on I stitched around 100 reverse appliqué silver lamé circles with a machine blanket stitch. The Bernina knee-lift was marvellous for lifting the sewing machine foot every couple of stitches. I have set myself the task of sewing in all of the thread tails which is not something I would have bothered to do previously. 

I spent a whole day cutting out and heat-pressing circles onto 100 more squares. As usual I thought this would take a couple of hours at most which just proves that I always underestimate how long things really take;) Since I seem to be steaming ahead with this project I should really get around to entering it into FoQ, particularly as I have not made a competition quilt since 2019!

We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat!*

I made the long solo trip back from Norfolk on Monday, helped along by a packet of M&S giant chocolate buttons. I unloaded the car but still have not unpacked. Before I left I had prepared a customer quilt with a tight deadline so I had to get straight on with it the next day. It was a hexagon quilt that 2 sisters had completed for their 92 year old Mother. The layout was unusual because instead of a simple flower-garden layout, it had random patches of colour as it was actually a herbaceous border, which I thought was very clever.

The next quilt was HUGE at 110” square and it only just fitted onto my frame after I removed a couple of fittings at each end. I had a 14 ft. quilt frame for years and rarely needed that extra space but now that I have a more modest frame I have had 2 enormous quilts arrive within days of each other. I am told that they were lockdown projects that just kept getting bigger. The pineapple log cabin quilt looks fantastic but it is really heavy and I am not sure I would like to make a bed with it on a daily basis;)

While the quilt machine was doing its thing and I was keeping a close eye on things, I did some hand-stitching on my circles. I have no idea whether I will finish this project in time for Festival of Quilts but that is my intention. 

On Saturday a customer brought in a wedding quilt with a stained-glass central area. She wants to add embroidery later but she was not keen on the easiest / quickest option of simple background quilting. We settled on a leaf motif in the HST blocks which I had to edit in ArtnStitch to remove its pantograph tails. The central area was quilted stitch-in-the-ditch with invisible thread. 

I have a few more quilts to do next week - it seems to be either feast or famine. I have not made a video for a while so I should really do that if I hope to get more than 300-odd Youtube subscribers!

*In the 1975 hit movie “Jaws”, Martin Brody, the Police Chief of a small summer resort town in the northeastern United States, utters one of the most quotable lines in film history when he gets his first up-close look at the Great White Shark.