Wot, no Snow?

Amazingly, we have had no lying snow so far this winter, despite significant amounts in the South for a change. I am not unduly upset at this as the schools have remained open and we have not been snowed in but I have now been waiting a year to try out snow dyeing. The sky looked quite threatening at one point so I rushed out and bought 3 flannel sheets to back my Christmas quilts and washed them in readiness but the weather got milder again. At least I will now be fully prepared – I have everything I need apart from snow. I would actually like just two days' worth, preferably over a weekend.

After two days of teaching I had a limited amount of time to work on the photo quilt with circles and lines. I became familiar with every picture by the time I had rolled the quilt up and down the frame a few times to complete the quilting designs. I was really pleased with the end result; Shona's choice of pale batiks was very complementary to the photos which she had printed using a fine cotton bed sheet treated with Bubble Jet Set.  

My Christmas fabric drawer was almost empty so I felt justified in ordering a few half yards online. I am sorry to say that I have not been inspired by the selection of festive prints on sale in British online quilt shops so my new collection is coming from eQuilter: including scuba diving Santas, hunky men in Christmas underpants, elephants, owls and gaudy baubles. I have been so pleased with the Accuquilt Go-Cutter shapes that I also ordered a giant hexagon die so that I can have "fun" with fewer set-in seams. I am really enjoying these quick and relatively easy projects that I can just work away at in between customer quilts, teaching and the trickier metallic wholecloths that require greater concentration.

The children have almost a week off school for a mid-term break. Panicking at the prospect of catering, ferrying and supervising cake making endeavours, I frenziedly worked on several projects at the weekend. I painted a bedroom side table blue and orange for Fergus then quilted a mat made from scraps of his African quilt. I finished quilting the scratchy copper lurex Norse carving and drew out the helmet design onto a plain piece of backing fabric. I hope the reverse (which will actually be the front of the quilt in the end) will look spectacular in a hideous, thin super-shiny silver spandex. I have worked out two more designs for a pewter coloured piece of satin and I am trying to decide whether to do one more that looks aluminium or whether to source fabric that is iridescent like titanium? If I could source suitable materials then perhaps I should just work my way through the periodic table...