When I attempted to upload my weekly blog onto my website earlier this week I was horrified to discover that Blogware had ceased to exist and I no longer had access to any of my archives from the past four years. I frantically contacted Helen Bantock, my web-mistress, who had a long and fruitless discussion with the web provider, Fasthosts. They claimed that they had sent several warning emails advising me to move the blog to Wordpress before Blogware became unavailable. Needless to say, they were unsympathetic when I informed them that I had no knowledge of any such correspondence so I made the decision to close my account with them. I probably should have done this some time ago since there have been several other occasions when blogs and emails have gone missing and the customer service team was not helpful.

It is just as well that I had kept a dual blog for the past couple of years, obviously not quite trusting my web provider and publishing simultaneously via Blogger. Helen was able to put a link straight to this and replace the web-based version but I was afraid that I had probably lost the first two years of my online journal. She now thinks she has managed to gain access to them but we haven't figured out how to republish them yet. Luckily, I always wrote and saved the blog entries in Word so I have copies of the text but not the pictures that were pasted in separately. If necessary, I can eventually repost everything manually but it could take some time as there are over 100 missing entries! For peace of mind I have decided to continue publishing my blog in two places: www.thequiltquine.blogspot.com and www.thequiltquine.wordpress.com

This all made me think quite profoundly of how transient our 21^st Century civilisation could be to the archaeologists of the future. It just shows that we need to keep hard copies of what is important to us. We only know so much about Humanity's recent past due to scrolls, parchments, stone carvings and works of art. I have hundreds of photographs stored digitally but very few have been printed and displayed in an album. I love the power and scope of digital communication but I think I will invest in an archival box and fill it with old-fashioned paper documents.

Much to her disgust our little black & white cat, Bitzi MacBob had to see the vet after regurgitating disgusting lumps of undigested rabbit. He was initially concerned that it might have been a tumour but luckily concluded she was suffering from an impacted colon. The solution was to squirt laxative solution into her tightly closed, hissing mouth. She looked a sorry sight with grubby, sticky fur all down her chin and she could have done with a bath but we were not going to add insult to injury.

I attached bindings to the Norse Metallurgy quilts that have been completed so far. I added a fifth one in dark grey satin to the collection. I followed this with purple silk lurex that is meant to be titanium and quilted a fantastical bird that seems to be some sort of Viking swan without webbed feet or a peacock minus a fancy tail.  I need to try to decide when to end this series - I am a little concerned that I won't know when to stop... perhaps I will feel the need to create Norse wholecloths celebrating the entire Periodic table using as many theatrical and shiny fabrics that I can find. I did not used to be able to figure out how or why some quilters and textiles artists produced an extended body of work but after working on two quilted Yurts, I seem to be developing an obsessive habit of making several related pieces. I am not sure yet how it will be displayed: Triptychs seem to be a popular idea so I wonder whether a series of 8 quilts might be an Octoptych or possibly an Ostrych?