Woolly

    

It took me a little while to round up photos and quotes from the Yurt stunt quilters and send them to Lynn Krawczck who is working on a series of articles on collaborative quilting projects for Quilting Arts Magazine. The pictures had to be very high resolution which not many of mine were and then they were too big to send by email so they had to go to a "dropbox". I had a panic when I accidentally deleted all of my answers an interview. Fortunately, I eventually discovered that the Macbook could restore something that I had written earlier before I mucked it all up.

It was bitterly cold this week and I bought two vintage Norwegian wool cardigans from Ebay for myself and Freya. I wore one as a student when I had an unheated flat but I must have foolishly passed it on to someone else. After spending all day wearing my wool tea-cosy hat and several bulky layers in my chilly workshop, I decided that only thick wool cardis would do and temperatures have not really dipped down as far as they could go just yet. 

When I finally got around to doing some piecing I was not altogether satisfied by how things were going. My unco-operative fabrics were not all lining up nicely so I decided that I would incorporate lots of tiny rickrack and ribbon to disguise the dodgy seams. A box full of my favourite dyes arrived from Hungary and I discovered that white poly rickrack simply will not absorb dye - I could not believe it when it came out completely unaffected. However, the linen and cotton sateen looks wonderful so I look forward to some more fabric dyeing when I can get my hands on a sufficient quantity of white cotton rickrack. The B'elzebub project is far more colourful than I had planned, although I use "planned" in a very loose way. It is really more an idea that will evolve, depending on how things turn out. I think the russet version that I may make as a less chaotic alternative may just use one basic block type...

I was in school for two days this week and most of the time was taken up with the Christmas Show and trying to keep the children calm in between times. They are a little excitable at this time of year! 

The weekend flew by as I tried to fit in cookie making and the annual family squabble about the Christmas tree. They chose a monster tree then argued about whether tinsel would be allowed. Since it was dark when they hung just about every bauble we own I have no idea whether it looks good in daylight. My cookies looked very unprofessional - the TV chefs always manage to pipe the icing so beautifully but mine definitely looked rustic. That posh edible glitter is a waste of time. It came in a silly pot like eyeshadow and didn't even have holes in the top for sprinkling. Once the cookies were wrapped up in cellophane with a ribbon they looked fine and anyway, they tasted great!