Are You Ready For This?

Just as we were put into Corona Virus Lockdown in the UK we were very lucky that the Scottie breeders decided that all of the puppies could go to their new homes a few days early so we were able to dash to Dundee and collect Nessie. We were dreading not being able to get her so were delighted but totally unprepared and did not manage to borrow a puppy play pen. She is absolutely fantastic except when she tries to chew cables and nip our ankles.  Nessie seems to be very clever and we have already taught her to SIT with the aid of tasty treats. House training is going fairly well most of the time. The cats are not impressed and have not yet put her in her place and she thinks it would be fun to chase the hens. I am so glad that we have such a lovely distraction in this awful time. 

Life is ticking along here and we are coping well out in the countryside as long as we still have internet to keep in touch with friends and family. Nella and I finished off the homemade presents for Freya’s birthday. I made her a pair of PJ trousers from a Swedish pattern. I struggled to locate the pattern pieces on the print-out and tried to follow the instructions in English online except that these were for children’s trousers therefore not quite the same. She has not yet tried them on so I don’t know whether they are actually wearable.

I finished the final customer quilts in my workshop which will now sit on a shelf awaiting collection in who knows how many weeks time. It has not been easy to work on my quilt with a puppy to supervise but there is now no pressure to get it finished. I honestly don’t think FOQ will even go ahead this year. I think it would be foolish to run an international quilt show until we are certain the Pandemic is over, besides which the NEC is being prepared as an emergency hospital facility. It is strange to think that there are no deadlines to meet. I need to get over the feeling that I should be writing a novel or preparing for non-existent classes. I should just plan to do some simple, fun projects and wind right down if possible. At the very least I should keep practising German and work on some impressive small Scottie Dog training.  

Living in Very Strange Times

On Monday Nella met with her English tutor in the morning then we visited the student show at Grays School of Art in the afternoon. However, the very next day the show was abruptly cancelled and shortly afterwards the Government announced that schools would close indefinitely and that all exams this year will be cancelled due to the world Coronavirus pandemic. 

In a strange way the fact that Nella and I have been living quiet lives for the past 6 months meant that we were slightly less stunned than many people by the advice to stay at home and cut ourselves off from everyone as much as possible.  My husband is now working from home, doing the grocery shopping - all activities and appointments have been suspended. Supermarket shelves have been emptying as fast as they can be restocked and the world news is bleak. We are incredibly fortunate to live in the countryside away from crowds and that we have the resources to keep ourselves occupied. Freya still has to finish her dissertation and her academic future is uncertain but she is also planning a vegetable garden.

I worked on a couple of customer quilts that I handed back to their owners at a safe distance and we are still hoping to collect Nessie, the Scottie Dog next weekend. As we prepare for a long period of isolation and uncertainty a puppy would provide a welcome distraction. We made cute matching quilts for Nessie and for her mum, Lady. I also made Nella an upcycled plant pot cover and a couple of prototype face-masks just in case. For the first time ever I can work on my quilt without any time pressure. I bet there will be some great quilts on display at future shows. I hope we can all weather out this global event and come out the other side with a different perspective. 

Stay well, fellow quilters! 

And in Other News

And in Other News (while the world deals with the Apocalpytic Coronavirus) - we are getting a puppy! Nella and I searched for a rescue dog locally and online but none of them were what we really wanted. I checked the Kennel Club website and found one litter of Scottie puppies in the whole of the UK, not that far from here in Dundee. We visited the breeders today and chose our little girl, “Nessie” who should be ready to move in with us at the end of this month. We are so excited and looking forward to a wonderful distraction during such troubled times.

I had a busy week working on 7 customer quilts from a Welsh quilter who visits her sister in Aberdeen twice a year. They were all super and ready for collection by Friday afternoon. 

I set up my Doily exhibit at the end of session student show at Grays School of Art. I actually forgot to take the lamp as it was in our sitting room but we will take it along tomorrow and view all of the other students’ work. 

There was not much time left to work on my Rainbow Warliors but even working on a little bit was some progress. 

Freya is home for her Uni Spring Break and her birthday which is lovely for us but she is feeling down that all of her final year celebrations and social events have been cancelled. She was meant to go on a girls’ trip to Orkney but that is now off. All classes, lectures, libraries and the Student Union has been suspended. We are certainly living through unprecedented times. We will have to hunker down, be sensible and make plenty of quilts. 

A Week of Warlis

It was actually a bit of a bonus to discover that my customers were not coming until next week which gave me a whole week to crack on with the Rainbow Warliors. I was fortunate that Nella was perfectly contented to get on with her knitting projects so every spare minute was spent deciding on designs then stitching them out. At the start of a new quilt it is always making the decisions that seem to take longer than the actual sewing. The majority is ruler-work and I was not sure whether to allow myself any freehand areas at all.

I have probably only just completed a third of this bigger than intended project and once I have customer quilts to work on my time on it will be limited. It seems to be going well and I daresay I will get quicker. I plan to go back at the end and stitch-in-the-ditch everything with silver thread to cover up any backtracking. So far there has only been one dodgy “full” block, which is not bad considering that there was no pressing and some of the piecing was done by eye;) 

Warli Stitching has Started

I took the plunge and intrepidly started stitching my huge Rainbow Warli quilt. I was actually concerned whether it would even roll onto the quilt frame with 2 layers of wadding and multiple giant plastic sequins. It was a good job that I did not go ahead with my original idea to use glass mirrors. I used Qmatic to stitch large ⅛” spirals in the large spiral blocks and placed a large stitched Warli figure on top of each one. I was not able to use Qmatic to stitch ⅛” concentric circles around all of my circles because it turned out that some of my circles were not totally round or completely central. Plan B was to stitch one circle around all of the blocks to stabilise things, do some big stitch basting in empty spaces then shift the quilt to my other quilt fame which is totally freehand. It seems to be turning out that the majority of the quilting will be ruler work, rather than freestyle but things may evolve as I go along. 

I have officially finished all of my screen-printing projects for the Grays School of Art student show, although I may make a doily and macrame item just because I can. Out of curiosity I had a go at breakdown printing using a manutex dye paste. I now know that I may admire other people’s efforts at this kind of thing but I don’t think it is my style as I prefer crisp prints. 

I worked on 2 straightforward customer quilts over the weekend because I have a few more quilts coming soon and I want to be able to work on my own quilt without too much of a backlog to worry about. I honestly don’t know why people say, “No hurry…” because I would rather work on them as soon as they arrive to keep on top of things;)