I have not got anything I must do before the New Year except pencil in a few teaching dates for 2023 and attempt to reset the wifi extender password so I can get my fancy wireless printer to talk to my computer again. If I get around to doing any sewing or post-Christmas cooking that will be a bonus!
I had a very festive pre-Christmas week in Glasgow and Norwich. It was Fergus’ 21st birthday so he spent the weekend with his pals and he looked a little worse for wear when Freya and I collected him on Sunday morning. Freya and I did a mini pub crawl in Glasgow with her boyfriend, George, and Nessie, of course.
I was a bit worried about the weather reports for our journey south but we had no problems at all.
Norwich was very cosy and festive - the Christmas lights were lovely and we had a pleasant wander around, buying sprouts from the market, trying to avoid slipping up on the icy pavements. Nella finished her first term at Uni with an A for her work and was full of enthusiasm for her course and her new friends, She has even got next year’s student house sorted out which is very exciting.
We have not been to Norfolk around Christmas time for years and we had a lovely time. When we got home to Crathes we found a lot of snow still on the ground and the river was quite frozen. It will be lovely to have all 3 of my children home for the week and we plan to decorate the tree and do lots of cooking together. I have not added any more stitching to my patchwork coat but there is no hurry to get it done. There are far more precious moments to enjoy with family and memories to make together.
It has been getting colder this week and we had a little snow. I felt justified in spending only a little time in my workshop then coming inside and watching a Christmas movie while I did something else in the afternoon.
I made a cut-out Scottie Christmas card one afternoon so I could make sure that all of my cards got posted early due to postal strikes in the UK.
I cut my crazy quilt into coat shaped pieces using a “Sew Me Something - Bianca” pattern. I have made this coat previously in boiled wool. I have been attempting to add some hand-stitched motifs but I am really a total novice so it looks pretty rustic.
I drove Fergus and a couple of pals down to Glasgow to celebrate his 21st birthday and I stayed with Freya. I had a lovely catch-up and dog walk with my chum, Ellen in a dog-friendly cafe. On Saturday Freya, her boyfriend George, Nessie and I went on a mini pub crawl in Finnieston and I discovered that I really liked hot toddy from an enamel mug;)
Despite severe weather warnings we drove from Glasgow to Norwich on Sunday without incident and will be here for a week spending time with family, enjoying a “Fine City” at Christmas time and collecting Nella for the Christmas holidays.
December started with a flurry of activity. On Monday I went to Glasgow for Freya’s Masters graduation. The university looks rather like Hogwarts - all Freya needed was a cat and a pointy hat to look like Prof. Minerva McGonagall. It was a proud day - she worked hard on her Masters for two years as well as coping with a full-time job and covid restrictions that affected her studies.
I started on my Lindt advent calendar and was a bit disappointed that the first window held a tiny chocolate ball. I thought it would all be bears and reindeers, whereas it would appear that they are rationed;)
Nessie and I were surprised to see a salmon on one of our walks. At first I thought it was dead as it was not moving but it glided away much to Nessie’s annoyance.
I don’t plan on starting any new projects this week as I will be getting ready to make a trip to Norfolk and make Fergus a birthday cake. I hope to cut the crazy quilt into coat-shaped pieces, overlock the edges then add some more stitching…
Last Tuesday I went into Aberdeen to do some Christmas shopping but I was sorely disappointed. The pop-up makers’ shop that I wanted to browse was closed, the Christmas market was deserted, many shops had gone bust and everyone looked miserable. I went home lacking any festive spirit. I fared better with some of my online shopping although I do find I get easily distracted. I was looking for a simple hat with ear-flaps but came across an amazing octopus creation instead.
Mo commissioned me to cut and embroider some lettered cushions for one of her clients. It looked like a simple job but it actually took several hours to get the velvet letters cut and satin-stitched neatly onto linen.
While I was doing some admin the other day I put a cheesy Christmas Musical on - “Christmas on the Square”, written by and starring Dolly Parton! Perhaps binge watching Christmas movies might help me to find some Christmas Cheer.
It is a good job that I have been keeping on top of customer quilts because my workshop will be out of action until it dries out! We had a repeat of Storm Frank from 5-6 years ago which was meant to be a one in a hundred years type of weather event. Well, global warming is no myth here as extreme weather becomes increasingly normal. It had been raining persistently for a couple of days but eventually the ground was soaked, and the field drains overflowed. Before I knew it water was pouring in the door, seeping under the walls and coming up the drain. In the end I had to abandon ship and check the situation in daylight.
Before all that drama, I did the background quilting on my crazy quilt/coat. I used a variegated thread which maybe I regret. I also added a few of my favourite motifs which I will highlight with paint. While I was reminding myself how to make Qmatic do a double run of stitching, I realised that I could make it do some fancy stitches. I was able to mark out some of the wonky blocks, send the outlines to the Art and Stitch program and get it to do some machine embroidery around the areas that I had chosen. This is quite a slow process so I did some kantha stitching on areas of the quilt while the machine was busy. Considering that I thought this was going to be a longterm hand sewing project, I seem to have gone a bit “off-piste”.
Nessie had a grand day out meeting up with some other Scottie Dogs. She was a bit puzzled at first as she thinks she is the ONLY Scottie in the world but after a while I let her off the lead and she ran around having great fun. All of the owners thought she was cute and she managed to con about 100 snacks out of them. She would probably quite like a friend to play with but just having one small dog makes life easier if I am staying with Freya or my folks. Anyway, the cats would definitely not be impressed if they had to put up with 2 Nessies!
Using zips to attach quilts on the longarm means I can get the next quilt ready to go and if someone comes in with a rush-job I can unzip and swap non urgent quilts if necessary.
Unless I get more customer quilts in this week, I intend to longarm the crazyish quilt that I got from Ebay. I am going to do an allover design onto it without wadding, just a flannel backing. The idea is to keep it lightweight but stable as I intend to make a coat. In my head I am going to add some hand stitching but we will see if I actually carry out that threat.
I do need something to stop me from speed reading through a set of 13 grisly detective novels and watching niche Youtube videos. I had to watch a disturbingly nerdy video by a Dyson fan who did a side-by-side comparison of 2 almost identical models to work out which charger plug to order. I viewed several reels about microphones to realise that I had to find a different cable for a mic to work with my Gopro camera. The sound quality when I film at the machine is OK but could be better to match the main camera.
I ordered 40 tiny ducks from the internet - I only needed one to stick on top of my lens to give me something to focus on where presenting to the camera - the other 39 can be a stocking filler to use for a treasure hunt;)
There goes another week! Admittedly, most days are the same these days. The unseasonably warm autumn weather seems to be finished - there was a bit of a storm midweek which blew off the last of the leaves off the cherry trees which are now bare for winter. I was trying to make a video but the rain was hammering loudly on my workshop’s tin roof.
I did a couple of customer quilts, using a favourite pattern, “Stacked Snails” which looks like a modern Baptist Fan.
I came up with another project on the L890 overlocker / coverstitch machine. I fed scraps of binding into the binding attachment and made a lot of straps or belt loops. I wove these to make new fabric which could be turned into mats, purses or even a sunhat. I might make some more and see how they turn out as quilt blocks.
I scrounged an old wooden box from Mo to upcycle into a footstool for Nessie. I added castors which came with ridiculously large screws so each one is only attached by 2 screws instead of 4. The screws have gone through to the inside of the box but I don’t intend to keep anything inside. I have painted it black and will cover it with a pink sheepskin rug (which I am not convinced is real) and if Nessie turns her nose up I will put my feet up on it instead;)
Nella and Freya travelled to Paris separately to see their favourite band, “Wolf Alice”. Nella was very apprehensive to be flying solo via Schipol but she made it despite a long delay. They had a great time even though it was a short trip so that is another milestone in Nella’s new life!
Now I need to catch up on customer quilts because before long it will be December and I will go back down to Norfolk and collect Nella for Christmas…
Considering that I own a plethora of cameras, I should be ashamed at the lack of photos documenting my week! I spent all day Sunday filming how to place and stitch a whole cloth quilt using Qmatic. It took me all of Monday to edit my feature-length movie into 2 halves, each approximately one hour long. My computer suddenly decided that its memory was full and could not cope with saving all that work so we had “words”, deleted some junk, reduced the quality and eventually stored the files. I decided to invest in another external hard drive so I ordered one meant to be “like new” from Amazon - except it wasn’t since it was all scratched so I returned it.
An attachment for one of my cameras arrived from Ebay and was not at all as described so that also needs to go back which means I will have to drive into Banchory again, park my car and queue for ages in the back of the Co-Op where the Post Office is hidden these days.
I watched Bake Off the other day and was amazed by Prue’s crazy-patch duster coat. I have found a quilt on Ebay that is not exactly crazy-patch but could be worked on. However, it is from the USA - do I or do I not want to take a chance?!
I finally got around to making a video demonstrating how a Quilter can use the L890 overlocker / Coverstitch machine to bind a quilt using a binding attachment. I thought I had everything all set up nicely but my practice pieces just would not co-operate. I was frustrated that I had “wasted” a day but in fact it was all useful research, working out exactly how wide to cut the strips and choosing the right fabric. The next day I started again and everything worked out fine. My finished Youtube video is 15 minutes long - it does not have background music, or a beautifully coiffed and manicured presenter;)
Since I am off to Norwich for Nella’s birthday in the coming week, I spent some time on admin which was dull but necessary. Nessie got her hair cut, I bought plenty of cat food and I gathered together the stuff that Nella requested I should take for her. I will try to make an effort to actually USE my cameras when I am away!
