St Andrews Graduation at last!

 After a delay of 2 years due to the pandemic, it was finally Freya’s graduation from St Andrews University, postponed since the summer of 2020. She and her friends caught up for a week of festivities in glorious summer weather. They had all just left quietly in March 2020 without a chance to say goodbye to each other or to the town where they had spent 4 years. 

With intrepidation, Nella and I set off on the caravan’s maiden voyage, hoping that the town centres would not be too busy. We made it in one piece and managed to park reasonably tidily on a slope at a campsite just outside of the town, overlooking the beach. Nessie felt obliged to bark at passers-by as she guarded our spot. 

Graduation day was lovely - the students all showed off in their academic dress and posed for photos at iconic landmarks. There was a parade afterwards and a garden party. Freya found a random student to dog-sit and Nessie trotted off without a backward glance to spend the afternoon with some undergrads. The evening was spent on the beach and for once, the summer solstice was celebrated without cold, Scottish rain. 

I was relieved that the caravan experience was positive - comfortable and not too stressful and we are looking forward to our next expedition in July to a music festival near Stirling.

This week 2 overlocker / coverlocker  machines were delivered for me to become familiar with. There is the top-of-the-range Bernina L890 which is super advanced and amazing. It will take me a while to get used to its capabilities and thankfully it has on-board help videos and automatic settings. The other one was purchased as a backup for my old Babylock which is apparently now scrap. I will probably just keep it set up for trimming the edges of quilts and do fancy stuff with the Bernina. 

I have now finished hand-sewing the binding onto Nella’s puff quilt which looks fab but weighs a ton - it feels more like a mattress than a quilt. It is a great quilt but I can’t see me making another one any time soon;)

Nella had a few days to make up at the Crathes Castle cafe so I got on with quilting the small Warli quilts using Qmatic. They all have some background quilting in silvery grey then there are a few Warli figures stitched on top here and there. The idea was to keep things simple-ish and not get involved in too many embellishments or add hand sewing kantha stitches. I hope to add a few prairie points and see if the coverstitch machine can add a decorative triple line of stitches along the bindings. 

Midsummer (Supposedly)

 

I wish there was a happy medium of summer weather in the UK. England has been sweltering in a heatwave while Scotland has been coolish and grey. I don’t actually like to be hot so my ideal weather would be around 21C, sunny with no wind:) My garden roses look and smell fantastic and I have no idea how they do it. They get hacked back in winter, never get fed or debugged and their soil is poor. I can barely see out of my window because “Geoff Hamilton” is blocking the view. I really should get more roses and shove them everywhere to replace the nettle and willow-bay borders.

I had a large Storm-at-Sea customer quilt this week that took some time to be quilted with a modern Baptist Fan pattern called “Stacked Snails”. It is not always obvious to see the curved effect that the diamonds on the patchwork create unless you stand back. Maybe a high, mirrored ceiling over the bed would be the answer to admire the handiwork!

I managed to get all 4 Rainbow Warliors quilts to finish at 30” x 40” after some jiggery-pokery. I did not particularly want them to be uniformly symmetrical so there was a bit of measuring and adjusting to be done. I ordered multicoloured backing fabric like the big version of the quilt so I hope to start the quilting soon. 

But first - it will be Freya’s long postponed graduation from St Andrews next week and my maiden voyage in the caravan…

Turning Tables

I did not set out to do a deep clean in my workshop when I shifted a table to fit in the new table. However, the much cleaner windows are very pleasing. I have attached a naff string curtain at the door to try and deter flies from entering since none of the windows inside open so they just buzz around until they die! The new, high table is amazing and will make any job that requires standing so much more comfortable. 

Nella and I had a trip to Edinburgh this week. She was actually there for a tattoo because she is 18 and can do what she likes - besides pretty artwork on skin is preferable to self-harm scars - always;) We were able to eat out in a restaurant and have a cocktail which is something that both of us thought would never happen. 

We went to an immersive / interactive van Gogh exhibition which was a great way to experience artwork. There were big screens showing the paintings, accompanied by music. There was a mock-up of the yellow bedroom and a mirrored room full of sunflowers. Van Gogh’s story is so sad - from barely earning any money while he was still alive to his grim experiences with mental illness that led to both his and his brother’s deaths.

I have been building up a collection of blocks to make the 4 Rainbow Warliors mini quilts. Either I will have far too many or too few. It will be a bit of a jigsaw putting them together which I think sort of counts as “improv” quilting. It will be a mathematical challenge (for me) getting them all to finish at the same size!

Stuffing and Other Nonsense

Having a week without serious commitments is great for cracking on with projects. I heat-pressed the glitter-walris to their squares and made a batch of silver and plain hour-glass blocks. I am quite sure that I have got far more bits and pieces than I need for my 4 small Rainbow Warlior companion quilts;)

I decided that the puff quilt was not going to be a leisurely project and I was determined to get it done. I regretted ignoring advice to under-stuff, as I shoved in clumps of stuffing the size of tennis balls. When it came to quilting in between rows of puffs it was rather a squeeze getting that bulk to fit under the longarm roller. 

The finished quilt edges were quite uneven  and THICK so I chose to add a wide binding / facing that would only be sewn by machine to the front and then hand-stitched to the reverse.

The other day when I was cutting out a batch of fabric and getting back-ache I wondered why I still did not have a nice, high cutting surface. My almost-full-to-capacity workshop had to have some furniture Tetris moves applied before I could fit in another table. This meant selling a small sofa on Facebook Marketplace, followed by a lot of cobweb removal, resulting in some window washing. That is my most valid case for not completing any admin tasks;) Hey-ho - there’s always next week!