Nella's Nineteenth

I spent the past week in Norwich to celebrate Nella’s 19th birthday with Freya and Nella’s friend, Kirsty. It was the first time since 2018 that she had a birthday cake and a birthday tea which was wonderful:) She has settled in well to Uni life, partying a lot, worrying about friends and assignments. She did more exploring the city with us than she had on her own and discovered the wonders of Norwich Market. 

The weather was unseasonably warm and our day out to Southwold was just like summer. I stayed with my folks, Nessie had a nice time and the long drive was great in my luxurious Volvo!

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… 

Videography Vanquished

 

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!

Keeping Myself Busy

There are two possibilities as to why I have been keeping busy so lately. Either I am getting everything done so I can have lots more time to create OR I am procrastinating - Big Time. I suspect it is a bit of both…

I spent a lot of time in my workshop, possibly because it is fractionally warmer out there than in an old house with heating that is not working. I managed to make headway with several customer quilts so there are none waiting to be done when I go down to Norfolk for Nella’s birthday. 

One of the cleaning jobs that I had been dreading was the kitchen oven. It took me 2 hours  - there was tarry stuff inside it, the racks looked grim and you really could not see through the glass doors. I have to admit that it was quite a satisfying outcome.

I wanted to make a video on how to place and stitch a whole cloth quilt design using Bernina Qmatic. I thought I could get away with explaining how it was done by referring to a quilt that had already been stitched but I quickly realised that I had no reference points when attempting to explain how to line things up. The only way to do it was to mark out an entirely fresh whole cloth practice quilt. I was very careful to mark it accurately and to baste the entire quilt before placing the designs on it but even so, because the material used is fabric and not something rigid like wood or paper, the borders got slightly distorted. However, at least that allowed me to show realistically the issues involved with placing borders and corners using a quilt computer. 

Apart from that, I led a pretty dull life, not seeing anyone, going on the same dog walk everyday. I even took myself on an outing to Sainsbury’s for a change of scene. I have never felt the need for a social life before as I have been busy, running kids around or planning trips. Perhaps I should not have packed up the caravan for winter - Nessie and I obviously need to go on an adventure.

Confessions of a Filthy House

My house is 230 years old and is built from granite blocks that have been covered up with an ugly concrete render. When we moved in 20 years ago there was a tiny damp patch near the back door but now there are several quite serious damp areas, not helped by the fact that old field drains run under the house. It was my mission this week to tidy out the worst cupboards and wipe down the mould. Obviously, everything snowballed and I ended up having a full-blown deep clean. I can’t remember when that last happened but it really needed doing. It is probably a combination of having more time, not knowing whether I should consider moving in future and sheer procrastination. I feel like once everything is sorted out then maybe I will have more headspace for creativity. 

The top landing where my kids had half-heartedly had a clear-out ages ago finally got cleared out. I did not chuck or recycle that much, It is amazing how much better things can be when properly organised. 

My Cornishware collection looked like a special effects company had covered it in a 100 years’ worth of dust and cobwebs and there was a knick-knack shelf in the kitchen that was basically coated in cat fluff. Once I got started, I needed to shift the greasy dust off the cooker hood and then I rearranged my pantry, relegating lesser used appliances to a shelf unit in my workshop. I was going to cut up a shower curtain to disguise all of that junk then remembered that I had a roller-blind that I had screen printed for an exhibition. There was a big empty space at the top of the blind so I decided to add a few more screen prints except that the ink had gone off and looked like mouldy cream cheese. I went ahead anyway - the prints are not great but from a distance it looks OK. 

The job that I had been dreading the most was the room where I sleep. I don’t think it is actually a bedroom because it also has my computer desk, a sewing cabinet, a piano and too many junk shop items. My bed has always been pushed up against a wall but it is such a pain to make the bed. I spent a whole day playing furniture Tetris, trapping myself inside. In the process the bed collapsed as it is one of those old wooden ones with planks that hold up the mattress. Let’s just say there was some foul language;) It took me ages to plug all of my gadgets back in and I am still not sure whether the layout is right. In fact, there is still a lot to finish off but I ran out of steam!

Somehow, during all of this frenetic activity I managed to get a couple of customer quilts done and I had a quick go with the Bernina L890 binding attachment. I will be glad to escape to my workshop, away from all of my self-imposed slave labour.

Getting into a New Routine

 

It has been a weirdly quiet week here without Nella at home. She seems to be doing OK in Norwich, finding new friends and looking after herself. I had to do a couple of projects on the Bernina L890 so I spent 2 days filming / making and 2+ hours editing for two short videos, both of which were less than 10 minutes long. I made “boho” bunting using scrap sari fabric from bags that my dungarees arrived in and a crazy-ish patchwork heart-shaped cushion that Nella had started. The trickiest part of that was constructing the cushion but I am pleased with the result. 

I have a handful of customer quilts to work on and my Zoom pupils to keep me occupied. Fergus seems to be getting back into Music and is considering a move to Glasgow in the Spring. I keep telling myself that I don’t have to make any immediate decisions about what I do in future but at the back of my mind is the possibility that I no longer need to stay near Aberdeen. During the years that Nella was ill and the pandemic was raging, I was not thinking about anything else other than her recovery. The first thing that I have decided to do is some long overdue sorting-out in my house. It seems to be full of junk and dust that I have been ignoring for ages. I made a start in Nella’s room, just minor tidying. The worst area is the top floor where the kids started to have a clear out then abandoned the project. And the so-called airing cupboard which has no shelves, or heat and is damp… It will all take time but I have that now;)