Gradual Circle Progress

 I decided that since I only officially had one customer quilt to do last week, I would crack on with making progress on my circles. I finished all of the machine stitching but the large zigzags did not seem very stable to me. I had reduced the tension substantially so the bobbin thread would not show on top. I decided that the answer was to secure the zigzag stitches with a double trip around each circle edge with silver thread. The process for each circle square is quite long-winded and I wonder if anyone will even notice. It took almost 2 days to sew in all of the loose thread tails and secure them. At least I got to watch some telly on the iPad - I particularly enjoyed “The Good Karma Hospital”, set in Kerala. It has made me want to visit India again!

The second 110” square quilt got quilted in one long day this week. Its maker stayed for the duration. I kept it simple, using the computerised pattern, “Stacked Snailz” otherwise it would have taken considerably longer. 

Fergus and his two pals had their first gig in 4 years, opening the evening at Cafe Drummond in Aberdeen. There were a couple of minor technical issues that the audience did not notice, a good turnout and their set went down really well. The floor was just as sticky as it was pre-pandemic and it was great to see Fergus back enjoying the music scene. I intended to film it  with 2 of my tiny cameras but it was too dark to press the right buttons so my footage was patchy. I spent an entire day afterwards nerdily fiddling with settings and researching mics for recording music so I hope to get another chance to be the official videographer;)

A Painter's Temperament

I was meant to have a low-key week in preparation for my Talk and for getting the caravan ready to meet Freya and George in Perthshire at the weekend. I decided to put Fergus to work painting the kitchen and the very dodgy coat cupboard. He started off as a reasonably willing apprentice but as the week wore on and the number of coats of paint went beyond normal he became less enthusiastic. My supervisory role became more involved… 

The red walls needed 5 coats of paint and I switched to using masonry paint after finding that it was effective over the damp patches (after treating them with mould killer). It was not an easy job and the girls asked why I did not just do the back door area and re-coat the kitchen in its original dark red. The results are far from perfect and messier than the original job that I last did 23 years ago but the whole area looks bigger and fresher. 

I got a big quilt done for a friend who has just bought a new house in between coats of paint.

My Talk seemed to go down well and was reportedly quite funny but I still have to refold all of the quilts which just got shoved back into their suitcases at the end of the evening. 

I did not spend long getting the caravan ready for its first outing of the year but nothing crucial got forgotten and it was a good practice for more ambitious trips. Typically, I could not get the electricity or gas going on arrival, partly because I had forgotten how it worked but I figured it out in the end. It was rather a damp weekend and I was glad that I was not sleeping in a tent. We walked about 8 miles on Saturday and took Nessie to the pub. Not much sewing got done but I finished reading a book - The Muse by Jessie Burton - and it was super spending time with Freya;) The only drama was being waved at by other caravans on the way home because someone had opened the loo window and I did not check All the windows before I left!

Has Spring Even Happened?

 

I took Nessie to the beach at Stonehaven on Bank Holiday Monday. It was busy with volunteers doing a beach clean-up operation. The tide was out but it was pouring with rain and pretty breezy. I had decided to leave Nessie’s raincoat at home so we both got soaked. At home the wild cherry trees are already dropping their blossom. Because it has been so damp and grey I had not even noticed that they actually had any flowers. In Norwich Nella has been experiencing thunderstorms and heavy rain and so far does not believe that Norfolk is one of the driest parts of the country. 

I have unwrapped any caravan in readiness for a weekend trip to Perthshire to meet Freya. It seems to be dry with only a couple of cobwebs and the fake ivy has come unstuck from the bathroom walls. Nella is not keen to go on a caravan road trip with me this summer so I will just have to go on short trips instead. In theory I would like to drive it down to Norfolk and beyond but that seems like a daunting solo undertaking.

I have been busy all week with customer quilts and an enthusiastic new longarm pupil. While all that was going on I worked on my small rainbow/lamé squares. After I sewed in all of the ends from the machine blanket stitching I stitched around the rings kantha-style. My fingers ache because they are not used to so much hand sewing! There are 150+ squares still to do then I need to decide how much more machine sewing will be added. The deadline for FoQ entries is June 12th and the fee has gone up since I last entered as it is now £18.00 for non members of the Quilters Guild, plus postage each way. 

This week I am presenting a talk to the Aberdeen Patchwork and Quilting Group. I hope they have forgotten what I spoke about previously. It has been posted as an evening that will be funny - at the very least I need to make sure that my USB stick slideshow is working and that I have the correct quilts. 

Don't Make Me Paint the Kitchen!

 

My wonderful blue fridge conked out after 26 years and I got fed up with traipsing across to the garage every time I wanted milk so I ordered a new, orange one. It is NOT the same. I guess I will get used to it eventually but it has reminded me that the last time I painted the kitchen was 23 years ago. I really ought to freshen it up but that will highlight the disgusting ceiling, covered in stains and cobwebs, and that is a job I do not wish to tackle until it collapses.

I had also considered painting my room but I decided an easier way of cheering it up would be to create a plant window. I hope I can keep them alive - some like water while others do not.

I don’t know why I never thought of it before but this week I watched some telly on my iPad while the quilt machine was running. I avoided stuff with foreign subtitles and managed to do some hand-stitching. While The Coronation was on I stitched around 100 reverse appliqué silver lamé circles with a machine blanket stitch. The Bernina knee-lift was marvellous for lifting the sewing machine foot every couple of stitches. I have set myself the task of sewing in all of the thread tails which is not something I would have bothered to do previously. 

I spent a whole day cutting out and heat-pressing circles onto 100 more squares. As usual I thought this would take a couple of hours at most which just proves that I always underestimate how long things really take;) Since I seem to be steaming ahead with this project I should really get around to entering it into FoQ, particularly as I have not made a competition quilt since 2019!