Self Inflicted Stress

I had a wonderful Monday morning catching up on paperwork and emails and was enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee when the phone started ringing. It was as if the Quilting World knew that I didn't have any school commitments this week. Within a short space of time I had agreed to take in several customer quilts, stitch a huge sports day banner for Freya's house at school, visit a craft shop to discuss teaching workshops, and set up an appointment with a fabric wholesale rep. In addition, there were numerous emails arranging the APQS stand at Festival of Quilts, replies to my queries about entering quilts for Houston and a lesson with new longarm quilting pupil who was delighted at the random circles we placed on her quilt top.

I crossed my fingers that I would not get any calls from schools so that I could fit everything in since my self-imposed deadlines are starting to alarm me. I have to complete and photograph the new Norse triptych by the end of May. I have now drawn out 3 identically sized patterns and the gold bird-man is set up and ready to go on gold vinyl snakeskin. I have made hanging sleeves for the Ostrych pieces so that I can hand sew them all on when I am hanging around at school swimming lessons.

Despite worrying about my expanding quilting To-Do list, I had a day out with Tania catching up with another friend on Wednesday. I bought a Danish fabric bread basket in a gift shop simply because I thought it could be adapted in many fabrics and sizes. I was intrigued by a new method of making bunting so perhaps I should make some in honour of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. When I got home I ordered a screen printing kit as we had been talking about spending some creative time together. Tania has an unopened candle making kit, Mo wants to paint some goose eggs and I want to take more photographs. I would really like to quilt a piece of oilcloth fabric ready to make some new kindle covers and bags but I have had to tell myself that this is not a priority until after the triptych is finished.

I quilted some freehand sunflowers onto a customer quilt that is a single piece of fabric printed with French fields. The background will be filled in later with some green swirls and loops. I didn't want to work on other people's projects all weekend so I decided to complete Freya's Christmas quilt made from giant hexagons. I think I finally have set-in seams with quarter inch stops and starts sussed. It was fairly time consuming but obviously did not take as long as hand piecing. It was fairly greedy on fabric but ideal for stash reduction. It would be fun to make a quilt from plain fabrics but appliqué other hexagons or shapes onto the large pieces or just fill them in with some very nice quilting. The idea of the scrappy Christmas quilts is not to do complicated quilting but those are possibly famous last words!

 

Embarking on a Saga

When I was not confiscating contraband items from school children this week I started to look into some quilt competitions for The Ostrych. I sent off my registration for Festival of Quilts just in time for the deadline then studied the requirements for Houston. The IQA show is juried but if successful, the quilts would have to be in Houston in mid August when FOQ is in full swing. I considered entering 4 quilts to each show and renaming each set of four a "Quostrych" but when I laid them all out it bothered me that they are all slightly different sizes. I think I can get away with this with the full set of 8 but 4 slightly different sized quilts seemed odd. I have decided that the answer is going to be to make 3 new pieces that are all of the same size for Houston and enter a conventional Triptych. All I have to decide now is whether to make 3 identical pieces in different coloured shiny fabrics or create 3 entirely new quilted carvings.

If they don't make it into the show then I will have some items that I can sell to help fund a quilty trip. Alternatively, I have the germ of an idea developing… perhaps I should just work my way steadily through the periodic table but not necessarily to a self-imposed ridiculous deadline.  It would be like a Norse Saga that keeps growing over time. I am frustrated that some of my projects are still on the back burner because I have not managed to clone myself yet. The Totem Poles and the Armoured Horse seem to have been mothballed for now and my Australian version of Bewitched is no further forward, and Freya's giant hexagon quilt is still in pieces.

I have a few customer quilts to catch up with and there is a steady stream of supply teaching taking me out of my workshop for at least 3 days each week. I completed a quilt for a customer who had made her Church Minister a special retirement wall-hanging.

I had a great day in Fochabers teaching a group from Speyside Quilters my Wild Wholecloth Workshop which they all seemed to enjoy. They worked very hard to burn off the wonderful pavlova and fruitcake that was served with coffee.

I was also side-tracked by helping Fergus with his guitar practice looking up chord demos on Youtube. Admittedly, I have been occupied obsessively restoring my blog on WordPress – using old notebooks to rewrite missing pieces and tidying up the photos and text so that it all looks more cohesive. I really don't suppose that many readers will want to trawl right back to the beginning but looking back has been a fascinating experience for me. My quilting life remains as chaotic as it ever was but it is interesting to see how ideas formed, developed or were simply abandoned.  I seem to have written rather a lot in 4 years; almost 110 000 words actually! I have noticed that other bloggers don't seem to ramble on quite like me. I simply need to apply the same discipline to writing patterns and I will soon deal with The Book that is constantly looming over me like an albatross.

How the OSTRYCH got its name...

Since I have been on a roll with the Norse series, I made an effort to crack on with quilting the piece that looks rather like seaweed. The brown taffeta looks amazing outside in the sun, just like a piece of polished bronze or maybe iron which is just what I had hoped. I bound this one and the blue piece so that I am not left with a marathon session at the end. It will be bad enough attaching 8 hanging sleeves and labels. I intend to add some embroidery stitches or couch something sparkly down all of the bindings as a finishing touch later on. My sewing machine went on strike again after Norse Piece #7 but after I cleaned to fluff, and paint dust out of the bobbin case it decided to co-operate once more.

Amanda visited on Wednesday for another session of longarming tuition. She had bravely decided to longarm quilt a huge hand-pieced hexagon quilt and because she was limited to one day in the studio she chose to use the large spiral continuous template. She was delighted by her efforts, especially since the beautiful quilt top had been folded up in a cupboard for some time. She will eventually turn in all of the many edges by hand instead of cutting off the hexagons!

I taught 5-6 year olds for two days and they enjoyed working on dramas of the cannibalistic story of Hansel & Gretel. Some of the children wanted non-speaking parts as the witch's cat but they were very good at loud purring and miaowing. They loved the part where the witch gets shoved into the oven but they let her out before she was cooked alive as long as she promised not to kidnap any more children.  If I had been the supply teacher for the class for a few more days it would have been fun to construct the gingerbread house.

I had a really positive business discussion with APQS over the weekend and I am excited that I will be working alongside Claudia Pfeil in Ireland at the new International Quilt Festival in June.

I have been plugging away at restoring as much of the Blog as possible to Wordpress by trawling my computer's archives for Word documents and photos back to late 2008. By the end of next week I will have put back as much as I can including an entry about our family holiday to Carcassonne in 2009 that had disappeared completely from the computer. Luckily I found the original handwritten notes in ink in a real notebook with pagesJ. When this laborious exercise is complete I will print the entire blog. It has been funny looking back at all of the entries over the past 3+ years. I continuously seem to be looking for more time and trying to fit far too much in. It is also interesting to look back at my progress and reflect on how ideas such as the Yurt project developed.

Over the weekend I quilted the eighth piece in the Norse metallic wholecloth series. The tissue lame was not easy to work with even after adding some thin Vilene; there are a couple of tiny creases that I will have to ignore or disguise.

I have been playing around with ideas for the title of the series: I figured that since a three piece quilt is called a TRI-ptych then an eight piece quilt could be called an OCT-pytch. I was amused that sounds similar to OSTRICH so perhaps my Norse quilts could be known collectively as an OS-(p)t(R)ych? I wondered if that was really a convincing enough reason for the unusual title so I consulted Wikipedia and was delighted to discover among the various definitions that  "Os" can mean an Anglo-Saxon pagan god in the Old English language - this seemed appropriate for some of the strange carvings of Viking figures that I have been quilting. Therefore, the series is going to be known as OSTRYCH and the individual pieces will be known by their metallic symbol from the periodic table. I need to try to stick to metals that the Vikings would have had. Copper, iron, lead, tin and gold are obvious but I will have undertake research to find out whether I can have titanium or cobalt for the blue piece. If not I will have to convince myself that the Vikings were able to trade overseas for some of the foreign metals!

 

 

Easter Hols in Edinburgh & More Norse Quilting

We had a great family holiday in Edinburgh, travelling by train from Stonehaven. There were times when the children wished we had taken the car as they are not used to walking for long distances on pavements. We stayed in a new Premier Inn on Princes Street with a fantastic view of the Castle and of the chaotic roadworks in the street that represent the controversial and hugely expensive Edinburgh Tram Project. We visited the revitalised National Museum of Scotland with its amazing Natural History gallery. Everyone reached knowledge saturation point after a while so we left without having seen absolutely everything. We made a fleeting visit to the National Gallery before the children had a cultural meltdown. They were not particularly impressed by the sculptures at Contemporary Art Gallery which did not have any of its famous paintings on display. Freya even muttered that she wished she had chosen Biology instead of Art when we tried to understand the significance of what looked like worktop samples from a DIY shop.

The Camera Obscura Museum was great fun: there were optical illusions, crazy mirrors and weird holograms. This was followed by a visit to the Museum of Childhood which housed a huge collection of evil looking dolls. I think we found them more disturbing than a trip to the Edinburgh Dungeons where actors recreated scenes from a medieval cannibal cave and the dastardly deeds of notorious body-snatchers, Burke & Hare.

A day at the Zoo was obligatory as we wanted to see the new Pandas. The male one was not on show and the female one was fast asleep. She was cute but not as entertaining as the Penguin Parade which has sadly been suspended while their pool is being repaired. The family consensus was that we have officially now made our last zoo visit since we agreed that we don't really like looking at animals through glass or rather, not seeing the animals because they are hiding.

We enjoyed some great cafes and restaurants in Edinburgh. The Dome was delightfully opulent, Browns had wonderful polished brass tables, the mussels were superb at the Mussel Inn and the Hard Rock Cafe was simply cool. The Georgian architecture and cosmopolitan, busy streets certainly made a change from our usual surroundings.

I have searched my computer and all backups to try to find all of the Word documents that I have ever written for my blog. I will slowly restore it back as far as late 2008 when my old laptop crashed and lost everything. This is a shame and I wish I had at least printed the old website blog out while I still had it as I had intended L

I had a productive weekend in my workshop. I utility-quilted a triangular quilt for a project that will feature in a forthcoming edition of P&Q Magazine, painted the reverse of the Norse bird with a roller to hide the fact that I drew the pattern out on an old sheet using a black biro and I have quilted two thirds of a new piece onto shot brown and orange taffeta that looks rather like Viking seaweed. There only remains one more piece until the "Ostrych" is complete yet I have two more shiny pieces of fabric and I have found a great source for plenty more. I think I may have missed the point of creating a series – perhaps all of the pieces should have been the same size or even the same pattern although I am sure that I would have become bored with the repetition. Maybe the next time I decide to tackle something like this I should PLAN to make a set of matching, small quilts!

 

When I attempted to upload my weekly blog onto my website earlier this week I was horrified to discover that Blogware had ceased to exist and I no longer had access to any of my archives from the past four years. I frantically contacted Helen Bantock, my web-mistress, who had a long and fruitless discussion with the web provider, Fasthosts. They claimed that they had sent several warning emails advising me to move the blog to Wordpress before Blogware became unavailable. Needless to say, they were unsympathetic when I informed them that I had no knowledge of any such correspondence so I made the decision to close my account with them. I probably should have done this some time ago since there have been several other occasions when blogs and emails have gone missing and the customer service team was not helpful.

It is just as well that I had kept a dual blog for the past couple of years, obviously not quite trusting my web provider and publishing simultaneously via Blogger. Helen was able to put a link straight to this and replace the web-based version but I was afraid that I had probably lost the first two years of my online journal. She now thinks she has managed to gain access to them but we haven't figured out how to republish them yet. Luckily, I always wrote and saved the blog entries in Word so I have copies of the text but not the pictures that were pasted in separately. If necessary, I can eventually repost everything manually but it could take some time as there are over 100 missing entries! For peace of mind I have decided to continue publishing my blog in two places: www.thequiltquine.blogspot.com and www.thequiltquine.wordpress.com

This all made me think quite profoundly of how transient our 21^st Century civilisation could be to the archaeologists of the future. It just shows that we need to keep hard copies of what is important to us. We only know so much about Humanity's recent past due to scrolls, parchments, stone carvings and works of art. I have hundreds of photographs stored digitally but very few have been printed and displayed in an album. I love the power and scope of digital communication but I think I will invest in an archival box and fill it with old-fashioned paper documents.

Much to her disgust our little black & white cat, Bitzi MacBob had to see the vet after regurgitating disgusting lumps of undigested rabbit. He was initially concerned that it might have been a tumour but luckily concluded she was suffering from an impacted colon. The solution was to squirt laxative solution into her tightly closed, hissing mouth. She looked a sorry sight with grubby, sticky fur all down her chin and she could have done with a bath but we were not going to add insult to injury.

I attached bindings to the Norse Metallurgy quilts that have been completed so far. I added a fifth one in dark grey satin to the collection. I followed this with purple silk lurex that is meant to be titanium and quilted a fantastical bird that seems to be some sort of Viking swan without webbed feet or a peacock minus a fancy tail.  I need to try to decide when to end this series - I am a little concerned that I won't know when to stop... perhaps I will feel the need to create Norse wholecloths celebrating the entire Periodic table using as many theatrical and shiny fabrics that I can find. I did not used to be able to figure out how or why some quilters and textiles artists produced an extended body of work but after working on two quilted Yurts, I seem to be developing an obsessive habit of making several related pieces. I am not sure yet how it will be displayed: Triptychs seem to be a popular idea so I wonder whether a series of 8 quilts might be an Octoptych or possibly an Ostrych?

 

 

Why Aye Yurt!

Although I had told myself to leave plenty of time to pack for my Yurt expedition to Newcastle, I ended up teaching in school for two days. After making up maps, stories and wrapping fake parcels for "Katie Morag" with Primary 3 I dashed home, loaded up the Landy then went to watch my own children's marvellous school show. I am stunned by how well everyone sang and how many words and lines they all managed to remember. Fenella has brought her fantastic penguin costume home. Perhaps she might like to wear it on our trip to the Edinburgh Zoo next week?

I had a clear run down to Gosforth Park Racecourse and arrived mid afternoon. The Yurt had to be unloaded, crammed into the goods lift of the catering kitchen and set up on the first floor of the grand main building. We managed to round up a few volunteers to get the frame and roof up and within a couple of hours I was satisfied that all was ready, although it was set into a corner as space was a little tight.

My B&B accommodation was interesting... it looked cottagey from the outside but inside it was not so much "shabby-chic" as just well, shabby. The en-suite bathroom was brown and there was no wifi for an internet junkie. Being a typical Brit, I didn't like to grumble. The lady cooking my breakfast was lovely and it seemed rude to buck the trend from all of the other delighted comments in the visitors' book. I secretly enjoyed watching trash TV from a choice of two channels and drinking plonk out of a tooth-brushing glass but I shuddered when the milk in the little jug for tea went gloopy. I eventually plucked up the courage to tell the show organisers that I wouldn't recommend it for future reference. It has to be noted that it has given me far more to write about than if it had been perfectly appointed. I do wonder about some B&B's though. I reckon if I had one it would be perfect: quilts, decent showers, wifi, Gin & Tonic in a mini fridge, sewing machines and home baked bread!

I really enjoyed the show - the people and traders were friendly, the setting was super and as a bonus there was the excitement of seeing some horse racing on two days. I taught several workshops including a circles journal quilt, free motion quilting samplers and a zipped cosmetics bag in an open plan area upstairs overlooking the race-course. There were other classes running alongside mine in crochet, rug-making and paper crafts. My students were very willing and all seemed extremely pleased with what they achieved. The brand new Janome machines on loan from the Singer Sewing Centre in Whitley Bay purred along very nicely. This generated a lot of interest in the local sewing machine shop and there were a few sales so by the end of the show I managed to persuade them to let me have a good deal on a Lady Valet dress-making dummy.

I went on a jaunt to IKEA one evening to buy some cheap cushions for the Yurt. I bought some small ones for 80p each and a fleece blanket. I quickly ran up some very basic cushion covers with fringed edges in my makeshift studio. Typically, I also bought some useful random IKEA items such as a hard-boiled egg slicer, a silicone ice cube tray that produces novelty-fish-shaped chunks of ice and a spare set of pinking shears.

It was pointed out to me by my landlady that there are quite a few footballers' wives and girlfriends living in the Ponteland area which would explain the flash cars, Waitrose and some very tanned ladies with glamorous hair-dos. I went out for supper one evening with Crafting Angels, Jen and Rosemary from Broxden in Central Scotland. We had a good time, discussed a little business and enjoyed a spot of people-watching.

 

Guiltily, I phoned home to wish Freya "Happy Birthday" but it sounded like she had a good time anyway. Tania provided her with a surprise birthday tea, she went to Bands Nite at the town hall, unwrapped lots of super presents and finished school for the Easter holidays.

Dismantling the Yurt after the show went very smoothly and Robert from Norman Cummings Fabrics was a great help in holding onto the crown until all of the rafters were removed. It was decided that it was far easier to carry all of the gear down the terraced seating and park the Landy near the paddocks. I wish that someone would grab a camera unexpectedly one day. I must have looked like a very odd turtle balancing the crown on my back. Everything got shoved in and I found a friendly farmer to assist with the rope lashing that I always do just in case any of the cargo straps fail. I had a scenic drive home through beautiful countryside via Coldstream on the A697 with the last of some unseasonably summery weather. The children were pleased to see me return home from my latest trip and even helped to unload the Landy and stow away the Yurt until its next outing. I paid them a little pocket money from my postcard sales so they may even feel inclined to help out another time ;)

Hippie Habits

I decided to leave the Yurt rafters and doors strapped onto the Landrover roofrack and Freya accused me of driving around like a hippie loaded up with camping gear. Living up to this reputation, I decided to make the most of the glorious spring weather and cooked sausages over a wood fire while the children strummed their old guitar.

It felt like a very short week – after unloading the Landy from the London trip I had to make sure that I had prepared plenty of kits for the forthcoming Yurt outing and workshops in Newcastle. I also did two days of supply teaching and took Freya shopping to make up for the fact that I will be away for her birthday. She took some time to find the right pair of jeans and she was horrified at how her spending money was soon spent. She was disappointed not to find exactly what she had in mind so perhaps it is time to start encouraging some easy attempts at basic dress-making. I think that some hippie style smocks in a Liberty print would look cool but I am sure she would not agree with my idea of fashion. We went for lunch in a sushi bar and had fun picking dishes off the conveyor belt – octopus balls and hairy shrimps were simply scrumptious!

I outlined Norse Metallurgy #5 on dark grey satin but I felt that some of my lines were a little wobbly. Hopefully I will be able to disguise that when I add the background fill. Just for "fun" I joined some of the giant hexagons together by machine. Despite marking the quarter inch stopping points very carefully and using a lot of steam when pressing, there are some joins that are not too neat. I could resort to some remedial decorative embroidery after the quilting is complete if necessary.

Yurt Lush London

I drove from Aberdeenshire to North London in 11 ½ hours, listening to BBC Radio 4 and eating rather a lot of sweets. A long journey like that is actually easier done solo as there is no-one else to consider when making stops and there are no bored passengers. I was relieved that the free sat-nav app on my phone told me exactly where to go once I reached the capital. I would never have managed with an atlas and some sticky notes. I was very fortunate to be able to stay with Tania's step-mother, Maggie, since it meant that I could park the Landy safely and travel into the show by Tube once everything was set up.

Predictably, there was not a welcome party awaiting me at Olympia but I managed to hijack a large trolley and a steward who bravely assisted with the job of setting up the frame. The Yurt can be quick and easy to assemble if there are a handful of helpers; it takes a bit longer to get sorted if there is only one or two, particularly if they have seen a yurt before... Everything eventually got tweaked into place, the doors even got touched up with a little paint where they had been scratched in transit and the new pompom trim was pinned into place. There were even electric spotlights inside that replaced my fairy lights and slideshow.

Mollie Makes Magazine was using the Yurt as a "meet and greet" venue for their author book signings so they had brought along some vintage furnishings from a shop in Bath. One of their team explained that in their part of the world an expression of delight is Gurt Lush so my exhibition should be called "Yurt Lush"! It would have been great if we could have acquired a couple of large sofas to create a chill-out area inside. I think I will take along 6 folding chairs with cushions to the next exhibition – there is a limit to how much gear I can fit into the Landy after all! I enjoyed finding out about how a craft magazine is put together by a small editorial team and I also had the opportunity to talk to a few authors and their publishers. It has given me a new impetus to take the long overdue Yurt book forward.

The Stitch and Craft Show at Olympia, Kensington was an interesting mixture of cross-stitch, crochet, knitting, felting and paper-crafts on three floors. There was a special exhibit by Quilts 4 London of a selection of the quilts and pennants made to present to Olympic athletes at London 2012. Many of these had been created by groups and represented themes from their local area and several were patriotically red, white and blue. There was a Quilting Live area where visitors were helped to make simple signature blocks using Liberty of London fabrics to make a diamond jubilee celebratory quilt for The Queen.

It is always wonderful to see the reaction of visitors to the Quilted Yurt at a show as I have to admit that it really is rather impressive in real life. I tend to forget about it while it is all packed up in my workshop but it is exciting when so many people stop and simply say, "Wow!!" They wanted to know how long it all took, could they buy a book, did I make them to order, what was the amazing gold fabric, and was it waterproof?? I caught up with a few online friends in person, Judi from P&Q Magazine gave me a commission and my Mother came down to see me on a bus trip from Norfolk. I met up with an old school friend in Crouch End whom I had not seen for 7 years and we simply carried on from where we had last left off over a couple of gins followed by a very nice Thai curry.

I enjoyed meeting all sorts of people with many different interests. There was an inspiring group of women who had arrived in the UK as refugees who were involved in craft co-operatives in Spitalfields. They loved the welcoming roundness of the Yurt and wondered if they could recreate something similar to use for story-telling and music activities. I hope to hear how members of the Tuwngani Project or Songolo Feet take their ideas further. Lots of people wondered where else the Yurt may appear in the future. The stumbling block seems to be that it takes up quite a lot of expensive floor space but I am more than happy for it to be used as a venue or to contain another exhibition inside. It was amusing that people sat around the Yurt and leaned up against its walls to have their picnic lunches. It is such an invitingly tactile quilted project that I wouldn't dream of telling people not to touch it. They seem to enjoy pointing out all of the patterns and details to each other, wondering how the painted circles are made.

Once the show was underway I rather enjoyed myself in London. There is always a sense of adventure when travelling by Tube. There are crowds of people, lots of interesting conversations to eavesdrop, huge escalators; will the doors shut on a packed train? and regular announcements, of "Mind the Gap!" I found it fascinating that a girl was applying her makeup and that two members of the chorus line in "Chicago" were discussing who had got parts on Broadway. I would love to buy some moquette fabric to make some bags or cushions – I could buy something basic and ready made in the London Underground Museum Shop but I feel that the addition of a few pompoms would make the project even more special. My tube station was closed without warning one day so I had to make part of the journey on the top deck of a red London double decker bus.

The last day of the show was a little slower and most exhibitors were rather weary. At 5 o'clock I packed away all of the panels, roof and accessories in less than 20 minutes but there was no sign of anyone to help dismantle the frame. I admit that I began to seethe with frustration as I asked several times for a man with a trolley to assist. Eventually I was assigned two helpful guys and the frame came down in about 5 minutes. They helped me to get the roof spars and doors lashed onto the Landy roof-rack and I battled my way through heavy Sunday night traffic in the dark.

I left London at 5.30 am the next morning so that I could get on my way before rush hour. There were several hold-ups on the way back to Scotland due to some nasty motorway accidents and I was relieved when the traffic gradually thinned out in the North. It was a 13 hour marathon trip punctuated by the odd stop for diesel and delicacies such as creme eggs. I thanked my Landy profusely for being such a sport at the end of my journey and just left the Yurt roof and doors on top ready for my trip to Pins & Needles at Newcastle Racecourse at the end of next week. My children were pleased to see me again - I was immediately barraged with questions about WW2 weaponry for a project and "how is it possible for a train to travel underground in a tube?" I groaned slightly when I checked my diary and discovered that I have two teaching days this week and I have not quite finished preparing kits for next week's workshops. I will just have to brew up some strong coffee and get going...

In the Pink

There is nothing like a lack of time to concentrate the mind. Despite having had months to prepare the Yurt for its exhibition at Stitch and Craft Olympia, I only really got cracking this week. I regretted having sent all of the bunting and trimmings to the USA. I ordered many more metres of pompom braid, made new bunting for the roof, and dyed some crochet flowers magenta to replace the original feather cockades. I really don't think I like procion dye – it always looks so promisingly vibrant then most of it gets rinsed away. I must order some more Hungarian dye as the colours fix far more reliably. I even had to resort to using a box of purple Dylon to dye a piece of vintage linen that had been marked with blue ink for cross stitch as I couldn't find the original backing for the last ever yurt panel that I never got around to quilting. It was actually pieced at the end of last summer in honour of the rampant weeds in my garden.

I only had two days in which to do all of this since I was teaching in school again this week and I have to admit that I think I worked harder because of that limitation. I quilted "Willowbay Herb", a basic strippy panel, the same way that I quilted "5 Bar Gate" that is now in Wisconsin. I painted in all of the skinny lines and added some machine embroidery. I stopped myself from adding even more embellishments and crystals as I simply had to get the binding and Velcro attached.

There was a bit of a farce with the Post Office this week... I paid a customs bill for Parcel Force to the Royal Mail online by mistake. These two organisations are related but are no longer the same company. There was much to-ing and fro-ing between automated customer services until I paid the customs bill again to the correct company then got the original one refunded. After all that I received an email informing me that the parcel had been mislaid. I decided not to bother getting even more annoyed and anyway, my local Postie turned up with it the next day!

The over-priced package contained the giant hexagon die from Accuquilt. I couldn't help myself – as soon as I had finished packing all of the Yurt gear into the Landy, I had to go and cut out Freya's Christmas quilt. I am really enjoying these easy in-between projects where I don't have to worry obsessively about perfect points and I can use whatever fabric I happen to have as long as it is vaguely Christmassy. I may just sew a row or two tomorrow after I have collected a new batch of Yurt postcards and packed my overnight bag...

Making Up for Lost Time

I resent the time that is wasted by being ill! At the start of the week I had a couple of days feeling under the weather and all of the good intentions on my Must Do List got scrapped. I wound myself back up to speed by winging it in almost every class in a school on a supply teaching day from story time with P1 to French conversation with P7. I was incensed by this week's caption on the front cover on the Times Educational Supplement for Scotland suggesting that "undesirable" teachers from England might cross the border and take up teaching posts. I wondered whether I might have missed the Referendum on Independence while I was ill! Of course, there was an explanatory article inside the magazine but as someone who gained a perfectly respectable B.Ed Hons. degree in England, I am still drafting my objection to such an inflammatory headline.

I gradually began to make up for lost time in my studio but instead of purposefully getting organised to take the Yurt to the looming "Stitch and Craft" show in London 15th – 18^th March, I cut and pieced Fergus's Christmas quilt, completed a small Norse carving, and worked on my quilted projector screen. I did eventually order 18 metres of pompom braid and I sorted out a new postcard order so apart from finding the door knobs for the Yurt that may have got lost and quilting the very, very last "Willowbay Herb" Yurt panel,  I think everything is under control. Everything that is, apart from fitting in 3 teaching days, dreading the prospect of a 12 hour drive to London and trying not to worry about getting all of the teaching kits ready for "Pins & Needles" in Newcastle at the end of the month... 

Exciting Packages

I have been waiting impatiently for the Postie to deliver Christmas fabric for a couple of weeks; I expect it has been waylaid by HM Customs. I was feeling peeved as the week passed when the only item larger than a bill that came through the letterbox was my copy of the not-so-scintillating "Times Educational Supplement". However, a large package arrived on Thursday from Australia that I made myself save until I had done all of my chores and made a large jug of coffee.

It was such a treat to read a magazine from Down Under and drool over some new Aboriginal fabrics specially chosen by Christine – THANK YOU!! After I have got the two Yurt exhibitions out of the way I plan to complete Bewitched 2 and start a second large Australian quilt. Maybe I should even consider entering an Aussie show or two if I find time to make something worthwhile.

Another package that arrived contained the micro digital projector. I have just about managed to figure out how it works since all equipment these days comes without useful instructions. I have made a start on the quilted projector screen that I intend to hang inside the Yurt – it is white on one side and gold lame on the other so that it can sometimes be used to project images and when reversed it can simply be decorative. I think it might be fun to project movies onto it outside. Maybe if we wear LOTS of clothes and light a bonfire we could pretend to be at a drive-in movie.

The two Carols brought their Silent Movie Start quilt tops along for their first attempts at longarming. We loaded up both machines and I flitted between them all day changing bobbins and giving them quilting tips. They did really well and were both pleased with what they managed to achieve in 6 hours.

The metallic series is coming along nicely – I now have gold, silver and copper quilted. I am working on a pewter piece but the lines are not as smooth as I would like on this one so some embroidery stitches may have to be used to disguise the wobbles. The very shiny fabrics do not really absorb metallic fabric paints so I am unable to highlight areas as originally planned and I have no idea whether hotfix crystals will adhere properly. I have ordered some "silk lurex lame" that I hope will look like anodised titanium so perhaps that will satisfy my curiosity on what the oddest choice of fabrics for wholecloths might be...

Messing About

I couldn't really go off quilting in the workshop all during half term; instead, I tackled long the overdue chore of clearing out the summerhouse. It had not been touched since last summer so I had to deal with deflated airbeds, two drum kits, dried up pots of glue& paint, cat biscuits and feathers. This led to a thorough airing of the garden yurt and a bonfire. I still need to get rid of a stack of 5+ year old editions of Country Living Magazine, a hostess trolley and two outdoor cane chairs that the crows have robbed of stuffing. It would be great to decorate the summerhouse just like a page from a magazine but I would have to get rid of everything else first and I quite like some of my odd collections of other people's junk. I really ought to sort out that 1950's kitchen cupboard that I rescued for restoration...

There was a knock on the door early one morning and a small incognito Ninja delivered a heart shaped cake to Freya as a Valentine Day treat. This was quite thrilling and we all enjoyed the scrumptious red velvet chocolate cake with yummy icing. There was actually rather a lot of cake in my house this week as I finally made the German apple cake that I had been nurturing from a sourdough starter mix for 10 days. It was also delicious so there was no effort made to diet!

I wish I had a scullery in which to do all of my concocting, brewing and preserving. I have been culturing two more German cake mixtures but one met an untimely end and was discovered to have exploded all over the kitchen. I cannot say whether Blue Cat knocked it off or whether it spontaneously combusted but its pottery bowl was smashed to pieces. The gooey mixture that was as sticky as condensed milk was spread across the floor and dripping down the side of the cupboard.

I was persuaded to attend a WRI meeting to listen to a talk and slideshow given by a friend who lived in Singapore for a while. Somehow I allowed myself to be volunteered for a quiz team. I had not been listening attentively to the arrangements so I was aghast to discover that it would not be held in a pub and there would be no chips. In the end it was surprisingly fun – there were around 20 other teams whose members were considerably senior to ours and we managed to finish fourth thanks to our combination of general knowledge and remembering snippets of useless information. There may not have been chips but the sausage rolls and Viennese fingers at half time were excellent.

We finally had a light sprinkling of snow so I could attempt some snow dyeing. I scrabbled around scooping up a few bucketfuls and dribbled some strong solutions of procion dye onto the flannel sheets that had been treated with soda ash. It was quite exciting waiting to see what would happen. The steady thaw seemed ideal but I realised after a while that the dye was not penetrating into the middle part of the sheets and I didn't want large white areas. I don't think the snow was the right sort to give the crystalline effect. I turned them over and pushed the colourful slush back into the creases. The colours seemed very bright but after they had been rinsed much of this was lost so I am glad that I prepared strong dyes. They are nowhere near as intense as my Hungarian dyes so I am already wondering whether they would work better, applied directly to the snow as powder with salt.  The trouble with snow is that it is cold and it has been hot water that has set my dyes so successfully in the past. I am keen to experiment again but perhaps I will have to wait a bit longer for the right kind of snow!

Wot, no Snow?

Amazingly, we have had no lying snow so far this winter, despite significant amounts in the South for a change. I am not unduly upset at this as the schools have remained open and we have not been snowed in but I have now been waiting a year to try out snow dyeing. The sky looked quite threatening at one point so I rushed out and bought 3 flannel sheets to back my Christmas quilts and washed them in readiness but the weather got milder again. At least I will now be fully prepared – I have everything I need apart from snow. I would actually like just two days' worth, preferably over a weekend.

After two days of teaching I had a limited amount of time to work on the photo quilt with circles and lines. I became familiar with every picture by the time I had rolled the quilt up and down the frame a few times to complete the quilting designs. I was really pleased with the end result; Shona's choice of pale batiks was very complementary to the photos which she had printed using a fine cotton bed sheet treated with Bubble Jet Set.  

My Christmas fabric drawer was almost empty so I felt justified in ordering a few half yards online. I am sorry to say that I have not been inspired by the selection of festive prints on sale in British online quilt shops so my new collection is coming from eQuilter: including scuba diving Santas, hunky men in Christmas underpants, elephants, owls and gaudy baubles. I have been so pleased with the Accuquilt Go-Cutter shapes that I also ordered a giant hexagon die so that I can have "fun" with fewer set-in seams. I am really enjoying these quick and relatively easy projects that I can just work away at in between customer quilts, teaching and the trickier metallic wholecloths that require greater concentration.

The children have almost a week off school for a mid-term break. Panicking at the prospect of catering, ferrying and supervising cake making endeavours, I frenziedly worked on several projects at the weekend. I painted a bedroom side table blue and orange for Fergus then quilted a mat made from scraps of his African quilt. I finished quilting the scratchy copper lurex Norse carving and drew out the helmet design onto a plain piece of backing fabric. I hope the reverse (which will actually be the front of the quilt in the end) will look spectacular in a hideous, thin super-shiny silver spandex. I have worked out two more designs for a pewter coloured piece of satin and I am trying to decide whether to do one more that looks aluminium or whether to source fabric that is iridescent like titanium? If I could source suitable materials then perhaps I should just work my way through the periodic table...

 

An Apple for the Teacher

I taught three distinctly different types of pupil this week. One day I was a relief art teacher for 9-12 year olds, on another I taught part 3 of the Silent Movie Star Quilt, focusing on borders and edges and finally I spent a morning with Nursery children and I learned how to play "Sharks & Fishes".

This did not leave much time for quilting but I started on a terrific customer quilt featuring printed photos set into pale coloured batiks. The planning of three-quarter circles and lines took me ages and it has to be completed by Thursday at the latest as it is being taken abroad as a gift so I will be busy with that AND teaching in schools for the next few days.

I took my Featherweight machine into the house and pieced the Christmassy apple core blocks in between nagging about homework and ferrying children to extra-curricular activities. I am really pleased at how the "curvemaster" foot helped me to ease these tricky curved shapes together without using pins. The idea is to make each of my children a Christmas quilt well before next December using as much fabric from my existing stash as possible and a token piece of festive print every now and then. I think I will use a large tumbler block with some blue and green Asian prints and add in some small pieces of Christmas fabrics. I am now coveting the accuquilt 9" hexagon cutting die that is currently only available in the USA. The third quilt will feature Amy Butler, Valori Wells and some others that are not obviously Christmassy but have an overall festive effect.

I hope to finish the quilting of a Norse carving onto a piece of hideous copper lurex. I traced the design onto the cotton backing fabric so that I could see what I was doing. The quilt is technically being worked on the frame "upside down" – there will be lots of threads to trim later, possibly some paint to add and perhaps some embroidery stitches to hide any iffy bits. I hope to try silver tissue-lame again using this method and Mo has given me an offcut of pewter coloured satin. These metallic projects seem to have become an accidental mini series!

Discombobulated

For some reason I have had the word "discombobulated", meaning confused or muddled, stuck in my head and it seems an appropriate description of my week. I went to see the magnificently moving film, "Warhorse", with its stark reminder of the tragedy of war which was what probably led to me having one of my "What is the meaning of Life?" moments.

 I wondered whether to consider working towards a PhD. I even looked up the requirements on the Open University website where I was informed that a full time student would have to study for 16 hours per week. Surely I could fit that into my schedule? I could not actually understand any of the thesis titles so I decided that pursuing some kind of discourse on blogging and patchwork might be considered lightweight. Really, it would be better to be awarded an honorary professorship or just get on with the research required to finish off my Yurt book!

I attended an interview for a two day a week local teaching job and felt that I presented myself well so I was affronted to be informed that I had not been successful in securing the job. Apparently I had not given enough examples of the methods of formative assessment that I would use in the classroom. I sulked for a full two days as I was unable to accept that I might not have been the best candidate.

I eventually cheered myself up on one of my supply teaching days as I spontaneously planned 7 activities based on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table for a class of more than thirty 9-10 year olds whom I had never met before. I kept them entertained and under control and decided that was a pretty good outcome.

I felt obliged to prove to myself that I had worthy IT skills and determined to solve two tasks that have had me puzzled for ages. Inspired by the endeavours of a couple of tech-savvy fellow bloggers, Kay and Kathy, I finally figured out how to create a colour palette from a photo and I managed to "slurp" part of my blog so that it could be published as a hard copy.

I quilted and bound a vibrant maple leaf quilt for Shona in simple swirls, put the main part of Silent Movie Star 2 together then gave myself permission to start another metallic wholecloth quilt. The Norse helmet carving started off well but the slippery silver tissue lame had been very difficult to mark clearly and the lights from the quilting machine caused such a glare that I felt like I had snow blindness. I reluctantly decided that there were too many wobbly areas and the tension was not at all good so it would actually be quicker to start again with a new piece of lame than fix the issues. I have drawn up the copper carving now but this time I have marked the design onto the cotton back of the quilt instead of wrestling with the lurex that I will be using. Thus, the back of quilt will be what I can see and the temperamental fabric will be underneath. I think it will be challenging...

Taxing

It took me a whole day to do all of the sums required to complete the tax return that I could have done months ago. In theory a spreadsheet would work it all out for me... I bungled my way through the online questions and almost submitted a healthy profit until I found out how to put in the expenses. It was sobering to see my deficit in black and white. After clicking "submit" I felt pleased with my efforts for about 5 minutes until it dawned on me that I had gone beyond April up to September with my accounting, confusing the tax year end with my company's year end! I daresay I will eventually be contacted by a representative from the Tax Department; they will demand to know why such an idiot can possibly hope to run a small business and recommend that I find a full time job instead.

I actually started the week as a stand-in specialist science teacher. I taught 5 classes of 11 and 12 year olds a lesson about solids, liquids, and gases including messing about with a non-Newtonian liquid made from cornflour and water. I mentioned molecules, alchemy and mercury induced madness in passing and a few students told me that it was "The coolest ever science lesson!" I must admit that it is really nice to hear comments like that from time to time, especially when so many pupils think that "Now, stop and listen..." does not apply to them thus wasting valuable lesson time. It is not the done thing to throw chalk at children in the 21^st century – besides there isn't any chalk anyway ;)

I was in school for three days this week so I was suffering withdrawal symptoms from my workshop. I made a few more apple core units for one of the scrappy Christmas quilts and I am going to smuggle a very small sewing machine back into the house to see if I can get a few more done each evening. In the depths of winter I spend most evenings on the computer, not necessarily working on my book (although this week I managed to get a few more paragraphs written - in case Ellen is reading this to check up on my progress with that project!)

I made a start on the first of my 3 planned metallic wholecloth pieces based on Norse carvings. The first one is in shiny gold lame and the definition created by the quilting is fantastic. There are a couple of slightly iffy areas of tension on the back because the combination of lame and cheap IKEA cotton is not ideal. I may have to paint over the offending areas on the back if I decide to enter it into a competition. I am not sure yet whether to give the quilt a rustic looking edge like a slab of broken metal or whether to take the easy way out and keep it straight. The next two may be more challenging since I have not got silver and copper in the same fabric and I have had to settle for lurex instead. These fabrics are very difficult to mark and every wobbly pen line is there forever. I will do a bit of cosmetic stitching to finish off the gold panel then see if I manage to complete the set. Hopefully I will allow myself more sewing time in the coming week to work on those and get the next part of SMS2 done before the final class. I also need to schedule kit making time for my classes in Newcastle and continue with "that other previously mentioned project" which seems to be taking rather a long time!

Teaching

The week got the off to a gentle start when the children returned to school without a single flake of snow scuppering my plans but I stocked up on sacks of dog and chicken food just in case. It gave me time to consider a much needed new TO DO list. The WRI ladies came for an outing to my workshop where I gave them a talk and showed them some of my quilts. I had the delicious honour of judging the Shortbread Competition which was hard as their standard of baking was so high. It reminded me that a couple of my Yurt Book recipes need tweaking – I have to decide whether to recommend serving the venison casserole with mash or a concoction of pearl barley.

I chose Norse and Celtic designs to enlarge at the photocopy shop for a set of 3 metallic wholecloths. I had enough gold lame and a piece of shredding tissue lame in silver but I had to send away to an American pageant shop to find shiny copper spandex. It will either be a quite interesting miniseries of pieces that look like carved metal-work or simply a disaster in lurex...

On Wednesday I was kept busy teaching a class that involves free motion quilting into small sections of a pre-quilted Celtic spiro. It is interesting working with beginners; I can remember clearly the frustrations of being a novice. There are students who get rather annoyed with themselves if they don't produce flowing designs straight away and I remind them gently that it is a bit like learning how to write – you would not expect beautifully flowing cursive script on the first day at school. It is always interesting that thread choices and the individual style of each student leads to entirely different looking projects that started off from exactly the same point. While they worked away on their fillers I polished the flute that had arrived from Ebay. It was a little more "vintage" and grubbier than expected but it soon polished up and Freya managed to get all of the keys to work so it will do until she decides whether to resume lessons or not.

I made a start on the first of 3 Christmas quilts that I plan to make for each of my children. I thought I had far more Christmas fabric in my stash so I ended up rummaging around pulling out what might pass for Christmassy colours instead. I used the Go Cutter to cut out apple core shapes then had to work out how to sew them without having a trauma about using PINS. I had bought a Curvemaster sewing machine foot which worked reasonably well at easing the fabric in from one curve to another but despite watching a YouTube video I don't think I quite had the hang of it. I came across a blog where it was suggested that the middles and outer edges should be stuck in place with a tiny dab of Sewline fabric glue. This seemed to work a treat so I have made a good start. There was a time when I would never have attempted anything as tricky as curved seams but I seem to have overcome my fears and I think the blocks I have made so far look really fun.

I made a tentative start on the Norse gold lame wholecloth and so far it seems to be going accordingly to plan. I have not yet worked out what I want in the background. The easy option would be swirls and plumes but I think it needs some tricky lines.

I taught a class of lively 6 year olds on Friday and I managed to keep them fairly under control for the day but I did pour myself a large sherry when I got home ;) My next assignment is teaching Science classes for a day so I have been trying to think of cool experiments that will grab their attention and keep them engaged for a whole hour.

During the evenings after supervising homework I have been on the internet looking at Hebridean holiday cottages, trying to find accommodation and parking for the Landy in central London, figuring out the logistics of being a tour guide for the 2012 Irish International Quilting Festival, and learning how to tune up a banjo and ukulele from a YouTube clip. I finally succeeded in submitting the winning bid on a Le Creuset fondue set so I am now looking forward to the next time I have a surplus of cheese or chocolate!

 

 

Flute & Fondues

Despite my good intentions, things are not yet back to "normal" after the festive season. It has been all too easy to get up late, pootle around, drink sherry (even though I optimistically bought vegetable juice) and read a book in the afternoon. Nevertheless, I achieved a reasonable amount in the workshop. Because I had a deadline, I had to make 3 class sample journal quilts and photograph them. I also agreed to take the Yurt down to a large show in London in March so IF I get offered any part-time teaching interviews I will tell them that they will have to let me go off on my travels...

I had to construct the other corner blocks for Silent Movie Star 2 since part two of that class is next week and I gave some serious thought to a possible set of three Celtic wholecloths. I have a notion to make each of my 3 children a simple Christmas bed quilt for next year so I may have to order festive fabrics since my Christmas stash has run right down.

One afternoon I decided that as the log pile was depleted I would have a go at slicing up a seasoned fallen tree that I have had my eye on for some time. I don't have a chainsaw so I used a big bow saw and discovered that it was really good exercise. I soon had a reasonable pile of rowan logs. Since I don't have a Highland pony to help me drag branches I will attempt to attach the ropey trailer and use my Landy to transport my firewood. I carried one impressive log back but it refused to burn so I daresay I will have to order a load from a local forester - after all, my small damp tree won't provide much worthy fuel.

I have to admit that I became a little obsessed with Ebay auctions this week. I had decided that I wanted to acquire a Le Creuset fondue set following the success of borrowing Tania's to try and use up some of the Christmas chocolate and cheese. My other quest was to find Freya a second-hand flute as she had expressed regret that she had returned her school owned instrument when she gave up having lessons. I didn't want to spend too much but also did not want one that was so cheap that it failed to function correctly. It is really annoying to be beaten in the last moments of an auction by £1. We successfully bid for an Italian flute without a case so we will have to wait and see whether it is any good or not. I am already sketching ideas for a quilted flute bag – maybe it could have sections like a cosmetic bag or be one long thin tube with a carry strap...

The internet was down for a couple of days locally causing much frustration. I was obsessed with the thought that I might be missing important emails and Facebook gossip but very little had actually happened in the virtual world by the time it was restored. In fact, something happened this week that served to remind me that even here the real world can affect my rural sanctuary and I should never presume to take my idyllic country life for granted.

 

Happy New Year 2012!

Starting a New Year feels rather like the end of a party; there is a certain amount of tidying up to do before gearing up to new projects. I will have to sort out paperwork, clear out my wardrobe and refold all of my fabric before I feel ready to decide what to work on next.

I managed to find time to finish Fergus's blue and orange African quilt and I was really pleased with the formal wavy lines that I quilted using a curved ruler. The back of the quilt is also rather nice as I used up odd pieces of African-ish fabrics instead of buying something new. It was difficult to get the light right for clear photographs that showed the strong colours and texture properly.

My rattling sewing machine managed to sew decorative stitches in some of the long seam "ditches": now I want a machine manufacturer to develop an open-toed walking foot to improve accuracy and make it easier to steer straight. The quilt ended up slightly smaller than I planned, mostly because I didn't have a plan at the outset as usual, simply sewing pieces together until I ran out of fabric.

As a consequence I bought a vintage Welsh tapestry blanket in a vibrant combination of mustard, royal blue and magenta on Ebay that could go underneath the short quilt. It arrived in pristine condition but it proved to be far too big for a single bed so now I have a rather wacky blanket on my bed. Fortunately, it is mostly hidden under the Christmas quilt. Maybe I will have to embrace its weirdness and make a clashing complementary quilt.

I have nearly finished my peanut M&M's and a bottle of sherry but there is still an awful lot of cheese to eat. I rather enjoyed a week of indolence, reading a book in the afternoon while sipping Baileys but I have lots to do so will have to get back into a routine and prioritise – tomorrow, maybe...