Silver Lining

Breathing space comes from unexpected sources, sometimes.  While Damma was busy dying, I was running an external accreditation visit, planning the next one, selling my house, looking for a new house, and trying to find ever more creative solutions to the University's deepening financial woes.  All of which made for a fairly stressed Silver.  Then in the same week Damma died, HT was made redundant, and I had to go to Lincoln to help Mum out and try not to add to HT's woes by insisting we discuss our home buying plans before he was ready to breathe.  Which was difficult, but fortunately, he's a patient man.

When I came home from Lincoln earlier than planned, I took a day to myself - I still went back to work earlier than I had thought I would, but I just needed a day in my own head, putting myself to rights.  So I spent a day in the shed.  Sewing.  I wanted to see what I could do with only a little bit of colour.  Most of my stuff is a busy swirl; it's a struggle to know where to rest your eye and while the colours work well together, I wanted to try a bit of quiet.  Some pieced cotton peace.  So I cut a large chunk off the end of the roll of white fabric that stands in the corner of the shed, and I used up some scraps of colour from various works in progress, and I put the two together.  With a lot of white and very little colour.  And it was OK.  Then I needed to make a back.  And I like the back of my quilts to have something about them, so a bit more colour went into that.  Just a little bit.

And before you know it, a quilt sandwich was all basted and ready to go.  But if it's all plain, and white, what do you do with the quilting?  I'm not ready to embark on trapunto (see the bottom of this page for a picture) or whole cloth quilting (picture here) so I decided to try some free machine quilting.  Circles.  Squirly, whirly, scribbly circles, like doodling with a needle.  At high speed.  You drop the feed dogs on the machine, so the fabric doesn't move through automatically, so you have to move the fabric manually through the machine, at an even speed, and keep the needle moving at an even speed.  And keep breathing. It's harder than it sounds.  Particularly the breathing part.  The idea is (well, the idea kind of is) to achieve a state of zen-like calm and make pretty patterns and interesting textures on the fabric.  White thread on white fabric.

It's shaping up OK.  It's a long time since I've done it, and it is difficult to keep the fabric moving at an even speed and the needle going fast enough.  And I'd forgotten how difficult it is to move a decent sized quilt (it's only baby sized.  Or possibly small lap sized.  But it's bigger than the throat of my sewing machine) through the machine.  It hurts.  My neck hurts, my shoulders hurt, my hands hurt.  But it's looking pretty.  And by the time I've finished this quilt, I'll be good at it again, and then the next one I do - which will be large, and red, and rich, and glorious - well, that one will be gorgeous. 

I have plans.  I have plans for the border of this quilt, and plans for the design of the next one. 

But most importantly, while my little brain is fuzzing with plans for the quilts, it isn't thinking about anything more difficult or more unpleasant.  It's hard work - two hours per night to quilt a section 6" x 12" - and it's physically difficult.  But it's breathing space.  I don't know if it's any good (but the next one will be).  And it's zen-like calm.

Snowy Sunday

We woke up to three or four inches of snow, this morning.  Not that you'd know it, now...

So I made a snuggly for the nibling's pram.

I also built a hutch, into which the guinea pigs (Harry and Ron) are now safely installed.  Let's hope they're warmly installed, too...

 

Harry	Ron

Sissy came to stay, bringing the nibling with her!  Hurrah! 

It's the first time I've spent a significant amount of time with a baby who isn't my own; where I don't have to get up in the night to feed and change nappies; or change nappies at any time of day.  It could catch on, I have to say!  Sissy must be encouraged to breed more!

The nibling is a love, of course.  Nearly the sweetest baby that ever there was in the whole world, ever.  If I hadn't had any of my own, he would hold the undisputed crown.  Even Dan and Daisy loved him.

We went to a farm park, where mostly the nibling screamed.  To be fair, it isn't the very best farm park in the world.  And he had a belly ache, as it turns out.  A combination sufficient to make the most laid back amongst us scream, you have to admit.  Dan and Daisy thought it was pretty cool, though.  Dan lay in a long line of children on the damp grass, and a European Eagle Owl swooped low over his head; low enough to ruffle the curls.  I thought that was pretty cool, too.  They both panned for 'gold', but were forced out of the medal line when I spotted them bickering and jostling the other miner 49ers.

I finished the Easter quilt - it is truly beautiful.  I suppose I should add some photos to somewhere....Ok, here it is.  Oh, and I made me a website, too :-)

It was good to share some time with Sissy.  We haven't spent a significant chunk of time just the two of us in ages.  It's nice to be around someone you don't have to explain stuff too, and you can just relax.  And she has even worse wind than I do, too, which is always good!

If Klimt were a cubist

I woke up on Friday with an urge to sew.  Clothes, preferably.  Only, by the time I got down to the shed I couldn't be arsed to trace a pattern, mark a pattern, select some fabric, dye some fabric, all before I got to cut.  Cut, cut.  It's all about the cutting, you know.

So I chose a fabric I bought on ebay last year for no particular purpose.  It's loud and brash and I've never known what to do with it.  Cotton, with some lycra in (which has made keeping the edges under control interesting, at times...).  I grabbed it hungrily off the shelf and headed for the quilt shop.  Once there, I bemused the nice lady by selecting the loudest, leariest palette of fabrics we could find, and headed home again.

Simple squares were my aim.  Squares within squares, perhaps, to make it a bit more interesting.  So I began to cut my 2 1/2 " strips.  2  1/2" x 6 1/2", and 2 1/2" x 2 1/2".  I wanted a  nine patch of the feature fabric, and then the feature to figure in two squares of each of the other fabrics.  And then I would just mix up my complementary fabrics.  I did no design work, little preparation.  Just cut and stitch, cut and stitch.

It nearly came undone when I had enough squares (63, since you were wondering) and couldn't find a way of setting them that didn't give me a headache.  Eventually I settled on purples and pinks round the feature fabric, greens in the opposite diagonal corner, and yellows everywhere else.  It went together well, but needed a little je ne sais quoi.

A brief and unsuccessful hunt through the rack for some devore velvet I could swear I have somewhere led to a piece of silk velvet.  About 1m.  Undyed.  OK.  Rummage through the dye drawer.  Marine violet could be interesting.  So marine violet it was.  Prewash the fabric to clear out the preservative and dressing on it, then sling 3 tsp of dye into the drum of the machine, 4 tsp soda ash and 250g of salt.  Knock it all through the drum, bung the wet fabric in, and set it off at 60 deg.  Worked a treat and I had a lovely, lush, imperial purple piece of velvet at the end.

Emboldened, I decided to dye some cotton for the back.  Didn't bother to prewash this, though, and upped the quantities a bit (3m of fabric vs. 1m of fabric).  Put the fabric in dry.  Didn't knock the dye through the drum, either.  Result?  A slightly unevenly coloured length of teal cotton.  Very pleasing.  Not obviously uneven, like batik, but pleasing variations of shade across the piece.

Anyway, this quilt top has flown together - though poor DBO may disagree - and I'm about to start work on piecing the back - teal cotton with a chiffon strip, to pick up the sophisticated silk theme.  Oh, there's pictures down there in the quilt album, if you want to look!

By way of light relief, we went to Oxford last night to see Eels.  It was an incredibly good gig - the 'support' act was a film about Mark Everett's father who turns out to have been a groundbreaking quantum mechanic.  Surprisingly touching film, too, though DBO thought the science was a bit 'light'.  Odd, that.  I'd've thought quantum mechanics could easily be grasped by the average joe on the Oxford street!  Anyway, the set was incredibly good.  Stage dressed like a garage jamming session - rugs and random instruments lying about; and E and Chet on their own moving from piece to piece.  It's an incredibly good band with a hugely eclectic range of music.  They did the obvious (well, most of the obvious): Souljacker pts 1 and 2; Novocaine for the Soul; My Beloved Monster.  But not Susan's House or Mr E's Beautiful Blues.  Very moving version of It's A Motherfucker.  And a lovely version of the one whose name I can never remember - I'm Going To Stop Pretending??  But the show stealer was Flyswatter.  It's one of my favourite songs anyway, but they did a real WOW performance of it.  So now it's going round my head: Field mice, head lice, spiders in the kitchen...

Brilliant night.

Donkey day

I made myself a working from home deal today; if I started early, I could take a break mid-afternoon to do something I enjoy, and then come and finish off my work this evening.

So I worked from 7.30am - 3.30pm. 

Then I finished this:

After tea, I came back to the computer and finished the business plan I've been working on.  And now the children are on their way to bed, I will baste the quilt, ready to finish this weekend.

And in all that, I've been at home, with the kids, and able to be interrupted for random chats about hamsters and playstations. 

It's about perfect, for a working day.

Some time ago, I bought a friend a copy of Tim Burton's The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and other stories which is a rather fab book, and very Tim Burton.

Yesterday, I went to Oxford to a rather dry conference about the student contract.  And I met my friend for lunch, and she gave me this:

Isn't she beautiful??  She's the Pin Cushion Queen.

Life isn't easy
for the Pin Cushion Queen
When she sits on her throne
ins push through her spleen

I love my creative friends!

I am beginning to be hacked off with the bike race.  I can't remember whether I got a train ticket for me (I think so) or a bus ticket back from Brighton for the bike (I've a sinking feeling not).  The phone line which has someone answer it appears only to be manned during working hours - when it's difficult for me to call it.  The deadline for booking bike transport is Monday, and the train operators aren't allowing bikes on ride day...

So I sent a round robin email to family and various supporters asking if anyone was planning to actually be in Brighton to cadge the bike a lift back.

To which my father replied, strongly recommending that nobody come to Brighton.  Cheers, Dad!  Some of us actually want some support and celebration at the finishing post...  Oh well, my bad for including him in the email, I s'pose.

In other news, Sissy's quilt is coming on nicely.  I've foundation pieced a quartet of New York Beauties with some Japanese fabric I've had lying around for a while, and a couple of additional NYBs with other fabrics.  I'm trying to limit my design to 14 or so fabrics (sounds like a lot, but it won't look like 14 when they're done!) but as ever the trouble is that I haven't actually *got* a finished design and I'm making it up on the hoof!  I'm intending to have the quartet breaking apart in the lower right hand quarter, and other NYBs spinning up the body of the quilt, interlaced with the pointy bits from the block, working across the background.  Then I think there will be some drunkard's path or similar wibbling about, and the whole thing will be edged with a border of double wedding rings.  But every time I think I've got it straight in my head, I fiddle it about a bit.  I wish I was more disciplined with my design work...

Oh, and I don't know what size I'm making it either!  So all in all, it's a bit chaotic at this point!

Daisy totally loves

1.  Cheese and onion quiche
2.  Me
3.  Her skirt

Arse

See, now in my head this was supposed to be a triumphal post.  All taran-tara!!  I'm back!!!  Two years off, and just click on this link to see the beauty of my first stitchy creation!

 

I have cut a redondo.  I have dyed the fabric.  I have stitched the gores together (one the wrong way round, but that's by the by.  It'll unstitch easy enough).  Daisy chose a white linen with a bright flower print, and a plain pink batik, so I over-dyed the linen peacock blue; and some jersey and ribbing to match so I can make a little string tied t-shirt and trim it with scraps of the skirt fabric.  Plan!

 

Only, I bet half of you have spotted my schoolboy error already.

 

Considering I'm paid not a trivial amount of money to do sums, you'd think I'd spot it too, wouldn't you?  (not *enough* money, obviously.  Just in case my boss has stumbled across this blog!)

 

Redondo is a five gored skirt.  So far so good.

 

Two fabrics.

 

In my head, that's alternating fabrics. 

 

So, who thinks redondo would work with 6 gores, and a *very* elasticated waist??

 

Also,what was that woman thinking when she wrote the instructions??  "Try not to stretch the fabric round the curves".  Don't stretch it?!  Has she *seen* the sharpness of those curves?!!  I mean, even after a hefty break I consider myself something of a whizz with a mechanical needle, and I can't begin to stitch those seams without stretching the fabric...  Does she have a magic round-the-bends machine, or what?!

 

Anyway.  Arse.  Like the title said.   Photo will follow in due course.  But for the time being, back to the goring board*...   



*(sorry)