Not one of the boyes

Well one of my favorite cheap shops is called Boyes, its a very northern shop not unlike woolworths, you know sell everything but cheaply! it always had a good haberdashery department, nothing spectacular but if you wanted cheap fabric for nothing too precious Boyes was the place. cue sad face:( the much reduced stock is now woefully disappointing and I ended up buying a fat quarter bundle of baby pinks and whites to do an upcoming project my single follower will eventually receive.

But she is worth it even if she isn't one of the boyes ;)

fingers and thimbles

I don't do change very well, oh I like to think I am quite an adaptable kind of girl, but the reality is new throws me out of kilter. The new (behind the scenes)look of blogspot is unsettling.Still that is a minor gripe compared to how life has been lately.Fear not I'm not going to elaborate on the down sides of life here. What I was going to write about before I was distracted by changes in blogspot was thimbles!!!!! I have very sore finger ends right now, and I know if I sewed enough consistently my fingers would form their own thimbles but heckythump its not a pleasant process. I cheat! yes yes I do, I often use my thumb nail and run the risk of the needle sliding painfully under my nail. its a risky business this sewing lark. More than once today I have stabbed my thumb with the blunt end of my needle.a far more painful event than the sharp end seems to be.I swear I actually hear the skin pop as the eye of the needle punctures the by now sand paper like surface. I have tried the usual metal thimbles, and clover leather ones that are meant to be a snug ring but nothing seems to suit my fingers, I have even tried wearing them about the house just to get used to them ..nope doesnt work for me, nor I hasten to add does substituting elastoplast or electrical tape for skin! Any bright ideas?

old and new

I spent a wonderful afternoon this week with Kate and Caroline, both expert quilters and inspirational ladies in their own right. The official purpose of the get together was Kates recent acquisition of a Victorian quilt top.

At least large enough for a double bed the top had been constructed in hexies, stunning fabrics that had almost a modern look about some of them. Of course you know me and brown and purples right? Can’t seem to really shake them off when it comes to quilts. With splashes of red the quilt top had also achieved another of my often attempted never quite succeeded goals, randomness. Despite a definite even spread of colour, with a vivid red and blue unifying the whole piece the maker had some how achieved randomness with harmony

Many of the edge papers were still (wisely) in situ and with care Kate has been removing and storing them in acid free plastic. Small details jump out at you, there is one with what appears to be a list of horses probably due to run at York races. Perhaps some where a stud book languishes or a race meeting catalogue that would illuminate that more. Kate has discovered that the papers come from The York Herald circa 1870 something.

Along with beautiful copper plate writing and a less well executed hand writing which along with a variation in tacking stitches give the impression that more than one hand was involved in the preparation of the hexies. The actual stitching however is all of the same calibre. In fact it was the stitching that most drew my attention at first. Mainly, to be honest because it is not the perfect immaculate stitching that you feel you must aspire to, it has a far more natural homely feel about it, as Kate said “it wouldn’t win a prize at the WI. I like that, it would scandalise the quilt police but it is honest, some one has carefully collected enough hexes to make this huge quilt top, got it all sewn together and then for a reason we will never know it has been relegated to the WIP pile for over a century. If anything of mine lasts half so long I will be dancing in my grave with glee.

I am looking forward to a full historical review of the quilt top, Kate’s got all the skills to produce that and learning more about it is some how inspirational. We need to be prefect, we can make mistakes and minor “man on a galloping horse” type decisions about what we sew and yet some how the effort and (is love too strong a word?) care, endless hours sat keeping hands busy and productive don’t go to waste and perhaps in some way carry us forward into a future we may never see for ourselves, there’s our immortality ehhh?

If one quilt wasn’t enough Caroline also brought her stunning stripy quilt up to show us. The stitching in her quilting is superb I have no illusions I will ever reach her standard but hey I can dream and practice no?

Do pop along and visit the quilt in question. http://churchmousequilter.wordpress.com/

what quilts are for

Best ever use of a quilt

Kahlil Gibran

"Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes."

as random as i get

It is impossible to be random!lord knows i try but its impossible. the human brain likes harmony. my human brain, likes harmony yet can neither achieve pattern perfection nor complete chaos!

blocks laid out ready to juggle or sew. i'm mulling it over.

I made this today.

Daisy made these.

now 3 weeks 3 days all 6 girls are doing well..

excuses excuses

I have not really been up to doing much of late, the seriously horrible cold and tummy issue coupled with overwhelming tiredness really put a crimp in my joie d'vive (is that how you spell that?) anyway I am looking forward to vast improvement now, thanks to thyroxine.

But before starting that I had tried to galvanise myself into some sort of action and in the process come across a very old friend. Lone is one talented lady, we were at school together and both had an artistic bias to almost everything we did. To my delight she was the tutor at a small sewing class predominantly patchwork and quilting based, a smattering of Scandinavian knitting took place also as an aside. Lone's Danish roots very much in the fore there!

It was very social, and enjoyable much like the get together at the vicarage, which I profoundly apologise for not having managed to drag myself to of late.

sewing was ensuing

I will be pottering along with my own WIP's for the foreseeable.

Its not easy getting old

and some times its not that easy being young!