finally done

Finished the childhood quilt, the aneela hoey fabric is still one of my top favourites!

Instead of binding I tucked the edge. Whether I did that the right way or not I'm not sure but I got it done and hopefully with a bit of persuasion once it is washed it will square up nicely. Those bubbles took a lot of time, and achey shoulders!

Yes I know far from perfect but if I was a perfectionist I'd never have started sewing at all!

bubbles

almost there with the bubbles on the..... heck what did I call this one again?

Warning Rant in progress

Warning this is a totally non-quilty rant, do not read further if rants offend you!


I am sick to death of people thinking its just fine to take advantage of others, especially when the other is me or mine. I am heartily sick of all the people who think that all the nasty jobs in life get done by robots with no feelings. Who are therefore an easy target for nit picking small minded thoughtless criticism.

The country side has mud in it! the country side has dark little houses in the main, and wood fires that put out dust and animals! it is not an operating theatre. and IF people are going to insist on complaining they should at least have the courtesy to leave things as they found them and not in the disgusting state that some actually do.

I am equally sick of people that assume older people can be fobbed off with service that leaves them with no place to turn. With companies that treat them like they are stupid just because they struggle to hear or understand a foreign accent. I am sick of callous thoughtless selfish people and the harm they blithely do to others.

yorkshire agricultural society event

So I have a sore throat from shouting all day!!!

The YAS hold an event for schools where small work-shop introductions to various country side businesses that offer various educational links or have visitor centres. Another local business was short on some one to speak knowledgeably on poultry and egg production. Aiming the talks at 7-8 year olds meant nothing to gruesome but with out sugar coating either. Basic information that might spark their interest in animal welfare and husbandry. So muggins, I, got asked to help out. In reality I actually enjoyed the process, I can waffle, talk for hours on just about anything once I get going, so 40 min workshops where the kids also get to handle chicks and stroke the odd chicken was right up street.

Myself, together with Jodie and very pleasant Australian girl, A rather grumpy Marran cockerel and 3 of his ladies, three chicks and assorted fresh and old eggs (inc a few goose eggs) spent the day waffling, explaining the odd fact about eggs and hens. I must admit I did feel slightly pleased with myself when I was able to enlighten another company specialising in hatching chicks in incubators, on how to sex chicks.

I'd have liked to have told them how the male chicks were destroyed and how inhumane (IMNSHO) the mainstream egg producers are in their pursuit of profit. Short that, of telling the boys of each group that they were not so useful, leaving much to the imagination, was as close as I was able to get.

If nothing else they went home with a few bits of trivia to annoy their mums, Nancy and her kid, also part of the Hazel Brow set up, took the whole business in their stride, old hands at this educational events stuff, but like me, they too were rather tired by the end.

It aint Westie clipping!

not sure who was more scared of the clippers me or the sheep!

Being short doesnt give you enough reach plus these girls are stronger than they look..Still the wild gang got clipped and now there are just the ryeland girls to do....I really must learn to spin..quite fancy having a go but then I dont knit so what would I do with the wool? I used to have a drop spindle years back, perhaps it is time to dig one out again.

not the neatest result in the world but its done

Another great local artist

Nolon Stacey is a superb pencil artist.
I bought the Westie of course. His work is beautifully observed and at great prices for the prints I felt spoilt for choice! There are some great drawings of hens that I could make wall space for.... why not drop on in to his website and have a look for your self.

Graculus

I really love these sculptures by a very talented local artist Graculus . Well worth looking at. The Stephenson's Rocket really does remind me of Noggin the Nog

sorry the pictures are not great, I took them walking home from the car boot sale. Where I picked up 3 boxed of embroidery threads and a printed sampler for £10..bargain ehh? I am starting to think that car boot sales should be renamed "Cr*p I have collected and want rid of displays" Usually there's a good few bargains to be snapped up (admittedly I was up late not feeling very well today, so the bargains had most likely gone. I picked up one other item but I might send that off to William so wont spoil the surprise. He will love it, just not sure his mum will thank me!

tidying up

I treated myself to some machine quilting gloves, they make a real difference, previously I was making do and the strain on my shoulders was noticeable. with these, while not exactly effortless it does make manoeuvring the quilt under the machine a lot easier!!!

Another little treat was a trip to the charity shops, Im still fiscally mean when it comes to quilt back material, old cotton sheets and duvets have the width I want and make affordable backs. That pink is so soft you would swear it was really quilters cloth!

finished top

Finally

It is 86"x86" that's big enough for any bed really. I really do think a bit of unsewing will have to take place on those 3 dark squares that are in a row. in person they dont jump out at me but when i see a picture they leap out

This is a bit big

I have to confess I made an error on the border. All will be revealed.

starbucks

By far the largest quilt I have attempted so far. One more border to go and I will call it done. Kate my quilty friend invited me to join her in ordering some fabric, joint orders are gret for keeping postage costs down and theres a lot of fun in having someone else give you their opinions on colour choices. We went for a deep red, the one showing in that narrow border which I just love the look of! so the final border that will be the hand quilting main area for motif is that lovely deep red. It will take me forever to quilt but Im looking forward to it as a project. This time I will be good and actually mark the design :)

Christening

A very special girl had her big day on Sunday. The sun shone, as the mini-heat wave continued my own mum, had picked up a bottle of Pims for me, what a great drink that is for summer parties, so very English!

Eloise, was christened where her mum and dad were married (I was married there too as it happens) and William had his Christening, what seems only a blink of an eye ago. I'd swopped out the blue ribbon on the gown I'd made for him, with a pink ribbon, actually there is a lot of the blue still under the pink....

so baby number three is pretty much good to go :) ~well a grandma can dream eh?~

Em liked the bunting, she said it was pinktastic!! it graced the table and it will end up in El's new new bedroom. My poor girl is moving house in the midst of this chaos. Shhhh dont tell her but she never fails to amaze me and make me proud of all the hard work she puts into her beautiful little family. She is my best friend as well as my daughter, its my wish for her that Eloise becomes her best friend as she grows up.

Birthday

What would a loving son get his mum for his birthday?

why.... supernoodles of course! Methinks some cupboard raiding took place, the Christmas wrapping paper was one thing but hmmmm the rest? never mind it really is the thought that counts..

The china mug says it all really, out of the mouths of babes and all that..they did have help I'm told

you get the idea

may take me a while to find the perfect lay out but you get the idea.

60 degrees

This mess will hopefully turn into a quilt. I had to buy a 60 degree quilt ruler (I did really I had to buy it) to make my grandaughter some pink bunting for her up coming christening

Not brown in sight

So it is my duty to use it some more right? yes thats my feeling also. hence the mess of batiks in a myriad of colour that now litter my ironing table. Any normal person would wait and let the last quilt be savoured and the WIP (the carpenter star) progress to the next stage but I am not normal, or maybe I am and all quilty types are this daft? Suffice to say a lot of fabrics that I have had sitting neatly on my stash shelf ended up in a mess of equilateral triangles yesterday.

Chain piecing on my Janome which is really not a well machine.It has to pay a visit to cambridge via Bury st Eds soon, disconcertingly, I am getting mild electric shocks off the metal work, but umm you are okay if you wear rubber soles on your shoes right? Im grounded ! NO? sighs oh well its out with the new in with the old for now then.

how pink is that?

Not too displeased with the bunting and it certainly made things go smoother having the right ruler. I did try to make do but it really was worth the cost.

my poorly Janome

finally finished

finally a finish.

bound it with a vibrant fresh spring green which I felt would stop it being too pink or blue. The hand quilting was a lazy girls version of the baptist fan design I say lazy because I just made it up as I went along. it works for me

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