Back again...

Hmm.

It was halfterm lastweek - so I should have had plenty of time to get things done.

Including updating my blog.

But in fact I spent most of the week out and about, catching up with friends and family.

And sewing (a bit...).

First up - a visit to Marsden, near Huddersfield, to catch up with an school friend. Hard to believe that we first met in 1980 - because it actually feels like only a few years ago...




The weather was still bad - walking along the canal was great fun though, and it was VERY tempting to see whether the ice would bear my weight (but I did manage to resist) -

probably because I was hoping to eat this -

a scoop of chocolate ice-cream, a scoop of lemon curd ice-cream - oh yes, and a scoop of 'creme-egg' ice-cream.

Interesting.

That's all I can say about that last one.

And then down to the Cotswolds to to see Grannie - still going strong at 93. She's having a birthday party next month - it used to be one every 5 years or so - but now she feels that she may as well have one every year - and why not??

She's still sewing away, but she says that she doesn't like her work anymore - because her stitches are too big (and believe me, I'd LOVE to be able to sew with such fairy stitches as she still churns out).

She's been cross stitching this winter - mum gave her a pile of kits from her stash, as grannie can't get to the shops easily to buy embroidery supplies to do what she really likes to do - but grannie is steaming ahead, and at this rate mum 's stash will no longer be in existence.

This was something that she managed to get done in a couple of weeks...just in time for the latest great-grandchild.

Then the labradoodles came to call, along with mum:

I'm not too sure what they made of the animals at the local park....

Last of all, I managed to get some sewing in. I signed up for the Thimbleberries BOM, and the first package arrived last week (and the next arrved today - so much for one a month :-) ).

Last year's is still incomplete - but this one looks much more achievable - it's one 12" block and 3 6" blocks each month - so doesn't take too long.

And then it was almost a relief to get back to work on Monday morning .....

Home again

Well, I finally got going.

Note the essentials for a weekend in a large city - spade - in case of snow, small suitcase with minimal amount of clothing in - and plenty of fabric (green box, blue bag etc)!!! However, you'll also be able to see a brown bag in the middle. Guess what's in there?

Hmm.

It's Jim's Christmas presents for his family. Let me check.

Its February - and I'm just about to deliver his presents to his sister.....

Whenever I think that I'm too disorganised, I remember what sort of man I'm married to....

Guess what? The UK being a relatively small area, there was snow in Milton Keynes as well!!!
Here's all my lovely luggage, waiting to be wheeeled - oops, no, dragged into the hotel. Note (a) the small amount of clothing needed and (b) excessive amount of fabric required......

I was a little bit worried in case I didn't have as good a time as I did last year - I needn't have worried!!! After a welcome drink (or two, or three), and supper, the first task was to make a name badge.

And this is what I (apparently) look like:

Saturday started with an early morning class at 7am. The project - a pincushion, made on the machine.

But hey, why make your life easy??? Why not hand sew the central motif on??

And so that's why I didn't finish mine. That's it on the right...

And on to the main event on Saturday. Now, I already had Barbara Chainey's book, but hadn't even attempted anything from it - it looked too daunting - but I forced myself to read it before class actually started - and suddenly it all became clear!! It was as though a lightbulb had switched on inside my head!!

So the way it works is this - you stack up your fat quarters - any amount, it seems to me, but I think you need at least 6, and cut them according to a strict pattern.
You end up with a variety of squares, triangles and rectangles - and then you play around with them, mixing and matching shapes until you get a block that you're happy with.

But what was also explained to us was that if you were unadventurous (yep, that's me!!), you could lay out a design that you like, and switch some of the fabrics about. So, for example, you'd have your design laid out, and with one stack, you'd take the top fabric, and put it to the bottom of the pile. With another stack, you might take the top two and put them to the bottom of the stack - and so on.

The key appears to be to not disturb or try to interfere with the order in which the fabrics come up.

Believe me on this.

I tried to rearrange them - and then had to go back to the original arrangement -which is why my stacks look very messy....

I had several 'wobbles' about whether it would work or not - but you know what - even with the same block, it looked absolutely fine. It's easy to forget that what seems very intense in one small 8" block disappears and fades away when there are several laid out.

The variety was enormous - and the possibilities are immense (you'll have to look in Barbara's book for the exact details).

At the end of the day, from 8 fat quarters, I'd made 16 8" blocks and had another 8 laid out ready to sew - so if I hadn't stopped at this point for supper, I'd have had 24 blocks completed - and wasted only about 1" strip of fabric (which has gone into the scrap bag).

I'm definitely going to use this technique on some of those delicious bundles of fat quarters that I've bought in the past and then have done nothing with. At present, they're sitting in my sewing room, only seeing the light of day once in a while - better to get them used and on their way (ready for more stuff...).

Other people had completely different looking blocks - just look at them all above here.

Everyone who had taken part was asked to put 2 blocks out on the floor - you can see what's been achieved and how different the blocks look with the different fabrics.


How big can you go with triangles???

In the evening, we had a talk about the tentmakers of Egypt - a tradition that's dying out very quickly. It dates back over 4000 years, and is only done by men, with designs handed down from father to son.

Barbara had brought some of her (very) extensive collection to show us - and best of all, there was the chance to look at them AND handle them afterwards - it was SO great to actually have the chance to look closely at the stitching - and once again - what looks great from a distance, or even 6" away, starts to look a lot less impressive when viewed at very close quarters - so why oh why do we keep beating ourselve up about the quality of our stitches all the time? Barbara was very keen to stress that the Egyptian tradition was one of making work to display, not to impress - they are intended to be hung up in tents for ceremonial use.

And so to bed. Eventually. A lot of gossiping to be done...

Sunday - another early start, to make a small bag,. Once again, Mrs Faff here didn't get it completed - I've got the wrong size cord in, I think - I'm going to pull out the thick black cord and replace it with something finer.

On Sunday, it was our chance to mimic some of the classic designs. Barbara has published books with these patterns in - but I really really found it hard.

This is the end of 6 hours work.

Yes.

Honestly.

And it doesn't look much better close up....

How small can you go? This is Mong (I think) appliqué from South East Asia.


A selection of pincushions and small bags - look - there's my unfinished one!!! complete with needle still stuck in it.....

Barbara Chainey and Sally White (organiser of the quilting retreat).

Another Day at Home

Well, so much for no more posts until I get back...

School was cancelled again today - and (excuse me while I have a rant) I'm getting fed up of people saying on the radio / in the papers that when they were at school in 1992 / 1963 / 1947 / whenever, that they walked to school following a snow plough, or that the drifts were over 5 foot deep but school still opened.

Society has moved on. It's changed. Staff and students commute much further to school than they ever used to - and they can't get there without public transport.

Our school has shut today because safety can't be guaranteed - you only have to watch the news to see that as a nation we're running out of grit and salt - so you can pretty much assume that what's left is being used to keep roads and hospitals open - not necessarily schools.


End of rant.

So, after I'd emailed work to all my students, this is what I did with my day:

built a (quite small) snowman - but it was jolly cold out there

... and my assistant kept complaining about the cold.
and made three blocks for my SBS:

I'm not wildly happy with them - but hey - I bought the fabric a year ago, and have putting off getting started - no idea why!! It could have been that all the blocks I've seen on others poeple's blogs and galleries look so much more delicious than mine!! The only problem is that the Handy Andy is too small - even though it was foundation pieced. It's about 5.5 inches instead of 6.5.

Somehow I can reset the printer to print it correctly- but I can't figure it out. I know that there's a book coming out later this year with the patterns in - maybe I should leave the foundation pieced ones until then.

Only another 117 blocks to go...

But now I've started, I'm itching to crack on with the next one.....

but I can't
because
I'm going to quilt camp
NOW!!!!!!!!!

Stash update

Tonight I'm packing for my weekend - I'm going on a quilt retreat with Threads and Patches, in Milton Keynes. Perhaps not the most glamourous or picturesque location in the world - but I plan to spend every minute stitching .....

The tutor this year is Barbara Chainey (last year it was Angela Madden), and we've been sent a list of provisions to get.

The workshop on Saturday is based on her latest book (which I just happen to have, after an Amazon spending spree...):

First up - 8 fat quarters, including 2 light and 2 dark, ideally on a similar theme. So here's my selection:

This is WAY out of my comfort zone - I don't think I've ever used that aqua colour before - so it will be a really useful learning experience. I chose one colour - and then the very kind people at Hannah's room sorted out the rest for me....

There's also a Japanese bag session - I need 2 fat quarters for this - so here are the three that I have (just in case....).

When I got in from my trudge home through the snow, look what was waiting for me:

I'm a member of the Beautiful Batik Club, run by Hannha's room - and every two months I get 6 fat quarters through the post. It's always a complete surprise as to what will arrive.

So no more posts until I get back.

Hopefully I will have some scrummy things to show you (or maybe not.....).

SNOW!!!!

Well, after much excitement, the snow arrived.

And stayed.

All day.

This is what the garden looked like from above:

and at ground level:

Just to prove that it was really really deep:

(Yes, oh cynical friends of mine - that does show 6 inches of snow - so no, I wasn't making it all up....)

And why doesn't the snow fall through the slats on the picnic table???




So, even though school is open again tomorrow, I can't get there by car, as I'm still snowed in, so it's on with the boots tomorrow, up with the walking poles, and a brisk hike up the hill to catch the bus.


On a brighter note, I got some sewing done - just about finished the border on a quilt top - but am 6 inches short of plain black and none to be found in the house - grrrr.


And I started my very first block for SBS - Handy Andy - finally!!!!!!


Got half way through paper piecing it - it's the wrong size.


Yep - I printed it out too small, and so it's going to end up 5.5 inches across, instead of 6.5.

My own fault - but I've enjoyed doing it, and hopefully will attempt the full size one later this week.

YES!!!

Hooray!!!

No school tomorrow!!!

Hurrah!!

Yes? No? Yes? No?

The weather forecast said that today would bring the worst snow seen in the UK for 5 / 10 / 18 years - depending on what you were listening to / reading /watching.

But I - cynically - thought that this was probably some scaremongering, and that there may well be some flurries - so no need to take any extra precautions.

Well - it's been snowing all day - and those of us ho didn't go dressed suitably ...

.. were very cold. And narrowly avoided falling over at work. Several times. I KNEW I should have put boots on today...

My journey home took 90 minutes, as opposed to 10 - which isn't bad when I hear what other people were up to. I did okay until I came to descend the final hill - where the kids were toboganning in the middle of the road - you can't really blame them, I suppose - and at the bottom I turned into our road. I edged along it very cautiously - I should have known that this was a tricky area in snow when we bought the house - there's a gritting box at the end of the road - I tried to turn into the drive and EEEEKK spun round and about, coming to a halt right across the road.

Nothing else for it - hazard lights on, and a quick dash (in MOST unsuitable shoes - serves me right) to get Jim to push me out of the road and into the drive - there was just TOO MUCH SNOW to get the car into my own drive.

I counld't really have a go at Jim for not clearing a path - it simply hadn't occured to him - and besides which, he'd gone on a shopping expedition this morning at about 8 am, thinking, as I did, that this was just another fus about a miniscule amount of snow. The nearest supermarket is about 30 minutes walk away - and so you can imagine that when he came out, laden with the groceries, to find that it was snowing heavily - it was a bit of a shock (You wouldn't think that he had grown up in Glasgow and so should be used to the cold and the snow).

So now it's a question of waiting to see whether school is open or not tomorrow - I should know by 10pm tonight...

And if you're reading this in a location where snow is normal in winter - well, in the UK, we pretty well shut down when it snows. The whole country does. It just happens. Every year. I lived in Germany from 1989-1990, and I remember being quite surprised when it snowed heavily - and everyday life just kept on as usual....