Red and White Snowball challenge

I don't know what on earth possessed me - but I've just signed up for an on-line challenge....

Maybe it was prompted by the picture above, from Nicole's blog, and on Alyson's.....

I now have to get myself to my LQS and purchase some fabric, wash and iron it, cut it into 5" strips and then send three of each to various people around the world.

In theory, I should then receive back 18 strips, with which to make my own scrappy red and white quilt....

In practice, I fear that I will receive the strips, admire them, but then not get on with what I'm supposed to be doing at all.....

Even though it's just been halfterm, I have no photos to post - because I visited my mother yesterday, and have left the camera hanging from her newel post.....

I tried to persuade Mr Z&Z that we needed another camera in the house, in case of such emergencies - but no luck so far....

Going back to the beginning

I've always been curious about family history, but foolishly, I'd always thought that it was something to be done 'later'. The sort of thing that old people did - people who were settled and mature (conveniently ignoring the fact that I'm never, ever, ever going to be under 30 again......).

It was only when my paternal grandmother died, followed less than a year later by my father, that I realised that I'd now lost all links to my paternal family. And it made me wonder what the history was. Where did the family come from? What was the background? Where were my roots? How come my siblings and I are musical, but my mother (bless her) struggles to hold a tune of more than three notes? How come we all three wear glasses or contact lenses (like my father) but all my mother's family are proud of their ability be able to read very small font at 1500 meters (well, maybe not - but close...).

So at Easter this year, I gathered up everything I knew about my father's family, sat down in front of the computer, took a deep breath - and set off.

At the time, my paternal family tree looked like the picture above -pretty sparse - actually, there were 7 names in TOTAL.

Now, don't ask me why - but for some reason, we all thought that my grandfather, Thomas, was Lincolnshire born and bred. We knew that he never really knew his father - he was born in 1913 and his father was killed in the battle of the Somme, (1st July 1916). We knew that he'd been brought up by his mother in a very rural village in Lincolnshire, and had had a very impoverished childhood. And that was about it. He never spoke about it - and neither did my father ever refer to it. We knew the name of his father - Harry - and that was about it. My sisblings and I had assumed that the family must have been farm labourers, on the rare occasions that we idly speculated about our family history. My father was proud of his Lincolnshire roots, and would often refer to them.

I looked at the 1911 census - there was Harry - a farm labourer. So no shock there.

But I was somewhat surprised, after getting a marriage certificate for Harry - to find that while he was listed as being a carter, his father was listed as being, not a farm worker, or carter, or groom,

but

a theatre conductor and musician

in Newport, Wales

which is about as far as you can get from Lincolnshire, East to West across the UK.

So how did the youngest son of the family end up right the other side of the country, married at 23 to an 18 year old girl in a registry office with no family present, with a child born 6 months after the wedding, and killed 3 years later?

I posted some of the family details on genesreunited - and was contacted by 2 distant cousins - both of whom had been researching the family tree, but who had always been told that Harry had never married or had children. His name is on the War Memorial of the small village that he came from - but there is no info about family or background. His name is recorded on the Commonwealth Monument at Thiepval, in France - and again, there is no information about parents.

There is a mystery here - and I don't think it will ever get solved. Was there an estrangement? A falling out?

Since starting this, I've gone on to track down over 500 names of ancestors for the family tree - but it's this puzzle that I keep coming back to.

And it does make you try to be thankful for the family that you have - however irritating or annoying they may be at times - and to actually talk to them about what you're doing.I always find that falling out with family is more distressing than anything else.

The gasman cometh..

Life chez Z&Z has been somewhat fraught this week. I came home from work last Tuesday to find this adorning my cooker:



Mr ZZ had noticed a funny smell in the kitchen, and had called out the emergency gasman, only for him to condemn our hob and cut off the gas supply to it. We thought we could manage for a while with just the oven, but by the weekend had succumbed and bought a little table top oven with 2 tiny electric rings. This will have to do us until funds permit the fitting of a new kitchen.

Jubilation at the new addition, and the possibility of having rice and pasta again, was somewhat tempered by the discovery that the boiler had also seized up: 'it's the PCB' I was informed somewhat loftily by Mr ZZ.
All I can say is thank goodness that we have plenty of half finished quilts to snuggle under, until the next gas man comes in a fortnight, hopefuly to get the boiler running again, so that we can have heating.

In the meantime this is what I've been doing:



This is half a top for a lap quilt: here's what it should look like, albeit in different colours, when completed:


I really regret choosing white for my background - cream would have been much better - the white just seems to 'kill' the colour.

And here's my bargain purchase from the Quilter's Guild Bring and Buy stall at the recent Regional Day:


It's a Thimbleberries BOM from c2003 - all 12 months, as well as borders and bindings. At present, the Thimbleberries BOM retail at about 15 pounds a month - I paid 50 for the whole lot (and had a free cloth bag thrown in!!), so I think that represents a bargain.

I put the first 2 blocks together on Saturday:





and by Sunday had completed another 2:


Apologies for the yellowish tinge - that's what happens when you take photos under artifical light in a room with no windows.....

Ferreting around

Where did last week go?? One minute it was Monday, all stretched out before me - and now it's Sunday morning, getting ready for Monday again??

I spent yesterday at a quilting workshop, but no pictures to show yet (hopefully, if I can get the chores out of the way this morning, I can get on with it this afternoon). Unusually, you have to pretty much make all the blocks before you can evern start to piece together (yes, I know that's probably what you're supposed to do anyway, but I like to get some of it together as soon as I can, as I find that it then encourages me to keep going with it).

So instead, let me show you what I did a couple of weeks ago. It's not quite finished - the plan had been to do it on Wednesday night this week, but the time just seems to flutter away. On the Sunday it was the Quilters Guild Regional Day - I love these days - I love talking to all sorts of people to whom you'd probably not usually speak, and seeing just what others are making. (I also picked up some real bargains at the bring and buy table - more on that later as well).

Ferret gave a talk in the afternoon. I've been a massive fan of Ferret for a couple of years now - I like the way in which she challenges what we'd expected to see in quilting, and I enjoy reading her blog.

And I was lucky enough to get a place on her workshop on the Sunday - and by the end of the day, this is what I'd created:

I found this incredibly hard at first - the idea of throwing neat piecing out of the window was very hard to get my head around, but once I got going, I really enjoyed it, which is one of the reasons that I want to get this finished and up on display in my house. It still needs to be quilted, and a border put on it.

This is what others ended up with:


Pretty impressive rose, huh??

I also have plans for a number of other projects along the same lines...

We have pictures at last!!!

I took my camera and associated wires and bits and bobs into work today, to see whether the problem with downloading was with the camera or the PC.

I managed to find one that was operating just fine.

Mind you, the temptation was then to download all zillions and zillions of holiday photos - but I managed to be firm with myself, and just download a few to show here, as well as uploading to a couple of other places.

First up is a mini quilt that I made for the monthly challenge on the yahoo BQL (and if only I could remember how to put in hyperlinks....).

The idea is that every month you make a small quiltlet and post a photo for everyon else to admire. The catch is that the password for the following month is only released to those who manage to get a photo up by the end of the month. Miss the password - and you have to figure out the challenge for yourself, based on the photos that others have put up......

What with one thing and another, I've missed a number of deadlines, so I figured that I may as well have a go - I looked at the photo, and it was log cabin - one of my personal favorites. It's made with 1" strips, and has ended up about 10.5" wide. I love the way it's worked out - but I'm not happy with my quilting - I was being too slapdash again.....

Secondly, here are the blocks that I got back as part of a bock swap with quilter in Montana. The theme was 'Autumn' and all blocks had to be made with batiks. I absolutely love every block I've received - and can't wait to start getting them together (yes, hmm, that 'll be sometime next summer then...).

I was supposed to make 20 blocks, but ended up making 23 (it's a long story...) - so I think I'll probably make another 1, which gives me 24 - a nice round number - to make a quilt from.

And lastly for today - look at this lucious creation!!



Alas, not one of mine - I paid 25p for it (woefully underpriced) at a sale at my local quilting group. The lady who made this just likes to make them for fun.

She can come and live at my house any time she likes!!!

Needless to say, within about 5 minutes of buying it, something strange had happened:

Wonder how many Weight Watcher points are in one home made cupcake.......

Hello (again again)

Okay - no posts for six months or so, and then 2 in one day????

I've spend the last hour or so trying to get my photos off the camera and onto the PC so that I could (start) to get up to date with everything, but although I have flashing lights, I have no movement of pictures.

Where have they gone? Why is the light flashing if nothing's actually happening?

I'm going to try again tomorrow, but for now, you'll have to make do with words.

I've been to a workshop with Ferret, and almost completed a wall hanging (pictures to follow)
I've been to Newfoundland for three weeks and had the most amazing time (approz 3 zillion photos to follow)
I've started a quilt for my sister in law, from the Eleanor Burns book 'Victory Quilts'.
I had a BIG birthday (which was a disaster from start to finish), so no pictures of that, but I'm planning a re-run next year.....

Hello (again)

It's been a long time since I posted.

A lot has happened here.

This is quite a negative post, and there are no pictures (you've been warned!!!!).

I arrived back from Stuttgart to find that Mr ZZ was poorly. Not physically poorly, but the sort of poorly you get when you've been out of work for 2 years, and the prospects of getting anything else seem to be fading by the day, in a city where the 'Situations Vacant' in the local paper has gone from a large supplement to a page and a half. The poorly that you get when you have no disposable income of your own at all, and you wonder whether it's worth carrying on at all becaue you perceive yourself to be a burden; you don't even want to go to the supermarket to get the groceries, or to the newsagents to get a paper, because you think that everyone is wondering why a fit young(ish) man is around in the daytime.

It all became quite horrendous (you know things are bad at home when you positively look forward to going to work and dread the weekends and evenings!!!), and I didn't feel that I could talk to my family, long-term friends or colleagues about this - I didn't want them to judge Mr ZZ, whom they know and love. But I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to my quilting friends, none of whom have ever met Mr ZZ, but who were supportive and non-judgemental, and who were always there for a shoulder to cry on (which makes me think that probably my family would have been great as well and that it was me who was making a wrong judgement).

On a much happier note, Nr ZZ graduated in May - he's spent the last 7 years studying part-time with the Open University for a degree in history (we met through the OU, at a summer school in Stirling, but that's a whole other story....). Friends and family (who knew nothing, remember, of how he'd been struggling with just getting up and getting on with things) came and celebrated with him - cards and gifts came a-flying through the post - and I think he suddenly realised that actually he would be missed.

Armed with his 2:1, he applied for an MA at our local university, but was very pessimistic - 'they won't look twice at me - I'm too old and I've done nothing with my life....' and much to his surprise, they offered him a place in June, and he started last week. The difference has been incredible over the last three months - it's as though he's re-emerged from a deep sleep.

To be honest, although I should perhaps have shared this with family and close friends, he knows that they are unaware of his illness, and it's made it easier for him to start to recover. It does make me very angry indeed that there's such a stigma attached to mental illness - a broken leg, and sympathy would have been poured over him - have a breakdown, and people cross the road to get away from you.

There's a long way to go yet, and I'm sure there will be relapses, but for now things are looking happier.