Lucky

It's been a bit hectic. Waiting for exchange of contracts and then trying to find somewhere to rent from 400 miles away. We were beginning to think it wasn't going to happen. Then suddenly the sun came out, contracts were exchanged and we've found a house to live in all in the space of three days. Phew!

We viewed a couple of places that were simply awful and thought we'd try a different agent. He was just telling us that they didn't have anything to rent on their books, when his colleague interrupted and said that a house had become available but hadn't been advertised as the current tenants had only just given in their notice. Would we be interested? You bet. Just one look was all it took and we're sold! If only it was for sale. Never mind, we will have six months living in a simply beautiful place near the Helford river and the lovely gardens at Glendurgan and Trebah. Our nearest village will be Mawnan Smith which seems to be very lively and has a very nice pub! So that's sorted!

But the luck doesn't stop there! A well deserved day off yesterday in St Ives and the sign said Island Car Park FULL! However, we persevered and guess what... four empty spaces! So here's St Ives in the sunshine!

Lots of tourists in the streets, people on the beach and in the sea! We had a crab sandwich in The Sloop in and soaked it all up! Heaven!

Now all we have to do is get back home, get all our stuff in the removal van and get back down here asap.

Definitions and distractions

We heard from our buyers yesterday and they are not pulling out and so we will shortly be on our way to our new home, or at least somewhere to sleep while we look for one! This has led to the realisation that we will only have a short time to get all our stuff packed and this week we have been rationalising and decluttering, but not necessarily in that order. My DD and her partner came and helped us clear the attic and apart from two sheds and some cupboards we are almost clear of rubbish.
 
In the process of emptying various cupboards, I have found  a bag of crochet squares that I had meant to join together into a throw, but hadn't; a half knitted waistcoat that may or may not have been savaged by moths: various quilt tops at different stages of construction: a bag of hexagons cut from scraps let over from dresses I made back in the 1960s: a big basket of all sorts of scraps of fabric: three half made jackets: four handbags each containing a lipstick and an old tissue: six pairs of glasses and three odd socks!

What a haul! Please don't ask me to say how much of it I've managed to throw away!

This process of clearing out stuff so we know what we have to pack is not my favourite activity and I am very easily distracted, so as light relief, I decided to make a bag to hold my laptop! We will be taking it with us when we go to Cornwall so that we can house hunt from the comfort of the sofa and we have bought a dongle, successfully installed it, and are more or less set. Obviously, I must have a laptop bag and it must be hand made and preferably quilted. I measured carefully and spent a merry day constructing it with a zipped pocket etc, only to find that I had made it just 1/2 inch too narrow and to get the laptop into the bag takes a lot of wriggling around and then I can't get it back out again!

What next! As if I don't have enough other stuff to do, I decided to revisit my goodbye to the grid quilt that I had carefully packed away. I had tried several times to get the top sewn together, but as I found that my cutting had not been accurate enough, it just wouldn't lie flat.  I decided to revisit the design from scratch so I printed off the black and white design and used some felt tips to colour it in.

It's a bit rough and ready, but I scanned it and used a posterizing program called Posterazor to enlarge it to actual size. Now it's printed out and waiting for me to put it together so I can cut the pieces and start putting it together again!  I have simplifed the piecing by using a single colour as a background, shown grey in the drawing. My actual background will be white and the coloured blocks will not be in the colours shown, but I will be using a complementary colour scheme to create maximum impact!

Inspiration to get going on it again came from reading Hazel's blog post about a new book she had bought called Quilting Modern and a new group called The Modern Quilt Guild. This seems to be an American version of the Contemporary Quilt Group of the QGBI, but without the artistic angst. Although I belong to the CQ group, I don't really feel as if I belong there. I'm not a dedicated textile artist and don't want to be. My interest in quilting arose from a love of sewing pieces of fabric together and at heart, that is really what I want to do. I just love working with textiles and apart from quilting, I need to find time for spinning, weaving and embroidery too. That is not to say that I want to always follow a pattern and not to design my own work, but I need to free myself from the tyranny of the " Art Quilt" and just make the things I want to make the way I want to make them.

There really doesn't seem to be a distinction between a Contemporary Quilt and an Art Quilt but yet many CQ members would disagree. Trying to maintain such an artificial distinction is, to my mind,  a complete waste of time and takes a great deal of energy that is better employed in doing a bit of sewing!

Anyway for now, I have so much to do, that this is not of any real significance.  Knowing that our stuff is safely stowed in the removal van, and we have somewhere to put it at the other end, now that is top priority. Oh and I must make a laptop bag that fits!

Journal Quilts

I finished the first four journal quilts and got them posted on time by the skin of my teeth!  My original idea was to make them a series of studies inspired by strata in rocks, but that idea went by the board and in the end they were just cobbled together in  my usual haphazard way!

This is January's effort which looks much more pink than it is in real life. The idea came from an on line class called Stupendous Stitching which I enjoyed very much, but I did not use the same techniques in the other three quilts as after taking this class, I took another class in free motion quilting that just took over!

Here is February's effort based on a wonky log cabin with lots of free motion quilting.

I had hoped to use my own hand dyed fabris, but sadly the reds were rather wishy washy pinks, so these fabrics came from a pack of fat quarters I had in my stash which proves that I am willing to declutter!

March and April were both done in  a bit of a rush but in the end I was quite pleased with the results.

For this little quilt, I used raw edge applique and couched the pieces to the backing with some red braid.

This quilt used curved piecing and narrow pieced inserts with appliqued trapunto flowers. My first attempt at echo quilting which sort of worked.

The next four must all be yellow and I haven't even started thinking about them yet. They may have to wait until we have moved into our new home, when we eventually find one!

In the meantime, I'm off to do some more sorting out and packing so I will leave you with a photo of someone special who I'm going to miss a lot but who has promised to teach me how to use Skype