Dry run....

Well strictly speaking it was a wet run and quite messy! These are some of the results fluttering in the breeze.

It's been a while since I did any dyeing with indigo and some friends suggested that we get together in a week or two as they would like to have a go and as I am an expert.........

So I checked my stash and the only indigo I could find was some I bought in 1993! I didn't think it would have survived to give the sort of results my friends would be expecting, so I bought some more.

I made up the vat and it did work quite well but I think the water needed to be a bit hotter as it ran out of steam a bit sooner than I had thought it would.

It is such great fun folding up bits of cloth, tying it with string and elastic bands, wrapping it around an old piece of pipe etc because you can never quite predict how it will turn out.

Now I'm off to put it all in the washing machine for a good rinse while I write up my notes so I don't forget what I did and what the results were. Aren't I good!!

Fun at the Festival

Rather late with my post about the Festival of Quilts and I don't want to repeat stuff already posted on other blogs. My tardiness is due partly to a family visit, but also in the hunt for a way to download the photos I took with my phone.

I couldn't use my camera because it needed charging and having carefully packed the charger in a box, I couldn't remember which one! I'm sure I have a cable to connect my phone to the laptop which lets me download the photos, but again I seem to have packed it in a box and I can't find that either. So I have been emailing the photos to myself and its taken me a while.

As always the Festival of Quilts was wonderful. There is so much to see and whatever your interest there's always something for you to enjoy. This year there were three exhibitions that particularly caught my eye.

The first was the Contemporary Quilt Group challenge "Horizons". I really wanted to make piece for this, but given all the hassle with our move and the lack of time and space to get anything made, I wasn't able to. Still others rose to the challenge and what a fabulous show it was. All the quilts were beautifully made and the designs were fabulous. Lots of designs based on the sea but also some that were not. My favourites were this colourful one made by Gillian Travis on the left of the picture

This very subtle one using space dyed fabric which unfortunately was very badly lit

   
and this one on the right made by my friend Sandra Wyman

Sandra has really captured the essence of the Tern and the quilting is lovely. The figure is a representation of a younger Sandra inspired by the sculptures of Antony Gormley.

The exhibition "Through our hands" was also a great favourite. Apart from the wonderful quilts made by Annabel Rainbow, there were works by many other well known textile artists. My favourite was this one by Elizabeth Barton depicting Botallack Mine in Cornwall

The third exhibition which really caught my eye was the Quilt art Masters juried competition won by Dorothy Caldwell . I didn't manage to take any photos, but you can see details here together with lots of other lovely images from the show.

So all too soon my time at the show was up and after a bit of a nightmare train journey, I got back home with just enough time to prepare for our "royal"visitors! Lots of sunshine, laughter and jumping in the waves

before all too soon they went back to Yorkshire leaving us to make a real start unpacking boxes, painting and generally settling in.

Now I must make a start and get back to actually making something!

A new departure

So here I am sitting on an extremely crowded Virgin Cross Country train on my way to Birmingham for the Festival of Quilts. It is such a shame that travelling by train from my beloved Cornwall is such a trial. Haven't they heard of tourists?

But at least I have been able to log into the WIFi for not very much money and here I sit with my cup of tea with UHT milk a bag of crisps and a banana while I browse the FOQ website and try to plan my day tomorrow. There's going to be a lot to see and I hope some lovely people to meet.

As for the ongoing housing project, yesterday we said goodbye to an old friend and we were not sorry to see it go!

This will be waiting for me when I get back on Saturday as will the lovely DH and lots more painting and decorating!

Soon be arriving in Birmingham!

At last...

...we've moved in to our new home! We've been here a week now and although we've done some unpacking, we've still got a long way to go.

This will be our bedroom and once the walls have been plastered, and painted and it has a few luxuries, like a door etc, it will be lovely! Of course, looking the other way, we can look over the garden to the sea!

We also have our own version of Flanders Fields where the earth was disturbed when the field wall was demolished and they're very pretty indeed.

No time to get my studio sorted before I go off to the NEC for the Festival of Quilts, but once we've finished all the painting and decorating, that will be my priority. I really want to get back to making things again!

Crawling out of the woodwork

well, perhaps not quite, but there's been a lot of woodwork done resulting in a lot of sawdust!

At last we are beginning to see the end of the building work and the rather spartan bungalow we bought way back in January is beginning to look and feel like our home. We have decorated, after today we will have carpets downstairs, we have a brand spanking new gas hob, new heating system and, courtesy of the sun, we have hot water!

These solar panel have proved to be a real godsend and have been giving us water that is hot enough for washing up etc when we haven't had any other heating.

So now that the house is almost ready for us to move in, I am beginning to think about starting new projects and finishing old ones that have been left languishing in the bottom of boxes for far too long. This is where this will come into it's own

My boxes are packed and I'm ready to go so watch this space....

No time for quilting!

Since we picked up the keys to our new home at the end of January, we have been spending our time doing exciting things like wallpaper stripping, carpet lifting, etc. Our builder wasn't able to make an immediate start so this gave us some time to clear the way for him.

Once we had finished destroying the inside, we set about attacking the garden. Next to the house, where my cabin is going to be was what can only be described as an overgrown thicket. It had once contained some shrubs, but now all appeared to be dead or dying and covered in brambles and ivy, both of which were thriving nicely. So we set about chopping it all down, with a view to having a girt (Cornish) big bonfire. Sadly, although most of it was dry, it refused to burn and despite the DH giving some encouragement by way of a slug of petrol from the lawn mower, it just sat there exuding smoke. So we decided on plan B and fourteen trips to the tip later, the pile of rubbish has now gone.

In the midst of all this I had time to make these;

The first two blocks of a new block of the month challenge from here. The Skill Builder Block of the month looks to have some fairly simple blocks, but with a modern approach. So I'm hopeful that I will find the time to carry on with it as I do find this type of thing enjoyable and relaxing.

Once again "art" will have to take a back seat as today we made a start on the front garden clearing a space for the LPG tank. More brambles, ivy and weeds to get out and the DH and I are covered in scratches. Still, we have found three hydrangea bushes that were hidden in the undergrowth that look as if they are worth saving. Now we're thinking of getting a shredder to save all those trips to the tip.

The meaning of "scant"!

Not being a patch worker, who am I kidding, the concept of the 1/4 inch seam was new to me. So. Most of my early work featured dress maker's seams with the resulting bulky outcome! Now I have been educated, I know that for patchwork the scant 1/4 inch seam is the aim, but what does scant mean! Surely a 1/4 inch is just that or it should be.

So I have measured and sewn 1/4 inch seams but just can't get that precision I crave. Does it matter if the points don't meet or the block ends up at 121/4 instead of 121/2. Not really, except,if you get a bee in your bonnet about it, as I undoubtedly have, well, yes it does!

I have measured the space on my needle plate between the needle and the edge of the seam, marked it with masking tape, sticky notes and anything else that makes a line. I've used a patchwork foot, with and without a guide. In every case, the seams appear to measure exactly 1/4 inch, but the blocks don't end up the right size.

So rapidly running out of patience, I do a google search. There are videos on u-tube, blogs, all sorts of information, but none seemed to be of any real use. Then I found this

The perfect piecing seam guide! Bingo! The ruler fits on the needle plate and you position it so that the needle goes down through the little hole. Then you put the presser foot down so it can't move and put tape or sticky notes along the edge!

Now measure the seam using the guide and it is not quite 1/4 inch. So there you have it. I would like to think that I can now make blocks that turn out the size they should be, but already I'm beginning to lose interest and turn to art once more when it really doesn't matter how you put things together!

But by way of displacement activity and before embarking on the art ,  I made these.

 Not perfect, but an improvement.  The way the fabrics are placed makes it look as if the lighter fabric is placed over the darker to create a transparent effect.

At last I'm beginning to understand the concept of "The Modern Quilt". So much so that I've signed up for the Skill Builder Block of the Month so I'm going to be busy. I've completed the first two blocks and although the seams are a bit variable, I think I may have cracked the 1/4 inch problem at last.

Art is taking a back seat at the moment in favour of wallpaper stripping and undergrowth clearance at our lovely new home.

We won't be moving in for a while, but until we do, we can always look at this which is only minutes away!

Aah!