Festival of Quilts

 I'm just back from my annual overnight visit to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham.  It didn't seem as big this year, I know I saw online that some big UK names such as Empress Mills and John James for example were not taking stands like they usually do - sign of the economic times I expect.  So consequently I was only there for a couple of hours on my second day, finishing up the trader stands, so not sure it was worth staying overnight but it does make the first day less pressured. 

On Thursday I took two short workshops, both of which I enjoyed.  I learned to make scrappy raw edge fabric collage (no fusible) with Jane Haworth using her pattern for 'Birds on a Wire' in the morning. I particularly like how she collaged her backgrounds often from vintage linens and scraps of lace. I had time to glue together three birds during the workshop. In the afternoon, I did Tiny Tins of Textile Happiness with Sally Hutson of Stitchy WooWoo, creating a small piece of textile art that fits into a display tin. I was lucky enough to sit next to a textile artist who had brought all kinds of bits of lace and stamped sayings and generously shared bits with me to supplement what came with the kit. I'm not usually this artsy but it was fun.  My piece is only glue tacked together and needs to be properly stitched and edges turned under and have more embellishment added.

I enjoyed looking at the quilt displays on the first morning, there were several that I liked.  However, viewing the Winner's Gallery once it was unveiled at 2pm, I found that I liked almost none of the winners. So I am obviously out of touch with what is trending in the UK quilt world at the moment.  Most of the winners were very art-y, and/or quilted in the extremely dense texture that is so popular the last few years and which doesn't appeal to me at all. At heart I am a maker of quilts to be used, that you can wrap yourself up in and snuggle down in warmth and softness.  Fabric quilted within an inch of its life just looks so board-like and sterile to me, but I guess I'm old-fashioned now.

I enjoyed looking at the shops but didn't buy much, mindful of all the stash at home.  I was primarily looking for background fabric for my Dresden quilt blocks in Tilda Chic Escape, which was really difficult because the blocks have a strong vintage European feel to the fabric so a lot of modern prints just looked wrong. And the fabric is quite busy so the background couldn't be too busy but a plain fabric just looked boring.  And the fabric couldn't be too light or too dark or the blocks got overwhelmed.  I settled in the end on a Tilda print in medium-dark raspberry which I hope will be alright but by that point I had looked at so many possibilities that I'd lost the ability to decide.  I also bought two lots of extra-wide backing from a deadstock booth selling it cheaper at £15 a metre.

And I got a pattern to make a new gardening hat, a pattern for a cute mini doctor's bag, some more Masterpiece thread, and the new Clover tool for making jelly roll rug strips.  The latter as a potential way to use up some of my scrap strips and scrap wadding, although I would probably make bags not rugs out of the strips.

We went to see DS and his girlfriend today, so before I went to Festival I had to sit down and hurriedly sew up the Korean fabric train case so I could gift it to her today.  Of course when you are in a hurry, various things went wrong, primarily because it turned out the continous zip I used was only a #3 so narrower than the pattern is intended for.  As well as creating issues with finishing the raw edges around the zip, this means the back of the bag is standing up higher than the front.  But she didn't seem to mind and was quite pleased with it.  I hung a couple of the charms I bought in Korea from the zip pulls.  I also showed her the unicorn panel which she really liked, so that's another project for my to-do list.

Meanwhile I have progressed the other three train cases a bit more today.  Although these cases are not hard to make, there is a lot of time required to prepare the components, quilt them, and seal the edges with stitching ready for assembly.  My domestic machine has turned into a real diva about sewing foam or bulk in its middleage so I actually used my industrial to do the quilting. This is the first time I've used the industrial for anything other than sewing through bulky layers in the final stages of bagmaking, so it was a bit of a learning curve. It doesn't have a quilting guide so I had to mark the quilting lines first, using a pouncing pad and a diamond grid stencil - which worked but the pouncing powder gets everywhere both in the area where you applied it and also all over the industrial machine and its table.  But the industrial is hugely faster and has no problem sewing the foam layers.

I finished knitting the possum merino cowl and ankle warmers and they are drying after a wash now. They will hopefully keep me cosy against the draughts in our house next winter.

Before I went to festival, I blocked the Paducah cotton lace shawl so I just need to darn the ends in now.  I don't like how the point will not block flat but it feels comfortable to wear in the soft cotton yarn, and it's plenty big enough to easily wear.

Having looked into videos about simple patterns on a rigid heddle loom, I got my loom back downstairs and decided to have a go at a simple houndstooth pattern in two colours of Panama cotton left over from my machine knitting days.  I am using the finer heddle and warping up 200 warp threads. 

However it's all gone horribly wrong since taking the photo.  I threaded the 200 warp threads and then started to wind them onto the back roller under tension.  However the Panama cotton sticks to itself and kept snarling together, leading to a lot of uneven tension on the back roller and even snapping one warp thread.  I persevered and temporarily clamped the threads at the front so I could check the damage, and found out that despite my care, I have missed some slots or double threaded others.  At that point I gave up for the evening but I think I am going to have to almost start over again to get it sorted.  I think the Panama cotton wasn't a good choice as it is a bit slubby rather than smooth.

You will not be surprised to hear that I have started too many projects in too many hobbies.  My sewing room in particular is a complete mess of works in progress, works waiting for progress, fabric waiting to be used, kits waiting to be made up, not to mention a dress that needs hemming, a big pile of ironing, a big box of ripped out patterns awaiting filing and so on.  It's got to the point where it's hard to move around and my available working space is sorely reduced, and it's making me feel claustrophobic.  I wish I had a second room where I could just shove all the stuff that I am not actively working on - but I don't. So I need to put some serious time in to try to at least clear the backlog (starting with the train cases and the ironing!).  Perhaps I will take myself on a stay-at-home-retreat next week.

Devon and Cornwall

 Just back from a caravan holiday, going a bit further afield this time to mid-Devon and north Cornwall.  Although we regretted that when we endured a seven hour return drive to our halfway stop on Friday stuck in endless queues and traffic jams, when we were expecting a 3.5-4 hour drive tops.  My fault for scheduling us too close to school holiday time.  But both areas were lovely, lots of lush river valleys, chocolate box thatched cottages, plenty of historic buildings and of course the lovely coastline in Cornwall.  We went to Tintagel (I was last there in 1982 and they've built an access bridge to the castle since then), Boscastle, and Bude, and did several lovely walks in the area.  There was a decent fabric shop in Bude called The Remnant House where I had a good look around and bought a bit of Japanese themed fabric.  We really liked north Cornwall and it wasn't crowded, shame it is such a long drive for us.  Still it was a nice break and our caravan behaved well apart from our water pump failing and having to buy a replacement.

I finished my possum and merino knitted cowl while we were away and still have a full ball left so now I am knitting some ankle warmers in this lovely warm yarn.  I am still alternating stitching between the Gail Pan embroidered blocks and the CrossStitcher SAL house.  While we were camping I watched several weaving videos on Youtube which makes me want to get my loom out again and explore more of its capabilities.

The garden has mostly stayed alive but lots of weeding and watering needed, and of course lots of laundry to do, and all the usual homecoming tasks to do.

Crazy English summer

 We started this week with 32C last weekend and  are ending it at 18C with blustery showers the last few days.  I havent even put away all my hot weather clothes and now I am reaching for warm long sleeve tops and my raincoat.  Still, I would rather it be cool than hot, and the showers will help the garden although it is too late for our very yellow lawn.

I have continued to plug away on my Gail Pan embroidery quilt blocks with the enjoyment of using my new train case to store the fabrics and hoop in.  There are six sets of blocks to embroider, I am partway through set three now.  Some people have finished their quilts already and they look so pretty, one day I will get there.

My knitted cowl is coming on well in the possum and merino blend I bought in New Zealand last year.  At first I was worried because I wasnt getting much stitch definition but it's looking ok now and the yarn is very fuzzy and warm.

I have continued with the Crossstitcher Houses of Britain SAL, currently working the 1930s house that I started at the retreat in Nottingham.  I have been using the new magnifier I bought on Amazon and I can't believe the difference in the quality of my stitching.  It's like night and day, I obviously should have started using a magnifier a couple of years ago. I keep stopping to admire how much neater my stitches are than on recent projects.  I think because my eyes had become weaker, I was often not quite hitting the exact hole, sometimes having too much slack in a stitch, ending up with a wonky stitch here and there etc - all combining to create a messy result.  The magnifier is working well apart from it tends to slip down and I have to adjust it occasionally, I need to figure out something to clip the part together behind my neck so it doesn't open up.

I have visited a few fabric shops but havent found the raspberry pink fabric I am looking for, to be the background for my Fat Cat Dresden Plate blocks.   But I'm making my annual visit to the Festival of Quilts at the end of the month so will take along my swatch and one of the dresden plates and hopefully find something suitable.  While I didnt find the pink fabric, I did come across a large cot-size unicorn panel that for once looks reasonable and not like it's designed for a toddler.  My son's girlfriend has become a quilt convert and loves cuddling up in the quilts I gave them for their new house and she really likes unicorns.  I will show her the panel and if she likes it, then I could set it with some blocks and make her a quilt out of it.  I will take the precaution of checking with her first though before doing all that work, I have seen too many sad stories online of people who were disappointed with a lukewarm reception by the giftee after putting a lot of effort into making them a 'surprise' quilt gift.

We've pretty much finished digging the brick edging in around the lawn and flower beds, it looks awful at the moment because of all the bare earth around the bricks and where we have recovered lawn territory from overgrown flower beds.  Hopefully the rain will encourage the grass to start reclaiming its rightful area.  I am discouraged that the weeds are reappearing after my big weed removal exercise when I got back from Japan, I don't know how gardeners maintain the popular English style of having shrubs and flowers in beds surrounded by bare dirt, they must be out there weeding every day.  We did try mulching one year to keep down the weeds which helped but was a big job in itself and expensive to buy all the mulch.  I love looking at the garden but do not love working in it. 

Using the 'good' fabric

 I share a problem with many other quilters in that we buy special fabric that we love, then save it because it's too good to use on just any old project.  Meanwhile it gets older and goes out of style and doesn't match newer fabric or newer pattern trends, plus it gets supplanted by newer special fabric, and eventually you have several baskets and shelves of 'good' fabric and the regular fabric is becoming the minority.  

I am trying to break this cycle, and have already used some of the most recent fabric I bought in Japan and Korea on zip pouches and a totebag.  This week I used a bit more of the Japanese fabric (the retro kittens) when I tried out Erica Arndt's free pattern for a retro train case on Youtube.  This wasn't a difficult sew but took a while, but the end result is quite cute and I am now storing my embroidery panels in it. It's stiffened with foam.

It's a great project for showcasing speical fabric, and before I knew it, I was pulling out lots of 'good' fabric to make a few more. I've cut out another in Korean fabric which I will give my son's girlfriend, then fabric for three more from the 'good' baskets.  So much fun to pair up coordinating fabrics.  Do I need three more train cases? Hard to say, lol.

Last week I blocked, starched and pressed all 12 of the Dresden Fat Cat plates and they are now parked waiting for background fabric.  I tried them against multiple fabric colours from the stash, I liked them best against a raspberry pink but of course I don't have enough of that colour so I need to get to a quilt shop to try to find something similar.

We've had another heat wave, so it's been too hot to go into the attic much. I have loaded the pink doiley quilt onto the longarm but haven't decided how I want to quilt it yet. I would like something that looks vintage but with the ease of an allover pattern rather than trying custom quilting. 

I finally finished the Paducah cotton shawl that I bought the pattern and cotton yarn for on my trip to Paducah Kentucky back in I think 2021.  I liked knitting with the cotton yarn but the shawl is knit from the point upwards, so later rows were really long and it got a bit tedious.  Of course it doesn't look like anything as it hasn't been blocked yet.  I'm hoping I've made it wide enough at the top to drape well, I will stretch it when I block it.

The last few weeks I've been working on the Betterley Silver Thimble 1/48th scale quilt shop kit. I've finished the exterior. The kit includes a picture frame to go on the front, but I thought that made it look less like a realistic shop and more like a shadow box, so I don't think I will use it.

And now I am assembling the Betterley furniture kits for the inside.  1/48th is so small!

The mountain of shredding I mentioned last week has gradually shrunk down from about 12 inches to only 1 inches, I've been doing two minutes (the maximum run time for the shredder) several times a day all week.   The next big job in the attic is the four-drawer file cabinet full of decades of magazine pattern pull-outs over several hobbies that need to be downsized.  I've never found a good solution to organising magazine patterns although I've tried various methods: keeping all the magazines (too hard to search, too much to store); organising the patterns in ring binders (too many patterns to be practical); scanning and digitising (I did this with my recipe collection and never looked at them again and then that cloud provider disappeared); keeping them in plastic folders by yarn weight (my knitting pattern collection, which is a big mess spilling out of folders); creating card indexes (did this for my machine knitting magazines, it sort of worked but was very time-consuming); and the current method where the patterns are stored in hanging folders by sub-category of each hobby (the patterns sag down inside the folders, the folders break and/or fall off the rails, the filing cabinet drawers are hard to open and if you open them too far the whole cabinet wants to tip forwards).  I don't look at my files that often but sometimes I feel like making something, or making a bag, but I don't know what, then I can just sift through a few folders looking at pretty pictures. It's also where I store patterns I've used and might possibly make again (although this rarely happens). But the filing cabinet needs to go and I need something smaller and better.  Any suggestions gratefully received!

A stitchy day

 DH kindly drove me to Nottingham today (the trains were in disarray due to overhead cable replacement) for a cross stitching day at a central hotel.  It was a relaxing day, just working on what I had brought, and everyone was very friendly.  There were two traders so I came home with a project bag and some stitch minders, and some 'counting pins' which I hadn't seen before.  Like giant hat pins with caps on the points, for when you are trying to count squares on your cloth for stitching and need to mark off a starting or finishing row.  I forgot to take any photos but we were just in a conference room so not wildly photogenic.  I started the next house from the CrossStitcher Houses of Britain SAL (I think this is the 4th, or 5th? out of 13), then when I got tired doing that, I switched to my Gail Pan embroidery and even cast on for a Lace Cowl in the possum/merino blend I bought in New Zealand.  For the cross stitch, I was trying out a new adjustable magnifer that I bought from Amazon.  I like it because I can adjust it away from pressing on my neck, and it's handsfree, and  I will still be able to watch TV over the top of it.  However I was having trouble with the adjustable loop gradually opening up behind my neck, causing the magnifier to slip lower.  I think I need some kind of tie or clip behind my neck. But in general, having magnification really helped to keep my stitches tidier, I probably should have been using one well before now.

I finished quilting the New Zealand Quilt with a feather scroll that looks a bit like ferns, and ran it through the washing machine.  These photos are straight off the drying rack, it hasn't been ironed or trimmed up yet for binding.  It's turned out pretty well, considering the wildly disparate fabrics with New Zealand motifs that I came back with.  I made the back out of all the leftover bits of New Zealand themed fabric since I doubted I would use them for anything else.  And I also included some of the selvedges with the local names on them. 

Also on travel-themed finishes this week, I finished the vanilla socks in the Opal yarn that I bought in Tokyo  and used as my travel knitting project after I finished the shawl.  It's too hot to wear them now so I've put them away for the winter. I will blow my own horn and point out that they are nearly identical, which requires a bit of finessing when you are working with one ball of self-striping yarn.

Just before I went off on my travels at the end of March, I had finished weaving my Colour changing scarf using an ancient cone of Denys Brunton Magicolour colour changing yarn left over from my machine knitting days, and Panama cotton as the warp.  It's the longest thing I've woven, and I was getting better at having tidier edges.  This week I learned how to finish the ends with hemstitching and fringed ends, thanks to Youtube.  I've washed it as well to set the weaving.  I love how the colour subtly changes along the scarf.  The weave is a bit dense, I need to stop thinking like a quilter and aim for more of a looser mesh on the loom, since it tightens up once the weave is not under tension on the loom and when you wash it.  It makes me want to get my loom out again.

Last week I posted about the needlebook I was making out a couple of motifs cut from the fabric I was given in Korea.  I added the felt pages, stitched the book together on my industrial and added a ribbon for decoration.  It's cute.

The amount of DS's stuff that we have taken out of the attic and over to his new house over several trips this year, had finally reached critical mass. So last weekend we were able to finally go through the attic and weed out a tremendous amount of clutter, rubbish and charity donations.  So I've spent a lot of this week going through boxes of old financial records from, like, 2009; records of three prior house moves etc. and assembling vast piles for shredding.  In the spirit of decluttering, I also pulled out the Hawaiian quilt UFO which I started shortly after our trip to Hawaii in 2009 that I blogged about a few posts ago.  This wildly overambitious queen size  quilt was not only my first ever attempt at Hawaiian quilting but I even created my own design.  I had appliqued almost all of the centre (there was going to be a border as well) apart from the flower tips - but over time the flower tips had all frayed and gone wonky so it was impossible to applique symetrical flowers any longer.  And looking at it with a much more experienced eye, the applique itself is not well done - lots of bumps and kinks instead of smooth curves, and definitely not symetrical.

So after realising I didn't even want to finish it anymore, I decided to unpick the blue applique so I could re-use the white as backing.  But after spending 45 minutes unpicking just two  flower sprays from one branch, I decided life was too short and put the whole thing in the bin.  I had done too good a job on the applique so it really didn't want to be unpicked.  Also I found the blue batik fabric had gone slightly rotten and was tearing pretty easily, so I put the rest of it (saved for the border) into the bin as well.  So that has cleared off most of a shelf in my UFO corner as well as removing a little nugget of guilt that I hadn't even realised had been burdening me. I think that was my oldest outstanding quilting UFO although I have some bags of patterns and fabric waiting to be started which are possibly older than that.

What's your oldest stitchy UFO?

Not hot for Australia

 I was briefly in a zoom call with my Australian quilting friends Friday night, and was complaining that it was still 25C at 9:30pm.  I was emphatically told that 25C is actually a lovely temperature and they wish they had that now  (it's winter there of course).  And in the news today it was reported that Greece, Spain, Portugal etc are going up to 42C so I suppose our high today of 29C is something to be grateful for.  But for me, I am sleeping dreadfully because it's still 24C in my bedroom at night and having our pathetically small transom windows open means that I wake when the sun comes up at around 4:30am.  Today I bought a blackout blind and stapled it across the window up to the transom, so I can at least block out some of the light.  I suppose it's whatever you're used to. It's supposed to go up to 33C tomorrow, I may have to sleep in the living room...

Anyway, enough moaning.  This week I have returned to the Fat Cat Dresden Plate quilt that I cut out from Tilda 'Chic Escape' layer cakes at the retreat back in January.  I sewed all the wedges at each end, then brought a padded board and my travel iron into the living room so I could turn all 144 wedges through and press the points while watching TV.  Then I arranged them into 12 plates of 12 wedges each on my design wall.  Now I have to sew them all into plates, starching and blocking each one onto a template I have drawn on some scrap fabric pinned to my ironing board so that they all end up the same size.  A bit tedious, I don't really like repetitive block patterns because I get bored but hopefully it will look nice when it's done.  I like the inner star pattern created by sewing both ends of the wedges. I think the choice of background fabric is going to make or break this quilt, I will have to go through my stash and see if I have anything suitable.

I've continued to embroider the Gail Pan Stitchalong blocks that I started while I was travelling.  Time consuming but so cute when they are done.  Each block will get framed by more Tilda fabric once I'm done all six sets, to end up with a wallhanging size quilt.

When I bought my Korean fabric at the Dongdaemun market in Seoul, they threw in a free half-yard of blue and white vase print that they said was mis-printed although I can't see where.  I was looking at it and suddenly envisioned making a needlebook out of the vases.  So I've fused two vases to stiff pelmet interfacing and lined them with coordinating fabric to create covers, and will insert two felt 'pages'.

Back in 2012, I spent a stupid amount of money on the 1:48th scale Robin Betterley 'Silver Thimble Quilt shop' kit along with all the kits to furnish the interior of the shop. Because I am a quilter who also used to make dollhouses.  It has been waiting all this time but last week I decided to make a start.  So far I have assembled the laser-cut room box and decorated it, and done a lot on the front - which cleverly slots onto the room box like the lid of a gift box slides down over a box.  It's so tiny!  All the pieces go together so perfectly, a really quality product.  I still have an awning and signage to add to the front.

I have also been opening - and then shutting - my biggest dollshouse which stands about four feet tall. It's a massive Victorian townhouse that I bought back around 1993 I think, and spent hundreds of hours (and too much money) on decorating and furnishing it over the next 15 or so years.  But now I think I need to downsize it. It's too big and an awkward size to display because it needs to sit on a low stand to bring the attic down to eye level, it's too tall to sit on a normal table. And I haven't really engaged with it since moving it to this house eleven years ago. But when I open it and look inside, all the years of work come flooding back to me and I just can't think where to even start with it.  The contents vary from crude budget makes through to expensive collector furnishings, so probably I would be better off trying to sell some of the more valuable items separately.  And then there are kits that I lovingly made from scratch which are hugely valuable to me but probably not to others - but if I keep them, then where am I going to put them?  I think former cherished hobbies are perhaps the hardest categories to downsize. It's easy to just give old dishes or pictures to a charity shop, but when you have invested a lot of love and time into a passion, it's much more difficult even when the passion has subsided.

Hot outside

 I've spent a lot of this week hiding inside from the heat wave, which has gone up to 31C at some points. Stupid climate change.  It's been too hot to go up to my longarm attic room much, although I have made a start on stitching the pantograph design for my New Zealand quilt.  When we did one night of camping yesterday, close to our storage yard, just to check everything is working on the caravan and that we haven't forgotten anything, it went up to about 30C at the campsite. But luckily it was partially overcast and there was a good breeze, so we were able to huddle in the scrap of shade in front of the caravan in reasonable comfort.

This week I finished binding the Lori Holt My Favourite Things quilt and it's hanging in the hallway.  Her designs are so cheerful and vintage, and  I like all the embellishments and details.  I'm fairly pleased with how it turned out. I used all my own fabrics and the free pattern she publishes on her blog, and guesstimated/eyeballed the shapes as I didn't buy her templates which are very expensive here in the UK.  I used three vintage crochet doilies in place of her fabric doiley shapes.  I custom quilted this on my longarm frame with my Handiquilter Simply Sixteen.

Temu was advertising some cute snap-clasp purses on Facebook. I don't buy from Temu but I had some snap-clasp purse frames in my stash.  So I tinkered with some scrap fabric until I got the shape right, then made up a purse using some of my recently purchased Japanese fabric.  Fun.

I also had a go at winging a lined totebag with my Korean fabric.  The pics are fresh off the machine so not pressed or threads trimmed yet.  It's come out a bit taller than I was envisaging, I will have to tinker with the dimensions a bit to achieve more pleasing proportions.  The front and back are cut from a panel of printed historical scenes, and the bottom is a fabric featuring Korean script.  The lining shows traditional Korean 'hanok' houses.

I also finally finished the CrossStitcher magazine free cover kit (over two issues) for a harbourside scene, which came with blue spotted fabric to make a simple bag.  I decided to make a lined zip pouch instead, with fleece lining to give it some body. I used a seashell fabric for the lining. The cross stitch took me absolutely ages and I did not do a great job - I need to buy a magnifier that will let me also watch TV because I just can't see well enough to make neat stitches any more.

Hope you are staying cool where you live.