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.