Still no sewing machine

I have not been very active of late as I still have no sewing machine. However, I have been knitting a bit, and I have a Toto costume to make for my youngest (nearly 5). That should be very cute, AND has a deadline, so I'm bound to finish it! I'll post a picture when its done.

Hope everyone else is rather more productive!

Something old, something new

Well, my New Year's resolution is to keep doing things I've started, and to make 2009 the year of FINISHING things that are overdue. I'm not just talking about quilting, but it goes for that too. I've got much better at finishing quilt UFOs, and I will keep that up, I hope.

I hope I will also keep up posting to this blog, because I didn't manage much in 2008. Anyway, today, I have finally scanned in a picture of a quilt I made for my mother about 3 years ago. She is a piano teacher, hence the musical theme. You can also see that the quilt is a part of my hexagon fad.

The other picture is the hand sewn UFO I dug out the other day. Thanks for the advice about quilting it - I have taken that advice, and changed it appropriately. So I used the sliver of soap trick to mark out a simple pattern, based on my 60degree diamond template, which just happened to be the right size.


I've then used big stitches, using Gutermann silk threads, and resisting the temptation to add anything more. Consequently, this is now on the wall! Yippee.

Hand-sewn UFOs

Well, I've been giving some thought as to how to find essential therapy whilst my sewing machine is broken (credit crunch delay ensues...). Karol-Ann's shining example has led me to pull out my UFOs, and I have found some likely candidates for finishing and here are some photos. Suggestions as to how to finish these off would be welcome!


Firstly we have a sideways view of my favourite UFO. This was started in one of my (many) hexagon phases, and was intended to make the most of a small quantity of Dutch wax print strips that I purchased at a show. They were only 2 1/2 inches wide at the most, so there wasn't much flexibility. However, they are all used up, and this is all I managed. I am planning to fold the backing to the front, to create a border all round, but I don't know what to do about quilting, if I am hand-quilting it. I'm not very good at delicate hand-quilting - what do others suggest? This is a wall-hanging rather than anything else...Secondly, this is an octagon/squares quilt, inspired by Lucy Bolton's piano quilt. The rather garish black and white unit is going to be replaced. However, this one has stalled because I have run out of the rather lovely white background material. It was a heavy cotton jacquard weave skirt that I wore in the 1980s. I hope you can see from the close-up what it looks like, and why I have a dilemma. I shall have to haunt the second-hand shops to find anything suitable.

Thirdly (and finally for now, although I have many more, I didn't dig them out today), I have another hexagon/diamond effort. This is as big as I'm going to make it, and I'm thinking another border provided by folding the backing to the front. However, I could add along the zig zaggy ends to make it longer. At the moment, it is good for nothing except a cot quilt.

Update on work done in 2008

Here we have my first effort at long arm quilting, done on a Gammil at the Seattle Quilt Company. Brilliant! I will definitely do that again. The top had languished for about 4 years.



Well, I have a few pictures of work progressed in 2008 that I never got round to uploading. Thanks for the welcome back comment, and sorry to Ali for not realising that she left a message at the beginning of January! Happy New Year to you and yours too.

Now you can see the finished dinosaur quilt:Still wondering who should get it!

What happened to 2008?

Well, I've reemerged from the parallel universe that sucked me away for nearly the whole of 2008. What happened? I have no idea, but I haven't finished my PhD, but I have got a part time job. I've done some sewing, but mostly household mending, and now my sewing machine is broken. However, here are a few pictures just for candy. These were the quilty highlight of 2008 for me, although this is a coverlet. It is the Wyatt coverlet, which has been written about. It belonged to my great great great grandfather, the Rev William Wyatt, and is a sister coverlet to the Bloomfield coverlet, which belonged to Mrs Wyatt's sister and husband. I couldn't believe it when I read about these coverlets. I have long had a memory of something folded in my granny's bedroom, that looked something like this. My mother, when memory jogged, thought it might be one that she sold in the 80s after both her parents had died. She didn't unfold it, because it looked fragile. Both coverlets are now in the possession of the Quilters Guild of the British Isles, and I am so proud to be connected to them. I trailed to Luton from Aberdeen to visit them!

False alarm...

Thanks for the best wishes, mostly in e-mail - thankfully Jay is fine now - it is apparently "only" gallstones, although his GP will be seeing him soon. He probably won't be recognised, as he hardly ever goes! Does he know where the surgery is?

Now one of the boys is ill and has had to stay off nursery, so that's today's plans out of the window. S is home for half term though, so I will still have to help him with his scale model of a Roman fort! Do you think he would like to make it in fabric? No I don't think so either.

Moribund Valentine

So sorry that this blog has been dormant for a while, but nothing has been achieved in the sewing room, as I have been slaving over a PhD instead. Guess what I would rather be doing? Sadly, however, it will not keep body and soul together (only soul).

Feeling really down now too, as my partner has just been taken to hospital in an ambulance. The paramedics said it wasn't cardiac, but that he needed "the once over". It is nearly midnight here, and I won't have news for another hour. I expect it is my fault for making too rich a meal for Valentine's Day, although it wasn't anything particularly extravagent. The boat is a model made some years ago by my partner. He's who I'm thinking of right now, so his handiwork should be honoured today, not mine!