Power of negative thinking?
May 14, 2008So last night I went out for dinner with friends, and it was very nice. During the course of the meal they suggested we needed a reason to go out for sushi. “Well” I say, “I usually go to sushi Joe when I win an award at a quilt show, but that will be at least a month”. I entirely forgot that one of my customers. Barbara Wharton, had entered our quilt at Malvern this weekend. I didn’t bother to enter anything, I don’t do well at Malvern, except of course when I win the Longarm award! So apparently I will be in Malvern on Sunday, if anyone is going I will see you there. I guess that would count for sushi, but I really don’t have time or money right now for that, so we made to with chicken instead.
Another good weekend.
May 12, 2008Well this may not sound like fun, but I loved it. I spent Saturday at the Bristol Comics Expo, and Sunday treating rust on a petrol tank. Yes really, and yes I did enjoy it.
I would admit that comics shows didn’t sound very exciting but when an old friend is showing the first pages of a new story you kinda have to go. If it hadn’t been such an appealing story I might have been able to resist, and that would have been a great shame. The people at the event were lovely, it was very relaxed and friendly. One of the highlights of the day was a talk by an independent comics publisher. I only ended up there by accident, I was looking for a cash machine, but I am glad it happened. It was interesting to hear from another small business in what I thought was a very different industry. They seem to face all the same problems, and all the same triumphs. They found suppliers who just don’t bother to even give a quote on doing work. They struggle to find any kind of a profit margin and marketing is hard work with very little rewards. They also mentioned that they had never really intended to go into the business, it just sort of happened. Sounds terribly familiar.
My main reason for going, other than just supporting Cy, was to buy Layer Zero. Mainly to get the free pictures from Cancertown, but (as with everything about this event) Layer Zero is pretty good. Remember This Moment, if a joint CyNic story based on a magic trick, and yes it works. While we were there I was able to get the Cancertown Pages signed by three of the team of four. Not bad in one hit. As a long time fan, I was really pleased to finally meet Bryan Talbot, who is very friendly and helpful. I am now the proud owner of a signed copy of Alice in Sunderland.
Garden Globes
May 8, 2008
This is a shop sample at Patchwork Corner. It is one of the two quilts I quilted over last weekend. It is made with the Floragraphix range of fabrics from In the Beginning. It’s an amazing range, which
I will be making a quilt from as soon as I have time. The quilt thoough was a challenge to quilt. I didn’t feel I could just use and all over. It’s didn’t seem to add anything to the piecing. I also know that Jenny likes her quilting to match the fabrics in colour, and with this one there are a lot of colours to match. I decided the only way for ward was to match each colour in it. So there are four colours of quilting in this one. You can see that better in the picture of the back (I usually match my bobbin to my top thread). Rather frustratingly the quilting doesn’t show a lot on the front, but that does seem to be the way when i put in this much work. The more time you put in the less there is to show for it.
Hopefully the quilt be be bound and on display at Malvern in just over a weeks time. It will be on the Patchwork Corner stand and if you would like to make your own version there will be kits available. If you are really keen you could even to get me to quilt it just like this one.
When I quilt I often listen to audio books, and I have found cusomers like to know what book was involved in their quilt. This one was Eragon by Christopher Paolini.
Wanted – Pattern testers
May 7, 2008- Do you like being the first to try a new pattern?
- Do you love finding a designers mistakes?
- Do you enjoy the challenge of badly written and occasionally missing instructions?
- Do you love working just for the satisfaction of a job well done?
- Can you deal with all that and communicate the problems back to the designer?
If so you could be the person I am looking for. I have several patterns I am working on at the moment, and I am running low on people to test them. Besides I think that over time people become used to your way of describing things and may not pick up something that would be confusing to others. I can’t afford to pay you, but I will happily credit testers. If you think this is something you would like to have a go at, please get in touch either via the comments or the contact link to the right.
Another picture showing the bugs
May 6, 2008
I realised you can’t see the bugs in that picture, so try this one. It is big, but when I scale it doesn’t it is hard to see the pattern. Strange, given how large and loud the pattern is. I thought that in the last picture it looked almost floral, but those big ‘roses’ are really cartoon snakes.
You will have to excuse how lumpy the quilt is looking, the cats were helping by playing under it which is why I hung it up. It’s a pretty big quilt, hanging down over both sides of a king size bed.
Feeling smug, and rather tired.
I feel like I’ve had a holiday and that I have been stunningly productive. I’m not even sure how you can feel both things at the same time, but I am very pleased I do. As you can see I’ve got the side panels on my bugs quilt. I was hoping to get that final two borders on but it wasn’t to be tonight. I think this will be the first of my patterns for big kids. I’ve been thinking a lot about patterns for big quilts using novelty prints, I know too many big people who want silly quilts. It also struck me that some of the same patterns might work really well with other big print fabrics. So I will test them in my loud prints then go hunting some more traditional fabrics to try them in. I will make sure the quilts have a smaller option too for the real kids out there.
Today I’ve also managed to write two more chapters of my book. It is a bit of a cheat, I am into quite short chapters now, but still it sounds good. I hope my students will enjoy it, even though I spotted a typo just after printing 20 copies. A typo that my spell checker managed to miss even though I am certain it isn’t a valid word.
So over the weekend, while having my relaxing time off I’ve,
- made most of a king size quilt top
- quilted two customer quilts
- written a requirements list
- made a necklace
- cut a king size quilt top
- sewn half a quilt as you go quilt
- written a pattern for a quilt
- written two chapters of my book
- listened to three audio books
- watched half a series of The Equalizer
- utterly failed to eat fish and chips (not for want of trying)
and perhaps most importantly, had fun. Can you see why I can’t understand why it felt like a holiday?
I have to share this link. It was sent to a mail list I am on, and I just love this artistic use for old technology.
For those interested, this weekends racing was largely a washout, but Trogdor did manage a new fastest ET. We think it has a 13 second run in it somewhere, we just have to find it.
Bugs everywhere
May 4, 2008
I’ve been writing up a pattern for novelty quilts today, and it inspired me to use this fabric. I just loved the bugs and lizards, and I like the idea of a couple of novelty bed quilts. This will be the center panel of a large double bed quilt. I want to tone things down a little bit on the sides. It isn’t clear in the picture just how bright these fabrics are. Think real primary colours. Fro the sides I think I will just some black fabric with bright paw prints on it. I also have a little of the green and blue fabrics left which should contrast well with the black.
I will produce this as a pattern for a single bed quilt and possible a child’s lap/floor quilt too. I think it would be great for all sorts of novelty prints. Once I have this one done I think I will start on my aliens quilt, which will be a similar that will use panels as well as the large print fabrics. That will be a somewhat more subdued quilt. The fabric isn’t anywhere near as bright.
Pah!
I’ve been quilting up a storm recently. I’ve had a lot of interesting quilts to do for customers which has been great. However it hasn’t left a lot of time for anything else. I did manage to get some time off on Thursday to go bowling for my birthday. I also have a wonderful lot of new books and an IOU for a new computer.
I am currently home alone as it is a racking weekend, so I’ve been going for quick easy food. it’s turned out to be less easy than I had thought. I wanted some fresh baked (well part baked) rolls and thought that while the oven was on I might as well make some cookies. The rolls went in first on the top shelf and needed 8 minutes, the cookies went in a few minutes later on a lower shelf, and needed 12 minutes. So how did the cookies manage to singe before the rolls were done?
I also had one of those revelations. I’ve ha d a bobbin winder for the longarm almost as long as I have had the machine. Every time I want a bobbin I have to walk to the other room wind it then go back. Well why don’t I take the winder into the same room as the longarm? Stupidity. I will now go back to my quilting, taking the winder with me.
Charity Raffle
April 28, 2008
I’ve finally had time to look through my pictures and select some to show you. This is a quilt that has been made to raise funds for a children’s playground in Essex. Perhaps not the most glamorous of causes, but still important, and I love the fact that the community is working together to improve things for all the members. The quilt is a group quilt made by people who live in the area. very few are experienced patchworkers, but they have done an amazing job on this quilt.
The quilt is liberty prints and natural calico/muslin. It’s isn’t what I would consider to be my colours, but I fell in love with it instantly, and I really enjoyed quilting it. The large areas of plain fabric let me play with feathers, which I now love. The feathers carry on through the larger sashing.
The customer asked for fairly open quilting so the finished quilt is quite soft and drapy. I think I achieved that. I left the narrowest sashes unquilted to help with this. The patterned fabrics are all quilted with the same variegated thread, I was stunned that one thread could match so well with so many fabrics. It certainly helped speed up the process, just as well as this was a quilt on a tight schedule.
If you would like a chance to win this quilt use the contact link to send me an email. I will then give you details of how to get tickets. I completely forgot to ask when the draw will be, but I will find out and add an update. Don’t forget you can click on any of the pictures for a larger version. If you do you will see that the quilt has flashes of many colours in it. The idea is that it will fit with as many interiors as possible, personally I think it should be very successful, in that goal.
One from the vaults
April 21, 2008
While I was working through my email I came across one that needed a picture of Heat. No problem, it was in the show so there is one on my blog… or not. Somehow I missed her out of the tour, so in compensation I thought I would put up some of the pictures I took while I was working on her. Whenever I am working on a pictorial quilt I take a large number of pictures. It helps me see the quilt properly. I find I tend to loose focus otherwise. It is also fun to see things growing and encourages me to keep working. Bear in mind these images are from my mobile (cell) phone. It isn’t supposed to be a high spec camera and it did have a hard time with some of the colours.
As you can see from the photographs, this piece is built up in large layers, each cut away more than the last. I am often asked it this is how I make my art quilts, well, sometimes. I chose it for this one because I had large areas of a very pale colour, and it I had laid those directly on the black background it would have shown through. The simplest solution I have found is to use the layers to gradually tone down the black.
I don’t know if it will be obvious when I post, but this has been the longest in progress post I have ever made. I started it Monday, and the computer died on me. Fortunately Blogger’s auto save did its’ thing so I came back to it, Wednesday, Thursday and now Friday. Tuesday I was out all day so I just had to fret about the possibility thew auto save hadn’t worked. So now I just want it posted so I can go on and tell you the new news.