Monday mystery solo robin

Monday has come early, the dog has complained, but I think I might be able to hang out my laundry which would be great. I can’t say I am up and excited for the week, but I am probably ready at least. I think it feels a bit warmer today, although with working heating that is less of an issue. Knowing I will not get cold hands while I quilt is a huge bonus. Cold fingers ansnruler work is a terrible combination.

I suppose we need a technique for the week, still wondering if I should call them design started or something similar as they really aren’t techniques. This year will give me a lot of time to consider the correct name before I start getting decks printed. I am also going to expand this part of the deck. It was designed to make a quilt, now we are using it for a whole year it needs to have some more cards. It does mean I can add this as a suggestion on how to use them though so that is a nice side win. Today’s card is,

Add another dimension

Now that’s an interesting one. It might play well with last week’s or we could go entirely different directions. I think that is very interesting timing. Of course the size or location may change how good I think this is. So our border size is,

Add 4″ to at least two adjacent sides of your quilt

I would have liked wider, I usually would but this will work. I have a few ideas already, I love how open this is and how many differnt approaches I can see. I think for me it won’t tie into last week’s,  but you never know. Don’t forget we do have a class tomorrow to discuss ideas for this part of the design. If you would like to join us please comment below and I will send you a link. The class is free.

That’s all folks

Until next weekend at least. I will still be cleaning and sorting next weekend, but I think I have broken the back of it. My stock and class supplies are now all tidy and accessible. They are taking up more of my dining room than is ideal, but it is what I have to work with, so I will cope. It has come out looking quite shop like, sorry to disappoint but no it isn’t a shop you can visit. I do offer video sales, and actually did a virtual shopping session today. We have found that a video call for shopping works much better than just havbijng a web site. I can take fabrics into the daylight. I can put several fabrics and threads together in the same place so you have a better idea how they will work together. It’s not perfect but while I can’t run in person classes it is better than anything else I think. It can also mean a chat and advice session too, just like real bricks and mortar shops. The most important things for me when I was sorting this area was tonnage everything accessible but very densly packed. I have to be able to get to things for customers but I want as much dining room as I can get. To active that I have been through nearly every box of patterns fabrics and samples and worked out how they can be grouped to save as much space as possible. It also let me see everything I have and get rid of any junk. Doing talks and workshops tends to get things muddled and an amazing amount of rubbish gets into my boxes. That is because I try to be compact when I travel, but still show people the range of items appropriate to the event. I would love to say everything is now perfectly organised and all the mixed boxes cleared, but they aren’t. It is considerably better, and I was out of energy after another six hours of cleaning. This is about a third of the room, more or less finished.

I am thinking about a free standing screen to hide it when we are using the room, I don’t really want my work quite this in my face. The rest of the room is now mostly free of stuff that should live elsewhere. It is mostly still in boxes and will be until I get the storage. I need to measure the window and the curtains we have been given. I am hoping they might fit and if they do then I will look at dying them. They are currently pink, but that can be resolved if they will work. If not I did find a couple of fabrics today that might be nice and I think there was probably enough. I suppose if I get really stuck I will buy some. I would be much happier not to. I HATE buying curtains. It is even worse than buying shoes. Lol, yes I am a failed female, I don’t like buying shoes.

Now I need a nice long bath so I am ready to take on the next working week. Tomorrow we have the next step fp r the Monday quilt. I then want to get more quilting done. I also need to finished clearing boxes from the hallway. I am hoping someone local might like some moving boxes, as our council still hasn’t collectected the recycling from the week before last. I don’t have space for recycling right now and these boxes are pretty good. Once I do that I can get to my desk and catch up on my journal. I feel I have made good progress, but boy I am tired now.

Weekend project progress

I hope other people after moving have that space where the erm stuff was put. The things that either don’t have an obvious home, or for some reason can’t go straight to the right place, or to be honest arrived badly labelled or after you have run out of decision making ability. For me that place was the dinning room. It was a room we weren’t in urgent need of and near the front door. However, a year on I want to be able to set up our dinning table. Not to eat at but to play board games on. I also don’t like being able to see the mess from the sitting room. So yesterday I ordered the furniture for the room. I have two weekends to get the room ready.

This is what the room looked like this morning. There is actually a gangway between the shelves of fabric and the boxes. This is my stock and class supplies. The rest of the room is pretty much chaos. I had tried to sort it as it arrived, but of course things got mixed up and a large item arrives before you finish stacking all of a group of items and poof, mess. The good news is that that kind of chaos does actually pack a lot better as soon as you have time to start sorting it. I was also hopingbthere would be some stuff I could just dump. The packing team just packed eveything, so there was a chance some of the content could just go. I knew there was a lot of fabric in here, my guitars, some quilts (yes I do have some rooms without quilts) and a lot of games. The games are staying, they will live on the book cases, along with the jigsaw. The guitars will also live in here. Most of the rest needs to leave. For now the fabric and my other stock will be staying. We think there is room for that and the table, so long as I can get it all tidy in the small area. I think that will be possible, though maybe not easy.

I spent all day working on the room. Mostly sorting stuff into piles based on where it should be. Having a good size hallway really helped as I could use it as a place to sort things. We worked out early on that having the whole pile for each location would help with putting it away later so for a lot of the day moving about the  house has been tricky. However those piles are now mostly gone and this is where I am at.

In some ways I think it looks more messy, but it also looks a lot less full. I was worried that I would struggle to sort this out in two weekends but now I am feeling pretty confident. It hasn’t been the most fun, but it has been rewarding and I feel I have done my days quota of exercise. I am very much looking forward to a long soak in a hot bath tomorrow night, and boy I will need it. Even moving clean things gets you amazingly dirty. I don’t think I will finish tomorrow, but I hope I can get pretty close. It will be nice to hit next weekend with no pressure. It will also be nice to have all my stock properly sorted and the bags to hand. I knew I had more bags in here but I only found them today. I enjoy having a cutting and packing station with my stock, and I think I may be about to get that back. Fingers crossed, it will be a tight fit. I am also hoping tonight I might sleep well. I feel I have earned it.

Weekend project

Well I was wrong. Or at least not right yet. Inhave managed 2 days straight of ruler work and my hands and shoulders haven’t given up yet. I decided to push it as we are coming to the weekend so I have 2 days to recover. I am starting to get a queue of quilts so if I can progress it will be good overall. I do still need a binding day next week though. I may still intersperse it with the quilting too. I did also decide today that I really need to sort out my dining room. It has been on my adjenda but waiting on other things. I think it is time to do the best I can, and hopefully have the dinning table set up. That means I need to do a lot of clearing, put in the new bookcases and get chairs to go at the table. So today I measured up and put in an Ikea order. Tomorrow I will take some pictures of what I am working with and start sorting things out. There will be a price to this, the spare room will move a step further away. More fabric will have to go up there and for now I can’t sort and sell my surplus. On balance I would rather have one upstairs room a bit of a state than have two a mess. Especially as I see one of them so often. I may need to think about some kind of cover for the fabric shelves that are staying in the dinning room, but that can be done. Heck it is all possible, I just need to get my act together and work on it. I am going to try to not overdo things too badly, I want to get lots of quilting done next week.

What is on the frame?

Or more accurately what was on the frame, as since I took these pictures two more quilts have been on it. I can’t show those as they are customer quilts, one was a baby quilt and the one on the frame now is based on floor tiles. This one will be on quite a while. It is all ruler work which is hard on my joints, so I try to work in shorter sessions. It won’t even show when I  am done and that is the point. Some quilts need to speak for themselves not have the quilting talk over them. Anyway back to the one that was on the frame.

This is a project I started in the motorhome while I was travelling a lot to teach. I have worked in a couple of people’s home sewing rooms on it too. So if you think you have seen it, you may be right. It was an interesting pattern but leaves all the edges of the block bias. It is a bit of a pain to get together and on the frame it tried to distort a lot as I tensioned it. This is also the project I chose when in the lockdown I wanted to empty one of my project boxes. It wasn’t as quick and easy as I had hoped, but here it is nearly ready to use. The wadding is a thin bamboo blend, this will be either a summer quilt or one in a stack for cold winters. It is a good size so it is one I can throw over the top of others. In the winter we often use a double quilt each plus one or two over the whole bed. I am very against cold bottom. I am thinking I may need a binding day in the near future. Maybe I will set up my downstairs sewing space and alternate the ruler work and binding. Both can be hard mixing them might let me work longer and get everything done. I still need to get back to my Monday quilt too, I just can’t seem to find any spare time atm. I am not even managing to play my online games. Between work, garden and dog there are not enough hours in the day.

Monday Mystery Solo Robin

Well it is Monday morning again and my poor teenage doggie says I am terribly mean waking him so early, it is the same time as every other day but on Mondays he grumbles. Which sort of works as he goes back for a nap while I post the next part of the quilt. It is funny how animals pick up on some things. I think if anything I am more with it on Mondays. I know this is coming and it gives me something to think about as I get up. Our technique (should I change the name to design prompt) is

Embelishment

Ooooh not that’s a nice big idea. Of course I am not big on most types of embelishment but I am sure I can think of something I can live with. I suppose I have done a few quilts that would count as embelished. Hmm, given it is usually adding stuff to the surgace does applique work? if not why not?

I guess we need to know how much space we have to play with befoore I get too excited

Add 4″ to two opposite sides of your quilt

That is also a good size. Sounds like we really have a lot to play with this week. I think I need to do a lot of thinking before tomorrows class. Yes, I find out a day before what I am teaching, I do hope I won’t come accross a design idea I can’t think of anything for. I guess if that happens I either deputise a student or if we all admit defeat pick new cards. That would be kinda interesting in it’s own right. A sselection no one can think of a design for, is that even possible?

A very quiet weekend

All the preparation and the family visiting for Tet’s birthday wore us out. I think it went well, the slightly odd looking apple cake was really good. We didn’t run out of food, in fact we are still eating leftovers. The leftovers are quite handy, I have no urge to put much effort into food right now.

The cat doesn’t understand I am tired and insists I get up the same time whatever. Apparently that is supposed to be better in the long run, we will see. What we have done is enjoy our balcony. That’s a bigger deal than it sounds. It is one of the features of the house I really liked but we needed to make it safe for the cats. After our cats were shot with air rifles we decided to have indoor cats. That means cat proofing the balcony. It is harder than it sounds. This weekend I have spent hours knitting on the balcony and watching my little escapologist test our work. I think we might finally have it. I won’t be getting on it yet though. I did get a fair bit of knitting done and listened to audio books. The cats enjoyed lounging about with us. Tonight I am starting to feel a bit more with it just in time for a new work week.

I forgot some of the photos

I did finish all the baking yesterday. I even did the prep of the more boring practical food, like beetroot and potato salad. Unfortunately I forgot to grab any cut photos, if there is anything left I will get those later. Interestingly the white bread flour cooks to more brown that the wholemeal despite being in the oven less time. They all taste good and are soft even though they look darker than I wanted.

Please excuse the flour on the worktop, I hadn’t got as far as cleaning up. I wanted to take a picture while I remembered.

Baking day

I haven’t paused at all this morning, but while I am stopped for lunch and the oven is getting hotter I can squeeze in a quick post. To make sure the oven was the right temperature for each dish I made the first batch of dough for rolls then straight on to the base for millionaires short bread. That needed the same temperature as the Swedish apple cake I am trying this time, so one in one out.

It’s an interesting recipe, and I may have too much apple, but as it just said 4 large I had to guess a bit. There is absolutely more apple than cake, which is what they said so maybe it’s right.

While the Apple cake was cooking I shaped the rolls. I admit I was in a bit of a rush so they aren’t as even as they could be, but we can claim they were just intended for differnt size fillings. I was very keen to get to my lunch .

Those have just gone into a very hot oven for a very quick bake, I am aiming for soft rolls again. They worked last time so I am optimistic. Round two of rolls is currently on its second prove. That batch are wholemeal, fingers crossed they work out too.

Now I need to get on with the broken biscuit cake (tiffin) and the filling for the millionaires shortbread.

Waste not, want not.

If you thought I was bad about fabric being wasted you should see how I now apply that to food. I used to be much more relaxed about it but lockdown really focused me. I now try to use up all manner of things, including the less than great loaf I made last week. I can’t complain. It is the first dud I have had and it was still perfectly edible, it just wasn’t great and wasn’t going to get used up as bread. I had been wondering what I could do with it when our monthly meat delivery arrived. Including pork escalopes. They had been on special offer and honestly I had forgotten they were arriving. They inspired me to convert my rapidly deteriorating bread into a storable useful product. Bread crumbs. I discovered that the large lazy lumps dried out fine in the oven that was hot from cooking dinner but they do not blend nicely. Next time I will have to be less lazy and chop more. I did eventually get it all blended but it was a lot more fiddle than just cutting it better to start with would have been. It is absurdly satisfying to have a jar of dry breadcrumbs ready to use.

The quilting is progressing faster as I get the rhythm of the pattern. I think the border will be a bit annoying as it will involve a lot of rolling the quilt but I think it will be worth the lack of starts and stops. I was hoping I could do all the center in one go, but I found I did still need to tack the edge of the quilt as I went so that didn’t work. Of course at this rate I will also have this quilt finished just as the weather turns cold, it has a thin bamboo wadding. On the other hand it is quite good having quilts that can be layered in the winter so it may still get an outing.

…..Tip of the day…..

If you want people to see your blog post you need to publish it.

So that was Tuesday’s blog post. At a guess I hit the wrong button because I was getting ready for class, which was as always quite interesting. No matter how many ideas I come up with my student both bring more ideas and prompt me to find more. I am starting to love teaching online, I can grab so much more information while we are talking and show students more things. Yes I used to walk around a class showing them things on my screen but now they can have it on their device and save the links. It is so cool. I would like it to be easier for me to see more from students, but we are getting better at that and at meeting etiquette. I think September classes will have to be online. I can’t afford the cost of rent when classes don’t run, and with the reduced number of students I can’t make the costs work either. Apart from that the very responsible hall I hire can’t see a way for my class to run safely. So for now I need to find ways to make this work, and possibly look at online retreats and day classes. It will be differnt and some things will not be as good, but I think there will also be bonuses. Distance travel and parking are all easier. There is no scope to leave the critical item at home, or worse on your front doorstep.

I think a lot of our experience of this future will be in how we approach it. I hate all the stuff about positive mental attitudes, they usually really grate, but I guess it is what I am now saying. I feel I have to look for what I can do. The things I can’t do aren’t what defines the future. The Monday mystery solo robin has really brought this home to me. People found the no piecing instruction really hard. Yet the folded, or applique was fine. Both of those would work for the no piecing but some how when you are told not something that becomes what you focus on. So, I don’t not go out to exercise, I exercise at home saving time and money. I eat more home cooked food rather than not going out to eat. I thought that would be something I really missed, but it’s become normal and we do eat a lot of interesting things. I am still loving playing with new recipes, and tomorrow I am trying the next of the Apple cake recipes from my Nordic baking book. I think I have several years of recipes to keep us busy. I will get some duds, but hey I have had disappointing meals in restauraurants too. I am planning on having as much fun as possible with the future we didn’t plan for. I want to keep supporting smaller businesses especially those who deliver. Maybe it is very old fashioned of me but I love the deliveries, especially things like fresh produce. I am also loving seeing my customers and their quilts, and being able to take them in safely.

That’s probably as much as you want to read for now, but I will try for some little blogs with photos tomorrow while I am baking. No promises but I will try.