Never tell me what can’t be done

People really should learn not to tell me what can’t be done. It just means I have to do it.

Today Robin was called by the organizers of a quilt show. They wanted to verify the size of his entry. It turns out that any quilt over 3m needs planning permission They then said they had handled a 6m quilt in the past So obviously I now need to come up with a design for a mega quilt.

I am thinking that some kind of mural would be good, or maybe a design that will only show itself at it’s best when viewed from a distance. Maybe a massive soft sculpture? A whole quilted room? I saw a tea party last year. On the other hand is a room too obvious as needing planning permission? Or would it be a really interesting planning form, asking for permission to erect a room that isn’t a room I can see me playing with this idea for a while. I guess they won’t be getting many pieces that size just for the cost of materials involved, but I have to make one.

I’ve finally got to the bottom of the quilt on the frame. I was hoping to get it off the frame today, but tomorrow morning will do. I then need to get gems stabilized as quickly as possible so robin can get on with the rest of the quilting on it. It only needs to be done by the 4th August. No problem I still haven’t started piecing the globe either, I did get the fabric though so there has been some progress. Now I need to have another go at this solder as you can see I have got a couple more on today already. I find it hard to believe that this needs 65 blobs, it doesn’t looks like there is space for them all.

Dry joint – on a quilt!?

I never thought I would suffer a dry joint on a quilt, but they do say there is a first time for everything. We concluded that when the thread breaks in the same place on the blob of solder you are putting on a quilt for the third time it counts as a dry joint. I have redone it now so it should be all systems go when it is finished. I’ve managed to get about a dozen blobs sewn, stuffed and attached to the quilt. It is very slow work, worse than I had thought. I do not have them all cut and the seam in the top of the blobs sewn. Half of them have their bases and have at least been turned ready for stuffing. What can I do, I guess I just have to keep plugging away at it. It is so tedious, but it does look the part. I’ll try and get pictures tomorrow, but tonight it is too late to mess about with the camera.

Day off – or hard at work

When people ask me where I get my inspiration my inclination is to say I don’t get it, it just happens. Even so I have started paying attention to how it happens. It seems to happen when I am not working on quilting. I can hear the shouts of derision already. Anyone who knows me has probably accused me of never being off duty, but that’s just it. When I am not working I do my best design work.

Saturday I took the day off. We were going drag racing, and I hadn’t even prepared any hand sewing to take, or my notebook. This was a real day off. Honest! Leaving home at 5.30 am is never a good start to a day for me but off we went up the M1. What amazing colours, the trees were more green and the sky both more and less blue. Amazing, out came the camera. I have to make a quilt of that sky. Tall and thin, almost white at the bottom and this amazing rich blue at the top. With soft fluffy clouds. Less than an hour into the day off, one design sorted.

Last time we went to the drag strip there had been poppies in all the hedges, but the camera was in the boot of the car. Obviously this time the poppies were gone. Still another project for the future. We parked up in our pit facing a mobile home, with a really cool front grill. Kind of a trellis, hmm the challenge block that wasn’t looking inspiring could make a trellis and I could put a climbing plant up it. Quilt 2 designed. Oooh and the engine quilt I am working on a plan for I could make the engine as one layer and hang a second quilt in front of it just like this grill. Yes that will work, quilt 3.

We had to wait for scrutineering and the start of racing, which meant sitting doing nothing for a couple of hours and some how I started thinking about eyes. Maybe because mine really hadn’t woken up and were sore, who knows. Anyway happy hour was spent planning an eyeball quilt ‘Here’s looking at you’ I’ve already started working on the pattern for that one, I love it. I make that 4 quilts before 9 on a day when I am not working.

The rest of the day turned up more ideas but I think you get the idea, and I think I know where inspiration comes from. Boredom, ideally when a bit sleepy. Letting your mind wander wherever it will however unpromising it might seem. After all eyeballs aren’t the most obvious inspiration but I think it was probably the best one I came up with. So if you want more ideas, do nothing more often.
Oh but do take some way of recording your ideas. I did wish for my notebook several times but had to rely on my mobile phone and camera to record everything I thought of. Maybe this is also why so many people have good ideas in the bath of shower, they have let their mind do it’s own thing.

schwmmmm wmmmm

Today has been a lot cooler and a lot more productive. I’ve started making the components for the PCB. In the picture you can see the real items as well as the copies. I am working on x10 magnification. I’m really pleased with the soft versions. It is surprising how much stuffing you need in an essentially flat object.

I’ve managed to get some more quilting done as well. I am at the milestone where the wadding doesn’t reach the floor anymore. I guess it’s sad but these little milestones mean a lot to me, they are how I measure my progress.

Of course I also had to finish the new picture. I had two people recognize it. I think it is a lot easier in this picture. For some reason the wing mirrors make all the difference to my brain. I am seeing a theme with all my art quilts, they all look great in low light. As I said earlier I hang them in a room that is usually dark, and just catching a glimse of it in the darkened room work great.

Now I feel I am free to work on other car portraits. I haven’t decided yet whether to do one of my cars or Grumpys Dodge first. If I do Grumpy it would be great publicity for the drag racing crowd, but it is going to be very complex. It has logos and custom paintwork which can be done but will be a fiddle. Also it will be next summer now before I can really look for commissions from the racer.

Thinking of racing I really need to replace the suit zip tomorrow, that will slow up the quilting

Can you see what it is yet?

So can you? No point for Mr_Twig guessing, he knows. I would be interested if other people can though. It is so obvious to me, but then I am obsessed so it would be. Bonus points for knowing it’s name.

The first picture shows my quilt storage. I’ve been asked several times this week where my quilts like when they aren’t off at shows, and here is most of the answer. The art quilts are all hanging from a photographic backdrop stand. I found these were half the price of quilt stands but otherwise identical. As you can see it happily supports a lot of quilts. I have used two lengths of string to add extra rails and increase my hanging space. I don’t actively rotate these quilts as they come and go the light exposure evens out over all of the quilts. The room is often dark and the curtains are always closed.

Behind/under the frame is a double wardrobe rail. It is a cheap plastic clothes rail. It has really wide poles and would not work for me to hang clothes on, most of my hangers wouldn’t have a big enough hook. For quilts though it is great as it offers more support. These quilts I do move about and refold. I don’t want the bottom ones to get creases set in them or the top ones to fade. The black, blue and red quilt is Robin’s first ever bed quilt. It was made to colour coordinate with my car.

Finally in the bottom right you can just see a blanket bag holding ‘Ginko typography’. This is just to keep fluff of it until the weather cools enough for me to put it on the bed. I am not sure about these bags as long term storage, but for this they seem to work well.

There you go, that is where quilts live. I do also have some hanging around the house, but it is a very compact and full house so I don’t have space for them all.

Nudes Update

I’ve just received a letter from Twisted Threads. I’m surprised at how quickly they decided on the Quilt 2006 class given the show isn’t until mid August. The nudes didn’t get in, but they will still be on display there are I entered them into the pictorial section as well. It is a mixed result. It would have been great to get into a juried show on my first attempt, but it is a one prize class and I don’t think I would have stood a chance. On the other hand in the pictorial class there are 3 awards and probably a slightly lower standard so I might have a better chance.

They also say that at this point they can’t tell me anything about how many quilts entered, how many were selected or anything else. Though from reading the letter it sounds like the winner has already been selected. I find it amusing that they keep stressing that they won’t tell anyone that the quilts failed to get into Quilt 2006. They are missing the point that it was good enough to try for that class

So keep everything crossed for the nudes to do well in the pictorial class.

Local Quilt Shops

Support your local quilt shop and it will support you. A quick (3 hour) trip to buy some fabric for the sea on my globe, ‘Tread Lightly’ for the NEC did wonders for getting the creative juices flowing again. Getting to chat with like minded people in real time is still better than email. Sorry, but it is, and cups of tea don’t seem to go through the phone lines very well. It was a successful shopping trip too, I have the sea. Very important given I want to use it as the base and built the land up on it.

Having got motivated I took another bash at the quilting. I am fairly pleased with how it is coming along, but I don’t want to post any pictures until it is finished, sorry. After a trip to the Ace Cafe to admire the hotrods I’ve also done some more work on the piece I started yesterday, but I still don’t think it would be recognizable, so no pictures of that yet either.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get the new piece to a state I can photograph and post it here. I also need to start making the components for the PCB. I am feeling quite excited about it again, which should get things moving.

Still too hot

I really can’t cope with the heat, how do I persuade the other half that we need to move to the Arctic Circle. Before the day got too hot I did manage to get in a bit more longarming. I’ve discovered I really like using stencils to mark designs. If I want a repeating design I think this is the way for me. I think my ruler work is improving, it seemed a little quicker today. All too soon though the house became unbearable. I can’t go outside without burning, and inside I cook. Siestas are the only option.

I have started work on another fun project, given my gruntle is still dissed, and I don’t want to work on the show quilts. I hope I can get a picture up tomorrow and then you can all try guessing what it is I haven’t got enough done tonight for you to have a good chance. Now I am going to try and sleep. I don’t think I will have much luck it is 28 degrees still

Too hot

I guess those of you in hotter climes will find this a hoot, but we have heat wave warnings here. I don’t deal well with hot weather so it means an unproductive and rather boring few days for me. I get to sit at home and do nothing much. Yesterday didn’t improve my motivation. I have now written the first draft of a letter to the company that runs the shows. I am just waiting for someone to read through it for me. I know it will need work.

On a more positive note I did get a quilt loaded on the frame today and started work on it. I’m pleased with what I have done so far, it looks very simple but seems to be taking a long time. I am doing irregular crosshatching in the large outer border. It is giving a trellis effect which I really like. Hope the owner does too. I took nearly 3 hours to do the top border of a queen size quilt, but I think that was because I haven’t done much ruler work. I’ve also discovered that not being strictly right handed is an advantage. I quilted myself into a corner and thought I was going to have a very hard time. Nope, I just use the ruler in my right hand and the machine in my left. If anything I would say my work was better that way around. I was hoping to get about half way through this quilt today, but no such luck. Maybe tomorrow will go a bit quicker.

Sandown

You know some days just don’t read the script let alone follow it. The short story is I will be withdrawing my quilts from Harrogate. On the bright side it means I have some ‘spare’ quilts I can try putting into US shows. The reason is I am not prepared to let the company running the show anywhere near any more of my quilts until they review how they handle them.

I’ve been trying to work out how to make a quilt that would be likely to come back from the show in the same condition it went. We think that an absolutely rigid quilt (think thick sheet metal of perspex) that is smaller than the brown bags they want to store them in, where you can both deliver and collect might make it. I’ve been unhappy for a while that they post your quilts back to you in a brown paper bag. OK it is a thick bag but I don’t think they are going to be waterproof. It rains here and our post office isn’t perfect about keeping packages dry. I tried sending the quilts in waterproof bags but the organisers can’t keep any packing so that didn’t work. I have been thinking about only posting washable quilts, but I love making the art quilts and they aren’t going to stand up well to washing. Maybe the only option is to travel to every show.

I didn’t want Miss Baltimore folded, once folded I can’t get the creases out. So I made her a roll to be put on. It is padded and has her name and mine on it. No problem they just have to put it back on the roll, all should be fine. I watched the quilts coming back, having a roll just means your quilt has to be crushed more to fit it in the bag with the roll. I tried to watch and ask for it to be rolled but was told i had to move and they would fold it. It doesn’t matter and it isn’t for long. Nice to know it doesn’t matter to them. I rather hoped I would get it back in the same state I handed it over. That wasn’t going to happen it looked like it had partly unrolled while waiting in a stack of quilts to be hung so had got crushed anyway. I lost it at this point and they decided they could roll it for me.

Loki a 15″x20″ quilt came back folded in 4 then shoved into a bag folding it into 8, then a quilt was put on top of it. I did rescue him quickly and I am hoping he will recover. If not I guess I can make him again. Oh and the certificate for winning the longarm award was screwed up in the bottom of Miss Baltimores bag. Maybe I can iron it, although I am not sure I want to. Do I really want to remember this complete shambles?

I will be writing to the organisers tomorrow, outlining my concerns and withdrawing my quilts. I’ve got a few ideas to offer to improve the situation.

• Less haste more speed, stop running around so much and take some care over taking the quilts down.
• Ask for people to help with taking the quilts down.
• Train the people packing the quilts how to do it with the least damage to the quilt
• Let the quilter take down and pack their own quilts
• Put a waterproof covering around the quilt being posted
• Consider using storage devices other than the standard bag. Not all quilts will fit it without damage and those that don’t fit get dirty because they are not allowed any other covering.

If anyone knows of guidelines for handling quilts or has tips on how to manage quilts at show I would be very pleased to hear about it. There were a lot less quilts at this show than last year and I can’t help thinking that poor care of quilts can’t help. I wasn’t the only upset quilter, just the most vocal and the most prepared to step in to protect my work. I know some quilt can take any amount of folding crushing and general abuse, Ginko Typography is more likely to hurt the person moving it than the other way around, some can’t. Fused trapunto creases very badly and doesn’t recover.

I also retrieved ‘Delta Blues’ which is very grubby At least it is washable Sadly ‘Chrysler’ is still with them, and I feel very bad about it. I wish I could have rescued it too.