Done at last.

Thank you, you really kept me on track today. I am not sure I would have gone back to the machine after my exercise class without you folks watching and waiting. The quilt is done off the frame and trimmed, it does still need binding but while the weather is colder I want to focus on catching up with the Monday quilt. I know it doesn’t reallky matter if I am behind or even if I skipped a week, but I want to do them all and I have a plan for this week I  really like, so I need to get to it. I am starting to contact those who want to join the discussion group, we do still have space for a few more if you fancy discussing what could be made for a given set of instructions and how to go about producing the designs discussed.

Here are some pictures of the finished quilting.

Yes The quilt is on the floor. I couldn’t find the quilt stand I wanted and as it is mine there seemed no real harm in it. This quilt will get used and washed, so a little dust won’t hurt.

Quilt quilt quilt

In between the manic cooking, 2 more batches of ice cream last night and loaf and the 2.5l of elderflower cordial bottled, I have been spending the working day quilting. Each evening I have expected to blog it then just collapsed into bed when the cooking was done. The cooking has to take priority as it is time critical so I guess I have been getting it right even though missing this feels like a fail. I did manage to get the photos to the right device before keeping over so I will get those up now and aim to update with the finished quilt tonight. I don’t usually longarm at the weekends any more. I try to have a normal ish working pattern, but this needs to be off the frame by Monday morning, is very nearly done and I want to use it so I will make an exception today.

I hope the quilting will show well enough for you. Black on black and a thin wedding isn’t the best for high definition quilting, but it will look great on the bed and be cool enough for summer. I don’t have many summer quilts, maybe it is time I changed that. Now I have a stack more stars to make a dog to walk and a quilt to finish. Fingers crossed for an update later.

Where do the days go?

I was going to upload photos of the quilt that is on my frame and talk about that today. Somehow it seems to have got very late and I am not up to sorting out the pictures right this second. I guess that will be tomorrow’s blog. I did make some progress on the Monday quilt today. It is much easier to see before breakfast when it is a bit overcast. The sun is blinding on hotter days. I have high hopes for tomorrow morning too as the forecast is more grey.

After dog walking and floors I managed to get a really good run on my quilt on the frame. I don’t know if I mentioned, but the day I started it I couldn’t get my parallel lines even close. They were horrible and had to come out. That threw me for a while, I knew I wanted that pattern but what if I wasn’t able to quilt it. It seems the day I started was just a bad day. They happen and usually I now realise and just give quilting a miss. For some reason on this occasion I really thought it was that the design I had chosen was beyond me. Why, no idea, but I am very very pleased I didn’t give up on the design I wanted as I really love it.

This evening after doggy playtime, which is now the fun relaxing time I had been hoping for, it was cooking time. The weather forecast says we are due high winds so we decided we had to harvest the elderflower today. Those have been turned into a couple of lifers of cordial. If any survives the high winds I will go out with steps and harvest a bit more. I also need to get this round of icecream ingredients processed into icecream before they go off. So the first 2 batches are now done, the other 2 will be tomorrow. The lemon sorbet will wait a day or two I think. I know it sounds a bit frantic, but deliveries come when I can get them and when I have things I have to deal with them before they go off. The flip side is we usually have well stocked freezer and cupboard now, which I am loving.

Now I really need to just sit down for a few minutes, before I release the hound to theoretically come and sit with me. In practice he will want to play with the cats and hump my feet. He is a hormonal teenager, sitting quietly just isn’t an option.

Is it time to change?

?I get up early these days to take the dog out to the toilet. It’s probably not necessary any more but it does give me time to do a bit of sewing blog and get my act together for the day. It means the alarms on my phone go off after I am up. Today the alarm is 7.30am, it is there to make sure I get to class on time. Except of course it’s been nearly 3 months since I taught a class. More importantly it is going to be another 3 months before I am teaching in person again. Maybe longer, I suppose. I have looked at the government guidance for safe teaching. Unless halls massively drop their rents I either have to double the fees or not rent village halls and community center. I simply can’t fit in the number of people needed to make it economically viable. Let’s say that is resolved one way or another, there is then the cleaning issue. I am responsible for making sure anything students come into contact with is clean. So before each class I have to wash doors, sockets switches tables and chairs. The anti bacterial surface wipes are useless, it needs to be cleaning with either soap or alcohol cleaner. If it is alcohol it has to be left 20min to be sure the virus has been killed, soap is quicker but much more tricky to use on electrical items.  How do I treat the cloth chairs, do I need to make several sets of chair covers so I can wash them at home? Every student would need their own iron and ironing pad. Those irons would need regular pat testing. For safety every student also needs their own extension lead too, it’s another point of contact, oh and yes they each need their own wall socket. That will further reduce the number of people in most halls. What about the chewing gum on tables? Am I responsible for making sure that is removed too? It is a clear hazard if it is recent and how do you prove that other than by constantly removing it.

Once we have the room set up we have to get the students in, while maintaining 2m distance. That will mean bringing people in in order. Multiples trips to bring in a lot of bags won’t work any more. Not sure queuing out side innthe winter will be popular either, but if we have to load in order it’s needed. Tea and biscuits are over on several grounds, and even bringing your own washing up at the hall is out. Washing up can spread the virus. As can toilets, there is no way I can monitor public toilets while teaching. Some don’t even have kids for safer flushing, and in a rented space I can’t predict or control who uses them or how. For now I  wouldn’t be one of the allowed businesses, and by the time that changes we will be well into summer term, but I have to admit I am worried. I don’t foresee massive relaxing of the distancing rules by September, and that is a real killer for classes.

What I am going to do is start some online sessions. Bear in mind this is new to me as well as most of my students. So it will be a slow start to find the pattern that works. I am going to start with a weekly session to discuss the options for the Monday quilt. It will mostly be an ideas session. Discussing what could be done with the challenge we have been set and how we could make the things we come up with. There will be no requirement to actually make the quilt, this will be far more about design and planning. I will limit the number of people in the group, and I will try to find a time that works for as many of those interested as possible. If you would like to take part in this comment here and I will discuss possible times with you and make sure you are invited to the session. Oops missed an important bit of information, I will be using Google meet. On a computer that will just be a matter of going to a link I send you. On a mobile device you will need to download the Google meet app. Why this choice? It seems to be the most secure of the free options. That’s not a resounding vote of confidence, just a statement on least worst from the best advice I have. No I will not switch to zoom.

Just curious, what has lockdown done to your menu

I hear a lot in the news about lockdown changing our eating habits, and I am curious. How much effect has it had on yours? It has changed ours, though perhaps not in the way the news suggests. We eat a lot more home cooked food, pretty much nothing ready to eat. Admittedly that is partly because I  can’t get a delivery from my preferred supermarket and haven’t been able to get a slot since the beginning of March. Yes I am pretty unimpressed. As we can’t get reliable food deliveries we can’t buy things like bread so most of the bread we eat is home made and most of it a wholemeal mix. So white bread is all but gone from our diet. We still eat fish, but it is much harder to get and we tend to only have it for the first few days after our meat box arrives. I think we enjoy it more than ever. I now eat pickled herring, and love it. It is one of the fish I can get at a reasonable price and with a better date so it has become one of the things I really look forward to each month.

We started eating breakfast regularly when Fenrir joined us. Mostly because I have to get up very early for him and that means by the time he has been walked I am hungry. So at weekends we now have a cooked breakfast each day. Maybe a traditional one or perhaps something like waffles. On the subject of waffles, I now keep a supply of packet mixes. I was always sniff about them, but something that contains powdered milk and powdered egg is very useful to keep for treats. Egg and milk is tricky to get so products that let me fake it are very welcome. The partner product to that is mixes that will use up any spare milk. I really hate to waste it now, so if it does get close to date it can become cheesecake or mousse. That is another change, our food waste wasn’t high, now we have it close to zero. Yup we do get a few odd meals but I am pleased to be reducing the waste.

We do still have things like pizza and icecream, but now those are home made too. As we eat the remaining shop bought ice creams I don’t foresee replacing many of them. I much prefer what I can make. This week I am planning a lemon sorbet, a coffee icecream and probably a vanilla. Interestingly I think we eat less and enjoy it more. When snacks are wanted I now tend to make those too. We usually have a tub of something that can be nibbled as needed, though again it lasts a lot longer than it used to. I wonder if it is the phenomenon I noticed at Fortnum and Mason. Higher quality products are more filling and satisfying.

The last change has been the addition of use it up recipes which have proved so successful they are now regulars. I had risotto rice because it wasn’t stockpiled. I guess those panic buying weren’t sure what to do with it. When I need to use up some Parma ham I found a recipe for an asparagus risotto, which I misread, so it got chicken in as well not just chicken stock. I love it from a cooking point of view as it is cooked directly with frozen products, so quick and easy no forward prep needed. The other use up was a smoked salmon pasta to use up some cream. It was supposed to be some thing else but gave a substitution for heavy cream and lemon juice, lemon juice and smoked salmon is clearly a good pairing so we have that a try. I now plan to make it anytime we have cream around.

So over to you. What has changed for you, do you eat differntly now? Are you in the fridge all day as the news and advertisements would suggest or are you eating lots of fresh home cooked wonder2

Monday solo mystery quilt

Monday seems to arrive faster and faster. Maybe it is just because I am behind on my quilt, or maybe it is because I am getting older. I have been working on my stars, and I have about 30% done. I was pleased that my second colour way only took me 2 hours, well 2 tv show episodes so less than that. Sadly the third set I made a mistake. Some of you will know half square triangles are my personal nemesis I am sure there are at least 5 wrong ways to see them. I managed one of them and had to take 10 blocks apart. That set of 10 took over 6 hours. I have a long way to go, but hopefully I can make some good headway this week.

Now on to this week’s instructions. Anyone can join this at any time, just make yourself a starting block. I reccomend that is at least 9″ on one axis. Once you have that just add to it as instructed on here each Monday. If you miss a week, it doesn’t matter. If you get ahead you can always do a previous weeks to keep you busy.

This week our technique will be,

Traditional patchwork

Well that gives us a lot of scope to play doesn’t it. Our border size will be,

Add a total of 10″ to two opposite sides of your quilt.

Oooh, that really is a lot of space to play. For me this is great. I know I am going to have too many blocks for last week’s border. I wasn’t worried I knew I could reuse the blocks later, well later seems to have arrived sooner than I expected and I think with such small blocks and a big space I should be able to do something really fun.

Day late

I meant to blog this last night then got distracted by many things. The space x launch, an early delivery with no paperwork and lots of puppy time. Fenrir is coming along in leaps and bounds. Still far too excited by things like new people and dogs, but he is calming down around my cats and house so he is becoming much easier to live with. As he improves we make sure to both give him more responsibility and more challenges. While he is with us in the sitting room there is no chance of doing anything I actually need to think about though he still needs our attention constantly to make sure he isn’t making mistakes.

Now on to what I was supposed to blog, Rachel’s quilt. Yup new photos and an update. Like me she is a little bit behind at the moment, but isn’t worrying too much about it. I think she is actu6taking full advantage of a bit of extra thinking time.

I love the French braid for the rectangles, that was something I considered and discarded. I felt for my quilt it was too colour dense. Though it is a plan I may use in a future quilt that calls for rectangles. They aren’t quick but they are lovely. It works really well on this quilt. Remember too this quilt is not based on a rectangle, the starting block here is a diamond. I also really like the log cabin diamonds, and the way they blend colours along the border, another effective but not quick choice, which made a second appearance with the bear paw border. Those aren’t just bear paws, those are log cabin bear paws.

Aren’t they amazing. This is why Rachel is running a little behind the instructions, and I think it is so worth the extra time. This quilt is not intended to be a race it is intended to give us all something fun to think about. It is intended to suck up spare time and keep us engaged in some thing fun and productive. I can see it is doing this job very well for Rachel.

Paraglider after effects

I know animals can form odd associations from early formative experiences. I didn’t expect the paraglider in the garden to have any lasting effect, despite it being a very odd thing. However, Fenrir now watches any flying object when he is in the garden, just in case. Every bird, every aircraft, is seen as a potential landing. I don’t think the paraglider was scary to him, but clearly it made an impression. I think he is actually hoping something else will land. We are less keen on that plan. He did get some excitement yesterday, while walking up the field after a pheasant a deer sprung out of the hedge and ran off into another hedge. Not a mutjac this time a larger deer, maybe a roe. I guess for the moment will will just have to deal with the fact that everything stops if there is something in the sky.

Full moon

Finally I can reveal last week’s borders. That was a bit more of a mammoth task than I expected, although sewing the moon’s was no where near as hard as I expected. So much so I think I will go for the other quilt I designed from the same elements. I am not sure it is something I could make as a pattern though. Just because of the amount of equipment I used to do it.

Sorry the photo isn’t crisp, the tablet seems to do that some of the time and I have no idea why. Hopefully it is enough to give you the idea. I decided the add 8″ to your quilt could mean both axis, so that is what I did. It gave me more steps in my moon phases which I think looks better. I must add I have no idea how I will be quilting this, but hey I am not at that stage yet, so I might work it out. I am also giving more thought to my next quilt in this series. This one is over  60″ now. I will be adding another 8″ on each axis again this week. I am guessing I will be able to add for maybe another two or three weeks before I hit a size that I want to use. I do not want to get so big it is hard to quilt. So I need to be ready with the next starting block. I have a couple of ideas I fancy, including monochrome and jelly rolls.

This week I need to focus on my 4″ border of stars. I am going for something simple and in the flavour of an earlier border. Only issue is these stars do have to be small, and as it’s a long border I need a lot of them. I did get the first 9 blocks done today, maybe just maybe I can catch up a bit.

Yay

Last week’s borders are nearly done. So nearly I was sure they would be tonight, but I am tired and unpacking a whole border is never fun so I will attach it in the morning. The puppy has been taking up more of our time recently as he is rapidly progressing. He has gone from 5 to 10 minutes sitting with us after dinner before getting over excited to well over an hour. He does still need a lot of watching though especially if there is a cat in the room. He is desperate to be best buddies, the cats are less convinced. They are coming around though and choose to be in the same room as him so he may get his wish soon. Really he would be getting on a lot better with them if he could manage to calm down, that is still a way off I think.