Yay! a new Oriental City!

Well officially it is called Pacific Plaza, but those in the know will realise this is a poor attempt to throw them off the scent. If you have never been a native of North West London you may never have heard of Oriental City. It was the venue for oriental food around here. For me the best part was being able to eat an odd mix of dishes as the food hall had stands serving a wide variety of dishes. A couple of years ago the owners of the building decided it would be worth more empty and evicted all the businesses. It was a huge loss and although several did reopen elsewhere it wasn’t the same.

Yesterday while looking for something else entirely I came across this review. In it is a link to a review of Pacific Plaza. I knew I had to go and investigate ASAP, but today we had to go and hunt trainers for Tet so it wasn’t going to be today. Turns out our hunting took us to Brent Cross which meant we had to practically go past the door of the Pacific Plaza. Fate I tell you I had to go in. It isn’t full yet but there are more stands than when the other reviewer visited. The feel of the place is spot on, and it seems that people are starting to hear about it. It wasn’t busy, but there were enough customers to have a buzz. As you can probably tell, it’s really important to me that this place should do well. The food court was always a great place to go at a weekend. Yes it was busy, no you can’t find a seat, but that’s OK there. It’s how it is supposed to be. The food was fantastic, and I managed my slightly strange selection of dishes. I will be going back, and hopefully a lot more of the old favourites from Oriental City will turn up there soon.

The cold is clearing. It has slowed me up a bit which is no ore than a little annoying. I have been able to think about designs and draw up some plans, so it could have been worse. To be honest if I hadn’t been ill and grumpy I might not have gone to Pacific Plaza today and that would have been a huge loss, so maybe it’s worked out in the end.

A new year

I had a plan for this year, and it’s already in disarray. I though that after the crazy year last year this one would be a bit calmer. After all you can’t need to fill a huge gallery two years in a row. Well I was right and wrong. I don’t need to fill a gallery this year but I have already got more projects than I know what to do with. I’ve got a lead on doing some portraits I really want to do, I got another hush hush mission and a couple of shows that would like new pieces for their displays. As well as making quilts I have customer work to fit in and a book to get finished. Eeek. It’s only the first day and the year already looks full. Am I complaining? Heck no. I wanted this career to work for me, and if that means having more work than I can shake a stick at for a while so be it. I am really excited about the projects I have lined up and I miss quilting when I take time off. I feel very lucky to be doing something I love. I could live without the cough and the sore throat though. Hopefully it’s just from standing next to the bonfire last night. Anyway patterns and quilting await.

Happy New Year!

Last update

Well this is as far as I will get this year. I finished the background fill in the middle and all the line work is done. Have a good new year.

Darn the photo looked in focus on my phone, sorry. I will try better tomorrow.

Back to quilting

I took a couple of days off over the Christmas period, but I still managed to do some crafty things. Notably I knitted a scarf. Not impressed? What if I tell you I knitted it in the car between London and Winchester services? A student gave me a ball of wool that was a scarf in a ball and I thought it wuld be a fun distraction in the car. It took me a while to get the hang of knitting with it. I knit with a tight tension and this wool spaces you to quite loose tension (it's a pom pom wool) I think this and the speed it grows would make it a great beginners project. Once I got into the swing of it it went really well and it's a very snuggly scarf.That was Christmas eve and for the next couple of days I played board games and only thought about quilts. I was getting bored and would have started piecing but I am very low on black fabric so none of my designs was viable. By yesterday I was desperate to be quilting. Holidays are all very well but it means there is a lot of work to do before and after and I need to finish my quilt on the frame before I can do customers quilts. I made what looks like good headway with that quilt. I did a lot of outline work, in fact I think that is nearly finished. Of course the filler is what takes the time so it's not as much progress as I would like but every little helps. I doubt I will get to work on it today, but I should tomorrow.

Midwinter

Finally, we've got a white midwinter. We had considered going abroad to find one, but anywhere with guaranteed snow was out of our price range. Just as well, as we'd have been really miffed to have spent the money and found out we could have stayed at home. I've been getting excited for a few days now, as The Met Office have been forecasting heavy snow for today, but yesterday they downgraded the forecast to sleet. At least when I woke up this morning, there was still snow on the ground.After a traditional festive breakfast of scrambled eggs and gravadlax and Coke Zero (I forgot to buy any orange juice), we thought it would be a good idea to visit one of our favourite shops, Leisure Games in Finchley. As we left, it was just starting to rain. We discussed whether, as the temperature dropped, the rain might turn to snow, but even if it did, with so much water on the ground, there was no real chance of it settling. As we arrived in Finchley, we were proved right. The rain had indeed turned to snow, but wasn't settling.Games shopping is much like fabric shopping. You have to inspect every item in the shop, make a selection, realise it's entirely wrong and start again, but eventually, we left with a moderate armful of games. It was still snowing, as we left the shop and surprisingly, it had started to settle. By the time we reached the car, it was definitly settled, which was unfortunate, given the tight turns and steep ramps of the car park, and the prospect of a route home with several significant hills. It's been very beautiful and festive, but 3 hours and less than 10 miles later, I'm still driving (no, I'm not typing, Tet is).I would quite like to get home now. We had food and drink in the car, but its bathroom facilities are sorely lacking. Should I have stayed at home? Nah! It's been great, despite (or perhaps because of) some hairy sideways moments, and one extremely slippery roundabout. Hopefully it will only be another half hour or so before I'm reunited with modern plumbing.

Slowly very slowly

So here is todays update. I unwound it so I could get a better look at it, and of course that made it too big to photograph. Oh well. I have tried not to over do it today so I haven't got as much further as I would like. I have worked on another project a little though. I want a new coat and I have had half a plan for something quite flamboyant for a while. Now I would say it is about 80% of a plan. I've ordered the extra fabrics I need (I have quite a dressmaking stash) and when I need another break I may start work on the pattern adjustments. Lots to do, so little time.

Doesn’t look like much but…

Progress is very slow on this one, but it is progressing. This is where I got to before lunch. I would guess another days work would get me to the half way point, so the bigger version will probably take over a month of solid work. I think it might be time to buy zippers for my leaders. I can't take a whole month off customer quilts and to be honest it's sufficiently hard work that I don't really want to work on it for that long without a break.

Skinning a quilt

This is the video I was talking about that will teach you how to skin a quilt. If I have two layers of wadding I will work between the layers to try and reduce the risk to my quilt top and back.

I don’t have her funky little tool, I use a very sharp knife. I works very well especially on the tight little stitches you can’t get at any other way. I have a feeling those used to skinning other things will have an advantage with this technique, let me know. Please do be careful with sharp blades. I am amazed how many quilters are very casual with them. To be good for cutting fabric or threads (and especially this techniques) the blade does have to be very sharp. The sort of sharp where you probably won’t feel it cut you, you’ll just see the blood. None of us like getting blood on our quilts so make sure you pay attention to where you are putting your blade.