Round Robin; Round One!

For the first time in years I am part of a Crazy Patchwork Round Robin. The last Round Robin I was in was a disaster! Several of us lost our blocks, there was total confusion and I was left with a nasty feeling about the whole thing. I hope whoever stole my block has a bad conscience! It has meant that I will never, ever get involved with anything in the US again unless I know those involved! However this time it will go well because it is with a European group that I have done several RR's with before and we have always had a ball.



This isn't the most wonderful piece of Crazy Patchwork I have ever done I'm sorry to say but like most things in my life I left it to the last minute and need to post it off tomorrow. So it was done in a rush and instead of sewing the patches on by hand which gives one a lot more control I used the machine which makes it all a bit straight and in lines. However I'm sure the stitching will more than make up for its basic design faults. There are those in the group who are marvellous embroiderers. The theme is Lace and Roses and I have put some roses on the block and also done a seam finish of Sweetheart Roses. This is a silk ribbon technique which my friend Froggy taught me and I love it. I am seeing this as a wall hanging for the newly decorated spare room. Hopefully the room will be finished before the block! :-) I'm really looking forward to this as I know it will be fun.
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On the home front the bathroom has no window at the moment, just a hole, while Martin paints it. We have all the paint and tomorrow I will paint the walls. I have taken the top bunk bed to the garage along with lots more tubs and boxes and all the shelves are off the walls. Undoing those screws was a mammoth task. Martin obviously put them on the wall so that I could put really heavy things on the shelves should I so desire. He knows me! I could even climb up them I reckon! So things are moving and I feel that we are getting somewhere.
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The computer continues to do well. I've stopped holding my breath and think that everything is fine at last. I'm being much more tidy and organised and for the first time have an organised filing system. Will it last?
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Dee if you're reading this I've lost the rotation list. Any chance you could forward me a copy? I'd be truly grateful.

These pictures are for Christine who wanted to know what a shower screen looked like. Unfortunately they don't contain Martin or Marvin! This is probably a good thing as this isn't a pornographic blog! :-) The picture on the left is of the screen folded in so that it is on line with the basin. It will fold right back to the wall if wanted. The picture on the right is of the screen open. We have spent this weekend gutting the bathroom so it doesn't look like this now. We are stuck with the avocado suite but I'm going to paint the walls pale pink, the woodwork white and the carpet forest green. We are also going to fit a new shower! At the moment the bathroom looks as if a bomb has hit it! And to add insult to injury I am at the same time stripping the spare room as I want to paint in there too and lay new carpet which at the moment is rolled up in my Mum's garage. Today I took all the hundred and one shelves off the walls that were left over from the days when this was my workroom. I never want to see another screw! I'm storing a lot of the stuff in our garage and also in my Mum's spare room. What would I do without her! She only lives four doors down the road but I drove my car up from her drive to collect all the stuff and then drove it back again. Is that lazy or what?
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I have been very careful to keep my workroom serviceable so that I can continue to sew. What has become very apparent is that I still have far too much stuff and will have to be even more ruthless and get rid of some of it. Well most of it if I am to remain sane. This isn't the stuff in my workroom but the overflow which lives in the spare room. There are five working rooms in this house not counting the kitchen and bathroom and I have enough stuff to fill at least eight! Something very wrong there. Anyway the whole decorating thing is worse than moving and will probably drive me to drink before it's finished. I am on holiday this week and will have to be very organised. There is only one good thing to say and that is that my computer is working like a dream. All that phaffing about was worth it. Did I mention that I had to have a new mother-board after I'd got it up and running eventually? And then when the new mother-board was in I had to re-format AGAIN as some of the programs I'd installed were slowing me down. Bad vibes! But now all is hunky dory and working well. I haven't even tried to install my Bernina stuff. I'll wait to do that until I'm feeling stronger. When...If....

Eventually........

All singing, all dancing computer! Does everything...well almost!
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It has taken a week but finally I am up and running again. A lot of the time has been taken up putting back the programs I use and the hardware - printer, scanner, etc - but something I put back on didn't go down well with the computer and it all went tits up so poor Martin had to re-format AGAIN! But this time I was exceedingly careful and so far, so good! Hopefully it will all hang together and I can get back to my quilting, sewing, reading, having fun.....
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I have no email addresses because in all the cafuffle they disappeared so if anyone who likes to keep in touch with me or just wants to, sends me their email addy I'll be well chuffed! In fact I'll be delighted as otherwise it will take me ages to collect them all again. (email me:valeri.b@ntlworld.com) Into every life a little rain must fall but I feel as if I've had a deluge and I'm soaking! Why is it that of all things mechanical computers can affect one's quality of life so much. It was a bit like losing a hand for me. I use EQ5, Artista software and art packages such as Photoshop and without them I'm lost.
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If anyone reading this is an EQ5 expert I need help. I've saved everything and got it back into the program successfully but although I have the fabrics I scanned in for my latest quilt in there they arn't showing up in the library. How can I save them into a library when I haven't got the original scans? Can I save them from the sketchbook? I really really don't want to have to scan the fabric in again as it took so long! Again, any help will be greatly appreciated!

Three cheers for Martin! Hip, hip Hooray!

Well my clever clogs husband has managed to retrieve all the files off the lost hard drive. The computer still doesn't recognise it and it is possible that it has bad sectors somewhere but what matters to me is that I have all my folders and files safely stored on another drive and as soon as Martin gets off my computer and lets me have it back I will sort them all out and save the ones that I want to keep on my ICY box. There is every chance that I will eventually have a computer that is superb and faster than a racing snake but at the moment Martin is enjoying tweaking it. I really do find typing on a laptop a trial but I am grateful I've got one!

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Dee if you're reading this I tried emailing you using the address you gave me and it kept coming back! Can you email me direct so I can reply from that? Thanks!
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I have found some old pictures on the laptop so I am going to delight any one reading this with a couple of blasts from the past! One is a Crazy Patchwork throw sashed with a gorgeous bright blue dupion. One is a quick collage that I did after being impressed by the sunset, and the other is a piece of work still in progress with appliqued leaves on a manipulated background. The collage has to be forty years old. The throw is only about seven and the leaves have been waiting for a year or even two to be finished! One day..... As to what I'm working on at the moment...I am still plodding on with my large sampler quilt and dyeing material for it as I run out. I always under estimate just how much fabric I'm going to need. And I have spent a considerable amount of time putting my files back into EQ5. And just generally phaffing about on the computer looking at stuff!

The End of the World.......

I am feeling extremely depressed! Martin has just re-formatted my computer. The computer that he built for me four years ago...was it really that long! And before he did this I put loads of my stuff onto an external hard drive (my IC box) and also some stuff onto the smallest of my three internal hard drives thinking that this one wasn't to be formatted so it would be OK. Bad thinking! The wretched machine now won't recognise this drive! It is having a hard job giving me all the Gb that I am owed on the two main drives. (each is around 120Gb while the little one is only 20Gb) I have left Martin at home ...it is his day off...slaving over my machine in the hopes that somehow he will find this errant drive which has so many things on it that I now find I want! I am writing this from work as I can't do so at home not having an up and running computer. Well actually that is a lie as it is up and running just in bits while Martin sorts out this missing drive problem. The stupid drive is visible in Device manager but not in My Computer! I don't understand it but then I wouldn't as I'm not a geek.

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The thought of all the things I have to re-install is making me tired especially having to set up my Artista software for my Bernina. Coping with the wretched dongle is a nightmare! And I've managed to lose my EQ5 stuff. I was sure I saved my scanned fabric for my latest quilt onto the IC box but I can't see it there. Of course there is so much stuff on it that I might not know what I'm looking for. I doubt if I called the file anything sensible! Tonight I am going to wade through all the files and try and sort them out. This screw up is making my life quite complicated as I can't think of anything but my missing files. No EQ5, no accounts, no address book, no new lesson plans, no....the list goes on!

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Wait! There is hope! If everything fails and Martin can't make the computer see the missing drive all is not lost. I have just been given the telephone number of a guy who retrieves files off hard disks! Oh joy!

Quilt Exhibition

I went to the Falmouth Quilters Group's exhibition today with my friend Sue and it was a real treat. As well as smaller items there were several really large quilts, mostly in the traditional manner, but very impressive and beautifully made. The quilt above is a Baltimore Album and the applique work was exquisite. It isn't the best photo in the world but it was hard to get into position and get most of it in the picture. Unfortunately I don't know the maker's name.

This Fibonacci quilt was made by one of my ex students, Mary Miller, who had several quilts on show. The appliqued vine really made this quilt and it was quite striking. My photo doesn't do it justice.


Another Baltimore Album quilt which was started in one of my classes. The amount of work in this is enormous but well worth all that effort. Again I wasn't able to do it justice with the camera angle.


I don't know who made this quilt but again it was full size and lovely. Very delicate with lovely pastel colours.


This is a Leaf Wreath quilt by Jeanne Pettit which was started in one of my classes. The fabrics used were really gorgeous and made the quilt. The quilting was superb as it was done on long arm machine. Really spectacular.


An attractive use of Cathedral Window patchwork in a cushion. Maker unknown.


A piece of silk ribbon embroidery by Carole Monk which was started in one of my workshops. Beautifully done.



And last but not least of the photo's I took, a jacket, made by Barbara Johnson. I really love this pattern and would like to make it for myself. The little bag was made by Jan Woods.

All in all it was a great exhibition and I spent far too much money in the shop buying batik fabric and a couple of books which I couldn't resist. And the cakes in the cafe were to die for! I had a superb orange and poppy seed sponge which was light and moist and Sue had a really sinful chunk of gooey chocolate cake. Our friend Yvonne who joined us for coffee didn't have any cake at all. I don't know how she was able to resist! Her will power must be tremendous! So a good time was had by all.

Fabric

This is the sampler quilt that I want to make for this Autumn's classes.
I have been very naughty and bought more fabric! I just couldn't resist it but to make me feel better I then went and dyed up a load of toning colours to use with it and managed
to get a fantastic burgandy colour. Burgundy is one of those colours that isn't always easy to get being either too bright or too dull but this was just what I wanted to tone with this delicious print. And getting this small thing right really motivated me to get on with the sampler quilt and so today I made up one block. I actually find it quite relaxing doing traditional patchwork for a change. It could be because the guidelines are already there and all I have had to do are make colour choices. That is for me the fun part. This year I am being slightly different in format as the blocks are in several sizes and there are pieced borders and sashing.


Now that it is August the summer will gallop away and it will be back to class before I know it. I have a week's holiday at the end of the month and hopefully we will lay the carpet in the guest room and put up my computer cupboard so that I can move my computer etc from the living room. This would give me so much more space but I'm not actually holding my breath! I have been doing some constant dripping about the possibility that I may be holding classes at home and I think this might be the push needed to see some action with home improvements! Wouldn't it be nice if one could wave a wand and have everything done just like that! I am such an impatient person!

Feeling Positive!

Today was a good day...twice! Why? Well firstly because we are trying to bring our bathroom into the 21st century and to that end we bought a couple of bathroom cabinets,some shelving and a folding shower screen to go over the edge of the bath instead of a shower curtain. I hate shower curtains as they wrap around one when wet and it's a bit like taking a shower in seaweed! This one is neat and folds away when not in use. So what is good about all this? When we got home from the store Martin fitted the shower screen! And since then we have both been able to see how much nicer showering is! And when I showered there were no leaks at all! The same could not be said for Martin's shower but then he is a very active showerer! This is't to say that I'm not efficient, just that I don't wave my arms around and spray water everywhere! Now to wait for the cabinets to go up! I'm not holding my breath!
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And secondly a package that I've been waiting for from the States arrived today! I seem to have been waiting for it for ages but it cleared customs yesterday evening and was delivered this morning! So they didn't hang about! I am thrilled as it was some quilty stuff which I'll now be able to play with. This is a belated present for my birthday so doubly enjoyable. A special cutting square and a book! Oh joy!

I've finished the Drunkard's Path quilt. I am very pleased with the way it worked out but not so pleased with the quilting. Once it all went pear-shaped in the middle I think I gave up the will to live with the rest of it and it isn't up to my best but having said that it isn't that bad! And I've learnt lots. The most important being that I should have over-dyed the Liberty lawn so that it blended with the hand-dyes better. Oh well one lives and learns. Now I'm starting a sampler quilt for the Autumn term lessons. I'm using all the quick techniques that I have picked up so that it will be a real learning curve. That is if I get any student's in the Autumn after the cuts in funding. Well I can always hold classes at home. I'm being positive! It's the best way to be and I have found the best way to have life work out in a way that is what one wants. Of course a lot of that works on the premise that one is happy with what one has rather than miserable about what one can't have! I shall stop now before I make everyone sick! :-)

Being inspired!

I am being inspired which is a good thing! The only trouble is that there are only so many hours in the day and only so much that one can accomplish. However I have discovered Microsoft One Note which is an amazing note pad facility in Microsoft Office. Using One Note means I can write notes, add pictures, even make audio comments and One Note automatically saves it all ready for the next burst of inspiration. This way as I finish one project I can immediately look in One Note for the beginnings of another. I have so many ideas just waiting to get a hearing that this was just what I needed. And one of the features which I most like is that if I copy something into it from the web that takes my fancy it automatically inserts the web address so that I will know where I found that feature later on when I will no doubt have forgotten. How often does one save something from the web only months later to have absolutely no idea where it came from! I do this all the time and it is so frustrating. So I shall be singing the praises of this neat little program!

Caity of CaityQuilter Blog tells me that August 11th is National Moth night here in the UK which is something I didn't know! I shall have to find out more! Thank you Caity!

So Grateful!

I am so grateful that I live on a hill and that Cornwall isn't suffering from the awful floods that they are experiencing in Gloucester and Tewkesbury and that vicinity. My heart goes out to those poor people especially as many of the flooded areas wouldn't have been so bad if governments had had their wits about them in the past. And they are still going to use flood plains to build houses! What is wrong with these people! We were in Tewkesbury a couple of years ago and it is a lovely town with glorious old buildings and full of history. My fingers are crossed that the worst is over!
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It has been a week of the doldrums and I really haven't achieved an awful lot. However I have got the quilt top finished and am now in the middle of quilting it. This is a long winded affair as I am doing different patterns in different places and also it is quite bulky under the machine. But it's coming on. I did encounter a problem when I started as the free machining was very bitty and the cotton kept breaking. The front looked OK but the back is terrible. Just as well it's for me! I fiddled about and tried lots of things. It is working well now and I'm having no problems but the trouble is I don't know what I did or what the problem was in the first place. It could have been that I was using a thicker cotton and it didn't like it even though I was also using a thicker needle! The sample I did was fine. I have reverted to a normal cotton and that is working without problems so probably that was it. These things are sent to try us...and they do! Pictures when it's finished.

I rescued this moth when I opened the kitchen door tonight. It flew into the kitchen attracted by the light and then just fluttered about. When it lighted on the floor I trapped it in a cup and put it back outside. I then took some photos as it was of a variety I haven't seen before. We used to get loads of moths but they seem to have disappeared of late and now all we get on a regular basis are funny little brown ones. However I have noticed that we are getting more butterflies, even the little blue ones. This could be because the garden is awash with flowers and is making a really colourful picture at the moment in spite of all the rain. I have been taking pictures of the flowers for use later on when I want to do some applique work. They make such good inspirational subjects.

At last!

Finally I am back in my workroom sewing, creating, having fun! I have started on my circles quilt and I can see immediately that it is going to be much more experimental than my diagrams as I ran out of the fabrics I had chosen. But not to worry I had more fabric albeit slightly different and I think that difference is going to be beneficial. Everything is cut out and the large circles are sewn. It is going to be fun putting it all together and planning the colour mix. I was surprised at how quickly and easily I was able to cut out the drunkard's path blocks using the one template only method. It took less than two hours and that included sewing the twelve large blocks. There will now have to be a pause as tomorrow I have to get ready for a silk ribbon workshop on Friday. And at the weekend I want to dye some more fabric though I should have time to whizz up a few more blocks. So it looks like Monday for finishing it off. Tuesday I'm going to teach my Mum how to make folders and what to do with them when she's made them, on her computer. And Friday I have a private lesson again on computers so a busy week. And I have my grandson's second birthday coming up and I want to make him a small quilt with horses on it. He is made about horses which he actually calls Adders but then a rose by any other name and all that! I think a quick nine patch background in greens and blues with applique horses. Shouldn't take too long....I hope! So busy, busy, busy! No pictures as Blogger wouldn't let me insert any!

Show Time!

Today I was one of the craft judges at Stithians Show. Stithians is a small village where I onced lived for five years. Immediately before I moved here in fact. The show has been going for decades and still has a country village, parochial feel about it which is lovely, even though it is the second biggest show in the county after the Royal Cornwall Show at Wadebridge.It is very much a farming show with livestock and machinery. Last year when I judged it was so hot I thought I would expire and there were so many thousands of people there that it was impossible to move. This year with lots of rain over the past week and more to come there weren't as many people and it was fresher and cooler and much more inviting. Sadly there just arn't the craft entries that there used to be and it is hard when there are only three or four entries in a class. In fact one class had only one entry but that one was so good that I wrote on the ticket that it deserved a first anyway! The quilt I gave a first to went on to become best in show which was pleasing.

I had a minor panic when I came to leave as I couldn't find my car amongst the many thousands that were there! In the end common sense prevailed and I retraced my steps and voila, there it was! Oh what a relief! My only excuse is that I had been up since 5.30 and was getting tired! I don't do early mornings very well!


I thought the colours of these plums and apples and other fruits were so exciting and that this picture might act as an inspiration for a piece of work later on.
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Now that I have got that outing out of the way I can concentrate on other things. I am planning to do a drunkard's quilt block.


This is the design I have in mind. I used EQ5 to design it in and scanned in some of my own hand-dyed fabrics plus a piece of Liberty Lawn. I'm still not quite sure that this is going to be the final version. I'm actually enjoying playing with it and moving things around. It will be on these lines though. I want to do something fairly traditional but which isn't that traditional.

Finally, the project!

This is the project that I couldn't show you! It is a memory quilt that I made for my sister's 60th birthday and just in case she looked at the blog I had to keep it quiet. But her birthday was yesterday so I can reveal all. How cool is it that she was 60 on 07-07-07! What a lucky day if you're into numbers! I had great fun making this quilt even though the printing of the pictures had a few hiccups due to the printer playing up. This was annoying, especially as I'd bought a new Epsom especially to do this. However in the end my little HP came up trumps which is probably why I'm an HP fan. I even dusted off the embroidery attachment for my Bernina and made a label! Probably the first quilt label I have ever made. I'm almost ashamed to admit to that!

I have decided that to get me moving and not let that 'lazy gene' get control I'm going to start by finishing off some of the many things that are half finished. A lot of them started as class samples which is why they get left! Too busy rushing onto the next thing. So with this in mind I dug out the two pieces of faux chenille that I have and flung them into the washing machine with a pair of Martin's jeans. They are now in the tumble dryer. When they are finished I am going to turn them into a pair of cushions. I am organised! I can do this! At the same time I have been making a start on my class worksheet for next term. After all September will be here in next to no time. There will be a sampler lap quilt for beginners so I am choosing blocks (different ones to last year and the year before) and colour schemes. This is the part I like. Then I am going to design a machine applique quilt which can be made in blocks. I'm thinking gardens, flowers and cottages. I want the students to think about colour and using fabric to get special effects. We will also use fabric pens and crayons to add to the fabric colours. Again another bit that I especially like. But there is a sad note here. The meeting for tutors that I went to yesterday was bit disheartening as I found out that the funding council has stopped the concessionary rate for over 60's. The reason? Because it's ageist! Hellooooo? These people make up the back bone of the Ad Ed craft classes and they need every help they can get on the whole. The cost of the class has increased by over £20 a term which is a lot of money when you have to find a lump sum. So I won't be surprised if I don't get enough students to run the classes. Especially as the minimum number now needed to run the class is 8 and to get full pay 15! Private classes will have to be thought about. I already run several classes from home but I haven't got room to have many students at a time. If it isn't one thing it's another!

Reflections.......

I have been trying to work out why I don't get as much done as I used to a few years back and then it came to me! I work for four hours every afternoon and that kills my day for me. Work is necessary to pay the mortgage so there is no going back but I am going to have to re-structure my days and my attitude to them. There is going to have to be a more positive attitude to actually doing! When I'm in teaching mode and I have one if not two classes coming up every week I can get really stuck in producing samples and writing hand outs and I get it all done on time and usually with enjoyment. So why is it that as soon as I have a couple of months or so away from the discipline of teaching do I fall apart? Where is all the work that I was going to do for me? Where are the experimental pieces and the trials of different techniques? I'll tell you where...in my head! Because I have no deadline, no approaching performance, where I'll be in the spotlight and will have to succeed or fail by my earlier efforts, there is no feeling of urgency. In fact there is instead an insidious feeling of endless time with the summer stretching ahead of me, and in complete contrast to that a hidden thought that with not much immediate time at my disposal each day is it worth even starting! It's as if because I can't spend the whole day doing things my brain has a spoilt brat moment and refuses to do anything. So how can I overcome this? I know that once I get started routine will kick in and I'll be fine but its taking that one step to get started. So I'm going to start by writing down and thinking about some things I want to do. If it's in black and white I will have a beginning. And then I will map it out from there so that I have guide posts along the way. In this way when I get sidetracked and slip back into my un-productive ways I'll have a route to follow and I won't wallow in indecision. Because it's not that I don't have ideas nor that I'm not bursting with creativity..that's no problem...its the lazy gene in me that has to have the perfect setting to work in and short periods of time don't do it for me when there is no push from outside. So tomorrow after I've been to a meeting for Adult Education tutors in the morning and had coffee with a friend in the afternoon, I shall make plans. I will be organised while still leaving room for happy accidents! I'm going to start by printing some more pictures onto fabric and this time I'm going to make sure that the *%$"*^ Espsom printer works for me! I bought it to use for just this purpose and I'll make it work if I dye in the attempt! Well perhaps not so drastic but on those lines! And hopefully I'll
be able to crack it and make the time I have work for me rather than the other way around.

Is this summer?

I am now totally bored with the rain. To begin with lying in bed listening to the rain fall out of the sky was exciting but now it is old hat. I am grateful not to be one of those in different parts of the UK who are suffering from floods. The pictures of their flooded houses look terrible. It is a good thing to live on a hill several hundred feet above sea level!
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I have finished my project and am feeling quite pleased with myself. It went quite well though I think next time I do something like this I will make a few modifications. Pictures later! At the moment I am trying to have a clear out so that I can see at a glance exactly what fabric I have to hand. Every time I go to find something I have to wade through several useless pieces of stuff before I come to anything good. Why do I hang on to these less than perfect pieces? It's fear! Fear that I won't have just that colour! Fear that I won't have enough long strips! Fear that I might someday run out of fabric! Hello? Run out of fabric? When I'm dyeing 100 metres every week or so? Do I need to see a shrink? Am I unique in this fear of lack with regard to fabric or do others also not want to bankrupt their fabric supply? And I never have the right colour regardless of how much fabric is in stock. In the same way that I don't have the right clothes for any given occasion regardless of the fact that my wardrobe is bursting at the seams. But this I think is partly due to 'once in a Blue Moon' occasions cropping up when one can't be expected to necessarily have the right stuff! Well that's what I tell myself. So with all this in mind I'm going to sort and clear this week. I'm looking forward to it. Well I think I'm looking forward to it!

Left overs

I had a very satisfactory dyeing day yesterday and managed to get all the right blues to finish my project plus a selection of very useful plains. With the left overs I dye-painted some super pastels with the occasional bright. Unless it is watered down Magenta is always very bright however little an amount is in the container. I have learnt to use half the quantity of reds as I do of other dyes or else in mixtures red predominates and it is hard to get lovely lilacs, mauves and peachy colours. The new yellow, Buttercup, is lovely being a much richer colour than Lemon and making fantastic greens. Usually my dyeing comes under the category of 'suck it and see' but I have in the past made a colouring book using specific quantities of dye so that I can reproduce more or less hundreds of colours. It was fun to do and is useful but I get a bigger kick out of just throwing the colours together. It makes the pressing more fun as that is when the pieces of fabric really take shape. Below is a sample of some of the fabric I did using left overs.I like being able to collage the photos in Picassa as it makes it easier to insert into the Blog! Anything for a simple life!

Rain, rain and yet more rain!

I think Caroline had the best fortnight here. The day she left it rained and it has been raining ever since. Rain on its own isn't so bad unless it's a downpour but there has been quite gusty spells of wind which hasn't done the plants any good. Fortunately I have had enough to keep me occupied in the house so the inclement weather hasn't been too much of a problem. As Caroline was leaving here to go to a camp at Avebury for the summer solstice I feel very sorry for her. It can't be much fun to have two small children and a large husband in a camper van in the pouring rain! Glastonbury this coming weekend looks as though it will be par for the course with mud, mud and even more mud. Gone are the days when I thought Festivals were fun! Now I'm old and crabby! :-)

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The photo printing has gone well albeit that it was done on my old HP printer. The new Epsom that I bought especially to do this because the paper doesn't turn on itself during printing, failed to accept the fabric-paper combination. I didn't have time to fiddle so will have to have another go later. I used to do it very successfully on my old Epsom so I can't see why this one doesn't work. I hate printers anyway! But at least with an Epsom printer I can now use my Epsom scanner to copy with. It wouldn't work with any other make of printer on the copy facility. So I now have a printer-scanner set up with my laptop upstairs and ditto but HP downstairs. I think that's what one would call overkill. When I've finished this project I have some ideas for using photo printed fabric and will try them out. I've been taking photos so that I'm ready.
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This weekend I am going to do some dyeing as my new dyes have arrived. Some yellows that I haven't used before which will be fun. I have bought some plastic so that I can stack pieces. My method of dyeing is very quick and simple and ideally suited to working in a small confined area. I either work on acrylic sheets or in small plastic tubs. Either way there is no hassle. On the sheets I can dye paint if I want and in the tubs, which vary in size, I can mix as well as folding in different ways. When the fabric has cured in the dye I then rinse it out immediately in cold water (a rough rinse) and then stick in the washing machine where it gets a hot, very hot, wash and lots of rinses. Then it hangs to dry or I iron it wet. Even wet being ironed on a white cloth there is no leakage of dye and I haven't had any problems with dye leakage when the fabric has been washed and some of the T-shirts I've dyed get thrown in with the washing in the normal course of affairs. I don't understand why people go through so many stages of drying and then washing and then drying again. Even with my painted fabrics they just get rinsed in cold and then a hot wash. Works for me! But then each to his own. But bearing in mind that people will only spend so much money on hand-dyed fabric it behoves one to keep the time-cost down. So how do you dye your fabric and what process suits you best and why? These are a collaged sheet of some of the fabrics I had for sale last year. Which made me wonder Mary how did your projects work out?
Click to enlarge for greater detail!

Time flew by!

Caroline and the children were with me for a fortnight and the time flew by. They had the best of the weather as when they left it started to rain and has rained ever since. Which is good for the garden but not for going on the beach. We spent a lot of our time on our local beach at Swanpool and I actually went in swimming several times. The water was freezing! But I kept telling myself it was good for me.

We also went to the Helford River to Grebe where the beach isn't very sandy being composed of flat slatey stones which are good for skimming on the water. The children had a great time looking for shells.


We spent a day at Bird Paradise where the children were more impressed by the small train and the gazebo than with the many variety of birds!



They were enthralled though with the penguins and the otters. The otters won the popularity contest hands down as they were so cute.


In fact it was a terrific couple of weeks and we did so much. I love the opportunity to travel around this part of Cornwall and Caroline spent the time saying how much she wished she still lived down here. So many of the places we went to were favourite haunts of her childhood.



Now I have to really get down to doing some work. I have just over a fortnight to get a project finished. More of this later. I have set up my printer with my lap top in the spare room and it is working very well. I have yet to try photo printing on it but I have my fingers crossed and hope that it will cause me no problems. I have ordered some more dyes as I was getting very low on some and out of others. The next thing will be to order another bolt of fabric. I usually buy about 100+ metres at a time. This is just about the amount I can lug about on my own without keeling over. And this weekend I am going to try out a new method with the dyeing so watch this space.

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Caroline made me go on a juice detox while here and I lost over half a stone so in view of that I am now committed to following through. I have an incentive for attaining a sylph like figure as my niece is getting married next May. Gives me plenty of time.

Visitors

There may not be many entries in the diary during the next few days as I have my daughter and grandchildren visiting. This means nothing gets done. My new printer arrived yesterday and I haven't even opened it yet! But I have been to the beach twice and each time I went into the sea for a swim! The water was freezing! But I felt quite invigorated when I came out or was that relieved! We bought the children a small tent to play in in the garden and they love it. It is bright pink! My favourite colour. I won't even be able to do any dyeing as the house looks as if it has been hit by a bomb. But then I don't see them very often so I shall make the most of every minute.

Today is my birthday....

Today is my birthday and it started off very well with lots of delightful cards and presents, including a bottle of blackberry wine! I had a great time in Falmouth and enjoyed lunch out with a friend. Then in the afternoon after Martin had gone to work I dyed some fabric....not a lot, just a couple of metres; enough for a small project. So far so good. I put the fabric in the washing machine which had a small hiccup and had to be restarted. Five minutes later it blew up! The plug was completely melted and the fuse blown in the wall socket. So no kettle, no microwave, and no juicer. The washing machine was the only appliance on at the time- I am very careful not to overload the system. My dyed fabric was sitting in a pool of water locked into the machine and I was anxious that the dyes were all intermingling. Then the door lock clicked so I knew I could open it. It is a front loader so obviously the water was going to go somewhere when I opened the door. To cut a long story short I held a bowl under it and managed to escape a full flood and hauled the wet fabric out. I then took this down to my mother's and she washed it out for me. The joys of living near to her! So I now have a useless washing machine half full of dirty dye water and it will remain like that until Martin can look at it tomorrow. And tomorrow my daughter Caroline arrives with the two grand kids! Such good timing! I have a repair man coming on.......Wednesday! I just hope this isn't indicative of my next year! They do say cry on your birthday, cry all year! So I haven't been crying...just cursing, drinking blackberry wine and eating chocolates! At least I can now view it all quite dispassionately if a little hazily! And the fabric is ace! But then I haven't got my glasses on! :-)

Looking at the past!

I have had a day of tidying and sorting. A good game played slowly! So I thought I'd take a leaf out of Shirley's book (Dyeing to Design) and show some of my old and unfinished work.

Top left is a piece of white poplin on which I drew flowers using water colour pencils. These I outline with stipple quilting which made the flowers stand up. I have still to think of a way to use it. Top middle is a piece of hand-dyed cotton with folded roses sewn onto it. This was a sampler done for a class on 3-D flowers. Eventually I might turn this into a cushion. On the end at the top is a small piece of silk painted habutai which I am embroidering with silk ribbon. Eventually I might get it finished! There is hope!

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The middle row is a pastel drawing of African violets and then next to it a free standing applique and machine lace depiction of the drawing. And on the end an abstract piece of mixed media work inspired by the original drawing. Some time I want to work on these and work them into a larger project.

The last row is a lesson in organisation. These are all fabrics that I have dyed at some time. They all sold very quickly. What is the problem? I didn't make any notes as to how I achieved the effects! I can guess but that isn't good enough. This has been a salutary lesson and in future when I'm doing something different I shall make sure that it gets entered into my notebook. The middle one I'm sure is a piece that was discharged and then overdyed. The first one in the row is totally beyond me which is a pity as I'd like to do it again. The last one I think I dye painted on folded fabric. The only way to find out is to try and re-produce them. I deserve a smack!

The Coldest May....

Looking back over this month it has been so cold. Such a change from April which was, at times, blisteringly hot! I have been really quite lazy this month probably because the weather was uninspiring, though I have read a lot of books! I am working my way through the Whiteoaks series again and finding the storyline fascinating. It all takes place in Canada. A Canada at the turn of the last century up to the 50's. So different from today and the social mores and life in a big family are intriguing. As a contrast to this I have also been reading the Wycliffe series. This is a set of stories around a policeman set in Cornwall and was made into a television series which I didn't see. The books are quite gripping though and I'm enjoying them immensley.
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I did manage to get the Double Drunkard quilt finished and quilted. I still need to take the tacks out. Tack guns are wonderful for holding the three layers together but then a pain when the tacks have to be removed as it isn't a quick job. With the first quilt Double Drunkard's Eye (see earlier in the month) I did a meandering squiggle for quilting but with this one I did a zig zag squiggle which made the 'eyes' have the look of trilobites....well I thought so!



I have been trying to get rid of even more things to make room. It is now getting difficult as a lot of the stuff I have is now things I really like even if I don't think I'll ever use them again. But I have to make room so that I can put my computer cupboard up which will free up space in the living room. I gave over 300 books to one of the local charity shops. These were mostly fiction books - non fiction books I'd sold either through Amazon or in class. And I still have a houseful of books which runs into four figures. I have been ruthless with fabric though I still have a draw of Liberty lawn that I've been thinking about using for at least seven years! I am full of good intentions but you know what they say about the road to Hell! My daughter is coming down for a fortnight's visit on Sunday but when she goes back I am going to make a resolution to actually make something each week. (This is on top of all the dyeing I'm going to do.) Even if it's only a cushion! And hey, what's wrong with cushions? I'm going to need new cushions anyway!
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We have got into the habit of having dinner and then having dessert later when the dinner has gone down. This is good as there is something very pleasing about enjoying a dessert and possibly coffee or wine when one isn't just about stuffed with food. And I've noticed that I sleep better and have lost the odd pound or two! Of course this might have no bearing on either of those two things but I'll go along with the idea for now! So I'm off to enjoy strawberry sorbet icecream with chocolate sauce! Yummy!

Amazing!

I'm always amazed when I'm able to update my website and it actually works! I use Dreamweaver MX and it is a very user friendly package but even so I'm not always sure of what I'm doing and when I get reasonably acceptable results it gives me a warm glow. I've just up-dated the website with some pictures of my students work that they've done over the past year. Unfortunately I didn't think to ask them to bring work in until the last day of term and so I only got the work of a few of the class but its well worth a look! Go here!

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I must now make the effort to update the fabric pages. I've been doing a batch of dyeing today and been well pleased with the results. As well as a batch of mandela type fat quarter's I also did some over-dyeing using black and was well pleased with the results. The original pieces were on the boring side (though I firmly believe that no piece of hand-dyed fabric is unusable!)but now they have life! The top left below is a mandela over-dye using black. The top right is a wrinkled over-dye again using black. The two at the bottom were over-dyed using black, royal and raspberry. The original colours in the bottom two were nearer to mud than anything else! I have to say I do like bright and strong colours! I'm not a pastel person though saying that some of the pieces I've dyed tonight have been on the pastel side because I was experimenting with putting lots of water into the pots after I'd put the dye in rather than mixing into the dye solution first. It worked well and there were some lovely soft colours which will work for an order I have.

Another year older....

Today was Martin's birthday. As he is two years younger than me he is still a spring chicken! I had to work this afternoon but this evening we decided to buy a pizza and go and eat it on Pendennis Point which overlooks the bay. There are views from the Manacles (below) to St Anthony's lighthouse. The manacles are of note because of the basking sharks that can be seen there.

Pendennis is a castle that was built in the reign of Henry VIII to protect the mouth of the river from primarily the Spanish. On the opposite side of the estuary he built a castle at St Mawes. The small turreted building in the bottom of the picture is the block house at the water's edge. This is just a basic watch tower. St Mawes castle is the smaller of the two and more delicate if one can use a word like that about a castle. Pendennis is more basic and down to earth. It would have housed the garrison and the commander of the garrison. Accommodation was very sparton though the commander's rooms were lined with wood panelling and had more amenities than were available for the men. Now they are both tourist attractions.

This is the birthday boy himself inside the block tower. It is still possible to climb to the top of it but it is not for the feint hearted and so I didn't attempt it.

It was getting late in the evening and the fishing boats were coming back into harbour, with a trailing of seagulls. The buoy in the centre of the estuary is called Black Rock Buoy, and the rocks can be seen at low tide.

This is the view as we drove home along the sea front. Swanpool is the furthest inlet.

The setting sun going down in the west. The sea was calm and very inviting for a swim but only for the brave or fool hardy as it is near to freezing! Or so it seems!

So a pleasant evening out. I spent the morning cutting out fabric for printing photos on. The freezer paper is all attached and tomorrow morning I will actually do the printing. Fingers crossed!