I'm still alive!

I thought that while I've got computer access I'd update this but sitting down to write it, it dawned on me that actually there has been no events of interest in my life and no progress on my various quilting projects. How sad is that? Hubby travelled to South Africa, Paris and Berlin. I bought some nice Sharpie permanent markers. I think I need more excitement in my life!!!

I'm not normally up this scary early but Y had a school trip to London and had to be at the coach for 6.15. He's going to visit the Houses of Parliament and then the National Gallery. Not something I'd fancy doing with a large group of 10/11 year olds. In previous years they've visited the British Museum or the Science Museum which I would think is rather more fun for kids than the Gallery. I hope he's not too disappointed.

I've taken up Ferret on her 8 random facts meme so I'll be having a bit of a think and post up later.

My computer is dead

My poor laptop died a horrible death and doesn't look like it will be salvageable.

I'm using my husband's work machine while he's here today but after that it's back being 'puterless until either mine gets fixed or we can save enough money for a new one, which won't be happening any time soon given the state of our finances.

I'll pop on as often as I can when he's home.

Gardening

While the weather lasts there will be no blogging because there will be no sewing. I'll be out hacking back the jungle and attempting to reclaim some outdoor space. Somewhere up there is a fire-pit and a nice round picnic table which I need to find. Then I can sit and drink my wine and watch all the stuff I've cut down burning merrily.

I know that come the summer I'll be glad I did it but right now my back aches and my shoulders are agony.

I did get a chance to escape at the weekend and we went down to Wells and on the way checked out Midsomer Quilting. Nice little shop and very friendly people. It was a gorgeous day and a beautiful drive too. Highly recommended if anyone's in the area. All I bought was some rotory cutter blades, I'm very proud of my restraint.

Birthday trip

I finally finished unpicking all the triangles and we escaped to London for a couple of days.

My husband bought us tickets to Avenue Q for my birthday and we made it a proper trip, left the kids with the MIL and got to be grown-ups for a while.

Had a good old wander round the National Gallery, having been inspired by Ferret's visits. Some of the older paintings were wonderful but I was surprised to find myself distinctly underwhelmed by the exhibition of more modern masters, Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir etc. They seemed rather dull and lifeless which I wasn't expecting.

Had a nice meal in China Town and headed for the show. We had wonderful seats , slap bang in the middle and about 7 rows back which gave us a perfect view. We had a great time and giggled ourselves stupid.

The next day we visited the British Museum, somewhere I hadn't been for years and then headed home in time to collect the kids from school.

Tomorrow we're off to Crufts so no sewing for a while.

Unpicking

Having sewn all my triangles together I realised I had sewn them the wrong way and am now ripping them all apart again. 14 triangles x 80 = 1120!!!! Bugger. :(

Triangles

I have been cutting triangles, lots and lots and lots of triangles. I hadn't really anticipated just how many of the damn things this pattern took and I am so bored with them. They took forever to cut and are now taking forever to piece.

Photos later!!!

Had a nice time mooching and stroking fabric and came away with a nice selection of greens. The photo really doesn't show the colours very well, they're a bit washed out and seem to contrast more than they do in real life.




We've finally settled on a pattern. I was drawn towards Storm at Sea as I've always had a hankering to make one, there were four votes for Irish Chain and two votes for Saw Tooth Stars which I hadn't considered and immediately wanted to make. The surprise winner however is a pattern that is called London Square on Quilter's Cache. I suggested it and got a very enthusiastic response, so that's what we're going with.

This is an example from the turn of the century though happily she wants hers to be nice and scrappy.


I'm now off to run the OH to the airport. He's off to Marakesh for a week. Lucky bugger... I've got the kids on half term.

Isn't life full of coincidences. I've just been looking at Ferret's Blog and she's posted up pictures of her charity quilt which are scrappy bow ties. To be truthful I like her quilt better than mine, I wish I'd thought of alternating rows of large and small ones. It gives it a lot more depth.

In other news, I have a commission. A friend of the MIL has requested a green and white quilt in a traditional pattern to go on her Victorian iron framed bed in the spare room. She'll pay for the fabric and I get to play. I'm about to head for Hanson's Fabrics at Sturminster Newton to look at material and see if I get inspired. See you when I get back.

In the meantime if anyone has a favourite pattern that would look great in green and white on an antique bed in a very old farmhouse, let me know.

Life seems to have gotten in the way of most of my internet stuff lately. I've hardly had time to keep up to date with everyone else, let alone write about what I've been up to.

The highlight of the past couple of weeks was that I was taken out for Valentines Day. It came as a bit of a surprise as we don't usually bother but MIL volunteered her services as sitter and as she's away for 99% of the time we didn't want to miss our chance and took her up on it. We went to the cinema to see Hot Fuzz and then stuffed ourselves with indian food. He drove so I had some beers which was nice and a good time was had by all.

The distinctly low point was that boiler died a week ago and proved tricky to fix so we've not had any heating or hot water until last night. Brrrrr! Hopefully it will be OK for a while, the engineer did say that if anything else went wrong with it we'd be better off getting a new one though which is not good news.

The only room with other heating is the living room so we've spent a lot of time there and so I've been hand quilting mainly. I did manage to put together the batik sqares into a border for the purple strippy quilt and I've just finished adding them. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. It looks to me as though the border and quilt were planned to co-ordinate when in fact the fabrics for the quilt were just what was in my scrap bag and the batik squares I'd not seen before I was gifted them.




The Gracie has disappeared under a pile of boxes, fabric and 'stuff' so I need to unearth it and get on with quilting these cuties.

Birthday boy

It's E's 13th birthday today. There should be wonderful pictures of the cake my Mum made for him. It was a race track complete with candle cars and a gold trophy candle. She spent 2 days on it and did a marvelous job. It is, unfortunately, inside the tummy's of 3 very smug looking dogs who can apparently jump 6 feet vertically when it's made worth their while. Buggrem, buggrit. I'm right down the list of top mothers right now, Granny is however high on the top grannys list for bringing back chocolate eclairs from town as consolation.

Don't they look guilty?

I've got the flu

I've got flu. Not just a nasty cold but proper, full on influenza. I nursed the boys through it and then got it myself. 2 days with a temperature of 102, shakes, aches, blinding headache and delirious dreams and now a wracking cough that doesn't stop until I'm nearly sick and I'm feeling like I've been run over by a truck. The boys are much the same but about 3 days ahead of me.
It's poor E's 13th birthday tomorrow and it should have been a big celebration with all the family, instead we're going to be sitting at home drinking lemsip and feeling sorry for ourselves.
Blegh, I need a hug.
Obviously I've been totally unproductive but I did finally get photos of Ally's 40th birthday quilt, only 2 years late, so I'll share them instead. This was the one I found the hardest to give away. It is a quillow with flannel backing so it's really cuddly and the colours fitted in my bedroom so well.

I was tagged

Ferret tagged me to come up with 5 facts about myself that wasn't known. I was horrified to discover that I couldn't think of anything that was interesting but after she sent me a useful list of topics to think about and chatting to a friend about it I've come up with the following:-

1. I'm 4'11 1/2" but I always tell people I'm 5' because it sounds taller.

2. I love women's body-building and 2 years ago was starting to train seriously for a competition when I developed some major rotator-cuff problems and then wrecked my knee really badly. Since then the only exercise I've had has been walking the dogs and I've put on nearly 4 stone. (The shame!!!!)

3. Despite not even being a Christian I'm going to be sending my son to a Roman Catholic Secondary School because it has the best reputation locally for kids with special educational needs. Could be interesting.

4. We live in a dilapidated late Victorian detached house which is constantly in a state of complete chaos due to all of us being almost pathologically untidy. By the sound of it we also have the twin of Ferret's book collection. When the book cases in the downstairs hallway had to be moved because of shredding puppies we boxed up those and put them in the attic so now that is full of books too. Pretty much every room has book-cases and we have way more books than the existing shelves can cope with and there are now piles of books too. I need the Life Laundry or whatever that show was called to come and sort us out.

5. I'm going to die alone with about 100 cats according to an Internet survey that links over use of smileys and terms such a ROFL to this eventual demise. Even more tragic was that my first thought was 'If I've got 100 cats I'm not exactly alone.' ;)

6. I'm possibly the most boring person in the history of the world... and I can't count either.

I'm not sure who to tag next, everyone seems to have done this one. I'll have a read through all the blogs I follow and see if I can find someone who's not 'been done'.

Postcard from Kate

I've just realised that I haven't posted any pictures of the gorgeous postcard that Kate sent to me. It's got pride of place on the wall behind my computer and it looks great. Thanks Kate!

I also got tagged by Ferret to post 5 things about myself that I hadn't mentioned in my blog. I hadn't realised before what a boring life I lead. If I can come up with 5 things I'll post them up later.

Green Men

I've been so lazy at keeping up with my blog lately. I keep meaning to post something but having read everyone else's I'm out of time.






I finished Ally's Green Man and it was duly delivered. The eyes seem to stand out a lot more in the pictures than in real life, I'm not entirely sure why. They also look very white when in fact they are pale green. Any way she seems extremely happy with him thank goodness.

Pay it Forward Meme

Everyone seems to be doing these at the moment so I took Ferret up on hers. The idea is that you get a piece of their artwork in return for offering up 5 pieces of your own to others and they then offer 5 pieces of their own. Sounds like fun so if any one would like to own something wonderful made by me then leave a comment and it's yours. I'm not exactly sure what it would be yet, possibly a Green Man wall hanging, as I'm making one for a friend at the moment and it's fun cutting out the leaves. It'd be about 12" square (ish).

Go on, you know you want one.

Surely I should have more time now?

With the boys back at school and my husband off to Amsterdam I surely should have time to sit down and do some sewing. Instead I find myself cooking and doing a bit of tidying and watching bad TV. I need the kind of focus that Ferret http://ferfab.blogspot.com/ has. I did however remember to take some photos of Y's string quilt while the camera was playing nice. He's been wrapping it around him while sitting playing on the Playstation. I do love to see them being used like that.

And some more pictures

Since Xmas eve I haven't done anything at all but Ally had a New Year clear out and gifted me with all the fabric and patterns that she no longer wanted. The was a ton of gorgeous stuff and so I'm honour bound to make something lovely now.

One of the things were these beautiful batik squares




which I thought would make a great border for this string quilt which she has been coveting since I started making it.



I need to find some more the the purple that I used for the sashing. I was convinced that I had another large piece for the first border but having sorted through absolutely everything I don't and it really calls for it. Oh no! I feel a shopping trip coming on.

Finally some pictures

I have been so bad about keeping up with this blog. I love reading everyone elses but mine just seems so boring in comparison.

We would usually celebrate Yule in style but it was only me and himself at home and we both had horrible colds so it passed practically unnoticed. We did open a bottle but after half a glass we called it quits and went to bed.

Xmas was rather better and the boys had a wonderful day. Boxing Day we visited my Mum and Dad for their Wedding Anniversary and delivered their quilts. It was only after they had opened the parcels did we realise that we'd left the camera at home. Oops!!! My Dad has a 'real' camera and took pictures but I have to wait for him to get them developed. Next time we visit I'll try and remember to take some more.

The snakes and ladders quilt seemed to be a hit. I haven't seen them yet but my brother sounded thrilled on the phone. I must admit I was pleased with the way it turned out.

Here's the whole thing. Please excuse the total chaos in the front room. I'm usually very untidy but this was half way through moving things to get the tree and decorations up and was even worse than normal.



The eyes were sparkly plastic 'crystals'. Note my really horrible wobbly quilting. Hopefully my nephew and neice won't contact the Quilting Police.



I liked the material on the back. My friend Donna sent it to me in the hope that I could use it. Hey babe... I did!!!!!



I made square counters, round ones didn't work too well so I tried again. The dice came from the auto shop. :D