I haven't left town just been decorating.....

I'm feeling quite guilty because I've not been blogging as much as I feel I should.  Problem is I don't have a lot to show you and there is only so much 'dear diary stuff' that can be tolerated.   The reason for the quiet time is that we've been decorating.   Well at least we've sat around a lot talking about decorating.   Once Sy moved out, his room was to become my workroom but you know what its like as soon as you have an empty room you start to notice the scratches, scrapes, sun bleaching, marks on the carpet etc and you simply have to do something about it.  But before you get around to doing something the room fills up with junk!!!   We decided to decorate the whole house, start with our bedroom and steadily work our way downstairs and out through the front door.

First thing we did was buy ourselves one of those Dulux Paint Pots.  Our reasoning was that as neither of us can bend as easily as we used to it would be a great help and it is, to a point.   It's wonderful for large areas, not a lot of use in small areas and the paint whilst expensive goes a very long way.   For example we bought a5 litre pack (5 litres is the smallest unit they make to go into the posts) and painted our bedroom walls.  After two coats we'd used all of an inch of paint......  Unless we want to paint the whole house Raspberry what do we do with the other 9 inches of paint left in the pot?   Ours is a small house so one pot of white will do all the ceilings for the next three years.  Get the picture..

Next problem is I can't decided whether to leave my 830 downstairs and take my Horn cabinet upstairs or visa versa.   I also want a new shelving put in to hold my stash.   Think this decorating might go on until 2012.

I have done some work ,though not a lot.   I wanted to do a portrain of my Mum for my March contemporary quilt journal page.  Her birthday month was March so I thought it appropriate month to do one.   I used a photo I'd taken on her 93rd birthday last year and alterned it in photoshop then cut out layers of colour to built up the quilt.  This is it.

Now I have a problem with it - how on earth am I going to quilt it?   I've had it up on my wall staring at it but the answer hasn't arrived yet.   I know I want to quilt the lines in her face to give it more contour but I'm not sure I've picked the right photo to do it.   Everyone who has seen it on my wall recognises it immediately as Mum and want to touch it but so far I haven't had the nerve to put needle and thread into it.  

Like everywhere else in the country our daffodils are late this year but my crocus bloomed with the sun we've had this week.

Their bright little faces smile at me from ny kitchen window box.  I believe Spring may have arrived.

Moving Blues

I think I must have the 'leaving the nest' blues.  Sy has finally flown the nest (not that he hasn't done it before but kept coming back) and this time I believe he's actually going to make a go of it.   Buster has gone with them and has settled into his new home extremely well, having taken over the conservatory as his 'nap room'.  Both Sy and Julie have been off work this week to sort out their new home but both are back to work tomorrow.  Sy will drop Buster off on his way to work and pick him up on his way home so we haven't actually lost him.  

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I haven't done much sewing to show you but I have done some.  Julie asked me if I'd make her a linen basket like ours.   Keith made the frame and I sewed the bag, ours was made out of some old silk dresses Keith's aunt had brought back from Thialand but Sy and Julies is plain old black and white sheeting.  I still think it looks okay though.

 I cut a 6.5" strip of both black and white sheeting and proceeded to cut it up into wavy slices.  I ironed them onto iron-on dressmaking interface then put another strip of black sheeting behind the lot and started sewing the strips down onto it.  I had great fun using the fancy stitches that came with the 830.  I used black thread on white and white thread on the black.   The top band of the linen bag is black and the bottom white both inside and out.   Keith made the frame and it was hung onto it by tabs.  It took longer to make than I had anticipated but the new homers were pleased with it.

I have been doing a bit of hand sewing at night I started with a piece of painted bondaweb I'd been given which had already been ironed onto burgandy furnishing fabric (velvet type).  I started out by layering black net over it and embroidering running stitches following some of the paint lines. Then I left it, thought about it and cut out a purple felt tree.  I've got as far as starting to sew bark patterns in stem stitch and its at the stop and think stage again.   I keep thinking of a title for it, so far its been Purple Haze and The Twilight Zone but its still work in progress so keep an eye on it.

Reticlue in Kendal are having a 'Birthday Challenge' for a cancer charity.  It costs £5to enter and you get either a bag of Texere Yarns (mine are pink as you can see) or a fat quarter of fabric, colour of your choice from which you have to make an article for their exhibition.   My muse hasn't told me yet what I'm going to do with this yarn but I'm almost certain it will involve my embellisher.

I feel the need to contribute to this charity, having survived breast and bowel cancer myself.   I've also heard this week from two close friends that both have had a cancer diagnosis.  One with spinal cancer and the other with pancreatic cancer.  As yet we don't know what the prognosis is but its not looking good.

These are the last cards I will receive from the private swap as three of us have now decided we want to do other things.  Sad but its time to move on and we'll all keep in touch as we've become friends by now.

The cards haven't scanned too well but the black one is from Jennifer and I'll say a little more about Jennifer later.  The White one from Doreen who may carry on swapping with new partners.  Blue is Cindy's and the Pink one Christine's.   Cindy spends a lot of time commuting between here and the States so time is a little short for her.  Christine has made teaching commitments and is going onto bigger and better things.   Jennifer bless her went to Chile for three weeks and had a wonderful holiday thre.  On her return however she found her farm house had had a serious fire caused by a rodent eating through a wire.  Not a good homecoming but I believe she is coping well and wish her all thebest. 

I've made a start on my March CQ Journal Page in so much as I have done the computer design work, bought, washed and ironed the fabrics.  All I need now is the Steam a Seam Lite that I ordered from Rainbow Silks nearly two weeks ago.  They have packed it as they rang me about my order so it must be lost somewhere in the mail.   I'm keeping my fingers crossed it turns up tomorrow.

Off to start Sunday lunch as the family are all coming over to eat.

Continuation of yesterday's posting

Blogger is a bit slow tonight and it has taken ages to get the photos onto my blog but patience won in the end.  These are the Tree atc's from Susan Monk, Liz Counsell and Pat Freeth and the Monochrome atcs from Pat, Marina Warner and Becky Vigor.   Becky tells me that her atc is a Collagraph and you can print from it. 

I'm not really sure what a Collagraph is but it's a very interesting texture.  Maybe one day I'll give printing with it a go.

At long last though I have finished my 'Puzzle' quilt.   The challenge on 3 Creative Studios is a bi-monthly one.  Every two months you are given a word and left to your own devices to interpret the word in a quilt.  As I said January/February word was 'Puzzle' and I spent most of January just thinking about what I wanted to do.  My thoughts ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, from tangrams to tetrus.  I considered those metal Chinese puzzles, mazes even Escher but finally settled on the ubiquitous jigsaw.  So here it is my 70's wallpaper jigsaw quilt (which I've now made into a quilted cushion cover).

I can't remember when I bought the pack of co-ordinating fabrics but they've been hanging about for a while as they always reminded me of 70's wallpaper, particularly the deep pink and brown one.   When we first married we had wallpaper very similar to the jigsaw piece three up from the bottom and three in from the left.  Only our wallpaper was brown and cream which we thought was the height of fashion  Anyone else remember those papers?

One other project I've completed after having it hanging around for at least two years is:

Socks knitted on four needles, I think there may have been five needles at one point but they have been hanging around for so long I think one has been taken by the Borrowers!!

I was going to show you the Markal stick pieces I played with on Monday but I've put them down somewhere and can't find them.  I seem to be having a lot of senior moments these days.  I put it down the weather.

I've had my head down working hard

I was way behind with my Journal Pages for the Contemporary Quilt 2010 Challenge and had to put my head down and go for it.  Although I thought I'd got away without any damage it transpired that I had in fact cracked the large joint in my thumb.  Holding fabric for any length of time was difficult so my sewing has been done in short but intense bursts.   First job was to finish my January JP.  I'd done the background before I fell but after leaving it lying around for a few days decided it looked more like the council allotments, all of similar shape with a greenhouse in the middle.   I used running stitch in a variety of colours to represent the tilled plots and beads for the fruit, flowers and veggies to be found there.   It is ironic in that it was outside the allotments that I fell hurting my hand.  Maybe my muse is getting its own back.

While I was on a role I finished my February JP in record time.   Again I reused bits that I'd done before.  This time the hearts made from hand dyed silk.  I sewed the hearts onto pink felt and machined round a paper template I'd made.  I used the two I'd embroidered and made into a brooch (I removed the pin) for the centre.  For the background I used the endless sewing option on my machine (shown on my training day with Bernina) then fmq'd over the top to knock back the deep thread colour I'd used.    I also used some of the hearts to make Valentine atc's, one of which I swapped with Amanda of ATC Mixed Media group fame.   My Valentine atc's are shown below and Amanda's to me is in the group of four atc's, one Valentine and three patchwork.  My patchwork ones are the green and orange ones.  Again I've reused patchwork bits left over from previous projects.   Did I say that this year I'm trying to use left-overs.  I may not always be able to recycle but I am going to try and do it whenever possible.

Not sure I've got the hang of the new version of Blogger.  I like the fact that you can insert bits where you want without having to load them in reverse order but I'm finding it a bit difficult to reorganise them once on the page.  Ah well, I'll just have to keep practising.

I've also finished my monochromatic atc's and my Puzzle challenge quilt for the 3Creative Studios but I haven't photographed it yet.  I'll post them tomorrow along with the wonderful bunch of atc's I've received in the post this morning.   I'll also try and take some photos of the monoprinting I did with Markal sticks when the Dippies (Serendipity) met on Monday.

Good news is that Sy and Julie have got a place of their own and will be moving in on the 26th.  In the meantime I've been charged with making them a laundry basket and cushion covers.  Better get started.

Managed to get some sewing done

Yesterday my hand was less painful and I could again hold the fabric to embroider.  I wanted to make some hearts to go on a valentine card for Keith this is the result.

I sewed them on silk that I had dyed some time back and forgotten about.  I put felt underneath then just let my needle to the wandering.  I'm not sure whether I'll put it on a valentine card, I might just make it into a brooch as I like them.

Lorna sent her last card  as a member of the private group based on the Doodles theme.  She has decided to drop in order to concentrate of the projects she is doing this year.   Lorna has again created a background of fibres covered in a sheer  which she then randomly quilted and 'doodled' hand and machine embroidery in the spaces.

Yesterday we crossed the North York Moors again to look at wood lathes.  This time Keith actually bought one and all the way back he kept saying that he wanted to get home and play but I was mean to him and kept making him stop so I could take photos.

I took this one while they were loading the lathe into the car I just love the colours of the wood.

We stopped at Thornton-le-Dale for lunch  and I took these photos of a cottage near the beck.   I love thatched cottages but I'm think the harsh winter has taken its toll on this one.  Up close it looks in need of a bit of tlc as the thatch had a green moss tinge to it and is looking a bit weatherbeaten.

The moors are really damp and brown looking at the moment and the odd spot of snow is still hanging around.   Another photo stop, this time at the Hole of Hocum, supposedly made when a giant picked up a lump of earth to throw at another giant, Finn I believe of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland fame but it was probably something much more mundane.  It's about 7.5 miles all the way round it and quite a hard climb down and back up again.  I know we've done it a couple of times but not yesterday.  The photo isn't very good it doesn't do the 'hole' justice.

Keith and I are feeling our age tonight, we got up at 2:00am to take Sy and Julie to the airport, they are off to Rome for a few days.   Naturally we didn't go to sleep for fear of sleeping in nor could we get back to sleep when we got home as by that time we were wide awake.   Oh for the time when we could stay up dancing all night and still get up feeling fresh for work the next day.   Today we could hardly drum up the energy to take the dog out.

Metal Fences Hurt!!

I decided to take a break from quilting the front of this cushion cover made from my scrap bag.

Buster needed a walk and I needed a break as my neck and shoulders were aching.  I've not done so much quilting for a while.  I'd been testing out some of the patterns on Leah Day's site that I've blogged about before.

Buster was very well behaved but my feet weren't so co-operative.  I slipped on a patch of wet mud and slammed my hand against a metal fence.

Nothing was broken but my hand was painful and very swollen for a few days, now its just colourful but I can put a little pressure on my thumb now without too much difficulty.   The incident though also brought on my asthma and is the reason for my non-blogging over the past few days.  

I am almost back to normal now and will be sewing again later tonight.  

We're off to Snaiton tomorrow (just outside of Scarborough) to look at wood lathes.  I love the ride over the moors and hope to get a couple of photos on the way.   We were there on Monday but it was a damp drizzly day when everything looked wet brown and dull.

Since Bogods (Bernina UK) replaced my new 830 sewing machine just before Christmas everything seems fine but I thought I'd go on the proffered two day training course.  So I'm off next week to London and have booked myself into a hotel near the Barbican.   I'm looking forward to a couple of days just for me.

Talking of courses

Keith signed up for a two day workshop on woodturning, something he's been wanting to try for a long time. Now that he has his big shed and time he thought it was time give it a go. The workshop was due to start shortly after we arrived back from Austria but snow put paid to that. Finally on Thursday the big day arrived. Here are a couple of photos his tutor took while Keith was engrossed in practising what he'd been taught. He rang me a lunchtime to say he'd enjoyed himself but so far the only thing he'd made was a large pile of wood chippings. Good job the tutor has a woodburner in the workshop.

At the end of the day he was the proud owner of two pieces of wood with different curves and grooves and a candlestick. Tomorrow (Sunday) is the second day of the course and he's planning to make a pen and a bowl. He's really enjoying himself and I get some time to play too.

I keep looking at the big box of scraps I have and am determined to do something with them, what I haven't decided but tomorrow while Keith is at his woodturning course would be a good day for me to make a mess too.

We thought we'd go out for the day today and take photos for our homework but its raining hard with some snow in the rain. Not sure you are supposed to take cameras out in the rain. Buster came with us but solidly refused to get out preferring to stay in the warmth of the car. Not a stupid dog after all.

I've not been entirely idle

I thought I'd start the year with a new cushion cover and having got Carol Taylor's "Art Quilt Design" dvd for Christmas it seemed a good idea to have a go at Carol's technique. She creates the background cloth by bonding fabrics (different weights of fabric) onto a calico/muslin ground. That's okay I thought, I have lots of bits of sheers, velvets, silks, furnishing fabrics etc I'll have a go. Nope... I had lots of fabrics but not enough of anything to create a piece big enough for the cushion I had in mind. What I did find lurking though was a pack of dupion silks in various shades. Carol cuts out the squares and rectangles and throws them effortlessly into a homogenous whole - me, well it looked like the dogs dinner. In the end I did end up with something fairly useful. Next step is to couch yarn round the shapes the couch more yarn on top of the whole thing in circles. Time to try out my new number 43 foot for the Bernina. It worked a treat on the outlining but circles I found more difficult. This is a bit of the larger 26" square I made. By the time I'd got this far (it takes far more time than you realise) I'd had second thoughts about the circles. In fact about the whole cushion thing. What was I doing even contemplating putting couched yarn on something that would get pawed by the dog and thrown on the floor by the men of the house. I must be nuts. Now what was I going to do with it?

Not a problem, I turned some of into my January 'Doodle' theme postcards. I call them "Not Quite Crazy Doodles"

Don't know about you but when I doodle on paper I have a tendancy to create shapes, squares, circles, triangles etc and fill them and their edges with pattern. I rarely doodle faces or houses mine tend to be floral or geometric patterns. I really enjoyed doodling with threads to create these cards. So much so that I shall make my January Journal Page for the Contemporary Quilt 2010 challenge this way and use up a bit more of my 'cushion cover'.

My postman brought me cards with the same 'doodle' theme from Doreen, Jennifer, Chris and Cindy.

These are Cindy and Jennifers cards, they have created zendoodles.

Whilst Jennifer and Doreen have doodled with machine embroidery.

Last month's theme was 'Poem" and I was unable to show Lorna's card as it arriving after I'dleft for Austria. The Owl is a wonderful bright pink and her background is of threads under a layer of sheer then quilted. It looks much nicer in the flesh.

I'm sure many of you will have made resolutions but this year I've not done so. I only last a few weeks anyway before I break them. What I have done though is challenge myself to get to know some of the software I have on my pc better. I've had Electric Quilt for quite some time and upgraded last year to version 6 but have done very little with it. To this end I've enrolled on two courses with the Quilt University. My second challenge is to get to grips with Photoshop. I'm not too bad with Paintshop Pro and its a good jumping off point for Photoshop. However I'm slower with it and instead of working my way through the difficulties I go back to Paintshop. Last, but not least, Keith and I have enrolled in a digital photography course at the local Art Centre. We have to do our homework before Monday night - take 20 to 30 photos changing the f (focal length), make a note of the changes then take them in to show the tutor. So far I've taken 3. Tomorrow we're going out for the day to do our homework.

Over on Julie's blog she's having a give away for her 600th post. I love the work she is doing at the moment and one of her quilts has been used in the advertisement for the Northern Needlework show later this yhear. Head over to her blog and have a look.

New Year in the Alps

We set off for Austria on the 29th in full sun and thick snow expecting to find Austria looking similar. Wrong it was very green although it was sunny. There was snow on the mountain peaks but everywhere else was green although the mist rising from the valley below obscured a lot of the mountains.

On New Years Eve just as the festivities began, it started to snow. We all went outside to watch it come down, as though we'd not seen snow for a decade. At the stroke of midnight the Austrians in the valley set of fireworks and the sound reverberated and echoed round the valley. New Years Day we awoke to a white world and our drivers were a bit concerned that our coach would need snow shoes to take us down the mountainside to Salzburg. However the roads had been cleared and we managed to get to Salzburg without trouble.

In the Mozart Plaza there was a small ice rink where the children were really enjoying themselves. I would have loved to have had a go with the penquin but think I might have needed several to keep me upright.

Just round the corner from the Mozart Plaza you can see the HohenSalzburg Fortress standing on top of the hillside overlooking the town. Its the largest fortress in Europe and houses a small town inside its walls.
It is quite a climb to the top of the Fortress ramparts and by the time I got there my poor old lungs were protesting loudly. But the view over Salzburg was spectacular.
Back in the town we had hot chocolate and very rich cream cakes in one of the many small cafes in the lanes leading off the main square. Under one of the arches in the square were a quartet of blind musicians. I did take a small video so you could hear them but when I played it back I have a small child wandering backwards and forwards in front of the camera, very annoying so maybe I'll do better next time. (the man standing is hiding the 4th player)
We spent half a day in Mayrhofen in the Ziller valley and thought we'd take a ride in a gondola to the top of the ski run. We weren't sure where the cable car started from but several skiiers seemed to be going in the same direction so we thought we'd follow them. Instead of getting to the cable car we found oursellves in back street where we realised too late that they were taking their skis back. to the rental shop!! By the time we did find the lift it was too late to make the trip.

We've not been to Innsbruck before so we were looking forward to the visit but it was freezing cold and snowy a bit uncomfortable to be outside for long. We couldn't go to the Olympic Ski Jump either (although it dominated the town) because a competition was being held and all the roads had been closed to traffic. Incidentally when you stand at the top of the ski jump ready for the off directly below you is a cemetry!!
Because it was so cold we spent a lot of time indoors. This ceiling on the Dom is actually flat but is so skillfully painted that it gives the impression of being domed. I haven't done the colours justice they were quite vibrant even if there was alot of brown.In the old quarter of Innsbruck there are several 13th and 15th century houses that had survived the WWII bombing. This one was once the main the residence of Maximillian and the panelling shows him with both his wives (not married to them at the same time just shown at the same time). And with his councellors.


This house on the corner is known locally as the "Wedding Cake" house and you can see why, especially with the pink and white decorations. We spent quite a lot in Swarovski's 15th Century shop where I drooled over the crystal and marvelled at the prices.

They had a small exhibition in the basement this is the Swarovski "Wedding Cake" It was a
bit over the top for my liking and as the basement was quite dark rather difficult to photograph but I think you get a feel of what it was like.

Our journey home started off well with sun on the mountains making them sparkle, very pretty. However by the time we got down out of the mountains we hit blizzards, road works and traffic jams. All in all it took over 15 hours to get to Leige where we stopped overnight. When we got back to the UK we had more snow than Austria!!

I have done some sewing since I got back which I haven't yet photographed so I'll keep them until next blog.

Happy Christmas snowmates

This Christmas has been memorable because of the amount of snow we've had. It is beginning to go now but I thought we weren't going to get to Walworth Castle for our Christmas lunch but we did. We went out on Christmas eve for a meal with friends and I thought they would need to roll me home I was so full. Christmas day meal though was with the family and we thoroughly enjoyed that too. I must have put on pounds - good job the sales are on so I can go and buy some trousers that fit round the waist!! Christ and Cindy sent me these two cards based on the poem theme, not quite a poem but close enough and very seasonal.

I hope santa was kind to everyone and you got lots of lovely gifts. I must have been very good this year I not only got a watch, pandora bracelet and a new ipod but lots of lovely books and a couple of games for my DS so lots to keep me amused in the days to come.

I had every intension of give the house a good clean but we seem to have had so many people popping in and out over the last few days I decided it wasn't worth the trouble. I'd much rather have the company.

Keith and I both missed our Mum's this year but we wished them a happy Christmas at midnight on Christmas Eve,

Three (well more like two and a half) sleeps before we leave for Austria. Still not sure what I'm taking but I always have this problem and in the end I just throw in whatever I can get it. It always works out that I've taken far too much.

Yesterday was the last of the Advent Swaps, not had time to take photos of the last two the light has been so bad and its very difficult to scan an empty tin.

It struck me tonight that I should have done some snow dyeing so tomorrow if there is enough clean snow left I might just give it a go, if I can remember how.