A Big Commitment To The Future

Like many of us creative types, this Lockdown Thing has been hard - in theory, lots of time to create, in practice (and particularly for me, living on my own) a lot of time spent doing essential scut-work and no energy left at the end of the day. And the sewing machine parts have been flying out of the door into the Post Office, for which I am suitably grateful...

So, my Commitment...
Two big boxes of smaller boxes.  The surgeon found rather more of a mess than we had hoped (and why wasn't I given better advice beforehand?) Eh? Would it have been so hard to say "limit this sort of bending, don't twist"  at some point before the surgery? Now I'm much more limited forever, it would have been good to get in some practice.. And how about the Booklet about Back Surgery before, instead of after, rather than 3 copies of the "How to avoid blood clots" which I got?  Or it is, perhaps that too many people, faced with 6-12 weeks of recovery, just run away screaming?

Anyway, I have to re-sort all my fabrics, cut the dross, fold, pick, pack some for sale (next year!, that seems like a long way off) and destash generally.  And, more smaller lighter boxes, more shelves, fewer heavy loads.. Nothing over 2 kilos above my head...

These arrived yesterday, 20 medium and 30 smaller boxes.. HB has put the first couple  of full ones needing sorted on to the big table, and I'm going up to start. I'm going to set a timer, maximum of1/2 hour at a time, and see how it goes...
And, I will get to revisit my Stash..

Onwards and Upwards

End of the Week of Colours, Conclusion, and Stars

Only one image today - this experiment with interlocking stars.  I didn't invent this, and I did it very slowly while thinking about my Week Of Colours.  And my conclusions?  The week was pretty hard compared with last year's Week Of Trees (see label/link at the bottom of this post to find the entries for that) - it was hard to put stuff down because it wasn't today's colour, and although I have got lots done, I have not finished enough to make a display, which I would have liked to do.  There is a big pile by my chair waiting for hand-finishing on the bindings, and a further huge pile layered and ready to quilt.  And a huge mess in the workshop.  I spent a while today sorting out the Blue Box which had exploded on Saturday and would not go back on the shelf.  So I sorted out all the stuff I no longer want from it and I'm cutting it up to make charm packs and the like.  I think I should do more of this, as the stash has got silly.  I was amazed just how many unlikeable fabrice were in the box, and how glad I was to be able to get the lid back on.
So, tomorrow I have to teach and rehang the shop, sort out the rent, and wash up..
And think about the next "Week Of..."

Thanks for reading

Oh, and the stars come from Here

Yellow is Difficult..

Here's the Yellow Box.. As you can see it's not very yellow.  It's quite hard to find good yellow fabrics and monochrome is not always succesful in this part of the spectrum.. So I started the day with a couple of cushions that I started last week, in seriously Provencal blue-and-yellow

So far, so good.  I packed some patterns that I made yesterday, with yellow covers, as it happens

One of my best sellers.  Note the strapping-tape packed with the pattern.. Small things like this make a big difference - this stuff is easy to find but impossible to describe.. Given a sample everyone goes "Oh, that stuff!.."

Then today's lunch had Eggs (and salmon, but that's the Wrong Colour, so Not Shown)

I made this tree from a Screen-printed piece and this delightful stripey yellow-and-white that has been in the box for years.  As an aside, I notice that some of my fabrics have been with me for a long time.  It's an interesting game, working out the quilts that have a Long Stash Accumulation Period, and those which have obviously been "bought for" all in one go.  Many of my younger students have no working stash, so they buy each project as a complete entity, make it, and have little in the way of leftovers.  I have been buying fabrics for almost 50 years, and I have a huge amount.  This makes weeks like this one possible without too much forward planning, as I can just get the boxes out.  I haven't used anything that wasn't in the workshop this week. 

Anyway, I have taken a whole series of process photographs for this and plan to put up a proper How To in a couple of days on my website.. Watch this space..

Then I worked on this piece for most of the afternoon. I don't usually do Work In Progress photos, because I find them less than useful, but this one was a useful lesson in poverty of contrast.  At the stage above, I hung it up, took one look, and dived back into the box for some Darks, as it was Boooring..

Much better... Detail below, showing the last tree, which is translucent hand-dyed gridded fabric.  I haven't decided whether to trim out the ground fabric under this tree yet.. The effect of the underneath fabrics is quite nice, but the overall effect may be better without..

Tomorrow is Green and should be easier all round