Busy and Shivering

 This is one of my current projects, a 12 Trees in Black-and-White Oakshott fabrics.. The sashings were a puzzle that I had to headscratch a little to solve.  Layered and Ready To Quilt but I don't quite know how, yet.. I will make a version of the pattern for this.. It's about 50 inches high, and the grey stripes are the back..

And this is Venus Trees, (or possibly another title), layered and part-quilted today.  A lot of slightly odd and a bit random 6-1/2 inch blocks arranged into big nine-patches, overlaid with trees (actually, more trees, as some of the blocks are already treeish) then assembled and (so far) quilted on the block joins, and about half-way through diagonally on all the blocks.. Then there might be circles.. Or something else.. I'm pleased with this one..

It's for Holland in May.. I just hope I can get thawed out before then.. It's utterly, bitterly, freezing here, and I can't get warm.. I have so many clothes on that I'm unwilling to pee, and my hands are hurting..
Roll On Spring!

Almost a Pudding

 and Work In Progress

Well, while I was out..

I left some dyebaths on the table, and pulled the drop cloth up over the trays to keep the public out and the wet in..Here are the trays

I have made rainbows on a variety of fabrics, then laid treated (with soda ash) fabrics on top to absorb another part of the dyes. Then I put these under the edge of the drop cloth

And went off to teach Trees all day in Suffolk.  Nice class, nice Trees, lovely hall.. Nice lunch.. What more can one ask for..
I am really going to enjoy washing these out tomorrow..
More images when done

The drop cloths are 100% cotton sheets, treated with soda ash and dried, then laid on the big table whenever I do anything the least bit messy.  When the white sheet is (almost) no longer visible, I wash out the cloth and use the fabric.  So far I have made one every two years and they are fantastic.  Here's a quilt I made with one piece, screen-printed and stitched on top of the accidental marks

It's about 3 feet wide and is very simply quilted, mostly irregular lines from top to bottom, with a hand-embroidered sun

Time for bed..

Week Of Colours, Frustration

I've been struggling with muscle weakness.  Losing the "pinch grip" in your thumb and forefinger makes making hard, and not being able to ride my bike is driving me crazy.. So I went to see the rheumatologist, and he referred me to the physiotherapist, and I went to see the latter yesterday morning.. Now, you can't park at the surgery, because they are digging up the car park, so I walked, up, back to the library, down to the Post Office, back to the supermarket.  On the way I saw this glorious pink-against-blue, but I must have covered about 3 miles in total.  So the rest of the day was blasted by exhaustion. And I couldn't blog last night as I was too tired to go and find the camera..
Now I have some exercises for my neck, and a possible 13-week wait to be seen again.  Then I went looking for my blood-test results, only to be told that the 146 tests taken last time did not include the relevant one.. So, more needles on Monday. 

Meanwhile, the coffee at Baileys is as good as ever, and the flowers on the table are charming.

So, I did make a couple of small pieces, and I finished quilting yesterday's gree and red tree, did all the machine quilting on the big hedge piece and took it home to hand-stitch, and made a really good attempt at classifying a huge box of odd sewing-machine needles for my Old Sewing Machine Parts website

...and here's today's...

Detail of Burning Bright, a quilt in five movements...

Week of Trees, Day 5

Well, more progress.. many thanks to all of you for your kind and thoughtful comments on this exercise, by the way, I am touched by how many people have said that this has inspired and encouraged them in their work. I am full-time, professional, expect to be productive (or don't eat), but it can be hard some days to get out of the hoover-first-and-create-later handbag..
Anyway, today's efforts - I finished quilting the Orange piece (still without a name) and blocked it for binding and finishing tomorrow.



I pressed the Green Tiger background again and started to put trees on it.

Hmm, not quite, colours too nice together... (There will be a lot more trees on this, including some dark spotty batik ones), so I tried with a Sun. First attempt was too bright. This is dyed cotton organdie, so it will be a bit translucent when added, I may leave the blocks behind it or cut away for clearer colour.


Then I tried a duller orange, which I think is just about right. I didn't make circles - I think that size and placement is much more important when auditioning fabrics. I have several titles gently swirling towards this one..

I attacked the 25 trees which have been sitting in the box since last May. I rearranged them yesterday (see previous post) and today decided to sew them together in approximate fashion, that is, working with the size and shape they wanted to be. Hooray, it works!

My first instinct on this was to try to sew them together as raggedly as they hung on the design wall, as it was delightful. Technical considerations aside, I think the end product would have been unsaleable, so not this time

Now big enough to need photographing on the floor, and I will layer and start to quilt tomorrow, just need to decide how...