Scary day

Well I've done it now, the gallery is booked. I will be showing some of my work at the Dissenters Gallery from 7th March 2008 to 7th April 2008. It seems a lot more scary now I have confirmed it. I have plans for all the work that will be on display, I just have to decide the title. I am excited too, but sooo nervous. I guess my next step is to take some time to try and work out the bulk of what has to be done before the opening. I've a feeling it will be a long list.

I can finally talk freely about a project I completed back in February. Unfortunately I don't seem to have a picture of it finished but here is 'By the Hearth' in progress. It is a wall hanging of a life sized fireplace. Today I got my copy of Popular Patchwork, who are printing it as a three part project, and I love the photograph they have taken of it. I will have to ask someone to pat the model for me.

It could be used just as a decorative piece, or by adding Velcro to the back of all the decorative items it works as an advent calendar too. The stockings button on and would be great to hold a few small presents. The fireplace and it's quilting is very closely based on the fireplace in my sewing room. The cat would have to be Heimdal who is my ginger tom and love the fire.

I also have designs for decorations to hang on your real fireplace (if you are lucky enough to have one) which I will be teaching at Patchwork Corner on the 20th October. We will also look at making Christmas stockings and quilted cards.

Review of Trentham Gardens Quilt Show

This months British Patchwork and Quilting has a review of the Trentham Garden show, Quilts in the Garden. I was thrilled to see there is a picture of 'Nudes Triptych' and they got my name right. OK it isn't a huge picture but I still get a kick out of seeing my work in a magazine. The review was nicely written too, I enjoy reading about where my quilts have been.

The best news in the article was the winner of the viewers choice, 'Wreck' by Diana Brockway. It was hung above mine at the NEC last year, and I loved it. I felt it should have won the pictorial category then, so this seems a well earned award. I guess I wasn't the only one who felt it deserved recognition. I would love to know why the judges disagree with us. I am also amused that I was competing with it again.

On the subject of judging, I will be at the Amwell Quilter Exhibition tomorrow to judge there. It's quite scary really, I mean what a responsibility. I will do my best, but I am quite sure people will disagree with my decisions. If you aren't busy tomorrow or Sunday do come along and have a look, I believe there will be in the region of 100 quilts on display. The show is at The Drill Hall, Amwell End, Ware. I don't have a postcode for it, sorry.

Argh

I am doing a lot of new work at the moment, but I can't show you any of it :( I can't even describe some of it. POUT. This is so frustrating. I can tell you I have spent a lot of today working on a Christmas quilt for Makower. It is really fun, and can double up as an advent calendar. Other than that I will have to wait until at least the weekend before showing you it :( It may be longer depending on Popular Patchwork, they want to use it as well and may ask me not to post it before they publish it. The other projects are top secret, so you will just have to believe me that I have been working hard.

I did find that laundrettes are pretty cool. It was a lot easier and more fun than I expected. I didn't have enough coins to start with (I came home and grabbed more) but the other people there helped me out. Everyone was surprisingly friendly. I think it would be a great way to meet new people. A lot of them were fascinated by the fact I was knitting socks. I guess it isn't very common now, and I hope that it might get someone else into crafts. You guys were quite right about the machines being quick. I think the wash only took 30 minutes. If I had managed to get one of the big washers I think I could have got two quilts in one wash, but even using two washers and then drying the quilts completely it cost less than getting a cleaner to do it for me. Also doing it this way I know that they have been washed rather than tumbled with chemicals. I had a bad experience with a cleaner handing me back quilts as dirty as when I dropped it off, so this is a big bonus. It has made me a lot more positive about making some really big quilts. I know I can clean them and it is quite fun. So how big can I go...

Hmm, it is actually the early hours of Tuesday morning, not sure why blogger thinks it is Sunday.

Hi, I am still here

I thought this was going to be a quiet week, how wrong can you be. The bridal hand off went well Monday, and I took a little time off before preparing for my class the next day. Just as I was arriving for the class (only just on time due to bad traffic) I got a phone call. The job I had planned to do Wednesday - Friday had just become urgent and could I please get there today (Tuesday). I refused to cancel the class but said I would head over as soon as I had finished teaching. The job was prop making and ran until Thursday. We didn't quite get as much out as we wanted for the Wednesday, but we finished on time for the Thursday collection. It did involve some late nights to do it, and as you can imaging, after the double shift and then not a lot of sleep I have been too tired to blog.

Today I had a chance to work on the next magazine quilt. I've finished the base layer of the top. Tomorrow I will quilt it and add the details. It is supposed to have removable pieces, but I realised (after buying the velcro) that it might be better to stitch them in place on the quilt that will be going to trade shows. Oh well, I am sure I will use the velcro sometime.

In the midst of all this I did manage to go out for dinner on Thursday at my favourite sushi place. The food was good and it was nice to see them open again after moving. We ate until we were ready to burst and then the chef produced us 'desert'. It was an inside out roll with eel in the center. The outside was wrapped with assorted fish and avocado. It was beautiful. Fortunately I had my camera with me (I had been taking pictures of the snow on the way t work) so I managed to get a picture of it. Apparently it doesn't have a name yet, but I hope it gets one soon. Something that pretty really should have a name. It tasted amazing too, and despite having all claimed to be full we managed to eat it all. It's a great place. It is called Wankara, and is in Oriental City in Collindale..

Under the Rainbow

I've finally come up with a plan for the future of my blog. I wll be moving it to my own server running wordpress. It is going to take a month or so to get moved but in the mean time there will be photos :) I have decided to accept the terms on a temporary basis and hope I can move before they decide to use any of my images. It seems likely given this is a low traffic, specialist blog. All this means, I can show you some photos! Yay!

So here it is. I was asked to come up with a pattern for a bed size quilt, to use a range of fabrics from the Ombre range and spraytime if I needed something more plain. It had to be a quick and fairly easy project. I had three quarters of a meter of each of the Ombre fabrics. I was told I could ask for more, but I like a challenge so I set out to design something that would only use what I had and some spraytime. The black is spraytime so is mottled, I really like it.

The biggest challenge was how to stretch a 44" width of fabric to the width of a bed. As you can see I did manage it, but boy it took some thought and fiddling. Remember I also had to be sure other people would be able to recreate it, and believe they could.

As ever I used a Ricky Timms style machine binding. I don't know what I would do without it for urgent quilts. The one on the frame now will have this type too. The main body of the quilt uses a Dave Hudson pantograph, and the borders are also a panto. I hadn't used either of them before, but I quite like them both. However I am already planning my own designs to do the same job, but the way I want. I am thinking of doing a series of patterns starting with one inspired by the watery pattern here. Rest assured you guys will be the first to hear about it.

I know the pictures aren't great but hopefully they will give you the idea. I was in a hurry to deliver it and couldn't wait for better light. If you want to see some good pictures, I guess the magazine will have them. It will be in the March edition of Popular Patchwork, which I think comes out about the 15th of February.