Phew! March 20, 2012
Posted by George in Quilting and Patchwork.4 comments
I have been head down in absolute concentration for what seems like a lifetime on an experimental quilt that is now finished give or take a few twiddles! I am not wholly satisfied, but I am allowing myself credit for trying. She is hand pieced and machine quilted in the main, with the addition of some not very successful foiling, some quite successful painting and embossing and a bit of glitter which in my book can never go wrong!
I must give Gil Elvgren all credit for the inspiration for the female figure and everything else I will leave to your interpretation. I may at some date in the future post about the thinking behind the details but not before I have spent a LOT of time in the garden! Oh – and done some housework!
AWOL February 21, 2012
Posted by George in Uncategorized.2 comments
Long gap between posts!
Christmas was dreadful and precipitated big changes with my dementia-suffering mother. Now she has carers three times a day and seems much calmer. So I have a big project on the go – sewing not blogging! Here is a sneak preview!
Also managed a fireside knit - lovely Posh yarn
A Gail aka Nightsong shawl
And been on a one-day workshop with the enchanting Ferret
Round Robin Quilt October 7, 2011
Posted by George in Quilting and Patchwork.5 comments
I joined my excellent and friendly local quilt group – Welsh Heritage Quilters of Llanidloes – for two reasons: to meet like minded folk, and for the annual challenges. This is my first ever round robin quilt. The rules were that the six members of each group made each other 12 square inches of block and no two members could do the same dimensions. The initiator, who kicked off with a 12″ square, could make as many or as few specifications as they wished. I asked that everyone use Batik fabric and I supplied enough, but they could add if they wished. The initiator then made up a finished quilt adding as much or as little as they wished.
Here are the base ingredients: (I made the woven ribbon block)
I added lots more of the log cabin variation 6″ squares and some Kona solid sashing, FMQ-ed the centre, then added two borders the last of which was an homage to Katherine Guerrier’s stars.
I had a piece of, admittedly, non-Batik backing fabric and added some corner stars and red batik border to the back
and finally (although I do have a few threads to sew in!), the label, naming all the generous contributors!
I am really looking forward to seeing what has happened to the blocks I contributed to the others!
Returned from abroad September 26, 2011
Posted by George in Uncategorized.3 comments
Unlike L P Hartley, for me, depression, rather than the past, is another country and I spent the summer abroad – so to speak. It is – as I have said here before – hard to come back. It is like walking into a roomful of people you know, but who have no idea that they have ever met you – you are the stranger and yet you know the landscape well. It feels weird, it feels like you live at a different speed to the rest of the planet, and it feels difficult – absence does not, I know, make the heart grow fonder – it does instead realise the truth of the fact that no one is irreplaceable. It is (unprovable though this image is) like coming back from the dead once those left behind have done the worst of their grieving and learnt to live without you quite happily. It is like becoming an intruder into your own life. However, I am on the up, and making myself make reconnections. Bear with – as Miranda’s mother would say.
I do work on through – I become such a sociophobe that there are no interruptions! (life always offers an upside!) A neighbour has become a grandmother and I made a cot quilt. I wanted to focus on some lettering outlined in tight meander FMQing, so I simply bordered some charm squares from The Cottonpatch in Kona Solids biscuit, and framed the whole in some more of the green, (what I like to call (as Miranda’s mother would also say) a KISS quilt). The fabric is Amy Butler’s Soul Blossoms.
Terrible pic alert!!
I also had a play with some of the pre-felt I bought at Wonderwool this year
First stage – cut shapes, layer, and wet,
Add some soap to the top bubble-wrap NOT the wool, then rub over the shapes gently until they are lightly fixed in place, then roll up and roll back and forth until the felt is of the density you like!
Cut it into bits – and make a bag!
Art Quilt July 11, 2011
Posted by George in Beads, Life, Quilting, Sewing.4 comments
I have to admit to feeling slightly exposed in posting these pictures of my first ever attempt at an art quilt. Artist’s Way not withstanding, I still have trouble applying the word ‘art’ to anything I do. I come from a family in which artists were perceived as non contributary dilettantes, and nothing I ever created ever met with more that an “um” of a reaction. I am more than aware of the dismissive reaction to art that is not immediate and ‘pretty’, but there is an intellectual content to this! Does that sound high falutin?
I made it anyway.
The idea came from samples made at an Ario workshop. We used a block that when heated can be pressed onto objects to make a stamp. I used my keys as they were to hand. From te pile of random samples came the idea of a quilt about the keys to happiness that I have and that I search for. My favourite bit shows Ygdrassil, as part of a section on faith, and is transfer printed, machine embroidered, and seed stitched in a random dyed thread. Other sections, including Music, Nature and Love, as well as the if….. of less weight and more money, use Tyvek (not keen), Stewart Gill paints, paintsticks, foiling (especially liked it used on the ‘dots’ of self adhesive interfacing), and loads of beading, (tribute to Frieda) and some Swarovski crystalling, plus a little book with printed Tyvek pages. It measures 20″ x 30″. If you click on the pics you can see them superduper clear and detailed!
Down the garden June 30, 2011
Posted by George in Garden, Life.4 comments
I was inspired to post by Deborah O’Hare’s fabulous be-poemed silken pebbles. Down the garden is my studio. 
With its own pebbled path.
I built it many years ago, almost all by myself, originally as a Wendy house for the children, but with the hope that one day it would be my room of one’s own. It tilts, it leaks, and it hosts a variety of pests from mice to fruit flies from the nearby apple tree, but it also looks out onto the rose garden, is as peaceful as a place can be, and houses all my creative supplies (apart from textile based stuff which is in the house).
The corrugated iron base (how attractive!) is a later addition (do I sound like Dan Cruickshank?) and was necessary after utter vandalisation by a badger who threw planks and rocks seven or eight feet away, in a seemingly frenzied night’s work.
I come down here every morning to do a few pages (morning pages a la Julia Cameron), and read some inspiring text. I try to sketch, but I am full of the fear and loathing that often overcomes hope and desire when a skill has been lost through neglect.
Sorry June 26, 2011
Posted by George in Life, Weather.1 comment so far
I hate doing pictureless posts and will update soon – sometimes life seems very hectic even for an unemployed hermit!
Main headline – we have water! As of Thursday I could brush my teeth with the tap running if I should be so devil-may-care! A bit like when pain stops, the joy of the mundane is unconfined and simple tasks like turning the washing machine on become occasions worthy of champagne.
However – just so that the Lord High Universal Lord Over All Foolish Ego’s is not forgotten, the Rayburn has had a melt down so whilst we await a call from our engineer Hughey Lewis (I know!!!!), cold food is the order of the day! Luckily he/she also provided a heat wave so salad will do.
Once I do get around to picture taking, I will show you my lovely gift from Hazel over at Knityoga and take you through the highs (few) and lows (many), of my first attempt at an art quilt. I am one of the few who have completed The Artist’s Way, and thoroughly recommend it to all budding artits with demons to wrestle, but I remain, nevertheless, a person who finds it hard to quiet the intellect, and listen to intuition and imagination. I overthink and thereby sit sometimes like a rabbit in a beam of light. Nevertheless – I have also learned to carry on regardless and, soon, all will be revealed!
The boy has finished Uni – 2:1 – Well Done Son! He is at Glastonbury – his pet, Roger Moore, is here. Roger Moore is a Bearded Dragon.
Actually, stealing from his Facebook photos - here is a picture
He eats live crickets. For a vegetarian (moral reasons) with an insect phobia, I have shifted the perimeter of my comfort zone this week! He is quite fascinating, but not as strokeable as Biddy! Once the boy is home (for a while) I will feel otherwise challenged as we return to the random sock placement, and empty fridge, that living with a young man entails!
Dry June 10, 2011
Posted by George in Life, Weather.3 comments
Our spring is still dry and if one more so-called weather forecaster speaks of another lovely sunny day, I will have to eat a whole packet of Bourbons and thus compound my sorrow as I don’t even like them.
This is serious now. Brilliant as we are at water conservation, and prepared as we now are with four rain tubs, which are all full, the tank that the spring feeds is way, way down. The WFV brings two 5lt bottles home, refilled at work each day. Yesterday, I bought two 9 gallon containers and the neighbour with a new bore hole, (hmmmm…….. I wonder……….) has said we can fill them whenever. I filled them yesterday and nearly gave myself a hernia getting them into the car. I told myself that the first time would be the worst and that my muscles will build from this point onwards, but goodness me they were heavy. We are tipping them into the garden tank. 18 gallons/approx 70 litres, each day is more than we use at present, when we flush the loo with buckets from the raintubs, the WFV showers at work, I limit my showering to twice a week and use a bucket of heated rain water on the other days. We are using about 11lts per day each. Apparently the average person uses 160 litres every day. No wonder there is a world water crisis.
Using only 11lts per day is depressing though. Nothing feels as wonderful as a long hot bath, but as our bathroom has been out of service for at least two years, the water shortage can’t be blamed. We reached deadlock in our renovations when we couldn’t work out how to fix plasterboard to a very, very uneven (horizontally and vertically), wall. We ponder.
A daily shower seems like a 21C necessity, but like all our 21C necessities it is, in fact, a luxury. A dilettante Westerner like me can say – everybody needs a little luxury don’t they – knowing that the majority of the world knows no such ease, but Oh! how I long to stand under a hotter-than-it-should-be stream of water, then paint my toenails and slaver myself in body lotion, to hang about in my cleaner than clean shower room, dawdling – because I can. I say cleaner than clean, because, of course, the housework is on short rations too. I have started using various ‘wipes’ which totally go against my eco-philosophy. Gawd, it’s depressing.
I investigated getting 600 gallons of water delivered to fill the tank right up and thus dwell in a fool’s paradise, (but a sociable one – who can invite visitors to a fill-your-own-bucket house?) for a while. £600 for 600 gallons. Everyone says that petrol costs are extortionate!!
A bore hole of our own (and goodness knows whose supply we would then disrupt), would cost £7000 minimum. Don’t have it. Gawd it’s even more depressing.
Our whole county is threatened at the moment by the prospect of being covered in wind-turbines. The Welsh Assembly came up with flawed legislation over 10 years ago that mean that the beautiful hills of Mid Wales are fair game to any speculator who wants to cash in on the myth of on-shore wind as the only way forward for renewables in the UK. I say the myth because the drawbacks to on-shore wind are manifold, not least being the best kept secret, (especially from those who, as I once did, see the turbines as having a certain elegance about them) of such factories – that they require miles of pylons and acres of substations to transport the energy in proportionately decreasing amounts, along miles and miles of cable, from the dark-at-night and uncommercialised greenery of Wales to the 24/7 urban world where overheated stores keep their doors open all winter on lit streets. Gawd, it’s depressing.
I want to make my own green energy, and with the wind we have, I could make some for you too. Sadly I haven’t got £20,000. Shame the government won’t subsidise individuals. It prefers to fund foreign corporations. Gawd, it’s depressing.
Hurrah! May 7, 2011
Posted by George in Garden, Life, Uncategorized.4 comments
Sorry folks – but I am so happy that it is raining! This is a sight I was beginning to mourn…..
The spring that always dries for a couple of weeks in late summer, dried in April. The novelty of the launderette has worn off (yes I realise I am priveleged in it ever being a novelty), I long for a very leisurely shower, (we have an underground tank but must eke it out – and no the bathroom isn’t finished!! What do you mean it’s been two years since we started work on it?) and whilst me choosing to let the washing up accumulate is one thing, having to is another.
And the poor garden. This is a time of thinking ahead, our big splitting and moving season, but without water it’s a sorry affair. The rain butts were emptied by mid month, (we have just fitted two more this morning) so the new roses were verging on suffering. This year we thought we had (amazingly because it is a toughie) lost a Great Maiden’s Blush, but I have found two teeny tiny shoots below ground so she has survived! She lives in the wildish garden, (the truly wild, natives-only, garden is the meadow) along with Alba Semi-plena, Fantin Latour, Mme Hardy, and what I think is R. forrestiana, as well as an unknown seedling from a hip I gathered in town just for fun! They have been added to this year by the very handsome Charles de Mills. We look forward to June!
I fell in love with a weirdly coloured David Austin rose last year and bought another this year – Summer Song – is it red? Orange? Coral?
Eli Pascall Willis
