Whatever happened to March?

At the beginning of the year I decided that each month I would post the photo I had chosen for our calendar for that month.  So here we are in mid-March and I realise I completely forgot to do it.  So here it is:

This is a villa on the shores of Lake Como at a place called Corenno Plinio.  We had a picnic lunch there on the holiday I took in September 2011.

I have been busy this month and have done quite a bit of my lap quilt.  I am machine quilting it but it is so long since I have done anything this size that my skills are deteriorating.  There are numerous places where the machine has jumped stitches.  I cannot be bothered to undo them all.  I think the problem is the machine going over pins even though I take them out as I sew.  I did once have a problem with the needle jumping that required professional help but I do not think that is the case this time.

I have brought the quilt into the house so that I can end off the threads in comfort.  Big mistake.  Pania is addicted to wadding and when I have left it lying around a couple of times I have returned to find she has chewed the wadding on the edge.  Now it is living in a pillow case.  Here is a photo of Pania and Hinemoa on the quilt.  They just think quilts are for them.

Threads for machine quilting

My lap quilt is now all ready to quilt.

  I am proud of the fact that I have managed to make the backing from leftover pieces from the front.

However, this does pose a question as to the best thread to use in the bobbin.  I plan to quilt 'in the ditch' and I certainly do not want to be stopping and changing bobbins all the time.  As it is some years since I machine quilted a quilt of this size (it is 62 inches square) I decided I would consult my fellow Contemporary Quilters by putting a message up on the Yahoo site.  I am aware that we have had a lot of new members recently and I thought that some of them would probably be interested in the answers too.

Well, a question like this leads to answers of the 'how long is a piece of string (thread)' variety.  It appears that there are quilters who would never dream of pressing their seams open although I seem to remember learning years ago that that is what you did when machine piecing and that pressing the seams to one side was for hand-stitching.  Not so, apparently.  The seams on this quilt are pressed open and I have never had any problems with them wearing out, not even on the quilt on my bed which has been washed frequently.

The second issue is what thread to use on the bottom.  Obviously I have a problem about colour as light thread will show up on the dark and dark on the light.  I am inclined to go with the person who suggested variegated thread as I know that will blend in a bit better.  I also asked about the weight of the thread in the bobbin.  Originally I think I used to use the same thread top and bottom but then people said you should use something a bit lighter weight in the bobbin so that it disappeared into the quilt and did not migrate through to the top.  (My Bernina can be a bit temperamental about all this.)  Several people have recommended Bottom Line thread by Superior Threads.  This is not one I have tried and I see that it is polyester which I have been a bit snobby about in the past.  I think that was because I was using pure cotton in the top and thought I should be using cotton in the bottom too.  I respect the people who recommended this, at least one of whom said she uses rayon embroidery thread in the top, so I will definitely buy some.

For the top thread I plan to use a variegated thread I already have.  I have quite a range of reels of variegated quilting threads in shades of brown, beige and grey but half the labels have fallen off so I am not sure what they are.  I generally use YLI but a couple of these reels are ones I bought while doing a workshop and I cannot identify the brand..  One person recommended King Tut thread so I looked it up on-line and I think at least one of my unidentified reels is definitely that.  At least I will now be able to work out its weight.  The general advice is to balance the weights.

Some people commented on needles.  One person said she always used a 60.  I would not be able to see that nor to thread it, given that I have never mastered the needle threader on the Bernina and my varifocal glasses have their limitations.  I have only ever gone as fine as a 70 and have to confess to a 90 quilting needle as my default.

This tiny piece of market research has proved yet again that everyone has a preferred way of doing things and that there are many different threads and techniques that people use.  I think the next step is for me to do a few trial pieces but not until I have bought some Bottom Line thread and a new pair of quilting gloves.  The ones in the photo have a hole at the tip of one of the fingers where I had to cut the glove after I had sewn it to the quilt.

What I made in January

I have somewhat reluctantly decided not to do the Journal Quilts project this year as I think I am no longer very good at working to deadlines.  There is nothing to stop me doing journal quilts without the deadlines and the rules of course but I have begun the year by making a quilt top.  I have a collection of batik fabrics in shades of brown and grey which I have built up over a couple of years and it was time to turn them into something.  A new lap quilt for the sitting room I decided so I went back to my cherished copy of Cut Loose Quilts by Jan Mullen and have made a top in the same design as one I did nearly ten years ago.

The top is now complete.

Here is the old one.

I was rather proud of the back of the old one which I made from all the leftovers.  It was a bit of a nightmare getting them to fit together but I have decided to do something similar with this quilt because I have a couple of large lengths of batik in colours and patterns related to the front.

I quilted that one myself.  After machining it all in the ditch I made a couple of stencils of the patterns in the fabric and then hand quilted the motifs in the plain blue blocks.

I am not sure I have the patience to do that again.  It was one of those winter evening jobs in the days when I could just about quilt and see the TV at the same time!  The new one may go to a longarm quilter but first I need to put the back together.  I also plan to make a replacement quilt for the one on my bed as it is beginning to fall to pieces.  I bought some fabrics as a start last year but I have had to put them somewhere out of the cats' reach and now I cannot find them anywhere.  Perhaps that is a signal that I need to do something more creative and challenging first.  I had something pinned up to start me thinking but when the first floods hit the village I took it down and brought it into the house for safety.  I seem to remember that I had decided a bit of printing was needed as the next step so now I have no excuse not to get back to it.

I have not given a link to Jan Mullen's book as it is out of print.  I have used it a number of times because everything is 'rough' cut and you do not have to get all the points to meet which just suits me fine.

Welcome to February

This is the photo for February on this year's calendar.  It is Whitesand Bay beyond Sennen Cove.  I can't remember what time of the year I took it but obviously the tide is out and I have used a wide angle lens.  We went to Sennen last Sunday.  There were only about two other cars there and the tide was right in.  It was too windy to walk so we sat and looked at the view like real oldies and then got out of the car to take a few photos. Mine have had to be straightened in Photoshop but look at the difference to the one above.  Different camera of course and more of a telephoto effect.

I also tried drawing this view on my iPad.  I realised I have drawn/photographed it many times before so I think I should now try some more drawings of it using some of my photos.

We are very glad to see the back of January since it was so wet.  When the rest of the country was suffering from snow a couple of weeks ago we had another little flood across the road.  I only noticed it when I went out next morning and found gravel and mud all over the road not to mention bits of branch just outside our gate so I think it must have been quite high on our side of the road.  Let's hope we don't get any more.  The spring bulbs are beginning to poke through the sodden ground and there are lots of camellias out on the far side of the village although we only have two blooms.  I think the gardens over there must face south.

A Drawing a Day - or Not

I thought I needed to give a progress report on my attempts to do a drawing a day following the instructions in the book I mentioned in my last posting.  I am afraid progress is incredibly slow for two reasons:
1.  It is not easy to put aside even half an hour a day every day so several days pass with nothing to show for them.
2.  Like Clare Smith I find myself doing tatty sketches that end up in the bin.  I tend to be very self-critical of my artistic efforts and the idea of showing them to the world is quite off-putting.  However, here is how I started.

These are a set of 'naive' Christmas ornaments which I drew before I put them away for another year.  The drawing made very few demands as it did not even require any perspective so I then moved on to still life, using objects that were just around the room.  The results are not publishable!

I can buy early daffodils extremely cheaply from the village shop as they are grown round here (see my recent posting with photos).  I drew last week's flowers in a vase along with various other objects but the flowers died after a week so yesterday I bought some more and found myself talking to the farmer who grew them. (He was clad in sandals without socks and a  padded sleeveless waistcoat but had bare arms and the temperature was about 3 degrees so work that one out.)  This drawing is done with a nib pen and ink as suggested in the book.  I am beginning to get the hang of daffodils although at this stage I am still on the chapter about line and mark making.  I find it very difficult to work directly in ink and not be able to rub out as I am used to sizing things up by holding my pencil at arm's length, and blocking in the main shapes in the picture.

A couple of days ago I decided that I should incorporate drawing on the iPad into this project.  I own Brushes (which I have never used) and Sketchbook Pro.  I bought this months ago and after a flurry of enthusiasm have not used it in ages.  Here are examples of my early drawings, based on photographs I took locally.  I have decided that it is not evil to work from photos provided I took them myself and made the decisions about composition etc. both when taking them and when editing them.

And here is what I have done today.  First the daffodils.

And then I drew the books piled up on the table where I was working.

There is an on-going conversation about iPads on the SAQA Yahoo group this weekend and it is interesting to learn that I am not the only one who finds getting used to the feeling of a stylus and screen a bit difficult.  I find it hard to draw straight lines of any length but it may just need more practice.

Finally, it has been extremely cold here the last couple of days.  We must be the only place in the country not to have snow which is a blessing for those of us with wobbly legs, but it is very cold indeed and the temptation to just curl up on the sofa and do a jigsaw on the iPad is very strong.  The cats like that as all three of them lie on me.  Otherwise they are spending all their time in their igloos, either in the conservatory if it is sunny or in the ones we bought before Christmas and put in front of the radiator in my bedroom.

Pania and Hinemoa are both in the black one.  Being Siamese they are very small and can both fit in one.  Nui is on the right.  He is very large for a Siamese, partly because he is on pills for the chronic kidney condition that killed his litter sister, and on steroids because they all had campobylacter three years ago and he was left with a weak digestive system.  I think he is feeling the cold this weekend but he is eleven years old whereas the girls are only three.

International Desk Day

I was alerted to International Desk Day by Margaret Cooter /http://margaret-cooter.blogspot.co.uk who in turn referred her readers to Jackie Morris.http://www.jackiemorris.co.uk/blog  Jackie has collected photos of a lot of studios and desks.  Some of them are artists, others are writers and publishers. It is interesting to see inside people's working set-ups and to realise that many of them are not working in purpose designed rooms with amazing shelving and well chosen furniture.  To see these rooms you need to go to the posting Jackie did on 7 January so scroll down until you find it.

Some time ago Margaret Cooter did a major makeover of her workroom so I enjoyed seeing her new photos.  I also decided I could rush round the house with my camera and join in.  I am one of those people who works all over the house.  I know it is not ideal but when we moved here we had a garage that we needed to turn into a utility room and we knew it could also be a studio.  Given that we had to get planning permission, it took over two years to achieve this and in the mean time I got used to working in my bedroom.  I know many people think bedrooms should be kept as bedrooms but I don't think I have ever grown out of being a teenager and it does not worry me that I have a room full of fabric and books kept in two large bookcases.  The only problem is Siamese cats who like climbing and extracting things to play with from the baskets and jars.  I have to remember to tidy everything away before I go to bed or I can be woken by games using what they have found.

To get to the studio I have to go out of the house and across the yard which I have discovered can be a problem in the rain.  I use the studio for wet work and machining but as you can see from this photo this room has to serve a number of other functions as the house is very short of storage space.

The sewing machine lives on the kitchen table from our last house and my husband built a bench along the back wall.  The wall to the right has two sinks which is wonderful and a vast improvement on carrying water from the bathroom.  But the room is not very big from front to back so I do have some problems.

Here you can see how a muddle comes about!  In the far corner is my husband's corner where he keeps DIY tools.  The shelves at the back hold a lot of general household stuff as well as paints, dyes etc.  The bench is set up for cutting at one end and ironing at the other and underneath it are large underbed storage bins full of wadding, fabric I will probably never use and an assortment of things that might just one day come in handy.  The white board is foamboard which is very light and can be propped up on the bench when I am assembling items.  In the front is a set of Elfa shelving that I have had for ever.  I keep paper, writing and drawing tools and a variety of other tools in them and wish I could afford to buy a second set but they are very expensive.

The International Desk Day instruction said not to tidy the room before taking the photos so I didn't but I was surprised that both my rooms were not in as much of a mess as usual.  I decided there were two main reasons for this.  I have not done much work lately and I completed the quilt top I was working on in the studio and took it into the house a few days ago so that meant the bench is not covered in 'work in progress'.  Then in late November we came very near to being flooded so I rushed out and took as much as I could out of the studio and into the house.  I was acutely aware of what would happen if we were flooded and I lost everything as in 1999 I had to start again after all my textile things went up in smoke in a house fire.

Which brings us back to the bedroom.

I can't believe the table is this tidy!  I recently discovered condensation marks on the wall to the left so I emptied the two little bookcases.  I haven't decided how to solve the problem yet but air seemed a good idea.  Under the table is a small Bernina which I bought last year so that if it was very wet I could sew inside.  The large bookcase now has to hold the books that were in the little bookcases including a lot of my books related to New Zealand (which I would hate to lose), my Persephone books and  my sketchbooks as well as everything that was already there.  Some stuff is on its way to the charity shop.

The table is currently set up for the drawing project I am trying to do as a New Years resolution.

I am supposed to be drawing the vase of daffodils as a still life from nature.  On the left of the table is the book I am using for this project, 'One Drawing a Day' by Veronica Lawlor, together with some other books on drawing that I found I had, some inks because the book tells me to use them and my trusty iPad.  Also an internet radio which will not work in this room despite having a booster.  I think it is probably because the house is built of granite.  (It was once a barn of sorts.)  In the middle of the table is the quilt top I have been working on.  The black plastic stand on the right hand end of the table is a set of small drawers for DIY things.  It holds all the really small stuff and has had to be moved off the little bookcase.  In front of it stands the first drawing I did for the project a week ago and which will appear on my blog but possibly not until I have another one or two to show.  The idea is to do a drawing a day which sounds easy but I am not managing it at the moment!

And if you are wondering where my computer is, it lives in yet another room along with the printer.

Good-bye Christmas, hello Spring

The sixth of January and time to put the Christmas decorations away for another year.  After I had dismantled the tree I went out into the garden and noticed that we had a camellia in bloom.

Only one so far but we have several camellia bushes and they are all in bud.  Then I looked at the pots on the decking and saw that things are beginning to bloom in them.  There were three snowdrops in one (impossible to photograph), a tiny iris in another (same problem) and two roses.

It always amazes me how some plants ignore winter down here.  Perhaps I should have expected it as a couple of days ago I went for a walk up the hill and there on the south-facing slopes, were daffodils in bloom.

Yesterday I was able to buy daffodils from the village shop which I suspect had come from these fields.

We have noticed that the fields beside the Penzance distributor road have plenty in bloom and they are being picked commercially.   Daffodils and narcissi are traditional crops in these parts and were a vital part of the economy in the days before flowers could be flown in from warmer places.  They are still a vital part of the economy of the Isles of Scilly.

They are a wonderful sight especially when the weather is as grey as it is now.   In 2009 I was inspired to make a journal quilt based on the commercial fields that overlook Mounts Bay.  Can I remember what I did?  The background is dyed and then printed using bubble wrap.  I think it is time I got back to doing some printing as it can be very effective.