Look what happens.........

..... when I start playing on QuiltPro.

my friend Quilthaze and I were talking about using the Fibonnacci Sequence to design a quilt. The above pictures show what happened when I took a normal Jacob's Ladder block and redrew it using the Fibonnacci Sequence. Both of the above "quilts" are made of 4 blocks by 4 blocks. You can see what Quilthaze took a different approach, and you can see what she came up with on her website.

Archie is growing up

Remember Archie?

Well, he came to stay on Saturday night, and he really made me laugh when I took him out for his late night and early morning constitutionals because he has now worked out that boy dogs are supposed to cock a leg when they need to answer the call of nature. Only trouble is, he now tries to cock his leg and squat at the same time! He looks so funny when he keeps on almost falling over. I hope he gets this worked out soon.

You know me........

......I don't like to complain. (Yes, OK, stop laughing those of you who know me really well!) but I don't think this is good enough.

A while ago I bought a complete roll of wadding. It was one I had used before, and I really liked it. Unfortunately, when I used it on my Leaves Around the Cabins quilt, it bearded. Badly. Very badly. I did not realise just how badly until I took the quilt off the frame when I had finished it. I had used a cracked-ice sort of fabric on the back in a gorgeous rust colour, so it showed. Really, really badly, but I was not about to undo all that quilting.

I have used this wadding a lot in the past, but only ever with light coloured backings, so I don't know if this had been happening all the time with this roll or not.

Anyway, I decided to email the manufacturer about it. I got no reply within about a week, so I emailed again. Still no reply. I emailed for a third time, and then a fourth, with the same response each time.

Guess who won't be using any waddings from this company again? Am I being unreasonable in expecting a reply? Specially in the current economic climate.

So tell me, is it me?

Slideshow

As promised, I have now worked out how to put a slide show on here, so this shows a few Linus quilts I made in 2001 - 2002. There was a Linus day near me, so I went along and started a couple of tops, using donated (mainly orange) fabrics, plus some from my own stash. These are the results. I hope you enjoy them, but be warned.... now I know how to do this, there will be more quilt shows in the future.

More introductions

You've met Little Person (remember my insomnia cure?) who is GS3 (son of my DS and DDIL, Mr and Mrs Teacher) so now I thought it was time for you to meet The Professor, GS1 and Chatterbox, GS2, the sons of Mr and Mrs Nomad.

It's still quiet on the quilting front as this week has been so busy with family things. Tomorrow I am going to lunch with the Ladies Who Lunch. We are all ex-committee members of our quilt group, Tuesday Quilters, and we used to have so much fun as a committee, that we decided we would continue to get together from time-to-time after we resigned from committee duties. This time we are all going to one person's house, taking either a starter, main or pud with us instead of going out.
Next week I am hoping will be a bit quieter, and who knows, I might even have time to get a sewing machine out.
As I haven't really been posting about quilting, and that's meant to be what this blog is about, I am going to try and post a slide show of some of my earlier quilts later today.

New Blogs

Ever wondered what happens round here when I don't want to go quilting, it's raining and I've got some spare time, which I am certainly not going to use to do h****work!

Some of you may have noticed that I have been extending my list of blogs I like to visit. They are almost all quilting sites written by some great people who are fun to "visit". There is some variety in my choices, but they are mainly people who make traditional quilts, and some of them are even people who concentrate on scrappy quilts. (Eeekk, what's happening to me?) It will probably not surprise you to see that one or two of them are mainly about longarm quilting too.

Meanwhile Mr Fencepost (alias Husband) has been painting in the garden again. This time he decided to do the decking, which I must admit did need it. Now I would have popped out, bought a tin of preservative, slapped it on and job done. Mr P is a perfectionist. He has jetwashed and cleaned it all, rubbed all the wood down with sandpaper, and is applying a proper decking paint, - twice!! Talk about making work for yourself. I must admit it's looking good though, even though it's raining now so the 2nd coat isn't going to get done today.

Good news time.....

I forgot to tell you that Husband heard back from the DVLA last week, and they said that as long as his condition doesn't get any worse, he does not have to give up driving. Yayyy.

Quiet Times.

Perhaps I should rename my blog as Quiet Times!

I haven't been doing any quilting recently, I've been far too tired, but I have been reading about it! I got the latest issue of Quilters Newsletter last week. Am I the only one who thinks it has gone right downhill in both quality and quantity? On the other hand, I also bought a new book, called Legacy which I have just started. It is the story of a quilter from Alabama who made between 200 - 300 quilts during her lifetime. The book has been written by her granddaughter, and has lots of factual stuff about her grandmother's life and about her quilts. Just the sort of book I enjoy. I was amazed too at the speed with which I received the book. Amazon did not have it in stock, but several of their partner stores did. I ordered from one of them on Thursday evening, it was posted to me on Friday, and I got it Saturday. Amazon aren't that quick! Anyway, I'm off now to read some of it.

Hope you're all having a good weekend?

Introducing................

..........drum roll please .....................


My son, Mr Teacher. He went for an interview yesterday, and got the job. Hurrah.

Oh botheration.........

I am an idiot - and that's official.

I intended to show two quilts in the Great Northern Quilt Show in Harrogate this September, but, even though someone reminded me, I forgot to send in my application forms in time. How stupid can I get?

The quilts I was going to show, would have been Leaves Around the Cabins (if I got it back from the publisher in time) or Sunny Days and either True Scrappy or My Flannel quilt.

For those who have not seen them before, here are photos of Sunny Days, before it was quilted with an allover 4-leaf clover pattern,








and My Flannel quilt

oops...

Remember this quilt?

It's the mystery quilt I had published last year in Popular Patchwork.

It lives on a chair in the lounge, and a few days ago I was just sort-of looking at it while talking to a friend on the phone, when I suddenly realised that one of the blocks is the wrong way round!

Oh well, no-one's perfect!

Sisters

This afternoon we went to visit my sister, and, most unusually, she agreed to have her photo taken, so here we are, my sister and I.

This evening we went to a barbecue. The weather was very kind to us, and the food was great (especially a trifle someone had made). The garden was big, so Toddler Teacher was able to run around a lot and get rid of some of his energy. He is in bed now, fast asleep, and we are all sitting here feeling very full up.

Celebration!

My son heard today that he has passed his teacher training course. Yeehaa. To celebrate, we went out for a meal this evening. This is a picture of them taken at the restaurant.

Insomnia cure!

I've discovered a cure for insomnia: looking after a very lively 3 (on Saturday) year old grandson!

Here is a picture of my "cure".

I have a feeling his mummy might not be too happy with me when she gets home. We've been playing with water at the kitchen sink, and there is a very wet t-shirt in the laundry and a wet chair in the kitchen now.

Cumbrian Scenery.....

I just can't understand why anyone would want to live in the middle of this, can you? (gg)

I've been travelling again.............

......... and now I'm down south, in St E, to look after Grandson 3 while his mummy and daddy work this week. Posting may be intermittent this week, but I'll try and let you know what I'm up to.

I have brought 3 quilts with me, all of which need the ends sewn in and the bindings sewn down, so I might get something done in the evenings, but I doubt I'll get the chance during the day somehow.

Big Bertha has a sister, Ten Ton Tessie

Until very recently, Big Bertha was the only one of her kind in the UK. (If you want to call her a machine, you must whisper, very quietly, or she'll get upset.) Well, a couple of months ago, her sister, Ten Ton Tessie arrived here. In case you're wondering, Tessie is the spitting image of Bertha. Quite amazing really how alike they look! Congratulations to her parents Lis and Drew. Yesterday, they spent the day bonding together (as I stood by and watched) with the result that after lunch they stopped playing with calico and put a REAL quilt top on their frame. When I left them, they had almost finished the 2nd pass on this top and it was looking great.

What the $%&*.........................

Cos it's so hot, I thought I'd just remind myself of the view out of my front window one day in February.

Honey I'm home!

I have spent a fantastic couple of days in the Lake District with my friend Bilbo. It was only a short visit, but we seemed to pack a lot into the time. On the Monday afternoon she took me on a tour of part of the area. The scenery was amazing, and I have got some photos to share with you, but they are on my camera, and guess where the camera is? Husband has sneaked off with it to his club. How dare he? Anyone would think it was his camera! So I'll have to put the photos on tomorrow.

In the evening she tried to teach me how to draw feathers - she is brilliant, and I am not, but she was very patient with me. Lots of practice needed before I can draw decent feathers I think.

The next day I had a private quilt show. Bilbo has been quilting for about 15 years, and she is a great longarm quilter. She showed me lots of her quilts, probably about 50, and there are still loads more. Some of the quilts were absolutely amazing, but I have to admit that I found her scrappy food themed log cabin was too much for me! A couple of the others however have really inspired me and given me some good ideas. Oh heavens, more time needed in a day. Actually someone once told me how to get more time, and that is that I just have to learn to sleep faster!

The most important thing was that I got to meet her wonderful dog Mr Hairy Four Paws. He definitely does not like this weather.

Now I'm home for a few days, then on Saturday I'm off to a friend for the day to try and help her get Big Bertha's new sister Tessie set up properly. Tessie's suffering from tension problems like I did the other week when I was about to start quilting BarJelly. Let's hope I can help her.

Sunday I am going down to my son's to look after their son for a week while they are at work and their childminder is on her honeymoon, so all in all, I'm quite busy not quilting at the moment.