Quilts in the Sun

Such beautiful weather. It makes my heart sing when I can wash and hang out the quilts I've made.

Of course there's always lovely Smartie to take advantage of any quilt in the sun. What a fine combination.

He has freckles on his nose anyway but he seemed to be working on a tan today!

And so we shared a quiet moment. He holds my hand when he can.

The garden is a joy. Worth the agonising back and knee pain to get it to look this way!

A place to sew in the garden.

Later I visited David Austen Roses....I'm so fortunate to live nearby. The roses are late this year but I loved this sculpture by Pat Austen.

A good hair day all round!

I wanted chicken but I got duck....

This year once again there have been ducks lurking in the garden from time to time (see last year's mallards links). I never knew there was a nest until Sunday when I parted some the same hostas as last year. There was Mrs. D hiding her eggs away again. After the cuffuffle last year we really haven't wanted this and have been chasing any of the birds who landed here away recently. I need to be clear here that we live in suburbia in a house with a walled garden so any unfledged ducks are trapped (i.e. until they are about 3 months old and ripping the place to shreds!). However here are the merry little band of ten after hatching this afternoon with proud Mum.

Another duck turned up on Sunday on the FRONT doorstep with nine babies who had walked down the steps into our coal bunker and of course couldn't get up again. I lifted them out, put them in a box and freed them in some bushes to follow their mother off to another garden. Did you know mother ducks fly at your eyes when their young are in danger. Good job I wear specs!

But really as you can see I only want chickens. Hmmm still sticking to the fabric ones.

The cat looks nice in it's antique pine frame. Perhaps I'll make some mallards next in honour of our "plague"...

Cat Quilt For Sale

This has been going on for quite a while now, but finally the cat quilt is done and ready to hang.

It is FOR SALE

It is priced at £100 (sterling) plus postage

It measures 32 inches by 12 inches and is made from linen, Japanese woven fabric and hand dyed silks.

Payment by Paypal or UK cheque. Email me at cwassermann@o2.co.uk if you are interested.

Still Here

Just in case anyone reads this and just in case, if they do, they think I've fallen off the edge of the World, I am still here.

In fact last week I wasn't here having spent some time with my family visiting the South Hams - a lovely remote area of Devon. The weather was superb and the children constructed HUGE holes on beaches. You can probably see them from space!
The cat hanging is making progress but other than that I haven't been stitching as my energies have had to turn to controlling the triffid like weeds that are growing with this sunshine in the garden and allotment.
I just need to bind this now and take a better picture!

Meanwhile here is a shot of Thurleston Rock near where we stayed and also one of a fresh Spring butterfly which landed on the patio.

Cat Four

Here is the fourth and last cat in the series (see last posts) and I'm itching to finish. I'm not sure whether to group all four cat blocks into a quilt or to finish them off as individuals yet but there is plenty of further stitching to do either way.
It's been great fun and I'm revving up to do more work like this. I'm off to Malvern Festival of Quilts tomorrow to buy some more silk fabric and threads to continue with this style. Having spent most of this year being thrifty with fabric purchasing I can now feel a splurge coming on. Will have to hold on to my purse a little - but some folks have expressed an interest in buying my work now so what the heck!!

I went on a super cycle ride at the weekend with my family out along a disused railway track in Staffordshire. We did about 15 miles and came across this fabulous bluebell wood on our travels.

Cat Two

OK these Crazy Cats could become a bit of an obsession. This is number two now and number three has a body under the sewing machine so wait up!
This one will end up looking down at a mouse or spider. Isabel (7) says it should be a story and end up with a very fat exploding cat with all it's threads frayed on the last block having eaten various other animals. Don't kids just love a nice bit of gore?

I'm looking forward to the Malvern Quilt Show in two weeks because I need some silk (need being a word which stitchers will understand to mean lusting after in a hugely worrying way) from The Silk Route or Mulberry Silks. This fabric is so lovely to work with and I like the contrast between its sheen and the matte nubbiness of linen. By the way I now go into charity shops with eyes peeled for linen trousers. Very nice to cut up and make into something far more useful like this (ha ha).

I received these two lovely prints from Kit Eastman this week on her "give away". I am fascinated by her dyeing processes - I've never seen anything like it before - she uses natural pigments with soy milk as the binder and stencils and also soy paste. I like to keep going to her site to see what she is up to.

Here is a little selection of some purpleness in my garden this afternoon - hopefully most of it is still there after Tom (10) played football with a neighbour.

Crazy Cat

I am sooooooo pleased......

I have made this Crazy Cat patch today with huge thanks to Jude at Spirit Cloth for the inspiration and whose blog is my favourite of all. I find it hard to work out exactly how she does things but this idea was too much fun to not try.

I have liked the idea of crazy quilting for a while but when I look at those quilts they can overwhelm me with pattern and colour. In this there is a 3" crazy block which is mellowed by peaceful plain linen to make up a 9" one. The crazy colours are from my stash of hand dyed cotton and silks (hmmm silk...must get more because it's the loveliest fabric of all). The linen is from a linen suit from TK Maxx which I never wore and nearly threw out many times over the years. Finally it has had the chop! The legs and head are from some Japanese lineny fabric bought some time ago. So it's all nice and thrifty! The head is turned applique and the embroidery is DMC in two and three strands. I want to do more and make a quilt - it was very satisfying!

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I have rhubarb the size of triffids in the allotment and I made some scrummy chutney from it yesterday c/o a recipe by Monty Don.




The colours in the pan with the ginger, sugar and red wine vinegar were mouthwatering.



The finished product is excellent with crusty bread and cheddar for lunch. Good old Monty Don - I love a man who says he is "born to dig".

Meanwhile the chicken patches were satin stitched late last night as I'm going through a not sleeping phase again. Might as well sew as be bored in bed!