That is what I wish I had called the Buddha quilt on the exhibition blurb… I remembered it was Ellen’s favourite Dutch word on our trip. We saw a sign for “Auto Bedeckler” which we think may have been something to do with car valet or paint jobs but that is just a guess. Anyway, it’s a great word. Buddha is finished apart from pinning it to the wall damp for a bit of a blocking session so it hangs straight. In the end I decided not to use the strung pearls or any beads and I even took some buttons off. I think I just got fed up with embellishing after a while! I must hang it outside for a photo but we keep having gray days or sharp showers. I need to get a really well lit studio and a camera that takes good indoor shots so I don’t have to put the quilt hanger up outside, wait for the wind to stop blowing and stop it from falling over in the lightest breeze!
Because I am well aware that there are only 3 weeks left until the school summer holidays, I have been determined to get all the customer quilts finished. If any others arrive I won’t guarantee to get them done before August so if I do any it will be a bonus. I did a feminine scrappy quilt and a very jazzy Christmas quilt so that was quite fun. I have a large French Braid to do this week. I can’t quite decide what to do with this. The request was for “flowing lines” – French braids are quite geometric and could be full custom or simpler. I almost wish I had the Circle Lord templates for clamshells. I am tempted to do a long, echoing meander. This would give the quilt texture without creating an obvious design statement that could compete with the piecing. This is the one that I have got Matilda’s washable wool wadding for. It feels lovely and I thought it would make a far more economical alternative to the Alpaca Blend which has almost doubled in price.
I had one of my “Doh!” moments when I read the section in a Fons & Porter book about Log Cabin. All the strips are cut from the width of the fabric and the building blocks are placed onto the strip and chain pieced. Surely I must have come across this method before? I had been following Marti Michell’s advice to cut all the strips in advance and now I really question WHY did I do that?! The Fons & Porter way is fantastic. I could get very fond of doing log cabin with all sorts of leftover strips, particularly when I become Prime Minister and have banned fat quarters from being sold.
If you ever work in a fabric shop you get to hate FQ’s. You have to cut a half yard/metre, and then cut it in half so it is roughly 50cm square. The customer gets that piece and you have to package the other bit up to sell. I don’t think FQ’s are all that useful. I much prefer long quarters or half yard/metres. I am convinced that people simply ask for a FQ because the pattern specifies them, not realising that you can get much more out of a nice, long piece! I think I will organise a Quilter’s Guild Area Day based on stash busting. We could pick a pattern from Bonnie Hunter’s website after doing some serious cutting and swapping and send her some blocks as a thank you.
I decided not to go on a jaunt this week since I was busy but after reading “Country Living” over coffee, felt the need to go and buy some junk furniture to titivate. I confess I don’t actually read CL anymore, just look at the pictures. I have decided that you could get one year’s worth and read January 2009 every January thereafter as it would be the same! I think I must have taken out a subscription on direct debit and just forgotten about it. Tania and I set off to the Boxroom to rummage through the tat. She came across 4 respectable solid wood chairs with a good farmhouse look about them. I decided to go for 4 Polish bentwood chairs for £10. They might come in handy. They have Krakow stamped underneath and probably date from the Cold War before our cheap goods came from
