Quilting content at last

Things are happening art-wise. Three nights ago, Jeremy and I started making a quilt. He really fancied one from the New Zealand Quilters Newsletter and is doing it mostly on his own, with yours truly offering advice and direction (with various levels of success - for example the whole quilt will be done as a mirror-image of the original... Maybe he'll be better off just following the printed instructions). Here is the picture of the quilt to date.

We then proceeded to get distracted from quiltmaking by Manga films. To be precise, by Spirited Away. Everybody at my life drawing class recomended it, and as we've never heard of it, it seemed worth having a look. Now that we've seen it, it is our turn to recommend it on. Great movie.

Quilt making projected to continue tonight. Maybe.

The good things about gastro

This is supposed to be a positive kind of blog, right? So, here are the good things about a week spent having a gastro:
1. When sick, Kasia turned into a well behaved kiddo. A nice switch from the usual sick kid behaviour
2. Got some extra cuddles
3. Discovered that 'couldn't keep my eyes open' is not just a turn of phrase
4. Got to lie on the sofa and admire the kid's creativity.
Here she is in her office:

And here, she is returning from a trip to the moon. Note the space helmet.

A lazy day

Things we've done this morning:

1. painted toenails
2. watched Playschool
3. looked through baby photo albums
4. snuggled on the sofa pretending to be mummy and baby and dozed for an hour.
I think we need more days like this.

Quilt-in

Visited Wyndham Patchworkers for a quilt-in with Olga Walters talking about her trip to Canada. Fantastic fabric collages. lots of mossy greens with occasional strip of brown for the forest, with patches of various greys for the sky (worked so well). And lots of quilting over the lot. Each patch of grey with curved, parallel lines, giving a calm, ordered feel to things. The greens stitched in all sorts of way: free-hand zig-zags finishing off eucalyptus boughs, thick stitching adding bark-like texture, occasionally a leaf made out of empty non-stitched spaces. Various colours of thread.

She also had some samples of fabric collages - small patches, very heavily qilted, with faces and figures either present in fabric bits, or embroidered by machine. Came home and did some stitching on my beach bag. The effect was dreadfully kitchy. Too much quilting for my style, not enough quilting for hers, and altogether not to flash. Note to self - do not try to machine freehand embroider a hibiscus if you want to stay on the right side of good taste.

I'm a bit obsessed by quilting at the moment. Dijanne Cevaal started it with her booklet. As she worked on it, she showed the 72 squares of ways not to stiple or meander on her blog. Asking us not to copy. I set out to try some before the booklet was finished. Without copying her ideas. Which resulted in 23 squares using patterns that I saw somewhere else than in Dijanne's blog. Lots of scrounging of ideas. Some of the squares were awful. The 18 good ones ended up as a cusion for my workroom. I'm rather proud of it.

The problem is, that the whole thing did NOT get the bug out of my system. Need to think what to quilt next. Also, how to do photographs so that the quilting pattern shows better.

some good, some bad

The day started well. We made a dummy bag. Out of the purple fabric that we chose yesterday. Kasia put her dummies in it and announced 'I'm happy'.

Then she watched Playschool, quarreled with me over something or other, ate half a can of butter beans and we decided to go out for lunch and ice-cream.

The car sounds like a tractor since oil change the day before yesterday. I decidedd to have a look. A cap was missing from the engine. Hmm. Back to the house to check in with Jeremy re. the wherebouts of the engine cap. Major crying spree ensued because I wouldn't let her stay in the driveway by herself.
Engine cap not found, mechanic got consulted and we were told to make our way there. Did that.

To be told that the car shouldn't be driven. Major histerics because Catherine just couldn't cope with leaving our beloved Mazda! And taking another car home! No way.

The thought of taking her car-seat with her and of driving in a taxi stopped the tears, but not the deap existential hurt. Hopefully, this got catered to over lunch. Strictly in line with her wishes: table in the garden, with vase on it ('but one that doesn't break, Mummy'), a bouquet of fragrant philadelphus and ice-cream for desert. The kid knows how to live well.