Aww thanks, you guys….

Thankyou so much for your lovely comments on the Calm Blue Ocean reveal.  I’m tickled pink (or blue?) that you were so happy with it.  The quilt, my version of it, is exactly the way I had it in my head.  It’s not very often that it turns out quite so well.

So thanks again, and please keep watch for the next one.  There will definitely be a next one, I totally loved doing it.

As for Bountiful Bouquet – I know I haven’t posted the final entry yet, but I will.  It’s hanging over my head like a great, big quilt-sized anvil.  Rather than stress to much about it, I’ve decided to give myself July off and I’ll post it in the first week of August. 

I’m sorry that I didn’t stick to the schedule I’d hoped for.  As it was my first online quilt-sharing experience, I made a few mistakes and it’s taken me a little longer to get it out there to you.  So check back then and I’ll definitely be online for you.

There’s a whole heap involved in the posting of a quilt or a mystery quilt.  With the first one, the Bountiful Bouquet, I was only doing it a month in advance.  With the Calm Blue Ocean, I made the whole thing before I posted any of it.  That allowed for any hiccups, fabric disasters, sick children – you name it.  What with the children, the husband, the house – life well and truly got on top of me this past month and Bountiful Bouquet has suffered for it.

But one more posting to go and then it will be another thing crossed of my list!

Hope your weekend is going well.  This is Ballet Concert season for my first daughter, which means silly schedules to keep, hair to do, you name it.  I’d love to post a photo of her in her ballet costume.  Perhaps I will.

Anyway, till tomorrow,

Happy Quilting!

Suzie

A new way to waste time

*edited to fix up the truly woeful editing that the Ipad does.  Ghastly.*

I've long been a member of quilterblogs.com, and most days visit there to see if I can find some interesting and new blogs to read.  

But to be honest, it's has got very commercial lately and it's hard to find a decent blog in between all the shops spruiking their wares. Don't get me wrong, I'm as keen as the next person to spend money on quilting fabrics, but I'd rather surf quilt blogs than quiltshop blogs, if you know what I mean.

So I was delighted to find the mother load of blogs here at Red Pepper Quilts. There are close to a thousand blogs there you can spend hours of your day checking out, neglecting all the housework and quilting and stuff.

You're welcome.

Why not post yours there too?

Till tomorrow, Suzie

Do you ever wonder?

Do you ever wonder where handicraft will be in fifty years time? 

It's something I think about a lot. 

I come from many generations of handworkers.  I have a lot of their work, kept safe.  I treasure it, but to be honest I think of my many cousins, I'm the only one who really wants it. 

My great grandmother did very intricate work.  Amazingly close work for a woman who was widowed at 40 and left to raise a farm and six children in the midst of a depression by herself. 

My grandmother was one of three daughters.  They all did wonderful work, each different but equally clever in their own right. 

My mother is also one of three daughters.  They are all very gifted women but only she is the one who has taken the craft gene and ran with it.

And then there's me.  I'm the only daughter, but in a family of many cousins, I'm the only one of my peer group..the ONLY one who can even thread a needle, much less create quilts or knitted items for fun.  To be honest, they all look at me as if I am slightly mad.

Of course, it's me and my mother that people come to when they want a job done.  I don't mind, I love to help my family but it does concern me that these able bodied men and women who are smart, articulate and clever can't even sew on a button.  I don't actually think that they can't.  I think they won't, to be blunt.  They have no inclination to learn how to do even the most basic mending.  They amount of time I have heard 'Well, I'll just pay someone to do it'.

And that is what bothers me.  What will we do when we no longer have anyone willing to do these jobs, either for love or money?  Mending is a pretty crappy job, I agree.  I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than change a broken zip on a pair of jeans, but I would do it for someone I love.  Lord knows, there's no money in mending these days.  I had to replace a simple hat band for someone today, and it took me 90 minutes to put it on.  Admittedly, I spent extra time and attention to it as it was for a wedding party, but even so.  When they say 'Oh I'll pay you for it' I wonder how much they would be willing to pay?  And really, if I charged the $25 an hour that business pays now, would they really want me to fix it for forty bucks?  I doubt it.

Many times when I was in the shop we were asked how to do a particular skill.  'I've reached this stage in my pattern, but I don't know how to cast off' or 'Can you tell me how to do the binding on this quilt?'.  We never charged for that knowledge because I felt it was my duty to pass that knowledge on.  I hope someone I taught will do for someone else, down the track. 

But when I didn't know how to do something, I asked my mother.  I'm hoping that my children will do the same from me.  But I know there are whole generations of families out there where Mum doesn't actually know how to knit, or crochet, or sew. 

And that saddens me.  It really does.

I look at all the crafts that have died off over the years, as we are more industrial and as goods become cheaper and cheaper to buy.  Who needs a roof thatcher nowadays?  Or a master carpenter?  Or anything like that? 

I don't know where handwork will be in fifty years.  I really don't. 

The Big Question

What do you think?

What's New, Pussycat?

I've been thinking a lot about the whole blog thing, and I have also been having a wonderful time creating (really really bad) quilt blog icons. 

I have decided, as a graphic artist, I make an excellent quilter.

But in honour of my new found, somewhat dubious skill, I present:

I'm not sure if I'll do these every day, but I think it might be something fun to throw in when I've got nothing of my own to show you.  The internet is such a big place, and one of the complaints many of us have is despite all the information out there, we can never find anything when we want it.  Hopefully I'll be able to pass on a few links that I'll be able to share with you.

Let's see, anyway.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Head down bum up

My little people have been back at school this week and despite all my promises to myself that I would get my life together, I'm flailing a little.  It didn't help that I left yesterday's instalment of Bountiful Bouquet until the last minute, normally I'm a little more organised than that.

But it's done now, and I'm listening to the washing machine whirr away (it's the noisiest damn thing on the planet, the dishes are at least in the sink, and the beds are made.  So far so good.

I've been tinkering (again) and added a translate button to the top of the webpage so that you girls who need it can use it.  I've cleaned out the side bar thingies and got rid of a few.  But hopefully in the next week or so I'll add a few new ones.

I discovered the other day that a woman is taking over our old shop site (to refresh your memory - I used to own a quilt shop but closed it, sadly in 2009) and will be opening her own in the next few weeks.  I'm so conflicted about this.  I'm so happy that we will once again have a shop that supports our local quilters, because I really did feel badly about letting them down when we left.  But so much of me wishes that it was me who was opening it.  She seems a very nice lady, and I know she will do very well.  But I feel - kinda wistful I guess.

I couldn't keep going with the shop - two kids, an aging mother (who will kill me for saying that), life just got too hard to keep up with and something had to go.  Each time we got sick, we got REALLY sick and it just wasn't something we could carry on with.  I've missed it every day since then but I know deep down that I had made the right decision for my family.  And sometimes (often, if I admit) we need to make the decisions for the greater good of our family.  So what we did was right.

I miss it though. 

Anyway.  Wistful old me is off to hang another load of washing on the line.  Never Ending God Awful Washing Washing Washing.

Suzie

Tinkering

 

I’ve been tinkering, in more ways than one.

I write most of my posts on my lovely laptop.  It’s easier to sit here and watch the world go by than it is to fire up the old antique desktop that I have.  I did a backup of everything today, in an attempt To Get Organised (snort) and found all these programmes on here I have never used, this blogging programme included.

I’m writing this with live writer, after first editing my digital photos with the windows thingamee, and so far it seems rather more easier than the blogger page.  The photo uploading of blogger drives me batty.  So let’s hope that this is rather more user friendly.

Onto much more important things – what I’ve been working on.  Our quilting group shares our space with the local woodworking group, who are very good to us and do all the ‘blokey’ things that we need doing.  Our president, who is a Very Good Quilter asked some of us to make some blocks for a raffle quilt for them.  The block was ‘Carpenter’s Wheel’,  of course.

Because our president is a Very Good Quilter, and rightly so expects our raffle quilts to be of the best we can do, I can tell you I made and remade that block all yesterday afternoon.  And I realised that I haven’t unpicked a block for so long, and that’s not a good thing.  I think I need to start unpicking my work a little more instead of just settling for ‘that’ll do’.

Only then will I be the kind of quilter I truly aspire to be.  I think over the years, with children and work and home life and all of the busy-ness that entails, I got quicker, but not better.  I put up with a ‘it’ll do’ attitude and I really am aiming for 2012 to be the year that I rid myself of that habit, and start to really try harder in my quilting.  So that all of my quilts are ones I would be happy to display, rather than folding up and sticking in the cupboard.   Least that’s my plan for now.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Mysteries Of Life

I've been reading a few blogs lately and there's been much talk about mystery quilts, and why do we do them? 

It seems to be split down the middle.  There are those of us who love them, and those of us who would never do one.

I've changed a lot in my twenty or so years of quilting.  I started doing mystery quilts when I first began quilting.  Back then, I had very little confidence.  I didn't know enough about colour choices and I knew that it would teach me a little bit.  I did a few then, I loved some, I loathed others.  One came out looking like a quilt covered in swastikis.  Not my cup of tea at all.

Over the years my whole design 'thing' has changed.  I gave up making large quilts.  How many large quilts does one person need?  We opened a quilt shop and my days of making quilts purely for fun, or for no financial gain were long gone.  The only thing I quilted was samples, or or own designs.  I loved every minute of it but there was no time for anything 'fun' or purely for me.

And now that I am officially retired from the quilt shop, I find myself surfing a lot online.  One of my favourite sites is Bonnie from Quiltville.com.  I love her whole quilting 'thing'.  I love the scrap quilts.  I've always been a lover of the scrap quilts. 

So yes, now I do her mysteries.  I've only done two, but I've learned so much from them.  They force me to push my limits and piece quilts in ways that I have been too cowardly to do in the past.  They force me to use colours that don't settle well with me.  I'm not disappointed with the two that I have done.  I love them.  I have loads of scraps, it didn't cost me anything - it was totally worth the risk.

I think it's made me a better quilter.  (At least marginally). 

My advice is, if you're going to do a mystery, do your research on designers.  Some of the mystery quilts out there are pretty dodgy.  Don't even get me started on the one I began about ten years ago - I'm still waiting for her to post her next set of instructions.  Or the one where you had to make a million blocks, and then was told to 'stitch together in a manner that pleases you'.  I ended up throwing that one in the bin, and I *never* throw anything out.

I'd thoroughly recommend Bonnie's though.  Neat, precise instructions, always a winning quilt. It's just fun, that's all.  Just a little bit of fun.

All the best,

Suzie