the patchwork dress

blitz book bag

As the result of some enforced domestication (due to a stinker of a cold), and being gifted some lovely vintage fabric by a work colleague... I woke up on Saturday with an urge to design..

 

a book bag!

What do you think? - it's just big enough to take a couple of paperbacks or a nice hardback, with handles big enough to loop over a forearm - perhaps for a literary nosebag for a long journey?

 

The fabric given to me was some wonderful old suiting that Anne-Marie reckoned was 1930's or 40's - and this amazing lining fabric - which appropriately reminded me of fireworks...

 

While sewing, the combination of fabrics reminded me of wartime, as the pattern could be fireworks or lights from the blitz - again all quite relevant to this Remembrance weekend.

 

I wanted the lining to start further down inside the bag, so then had to think how the handles would come out - so they are also recessed. I quite like the idea of finding a use for that slot - perhaps to hold a pen? 

The original idea was to sew right round the mouth of the bag in a contrasting thread to fasten the handles further up - but the suiting fabric was so fine, it looked better with as little stitching as possible.

In the end I just did a stitch line on the outside.  The handles have a little flash of the lining sewn in as a detail.  I'm intending to give the bag to the lady who donated the fabric, as she had held on to it for so long, I felt she should have something from it, plus it has inspired me to move along with this design I have been ruminating about for a while!

 

Coincidentally - while I was cutting out my patterns - this parcel arrived from Ginny.  I was fortunate enough to win one of her Morsbags in the recent giveaway.  So give a bag, gain a bag!

 

I used it today Ginny and it is great - big and strong to hold a lot of shopping!

By the way, Ginny is also running a series of posts about gratitude and being grateful throughout November... a Thanksgiving if you will.  I hope to be joining her, as I have found it hard to get time to do many creative or extracurricular things to blog about - and this will be a nice simplistic way to blog and to bring me back to that noticing space.

Today I am grateful for the wonderful connections and serendipity blogging and making through the patchwork dress has brought me xx

lucky hallowe'en black cat

Life still goes on being rather busy on the work front - spending most of my spare time catching up on life at home, and managing energy levels - making sure I get some 'down' time... which usually means doing my share of cooking and cleaning!

Meanwhile, this little chap has grown up! Here he is as a kitten - you can see when he still had the stripes in his fur, and some of his behavioural characteristics - pouncing, attacking, galloping from room to room!

He now has his own Youtube channel where you can see a video of him drinking from the tap which he likes to do of a morning... but if you'd like a lucky black cat to cross your path on Hallowe'en - here he is all grown up.  Murphy came to us with an umbilical hernia - so a few weeks ago had his operation, where he also had the 'other' op too - so it was a bit of a double whammy for him!

I must have felt a bit guilty, and bought him a new toy.  It is actually meant for a small dog, like a Yorkshire terrier - and it's an odd little creature we call 'the varmint' or the 'critter' - it looks like a punk squirrel roadkill and has a squeaky inside the head!   Anyway, he absolutely love/hates it - and was delighted, as it was the first toy that looked like a real catch. Oddly, for a cat, he doesn't get put off by the squeaky head which can often be heard round the house as he bites into it! So he proudly trots around with it hanging out of his mouth and occasionally has been found draped over my shoes.

However, when we first gave it to him, he was terribly possesive and we had the first ever growl - which you can hear here! It's a full moon this Hallowe'en - so I don't know what to expect!

Have a good one!

some lovely things...

...in no particular order, some lovely things that came to me in the last while...

 

 - a leaving present from work. made by Gillian Kyle.  I notice she has a wee stall at the bottom of Buchanan Street. Glasgow on a Sunday as part of an otherwise odd little craft fair in the arcade there. - but I like her stuff, and she is also featured in this month's Country Living!

 

Spoils from another Glasgow outpost worth visiting - the new 'Welcome Home' which is positioned down a sidestreet by the new Tescos in Partick.  I heard about it through a colleague at work, and is well worth the visit for things that are a bit more off the beaten track - more delicate, arty and etsyish... the thing I loved most was the sticky tape with the fairisle pattern.

 

nice fabrics I bought at the Birmingham quilt festival from eternalmaker.com - who had some really nice modern, cute & funky prints.

 

a gift from Ginny - handmade beads made by her and her girls from magazine paper (to be kept hidden from small black cats!) and some poppy seeds..

In the background there is a pack of reclaimed liberty fabrics I bought from my favourite stall in Birmingham - worn and washed fabrics by Kim Porter.  I bought some more for a specific quilt I may share later.

 

and lastly, not leastly - a lovely package I received from my friend Barbara weeks ago!  She visited the Selvedge

shop in London and sent me these lovely ribbons, and foglinenwork  braids.  Too nice to use, just to look at for the moment! I was tempted to take them in to work to sit on my desk and remind me of tactile things - but as it was I hid them in an envelope (away from kittens who like to chase ribbon) and only just discovered them again, after hardly being near my desk at home.

hope you are all well. thanks for sticking with me during this time away.

My type text is playing up again on this post - so please excuse if it formats funny...

 

coming up for air

I'm back in the land of the living - after a very intensive stint of professional work.  Now I have been studying the creative process, the connection to burnout and adrenalin, and the polarity of a freelance life - either overworked and tied to a project, or out of work wondering where the next job/income will come from.  Either way it's a bit crazy, but I am learning to live with it and methods to live with it.

The last project although really interesting and absorbing - was also personally draining and bordering on abusive!.. and the much needed time to keep sane through daydreaming, having some other life/interests seemed to get sucked away to the point where I didn't even have time or the energy to look at blogs, let alone do my own!

So after 3 days of practically sleeping - I am very glad to be back here - I have the latest copies of Selvedge and Quiltmania, which I am applying as cold compresses on the hour, every hour.  And looking forward to absorbing myself in nice things, before going on to the next project which starts next week...

These little icosahedron balls were one thing I made by hand for the film project.  They were made from beautiful japanese origami paper that came from the Artstore in Glasgow.  

I photocopied and blew up the net of the shape (nothing more complicated than rows of equilateral triangles, to which I added glue tabs) from this book, and pasted onto the inside of the paper, lightly scored and folded the lines, and used double sided tape and UHU to glue together.

I could have been a bit neater, but was pressed for time.  Using my hands again, was so therapeutic. They might even make the big screen.

graphic quilts

here are a couple more quilts that caught my eye at the International Quilt Fair in Birmingham...

this was  a lovely colourful quilt with applique and embroidered shapes & words all to do with eco living.

I also liked this one, beautifully balanced and controlled with lovely stitch detail...

have a great week!

another Birmingham quilt

I liked this too - sashiko stitching on a chintzy background...

fantastic quilts

Last weekend I took a weekend trip down to Birmingham to see the International Festival of Quilts.  I must apologise for the lack of recent posts, and forsee this for the next

month or so - even as I write now after a day off, my eyes are crossing, so will keep this brief.

Here are some of the highlights that appealed to me... the other of course was meeting the lovely Ginny, who has been a blogfriend for some time now.  We had a long chat and a wander through the quilts - and were so absorbed, I totally forgot to take a photograph of our meeting!!  So thank you Ginny for coming all the way - and allowing yourself to be distracted from the quilts for a couple of hours, it was really nice to meet you.

As usual I have failed to take note of the makers of these quilts - above was one of the overall winners - amazing work. 

Below is one of my personal favourites from a collection of Japanese quilts.  So neat! So flat!

This was another that took my breath away.  I think it is the goddess Quan Yin - all handsewn in sashiko

stitching - the quilt is full size.

 

A detail below...

Sorry I am going to have to leave it there - as I am shattered plus my typepad is playing up and I don't have the patience to fiddle with it! - but will post some 'postcard'

images of more quilts over next days.

matroyschka

A belated post, but for my birthday I received this lovely handmade matroyschka doll from etsy, as a gift from Suzanne.  I have mislaid the makers info, but here she is anyway. Thought you might like to see..

...she is very neatly made, and has a little detail on the back.

creative patchwork

A while ago I found this cheesy patchwork book in the local charity shop and actually have quite a liking for this image - the girl in the patchwork dress!!... on her bicycle...with matching bag.  She reminds me of Susannah York a little.

It came from this book - Creative Patchwork - and I liked the inside cover typeface with the strange but slightly fascinating blue patchwork cat.

Something for everyone... a new dressing gown for the man about the house perhaps?

...and I'm not sure if I like this image or not.  I do - but there is also something quite contemporary about it... very eden project.

happy patchworking!

back soon...

Hello! I am still alive - just up to my eyes in stuff at the moment - but hope to be back with a proper post this weekend.  Here is Murphy eating my work bags - saying "please don't go back to work".  

I must admit to feeling the same with an 11 hour day and a 2 way commute, and would rather be hanging out at "the patchwork dress" making things and sitting in the garden...sigh.  Only 9 weeks to go...