Plans for The Weekend
Stitching and sunshine...
It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Less than a week before teaching two darning workshops, I decided to make a zine about darning to bring to those workshops. To my surprise I did actually manage to write, illustrate, layout, and print the zine in less than five days! And to my even greater surprise, I almost sold out of the zine at the workshops.
I have three copies left, so if anyone in the UK wants a copy of the zine it is £7.50 including postage. The zine has 24 pages and covers woven darn, blanket stitch darn, and Swiss darning. I made a short video where I’m leafing through the zine.
I taught the darning workshops last Saturday, after which I promptly introvert crashed. But I was expecting that to happen. Hashtag IntrovertLife. :-)
Yesterday I spent the day in London with Jen, a friend I have known since 2008, via Flickr and our blogs, but this was the first time we met in person!
It was a really lovely day where we saw a very bold squirrel, lots of tulips, wandered through the City of London, had lunch, saw a very interesting exhibition at the Fashion & Textile Museum: Textiles - The Art of Mankind. Although, maybe they should have called it Humankind because we all know that, throughout time, much textile creation has been done by women…
Jen is a tulip fan like me and it is her birthday in a few days so I made her this little tulip appliqué picture. I really enjoyed making it so I may do some more, just for fun. :-)
This weekend I am hoping to get some embroidery done. The other day I started working on what will become a new pattern. It has been ages since I last made a new pattern.
I am also hoping to work on this:
I originally made these quilt blocks in October 2018. I have a photo from early November that year when I had sewn the blocks together. But then I realised that I hadn’t trimmed the blocks, so it was all a bit wonky. And so the quilt top languished in a bag in the wardrobe for years.
A few weeks ago, I finally decided to do something about it. I made it my watching-telly-in-the-evenings project for about a week to pick the top apart. After I had first sewed a number onto each block so I’d know how to put it together. And then I gave all the blocks a good press and trimmed them. I really wish I had done that back in 2018! So. Much. Extra. Work. :-|
Anyway, the blocks are ready to be put back together and hopefully it won’t take too long. Then I just need to figure out how to quilt it…
I have been thinking about entering it at the Festival of Quilts but I’m not sure which category it belongs in. If you have any thoughts about that, please send me an email or leave a comment. I guess I could just enter it in the category where the quilt isn’t judged…
Alright, that’s it from me, now I think I’ll go and enjoy the sunshine. :-)
I hope you have a lovely weekend!
x Carina
Some Things I Am Enjoying
Book: The Sewing Machine by Natalie Fergie. I am listening to the audio book, which I absolutely love. The narrators are Scottish and since the book is set in Edinburgh (and Glasgow) they are just the perfect choices. It is a lovely book, I highly recommend it. “More than a hundred years after his grandmother’s sewing machine was made, Fred discovers a treasure trove of documents. His family history is laid out before him in a patchwork of unfamiliar handwriting and colourful seams. He starts to unpick the secrets of four generations, one stitch at a time.” {bookshop.org affiliate link}
Watching: The Brokenwood Mysteries. Another cosy crime type series. Set in New Zealand Aotearoa.
Music: April’s playlist!
Some Interesting Things on The Internet
Book: Bog Fashion. I have no intentions of making clothes that recreates clothing from the Bronze or Iron ages (found in bogs, hence the name). I’d love to read this book anyway. But it’s a bit out of my budget for a book that I only have a casual interest in. Maybe you need this book? :-)
Quilt block: I need another quilt (obsession) like I need a hole in my head. And YET! I am really intrigued by the Manx log cabin. There is a blog post about it here. If you like video, here is one showing how to make the block, and a video that shows how to put them together. I solemnly swear that I am not going to make a Manx log cabin quilt. Honest. ;-)
Polaroid A Day. My friend Jen’s blog where she shares photos taken with Polaroid film. Very cool. (Jen is the friend I met with yesterday!)
Old hotel labels from France, Spain, and Italy.
Topophilia. noun: The love for or the emotional connection to a particular place.
YouTube: 20 Lessons on Tyranny: by Timothy Snyder / read by John Lithgow.
A collection of vintage illustrated sheet music. Inspiration for all sorts of things. {via Present & Correct}