A New Year, A New Toy

Lynda Monk was having a clear out, as we all do at this time of the year.  I am now the excited owner of one of these

although it will be a very long time before I have that many bobbins on my kumihimo maradui.  Here's a short video to show you the basic idea:

I did a little kumihimo weaving when I was in Japan, I've found the posts and then spent quite a while looking back through photographs and feeling very nostalgic for my Indigo Sisters, Bryan, the other lovely people I met in Japan, and the whole experience of the Japanese Textile Study Tour in 2012.

Kumihimo in Fujino

Shifuku with my first kumihimo

So, one of the things I do this year will be to weave some braids.  Lynda sent me three books of instruction and inspiration too and I shall look forward to my first opportunity to go shopping for threads!  I remember enjoying the rhythmic "click, clack" of the bobbins when I was in Japan, so soothing although a lot of concentration is required.

I am currently trying to decide whether to commit to the Contemporary Group's Journal Quilt challenge again this year.  The quilts are to be larger, 8"x10" portrait, and there are rules concerning colours.  I am pondering.  Other exciting happenings include the quilt we are making at Country Roads Quilters which will be entered in FoQ this year and the current techniques swap we are having at Global Piecers, foundation piecing this month.  There's a lot to look forward to, plus a forecast of snow later this week, finally it might be Winter!

Goodbye 2015

Goodbye 2015. 

I think it's fair to describe the past year as a roller coaster period in my life and the lives of many family members and friends.  I'm looking forward to the new year. 

I'm not making a list of resolutions, not even promising to finish all those UFOs, but I have some ideas and plans up my sleeve and I'm hoping it's going to be a better year for us all. I'm certainly feeling positive.

I am pleased that I completed the Contemporary Quilt Group journal quilt challenge this year. It was touch and go some months but I have twelve quiltlets that, I think, reflect the year. Here they are all together.

I don't know whether I will take the challenge again this year, I'll see what the rules are when they are published.  

I saw this on Facebook and thought it is a good wish for a new year so I wish it for all my lovely followers:

Happy New Year!!

Journal Quilt Challenge - Done

My last stitching of the year is done, the challenge journal quilt for December.  The text is from Longfellow's poem, The Rainy Day, and reads, "into a life some rain must fall".  I'm hoping for less rain and more sunshine next year.
I included fabric from November's quiltlet and also fabric from January's quiltlet, to give a full cycle of pieces.  I shall try and take a picture of all twelve journal quilts together in the next couple of days.

Now though, it is time to put the needles and scissors away and celebrate Christmas.  I have already had a lovely lunch out with my family and tomorrow I shall be cooking a Christmas lunch for big grandson and his parents.  It's going to be a quiet season.  DS and DiL will be with Jessica's parents and DD is in Germany.  The awesome Sam is with his father this Christmas so we will have a celebration with him when he returns home.  Of course there are people missing this year and I know I am not alone in expecting some poignant moments.  I send my love to everyone who has lost a special person during this year.

Band Samplers

Today I visited the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge where there are many things to marvel at. I don't think I have seen another collection where so many of the artists are household names.  Wow, it's by Monet, look a Rodin sculpture, and another, a Picasso.... Or where so many artefacts are so old yet intact and exquisite.  I also saw these band samplers, a style I've not seen before although I have seen plenty of "traditional" rectangular Victorian examples.  These are English and stitched in silks in the mid 1600s.  Photography was difficult in the low light conditions and with the work protected behind glass but I took a shot of both examples and a close up of a section of each. Enjoy.

Writing by Machine

I'm still struggling to get my machine writing to be as nice as my handwriting!  I think I need a lot more practice but here is this month's journal quilt for the Contemporary Group challenge.  The text is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, 

"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air,"

Note: In Emerson's poem, Merlin's Song, the line ends, "drink the wild air's salubrity".

Boro Runner Finished

Today I have finished the boro style table runner that I have been working on for a while.

Here's the kantha stitched koi (which needs a press!)

and here's the finished runner on our dining table:

Now it is time to get on with swaps and Christmas stitching.  My Christmas cake is in the oven, filling the house with spicy alcoholic aromas and I'm going to sit by the fire and work on a festive prayer flag for a good friend. I feel like I'm living in the little house on the prairie!! 

Journal Quilt - October

My CQBI journal quilt for October reflects the ups and downs of life while keeping to my self imposed rules.  It's late but it's done!

Remember Me?

Oh dear, I have not written a blog post for absolutely ages.  Thank you my dear followers who have enquired after me in my absence from blog world, I appreciate your concern and care.  Nothing too dramatic has been happening, compared with earlier this year anyway, normal life has just got in the way.  

I am behind with my journal quilts, October's is designed but not made, November's is forming slowly in my brain.  I also have two swaps to make for Global Piecer friends before the end of the month. I have, however, achieved some finishes.

The boro table runner is nearly complete, I have added a koi in kantha that just needs some detail and then I'll share it with you.  Last week was a mega stitching fest with the Christmas meeting of Country Roads Quilters where, between us, we made fifty Bags for Beads of Courage, followed by a two day workshop with Helen Howes working on trees and tigers.  I have just finished off my wall hanging from the workshop and called it "Indigo Winter Woods".

You can see Helen's work on her website, www.helenhowes.co.uk but here's a taster.

And, while I'm uploading photographs, here are all those bags we made at Country Roads Quilters.

Indigo Heaven

Over the past few days I have had plenty of time to stitch and I have been working on a boro style table runner.

I gathered a selection of indigo and woad dyed pieces of fabric, including new and vintage, dyed by me and by others and the lovely kantha designs on woad dyed fabric from Angela Daymond.

I also bought this lovely book to enjoy when my fingers got sore from stitching.  Some of those fabrics are pretty tough.

The backing of the runner is a lightweight yukata fabric bought in Japan and the "wadding" is simple cotton.

This is half of the runner.  I am stitching as the mood takes me or the fabric directs me, using an Italian 100% cotton perlé thread that I found in a charity shop.  Often I find I have stitched in a similar way to the shibori stitching that would have been used to create the dye resist patterns.

And on the blue and white theme, I found this beautiful feather from a Jay in the garden.

I'm feeling blue, in a good way.

Ashes to Ashes

My Journal Quilt for September is finished and it commemorates the combining and scattering of my parents' ashes.

The scattering took place on Saturday, today would have been their 59th Wedding Anniversary.  We held a traditional family picnic in a place that was very special to Mummy and Daddy and then, basically, made sand castles.  They would have had a quiet evening to themselves before the tide came in.

M&D would have appreciated the Champagne libation!

My JQ keeps all the rules I set at the beginning of the year but, for the final four quiltlets the text is free machine "written".  The words on September's quilt are from John Masefield's "Sea Fever", written in 1900:

"I must go down to the seas again,

... and quiet sleep and a sweet dream... "

I have captured sea glass and treasures collected by Mummy and Daddy under the layer of gold organza on the quilt and held them loosely in place with gold thread.

I wonder whether I would have signed up for the JQ challenge if I'd known what an emotional year 2015 was going to be? It's certainly been an interesting one to record and it's not over yet!