2017 Wk 11 & 12 - Mostly Exploring

Dad's nearest town is Fredericksburg - originally German it has a population of about 8500. My nearest big village at home has a similar population but has less than a dozen shops while Fredericksburg has an amazing Main Street full of independent stores ("no chain on Main") This website suggests 211 shops in the town!!!!

 

One afternoon we visited a great little village (Pop 3!) called Luckenbach. Live music every day, and I particularly liked the toilet signs made from car number plates!

 

Another day we took a drive to the Enchanted Rock - a 17 Acre single rock (the exposed part of a 100sq mile single rock) which is second in size only to Uluru (Ayres Rock) in Australia.

And then lunch in Llano which is relatively (by Texan standards) nearby and sits almost in the middle of Texas. This little town has a population of less than 4000, but has a huge school complex, a police and a fire department, a cinema, court, law and tax offices, several restaurants and a quilt fabric shop! (Unfortunately I had a posse of three non quilters / non shoppers with me so my visit had to be short! The shop assistant had a sewing machine set up in the back of the shop and was happily sewing away - that's a job I could do!!!!

I just want to share one more place with you. A shop called Magnola Pearl on the way to Fredericksburg. Do visit the website! Then there are three horizontal lines top left and you can use them to navigate to SHOP and GALLERY. they are the most biazzare clothes I've ever soon - and at the most outrageous prices! The page called LINE SHEET shows the clothes best - I don't know if they are from recycled or reclaimed fabrics but patching them and distressing them seems to feature strongly. (A neighbour of dad's called them slave clothes!). However the building is beautiful!!! Although itlooks hundreds of years old it is a new build but from reclaimed timbers, and is filled with a lot of antiques (I snuck some pics)

 

Dear Magnolia Pearl. I'm sorry that I don't respect your clothing - I just don't "get it" (but then I'm quite sure that I am not representative of your target market) however I love love LOVE your shop!

 

Posted with Blogsy

2017 Wk 11 & 12 - #2 Mostly Creating

We've been having a great time in Taxas! Catching up with Dad and Eileen and exploring this new-to-us part of the world. And doing some creating - and admiring some of their creating!

I've been working on La Pass - finishing cog 5 (my little 'work table' next to 'my chair' - I made myself at home!)

 

And starting cog 6 (although annoyingly I didn't bring the fabrics for the outer ring

I also brought a kantha project which has progressed nicely!

 

Dad and Eileen have been creative too - they built this house!

and I'm trying not to turn too green with envy over this studio!

 

Eileen isn't the only creative one - her daughter made these coasters for them ...

 

And while I've been away Lisa has been sewing - following a patten - and has made a lined bodice for a new dress!

 

Posted with Blogsy

2017 Wk 11 &12 - #1 Mostly Supervising

We are on holiday in Texas at the moment (with very limited wifi so please excuse the delayed publishing of this post!)

 

Due to an unfortunate (and painful) incident involving a slippery pool step I have been supervising rather than helping with the various jobs at dad's

 

I did get taken to a fabric shop though - and look at the fab way they displayed the fabrics

And I have been enjoying the sunshine and the medicinal local wine

 

I will post more about the trip - especially the fabriccy purchases, but for now my bed calls - I've been awake 20 hours and I'm starting to lose the ability to think or write coherently!!!!

 

Posted with Blogsy

2017 Wk 10 - Mostly Kids

We hosted Kids' Crafty Church yesterday - and had 17 attendees - It was a great afternoon!

Lots of creations! and lots of fun: at one stage I looked around and I was the only one there:

the others had all gone up the bell tower with the vicar!

Big and small kids playing together

 And a great way to uniquely identify your own charging cable among hundreds of others!

2017 Wk 10 - mostly embroidery

Today I have finished embroidering 'Carla's' quilt label, and a customer's quilt label.

This means that I just have about 10 inches more sewing and then Carla's quilt can go in the post tomorrow, and so can Meg's label

I sent the original poncho to Jackie . . . seem here modelling it and looking far more glamorous, far slimmer and far more photogenic than me in my replacement red one

And I made a pencil case for oldest Great Niece (and didn't much like it so I made another one too) She is an awesome artist so I though a pencil case made of paper would be something that she could doodle on and decorate - every time I forget how horrible the paper is to work with!  Anyway she can have them both and do what she likes with them!  (We also gave her a large pack of pens and money towards a car / driving lessons / insurance)

2017 Wk 9 - Mostly Quilting

Friends of ours have had a fairly major life changing experience.  Nearly 17 years ago they had a son, called (names changed) Carl, but this New Year they wrote to friends and family to tell us that

"So, it turns out that nearly 17 years ago, when we announced the arrival of our son, Carl, that we were mistaken.  Instead we are proud to announce our transgender daughter Carla.

It would be very much appreciated if everyone would call her Carla, something we have been doing at home since the summer, and use female pronouns.

Her brother has been brilliant – he said the other day that 2016 has been a good year for our family and we are looking forward to 2017.  Carla plans to start driving mid-March, take her AS levels and visit universities.

We hope you will be as glad as we are that Carla has been able to express her true self and we look forward to seeing you soon."

I cant begin to understand what a difficult time they must have had leading up to this announcement, but I am really proud of the whole family.  Carla's birthday is very soon, so I messaged Mum to ask if it would be OK to make / send a gift, and if so what colours would be appropriate?  It tuns out her room is grey and orange.  I already had a quilt in mind.  The logo used by the LGBT communities is a rainbow, and rainbow is created by rain and sunshine - or tears and happiness?

This quilt, Rainy Day Rainbow, had been put on the 'time out' shelf as I wasn't happy that Orange was really represented, but if I was to make orange a feature - ie as binding, it could be a perfect quilt for Carla

Unusually for me this had been made as a patchwork top, so I spray based . . .  and quilted it!

Not quite matchstick quilting, but 85 quilting lines at about a minute each is plenty of quilting!

I don't have any orange (that'll be why there wasn't any orange in the top!) but I've ordered some spray time and will get it finished and posted as soon as the fabric arrived

As it was an otherwise quiet day at home I also knuckled down to making a dress,.  I had made 5 versions of this, all draft, to make sure the pattern really fits ME!

Number 5 came out ok but was made from curtains that are a bit too stiff.  (Pic for Janine who also recently made a dress from curtains, but hers is much better than mine!) Pls ignore the mess!

And finally I have a linen pocketed dress that I can wear!  (but with leggings so I can hide my knobbly knees!)  Not a bad way to spend 3 hours! (ignoring of course the proceeding 15 plus hours to get this far!)

2017 Wk 9 - Mostly Chertsey

I had a lovely Friday afternoon at Chertsey museum. The show and tell creations were amazing - especially Rhona's which combined spring blocks and kantha stitching!

The finished blocks are looking fab together!

Tone finished her kantha too

But Friday's topic was fabric flowers, and although they all started from the same sample, they have all taken the idea and made very individual flowers.  Click HERE for a PDF with the class' instruction sheet

As for me, I spent all Thursday at work with no computers - and we are virtually a paper free office, so there was *nothing* to do . . . Luckily I keep an emergency sewing kit in the car, so I sewed strips and rectangles together by hand to make this - I could have done with an ironing board too!

Posted with Blogsy