Like Mother, like Daughter.

Have I mentioned my 19 year old daughter? She's an art student, and don't I know it!
She has just started her 4th year at the islands technical college. She is a great little artist and I love it when she draws or paints 'real' pictures for me. But since starting at the college these have become fewer and fewer as her tutors encourage her to explore other mediums and disciplines. Now her work seems to involve any manner of strange and wonderful objects, we had half a forest floor in one piece, her fingers seem to be permenantly stained with black ink and at the end of each year as we sort out her portfolio in order to decide what should be kept and what could go I find everything from tiny colourful scraps of paper to huge great collages and oil paintings. Last years final spectacular went straight into the bin, she hated it herself, said that she felt her tutor had pushed her away from what she wanted to do.
So, this years project? Synaesthesia.
Did you ever close your eyes when listening to a piece of music, or the sounds of the world around you? What did you see? For me certain pieces of music trigger fantastic light shows, I see wonderful rich warm colours in billowing velvet curtains. Nature does it for me too, birds singing and trilling away create odd dots and splashes of bright colours, while harsher sounding birds like rooks and crows create jagged cartoon lightening streaks. This linking of two senses is called Synaethesia. My DD shares the same ability. Her project involves trying to put the images and colours onto paper. No easy task.
While searching for victims to listen to her selection of music, (Actually it wasn't that bad) she became disheartened, not because people couldn't see anything, but because people just couldn't be botherd helping her, not even the other art students! In the end she managed to round up enough of us to get a few results for comparison. Obviously trying to convert my words into an image won't work. She has to make images from her own synaethesia.
The first couple of weeks back at college she got busy with paints and the printer, her fingers have gone black again and a multitude of very colourful three dimentional pieces have appeared to be photographed.
So now she wants feedback! Hunney suggested a blog, great idea, but........how to get it noticed? There are quilty rings, stash buster rings, crazy quilt rings, heck we got loadsa rings! But there are no synaethesia rings! I'm sure there are art rings, but I can't find them!
So folks, PLEEEEEEEAAAAAASE help us out here, go visit my babies blog, be honest, tell her what you think, leave suggestions and ideas. Please visit more than once, the ramblings of a teenage artist are difficult I know, but she would love to have comments and know that her words are being read and her art is being seen. LOL And unlike me, she has pictures! Cause she had the camera all weekend!

Someone nudged me!

Sorry it's been so long, life really does have a bad habit of getting in the way at the moment. Thanks for the nudge Janet.

I managed to do a little quilting though. No pics, sorry, the camera batteries need charging.

As usual my plans have changed, (I don't know why I bother with plans!) My very pink turning twenty with Sun Bonnet Sues, has become two turning nines! LOL When I sat and thought about it a turning twenty was going to be huge! Far too big for a two year old to cope with. Also when I read the instructions properly my ready made Sue blocks were far too small and I couldn't be bothered to sash them, (There's a lesson here I'm sure) so as I said, things have changed. I cut nine very pink fat quarters according to the turning twenty guide and put it all together, I've gotten a beautiful piece of very pink girly fleece, it's patterned, which has inspired me to try a different kind of quilting, so far all I've really done is a meander, this time my meander will incompass, I hope, the flowers on the fleece, I'll have to have a practice first.
Although the pink fabrics I've used are all patterned I feel that the top lacks any kind of focus, there is no large pattern, (thats where my Sues were supposed to come in.) I'm hoping that the quilted flowers will help out there. I considered doing some fancy stitching on the seams, but I think that would just emphasize the straight seams and lack of focus in the blocks. I wonder .............. Just having the beginnings of another idea here, would felt flowers stitched into the quilted flowers work? I feel a trip to the crafty shop coming on.

In the meantime, I'll get on with basting the plain top to the bright and colourful back!

A Box full of goodies.

As I mentioned yesterday my friend Janet has sent me a box of goodies. She promised me some patchwork which had become a UFO and 'a few other bits'. It turned out to be a rather large box!


These three fabrics she went out and bought specifically for me! OMG! There are yards of the stuff, it's beautiful, I'll have to make something very special with this fabric. I love blues and Janet got the blue nail on it's blue head. I think I died and went to blue heaven.

This is the UFO, I'll do my best to do something with these fabrics, it's all here, green, pink, blue, orange, red and white.
In order to make more stars I'll have to make a few practice cuts on some scrap fabric to ensure I get my diamonds the right size. Watch out for this stuff, you will see it again.

I'm gussing these two fabrics were bought to go together. The green is almost as pretty as the blue. ;-) The patterned piece whispered Christmas to me, hmm.............

Also in the box were these crochet pieces along with yards and yards of crochet cotton.

I've never mastered crochet, a colleague of mine can, though I've only ever seen her working with wool style yarns. I wonder if she has the patience to teach me, I'd love to make at least the few more squares it would take to finish this into a baby size blanket.

I've never seen a flower loom before, they look like fun! I'll have to have a go won't I? Then I'll know how they work when my nieces come to see me, I'm sure they will love them. Hmm, I have a pattern for a hand knit doll, her dress would look great with a flower on.



There was also some other bits and pieces in the box, lacy net style fabrics, I tried to get a pic of those but it didn't work. Janet also bought me the latest issue of 'Love of Quilting' from Fons and Porter. I've never seen that magazine here, so it's nice to see something from across the ocean. It's much thicker than the local mag I subscribe to. I keep looking through it, there is so much to see, I'll have to curl up and read it properly some day soon.

Thank you Janet, thank you, thank you, thank you. xx

In yesterdays post, a much smaller package. My sister ordered these applique pieces for me, I plan to use them in a turning twenty quilt.

The first turning twenty book I bought was the 'Around the block' version, I have enough flowers and Sues to make a quilt for my friends little girl.

Aunty Loulee used to do lots of knitting for Eden, but lately I've been bitten by the quilt bug and Eden is feeling neglected. Just a few more girly fat quarters to collect and Eden will have a quilty christmas.

I still didn't close the binding on DS *2 quilt, I'll get it done before I go to work today though.

Have a happy day

All kinds of busy.

Sorry I've not been around, life kinda got in the way.
DS *1 is in hospital, has been for almost 3 weeks now, every time we thought he was on the mend, there was a setback of some kind. So lots of tooing and froing there. Hopefully he is on the mend now and will be allowed home soon.

In the middle of all that was a weekend away in Manchester, which was OK, but I couldn't settle and wanted to be home.

And while all of that was going on I've also been busy with another of the charm quilts for DS *2



Once again I meandered all over, this time in scarlett red! Hmm, I wonder what he will make of that, I also wrote his name in the meander, as I did for his brother. The meander is not as intense as on the first quilt, more of a drunken stroll up and down the fabric. I wanted to explore what different effects I could achieve.

It just needs me to complete the binding, which I'll hopefully get to do tomorrow.

While in Manchester at the weekend I visited the Trafford centre, did a little shopping. No quilty shops, but I did find this in a book shop.

This was the only quilty book on the shelf, it's great, what a treasure. I've looked throught it a few times and hopefully will get to read it soon and try out a few ideas.

My friend Janet sent me a huge box of goodies from the USA, I'll post pics of it's contents next time. Thank you Janet.

I'm off to hospital now, see you soon.

It's done.

My boys quilt is done. I sat yesterday afternoon and quilted it. :-)
Inspired and urged on by this post, if a 10 year old can do it, so can I.
I set off stitching the outline of leaves on each of the 4 separate parts,then as I put them together I meandered all over the two halves, before fastening them together and meandering over the join.


In places my meanders are close together, in other places they are perhaps a little too far apart, but on the whole I'm rather pleased with myself. I didn't meander into my leaf outlines, they are still there. This morning I put on the binding.


It's darker in real life than it appears here, the white lines you can see are the leaf outlines and their details, I even managed to give them stems and veins! Amid the meander anyone looking closely will see my boys nick name and 'mum' .

You may remember I was thinking of using an old waffle blanket instead of wadding in this one, well someone suggested trying a layer of fleece instead of wadding and a backing. I went with that idea in the end and all afternoon yesterday while I was quilting it I was worried that it wouldn't be cosy enough, (LOL) this morning while I slipped the binding closed my fears were put to rest as I toasted underneath it. Very cosy, but lightweight and a perfect size to snuggle under while watching TV on a cold night. I want to make a second one of these, two boys means making two quilts.

So, what next? I can't get settled at my cross stitch cause my back is still sore. I'll have to keep on with the quilts. I have some Katies choice blocks cut ready to piece, I have my scrap blocks of the month to play with, a second batch of autumn charms has arrived and I want to make a very girly turning twenty. Decisions, decisions..........

See you soon.