Another piece of HISTORY

 Right now I’m battling with a rather annoying flu. As I was lying in bed for past several days, doing absolutely nothing, I decided to work on the project I started a long time ago – putting on some of the traditional patterns online. 

Traditional crafts always fascinate me, from Scottish kilts to our mitten designs. If you look at the bar above, you will see few new pages there to look at - this, this and this. 

Many of the patterns come from the three thick volumes on our traditional costume, printed late 20; s –early 30's so quality of printing is a bit outdated but the wealth of information is still there. 

I believe that many of these patterns are still brilliant for modern quilt or fashion ideas. 

Just look at this linen shirt! I can imagine wearing it with my black jeans and looking fab. 

Or these knitted socks – while they are part of one of our region’s traditional costume, they can be a fantastic fashion statement. 

Whatever, I enjoyed putting at least some up and will continue when the next flu will hit me again. Hope you will find them as inspiring as I do.

Whoop – whoop! Vacation time!

Yesss, that’s right. Tomorrow I’ll finish the last bits and then I’ll be off! Vacations! 

I can’t say that I’m jumping up in the air because I’m too tired right now but yes, holiday spirit is in the air.

Today I finished my last job before the overall laziness starts – tidied up my sewing room. You know – the off cuts hanging here and there, scrap bag full and shelves stacked with different bits and pieces. I really am not the tidiest person.

leftovers of leftovers went into the back, 
nothing left hanging around

So I just put all the off-cuts together yesterday and did the fast and very basic quilting today (appalling, I know), and now the room is much tidier and dogs will have a new settee cover to stretch out. Win-win situation except the blisters. 

After yesterday’s marathon of sewing I woke up this morning with three huge blisters in my right palm. After a thought or two (I’m not very good at that early in the morning) I come to conclusion that the blisters appeared because of ironing. Never ever had ironing blisters in my life (remember, I’m not the housekeeping goddess). 

For my holiday laziness I am planning to take with me few pieces of fabric and a needle – I’m planning to play around with some appliqué but you know how it is with holidays...

So in general I can officially admit that this is my last quilt until autumn.  Right now it's happily rolling in the washing machine and that's it then. Summer!

DAY AT ZOO NOT WASTED

Today, instead of another lazy day of basting, I went to Zoo. Such beautiful day can’t be wasted indoors.  For me a day with a child and a camera in the Zoo is rather inspirational and creative.  Want to have fun with me?

How it works? Simply look around as creative moments can be spotted everywhere. Let’s say, there is a flock of flamingos. Snap! 

When later at night picture is uploaded, it’s time start playing. Let’s say, with some crop out filter. 

See? It doesn’t look like a flock of flamingos anymore – voila! – there comes a rather interesting design for a quilt! Easy! 

You can crop out even a much smaller bit to create just one block. 

Crop... 

then crop out filter,

then duplicate and rotate and... again something new!

This one is made out of a mandarin duck,

this is a wing of a cormoran,

and this one is stright out of the neck of a giraffe! Fun, isn't it? 

FINALLY STARING TO TAKE SHAPE

My pheasants are finally starting to settle in. 

Sorry for uneven display but I still haven’t managed to free a wall for hanging so this is just a quick display over the bookshelves as I needed to hang it somewhere at least to see how it’s coming together.

As I warned before, for this quilt I wanted the kitsch, and it looks like I’m moving into the right direction. Now I will be off again, must make another hundred or so leaves, some guns, dogs and so on.... The corners are still empty waiting to be filled in.

I’m having so much fun, mentally adding all these silly details – takes a lot of time, but at the end it must look like a quilt for a “country gentleman”. That’s the idea for this one. I might even stack some half empty bottle in a corner somewhere. :D 

Never tried applique before, but I start likung it. One day, maybe when I will be old and useless, it would be a great time killer -  making tiny details and sticking them tigether for fun.

The back done

The top is now all properly starched, ironed and rolled up, waiting for the batting to be delivered. And so is the bottom layer. Instead of just letting it be gray, I used a lot of lefowers to spice it up. Colours are all wrong as picture was taken by using flash, but the general idea is there. It was fun.

And the best part - the editor finished the first reading, so my draft is starting to shapen up now. Yay! So happy!. This had been a really great Sunday especially as the weather was great. Tomorrow we are promised some rain and even snow again as temperatures are dropping already now. Yikes! I demand spring!

So as usual, there are great things and some not so great.  

THE DIVINE AROMA OF A GOOD COFFEE

_{So this one is done. Sorry for the angle of the picture but as I have no wall to hang it, I took the picture standing on the dining room table - it's king size after all.Fabric is mostly cotton satin, not the easiest to work with but so shiny, vibrant colours!}

_{As I hoped, I finished the borders. As I didn’t plan, batting didn’t arrive yesterday and not even today. So waiting game has started! When such hiccup happens, I hate it, I really do.}

_{So most likely instead of carrying on this one I will be hopping back on my pheasant project. Geese and a Weimaraner, some butterflies and daffodils, plenty of daffodils for the weekend.}

_{I was so annoyed that I went out tonight and got a bag of my favourite Tanzanian coffee. It will keep my spirits up. It always does. The divine aroma of a good coffee! 
Just made myself a big cup for the perfect Friday night. I already treated myself with "King's speech", now some Jelly Splash and blog browsing... What can be better?}