The Inevitable Delay

Just when I thought I had a clear run to actually finishing this quilt I have struck a seemingly immovable obstacle - our cat... The family tell me I am just too soft - but who could move him?

It's a long weekend here. I am eternally hopeful he will move - if not I'm planning a trip to Asian Gallery for a wee browse. After all, I haven't been there for almost a month. This time I will try to remember to take the camera....

Happy, Happy, Happy

I feel its somehow not quite proper to say this... but I'm feeling very pleased with myself. After so many weeks of gnawing anxiety the quiting went like an absolute dream. No puckers, no wrinkles, no need to restretch or repin. Couldn't have possibly hoped for a better result.


The lessons I have taken from this quilt (because there are always lessons to learn - even after 20 years) is that pinning to within an inch of quilt's life works, that stitching through the joins of large pieces works and (probably most importantly) using loosely woven wools on the backing may create more work than it is worth, even if they look and feel divine.


I'm left with an awful lot of ends to stitch into the quilt - but that happens when you really want to quilt lines in only one direction in one part of a quilt.

And after all, there are so many worse things to be doing in winter than sitting in front of a fire stitching threads into quilts.... At this rate I will be able to gift it several month's in advance of the recipient's next birthday - always good to keep the gifts within the calender year in question! All makes me feel happy, happy, happy.

My heart is in my mouth

I think on of the reasons that the kimono quilt I am currently working on has taken me soooo long is because I've been dreading getting to the quilting. Last time I tacked something similar it was a shambles as it kept moving - here's a wonderful reminder of just how awful it was.... A living nightmare I can't face again.I think I had to restretch and repin this three times in the course of quilting and it still wasn't marvellous. Fortunately the recipients weren't that familiar with quilts - either that or they were just far too polite to comment.

Anyway I've been dreading having to go through it all again and was determined that this time it should be different. So I've started by putting more pins in this quilt than I ever have before... I have used practically every safety pin I own - and that's a fairly considerable number.

My second strategy has been to quilt in the ditch through every seam line in the quilt in the hope this will hold it a bit more stable. So far I have only put in 10 lines of vertical quilting, so the jury is still out - in the meantime I have my heart in my mouth.

If this doesn't work I'll be swearing off quilting big pieces with stretchy wool kimono fabrics for life! Famous last words.....

A Voice from the Past

I've had this sampler for a little while but this week was the first time I'd really started researching the background to it. As you can probably see it was made by Florence Shilling in 1895. It was made at Donaldson's Hospital - I've always wondered what this was but discovered this week that it was / is a school in Edinburgh. Founded in 1851 the school focused on the education of poor children in the city and specialised in education for deaf and mute children. Since 1938 the school, now called Donaldson's College, has been exclusively for deaf students. The building the school was originally in was just amazing, although ultimately unsuited to educating children. During WWII the school was used as a prisoner of war camp which housed German and Italian prisoners. The building was recently sold and in 2008 the school moved to a new purpose built facility.

The original building is now being developed into apartments - and to think my little sampler has found its way from this extraordinary place to the other side of the world, to a house where there is another principal of a special school (my husband) who has just been able to open a new facility for his students. Clearly serendipity at work here.

And by way of warning - see if you can spot the image of part of the sampler in the photo below. It's the cardboard that the sampler has been sitting on for an unknown number of years. If you look closely you can see how the acid in the board has leached colour out of the sampler leaving an image on it.

Needless to say now that I know more of its history and condition I'm on the case so it can be framed in an acid-free environment. Hopefully it will then last another 116 years and Florence's creative voice will continue to be seen and heard.

Slowly, slowly wins the race

Well I know I certainly wouldn't win any races at the moment but just to prove to myself that I can inch towards completion here is the next step in my kimono quilt - the top is completed - and I am rather pleased. Particularly with this segment of it, which appeals to me for a reason I can't quite put my finger on... I think it might be the floral chrysanthemum next to the more structured fabrics.

And just to show that kimono still have a hold on me here is a beauty that recently moved to my house from my favourite kimono shop, Asian Gallery. The owner told me that he thinks it would have been made in the 1920s or 30s and was designed to be worn under other kimono as a layer for warmth. Most interestingly is the fabric that the body of the kimono is made from - it has a heavy woven cotton exterior which is quite slubby, while the reverse of the fabric has a brushed warm feel almost like a well worn flannelet sheet. Just fabulous - and of course with beautiful silk sleeves. Just fabulous.... and who of us can honestly resist a bit of fabric fabulosity?

Back to Basics - Back to Bindings

Working on bindings just seems to work like a charm for me. It gets me back behind the sewing machine after untimely lapses, gives me purpose, and reconnects me with quilts. I've been doing rather more working than sewing of late and this pile is helping to bring me back towards balance.

It's the latest group of refuge quilts that I have bought home to sew bindings on. This year as well as providing quilts to the Wellington Women's Refuge our Guild is also sending a consignment down to Christchurch, where I understand the refuge has lost half of its safe houses in the earthquake.It's rather nice to have a quilt on the lap of an evening now the weather is starting to turn, and its definitely comforting as I watch yet more disasters unfold of an evening around the world. It's all rather mind boggling.... This is my favourite - I hope it brings comfort to someone who needs it.

That's what I try to breathe into every stitch.

Long live the needlewomen and their needles

I haven't really been feeling much like blogging over the last week - the events in Christchurch have been far too distracting, or maybe that should be absorbing and upsetting. For some reason tonight though I remembered this rather odd photo I took a few weeks ago to show you. I've been doing some work over the last couple of months that has involved me in doing some stitching - my children find it almost unbelievable that I am being paid to stitch. Children are so leveling!

I've been learning how to wield these very fine curved needles. I'm far from an expert but am getting better at it. They are surgical needles (breathe now - I am not stitching in any medical theatres - no humans have been harmed in the making of this blog!) and you can see how small they are lying next to the betweens needle that I have also been using.

What I coincidentally discovered,while watching a rather odd documentary on the history of surgical developments (don't ask how I came to find this, let alone kept watching!) was that a French doctor pioneered stitching of blood vessels after watching a President of France be stabbed and bleed to death. It inspired him to look at ways to stitch up tears in blood vessels.

And who taught him? An expert French needlewoman, of course.

He went to her to learn how to stitch and after many,many months of practice he moved onto experimenting on dead animals and eventually people. This was over one hundred years ago. But isn't it good to know that the skills of wielding a small needle so effectively have helped save so many people over the last hundred years or so - and over the last week in Christchurch.

Long live the needlewomen and their needles!