Sunday 16 November 2014

Slow Blog Linky - it's all in the details.

Welcome Slow Bloggers, it's that time of the month.

It's been quite a full month in the Knotted household.  Sprogs and I went away for half term - no prizes for guessing where we went first.


Yup. London.  We visited the Cutty Sark - a tea clipper built ten years or so before my house.


She is a beautiful ship.  If you are a fan of the novels of Patrick O'Brian, can you imagine Preserved Killick brewing up the rat-shit coffee in this pantry?


The Cutty Sark is named for the outfit worn by the witch in Robert Burns's poem Tam O'Shanter, and  here is the witch herself, still clutching poor Maggie's tail.


Our holiday was full of contrasts and comparisons.  I loved the Cutty Sark's beautiful rigging


and here is something entirely more modern.


We got a boat up the Thames to check out the London Eye....



...threw financial caution to the wind, and went up.  It was so worth it, even on a dark and stormy day, for fantastic views.  That's Westminster down below - you could see for miles.


From London to the Sussex countryside.  We visited a tiny local church where we spotted this in the medieval floor tiles.



Don't you wonder about the person who decided to cheekily imortalize themselves in this way?  There were other details in this simple church, like this:


and the ancient stag, who supports one corner of the whole building from his position in the bottom of a drain.


These details were modest compared to the ones on Canterbury Cathedral.  Its vastness can't be conveyed by a photo, and every surface was embellished.


Even the details had details.




Inside was just as awesome.



Once we were back from half-term, I made two quilts which I like



and one abject failure, because my hapless attempt at quilting completely cocked this up (thank you so much Maureen for the expression "crud balls":-)  



So that's my month - what about you?  If you'd like to share what you've been doing crafty, or otherwise, over the last month, please do link up. I'd love to see!



Wednesday 12 November 2014

On Failure

I quilted Murmuration and it was a disaster! It looks so awful that I can't bring myself to post a picture of it here:-)  It is not salvageable because I don't think the raw edge applique will survive unpicking.  It's only a quilt, but I was a bit despondent - then I cheered up because at least with every thing that doesn't work I am finding out what does, and learning more about what I like in the process.

There are two ways to go after this - one is to chalk it down to experience and let it go, and the other is to leave the idea simmering for a bit and then try to come at it from a different angle - which is what I'm going to do.







Monday 10 November 2014

WIP - Murmuration

I spent the weekend working on this.


I know pretty much how I want to quilt it, but am too scared so I am procrastinating.

An accidental photograph, but I like it.


Monday 3 November 2014

Fragment

I really like Oakshott cotton and hoard all the little bits left over from other projects. 

At the weekend, I sorted these by size.  


There were some oddly shaped triangles, no bigger than 2 inches on the longest side, trimmed from my Leaves quilt, and just for fun I started sewing them together into random squares without trimming them.  


I sewed the squares into strips, again without trimming, and curve-pieced the resulting uneven strips together.  That was followed with some curved sashing in yarn-dyed essex linen, and a bit of echo machine quilting in red Aurifil for the Oakshott.   Then I used Gutermann hand-quilting thread to sew rustic crosses in the sashing - I wanted something vaguely medieval to contrast with and complement the sumptuousness of the shot cotton.


It is approximately 12 by 14 inches, so only a small thing.







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