Random, and rambling

When I was little we used to have a book of wonderful geometric patterns which you could colour in.   What was particularly fun and fascinating about them was that so many variations were possible that no two people were likely to produce the same result.

They were called Altair Design Pads and were the product of Ensor Holiday and Roger Borrows, who shared an interest in ancient geometrical systems and the geometry underlying designs from the Middle East or Moorish Spain.  One design had particularly excited them and they began work on a series of variations which eventually led to the publication of the Design pads.

I started thinking about them when I got interested in patchwork again.  For a while they were out of print, but when I looked for them again recently I found that they are available on Amazon.   (No 1 is currently OS, with a reprint due in June, but 2 is in stock).

You can read more about the history of them here and marvellously you can now also play online with colouring them in: it's such fun!

If, like me, you're fascinated by repeating patterns you will love them, plus they are a great source of quilty inspiration - I can guarantee you will want to get those old felt tip pens out!

There are four of each design - handy if you're having to share!

The last couple of weeks have been taken up with school holidays (and tidying up after the school holidays....).  We saw this owl while we were away - I imagine the building he was on must have been a school - and I'm stashing him away at the back of my mind as inspiration for embroidery or etching.  He is the same age as our house.

I also admired this bird, admiring the view:

Love the texture of the shimmer on the water, and those amazing railings which reflect the water and the shape, though you can't see it, of the bridge beyond.

Some creativity to show soon, I hope...

Random thought of the day: have you backed up your blog lately? Carina had a post at the beginning of the month which reminded me I probably don't do it enough. She has a tutorial for backing up in Blogger here.

Linking up to Really Random Thursday.

Really Random........Sunday?

For some reason I am posting this at 3 o'clock in the morning... If I was Al Pacino there would be jangly music in the background and I would be worrying about a murder and piling the furniture up against the light coming in the window (have you seen Insomnia?) but instead I am sitting on the sofa in the dark updating my blog so can't complain too much.

Sorry to say that no sewing has been going on in this household for a bit.  It is currently what used to be the tatty-picking holidays and the kids are off school.  I don't know if anyone goes tatty picking any more - my friend Debbie and I used to pack our cheese and onion sandwiches and head off at 6am to be selected or rejected (for being too spindly) by the local farmer.  It was the traditional way of making cash to buy cowboy boots, or whatever the latest thing was.

So, what has been going on in the Knotted household?  Well, a trip to a gallery, where even the view out of the window looked like a painting:

A walk in the woods:

This photo is nicked from my dad: I forgot my camera

And a visit to a wedding "Over the Bridge"  (Sprog 1 asked her father if he was going to wear his "quilt", thus confirming our status as a Scottish sewing family)  which involved a stay "South of the Bridge":

I love the way every view is dominated by it.

Love the two kinds of reflections in the railings

Sadly these days there is not nearly enough time for this:

Welcome!

 ...to a new port of call on the Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop, EPP-ing in fantastic locations all over the world, from 1st October to 30th November.

Laura and Katy are off on their travels and while they are away they have asked participants to take a photo in a fantastic place, create a palette using the colours in the photo, and make an English-paper-pieced block.

I'm Catherine, and I'd like to invite you to stop off in Scotland.  Edinburgh is a beautiful city, with beautiful surroundings, so there are plenty of views to draw inspiration from - like this:

Palette using Palette Builder at Playcrafts

or this landmark off my favourite beach just down the coast, which you might recognise from my blog header:

I love these colours and I was all set to go with a plan and some Liberty.  Then I went for a walk by the docks and got distracted.  There was a fantastic light and I think that the port, with its boats and mysterious industrial machinery, is just as beautiful in its own way.

Anyway, I thought that it would be an interesting challenge to use a picture from here, taking this one and turning the wheel into a Rose Star. 

And it was a disaster.  First I had to abandon one of my fabrics. I always check different colour combinations in natural and artificial light but it didn't occur to me that two apparently identical colours might look different. You can't really see it in this picture, but these reds don't match in artificial light.   I also love the yellow in the source photo, but didn't like the effect on the block.  This flustered me and after that I kept sewing bits on upside down. 

In the end, I just wasn't happy with it, so it was Binsville for that one, and I turned to this instead.

(This is the Royal Yacht Britannia, and if you ever want to see the rank system translated into naval accommodation, and to have a nosy at the Queen's bedroom with its surprisingly small bed, it is fascinating and well worth a visit.  I like the contrast between this, and the little harbour patrol tug in the background.)

I decided to do this one by eye - and to leave out the yellow.  I also narrowed down the various blue-greys.

I wanted to do a round block with a nod towards the nautical and industrial, so I've been drawing up trial blocks, but by yesterday I was panicking with bits of paper and fabric all over the floor, and today we're three hours further north and I have to sheepishly own up to not having finished.  I really hope that you at least enjoyed a glimpse of this part of the world - and that you'll come back and see if I've managed.

You can find all the details of the hop here.  Do have a look at what the other participants have been up to, including Fiona @ Celtic Thistle Stitches who was up yesterday, and Amanda @ AmandaMillar who is your host tomorrow.

And even if you're not an official participant you can join in and link your block up on 30 November to have a chance of winning some lovely prizes generously sponsored by Paperpieces.com,  Fabricworm,  Pink Castle Fabrics,  Marmalade Fabrics, the Fat Quarter Shop, WantItNeedItQuilt,  and Aurifil.

Really Random Thursday

This week there has been some glorious sunshine, and some equally wonderful sunsets:

 

I have been working on an etching, which is still a wip:

I think mackerel are really rather beautiful!

If you are curious how an etching is made, this shows the basics on a small scale, though there are additional ways of adding detail to your plate:



and if you want to know why prints are expensive, and how an original hand-pulled print differs from a high-class photocopy, you'll understand if you watch this series of ten(!) films:



And I have fallen behind in my fabric-related projects while I panic prepare for my space on the Travellin' Pic Stitch Blog Hop, on Saturday:

It's easy to get distracted by great posts on the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop - today's hosts are Chrissie of madebyChrissieD and Marit of Sew, love, live

Looking forward to reading about some other random happenings at:

Sunday Stash

I've mentioned before that I really have a pitiful stash - in fact, I will show it to you just in case you fancy a laugh.  I'm not proud.

First, this here is the stash of my dreams. 

Now this is mine:

I have another odd shelf of bizarre bits of recycled clothing and old curtain material, but this is my patchwork/crafty stash and you can see that a) I am not a domestic goddess, and b) it is small, and not perfectly formed.

However, it has increased in size substantially with the arrival of my winnings from a giveaway by Southern Fabric, hosted at Red Pepper Quilts - a very generous bundle of Joel Dewberry fabrics.

I'm very grateful to have won these fabrics and quite excited by the prospect of using them because they are totally outside my usual comfort zone, which makes it an enjoyable challenge - hugely enhanced because I didn't pay for them.

I'd like to do something very bold and experimental, but I suspect that more round bottom bags will be the order of the day.  What would you make?

Linking up to:

Really Random Thursday

Random thought for the day: when I first started blogging I had a newly reawakened interest in patchwork and quilting.  The blogs I read were, on the whole, patchwork and quilting blogs.  My blog became a patchwork and quilting blog too.  But I'm interested in other stuff and never quite sure how much to share it.    Do you prefer single-topic blogs?  Or do you like it when bloggers go "off-topic"?

Personally I like reading the other stuff, and that is why I like Really Random Thursday!

Anyhoo....

I've been trying to carry my camera with me more of the time because I love the way that using it can change the way you look at things. This Really Random Thursday I'm linking up with some things I found this week:

I thought they were completely random until I uploaded them and noticed that there's a bit of a circles thing going on.  Also, don't they go rather well with the Really Random Thursday button?:-)

Now I'm off to enjoy some other Random posts.

WIP Wednesday

So it turns out that my fairy godmother (aka my husband) read my blog, and I am now the happy owner of this bundle of ruby reds:

Isn't it (and he) lovely?   And it wasn't even supposed to be a hint!   I already have a plan and am doing some prototyping before I go anywhere near these beautiful fabrics with my rotary cutter.

On the cutting mat this week are the fabrics from a Tradewinds layer cake which are waiting to be made into a quilt/wrap for Sprog 2.

 I've been making HSTs and trying out this method for the first time:

I found the fabric moved together while I was sewing it, and I think this will necessitate a bit of squaring up, but it's certainly a very rapid way to make HSTs.

Pinwheels had been my plan, but I'm veering towards a random placing now. I'm also not sure how well the bamboo lattice works with the rest in this project - do you think they'll stand out too much from a tonal point of view? - and wondering if I should unpick these triangles.  Such a horrible job! 

I'm linking up with