Inching toward the edge

It was good to get away from the dragon quilt for a couple of days. I was really getting bogged down in problems and possibilities, not necessarily in that order.

While at the weekend studio I was able to go through the contents of every shelf and every box, and pull out fabrics that might be useful. The big breakthrough was finding a huge length of african fabric, bought at least 5 years ago and squirrelled away as being "too good to use" (as you do). OK it's african rather than japanese, but the colours and the "feel" is right - and anyway, the quilt already has australian, indonesian, and other non-japanese fabrics -- international fusion.

So there's less pressure, in the long crawl towards the eventual binding, to piece tiny scraps together to eke out the remaining fabric . Finding that fabric gave me a great sense of release and optimism -- it was a metaphorical moment -- how often in your life do you come across some small thing that changes your perspective in that way....

So, in the slow march to the edges, we now have further side panels -and a possible plan for the bit that will go over the pillows -
But as always, I'm playing around with sequences and combinations till it "feels" right.

After quilting the side panels, the next task is to piece the stripey border for the other side.

Another thing that's working quite well is having a computer-based task to get on with - a couple of hours on one, a couple of hours on the other, and the day passes very pleasantly indeed. Must remember to leave the house sometime soon - it can get toooo cosy at home -- and a person can get toooo obsessed with a project.

Quote for the day

Generally speaking anybody is more interesting doing nothing than doing something. -- Gertrude Stein

One week to go...

With the big room available for spreading out the dragon quilt for only another week, work on the dragon quilt is going distressingly slowly. I got two rounds onto the dragon side in the past two days, after putting applique patches on "the men" to integrate that fabric with the pieced area on the other side. You can see their stitching lines near the blue area - that stitching is all the quilting there will be.

One question at this point is - what goes next around "the men"? This area will all be hanging down the sides of the bed. One possibility is 4" of the red used as applique, with leftover bits of "the men" at intervals, and an occasional slash of the other red fabric used in "the men" border -Or - and I think I'll go with this option - blue with swathes of stripey and checked fabric (like in men's traditional clothing). Nearly 400" of this border is needed.
To get back to the dragon side - here are the new blue border and "ladies" border, and at the bottom is a pieced strip I made at the outset of the project - but what will go in between?
First round - 1" wide when it's finished - will be red -292" of it are needed -
The mostly-blue fabrics will go down the sides on the dragon side of the quilt. My stock of japanese fabrics is definitely dwindling. One of the objectives of this quilt is to use them up!
Part of the fun of this project is the ingenuity needed, and the many possibilities and surprises along the way. On the downside, so much thinking and planning is required (have I said this before?) that progress is slow - and with a deadline looming, and a couple of other big (work-related) projects on the go, anxiety is replacing pleasure....

I suspect this will be my last large quilt - much as I like the continuity of the project, and the struggle to reach the goal, and the impromptu method ... the logistics (and long, long seams) (with more to come!) are daunting.

Into the Wild

If you happen to be in Huntly (between Inverness and Aberdeen) at the weekend, do go see Into the Wild, a series of tableaus in Battlehill Wood put on by Dudendance (Clea Wallis and colleagues). We went last week and it was magical. Strange creatures (local teenagers wearing animal masks) slowly perform some ordinary-seeming actions; in small groups, the visitors (voyeurs?) move from one scene to another throughout the wood. You make up your own story as you go along. The only sound is the wind in the trees.

But as you're not likely to be there, here are some photos, taken in conditions of wildly changing light.

Also in Huntly

An empty shop, owned by Deveron Arts, is where you can reserve tickets for Into the Wild and get a cup of tea and lovely homemade cakes, made by Daisy -
The raspberry cake was wonderful. On the tables, copies of interviews with local residents, of their memories of Battlehill Woods. (A huge section of the woods is to be logged, using clearcut methods, and a local group is protesting.)
One of the international collaborators in the Into the Wild project has been developing a sound performance with the local writer's group, using their words and voices -
The cafe was full for the performance, and passers-by were ... bemused ...

Another border on "the dragon quilt"

To get an idea for the bit that goes over the pillow on the pieced side, I looked in the big fat Quilt National book - the diagonal lines in this quilt set off a train of thought. (Of course I had to look through the whole book, such a pleasure, and mused on how my favourites have changed over the years - and how fresh and original some of the old ones - 1995, 1997 - still look.)Once the big blocks of a busy print had strips of red print inserted at an angle, the next question was, how to make them into a "panel" - I decided to use chunks of various blue fabrics, rather than using the same fabric for each. But before that could be sewn, the bits in between had to be decided. This quilt is a matter of planning several steps ahead - different plans for different contingencies - and then doing something slightly different and having to replan all the next steps. Which is quite fun, but prolongs the process.

Red and grey for the "uprights" didn't look right (what was I thinking, so much solid colour?) -More blue looked better -
But what about using the extra stripey pieced strip as uprights, rather than as an extra bit of border -
The little problem is that the bit of border was going to be used to buffer the "noh actors" fabric that will form the sides -
Does it look so bad without it, though? (Yes, it does...)
Seeing the photos all together and away from the quilt is helpful. I'll sleep on it and decide what to do in the morning.

Intervention, Battlehill Wood, Huntly

A dam of pinecones - "built by land-living beavers" - ?

Sharing art

It was great to have science-and-art-friend Cathy visiting -- a chance to revisit favourite parts of museums, see new things, and share some of my favourite books. Jun Kaneko and El Anatsui were instant hits, and we spent time on the internet looking up my favourite artists whose books I couldn't find on my shelves. (Time to completely rearrange the bookshelves...)

Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife was also a hit - I commend it to you. "The collection [of poems] takes characters, stories, histories and myths which focus on men, and in Duffy's renowned feminist way, presents them anew for the public to look at the women that were previously obscured behind the men."

Train journey

London to Aberdeen, and 10 stops in between. Thumbnails between and at each station.

Another thing to do on a train journey

Using the seat reservation tickets for a little TravelWriting, coming and going.

With attitude

Security cameras at King's Cross Station -- pigeons won't be perching here.

Rainy City

7"x10" journal quilt for September. The background is painted with shiva/markal paintstick, and the scraps just sort of appeared out of nowhere and became buildings. As for those "clouds" (are they clouds??) -- I don't know why I'm putting geometrical shapes in the sky these days...

City break

Corporate denizens take a lunch break in St Paul's Churchyard. (How wonderful it is, not to have to put on a suit and go to the office every day!)

Flip side

For the past couple of days I've been spending hours and hours on the dragon quilt. Progress is very slow, but I love being able to listen to the radio all day while sewing.

The double-sided nature of the beast means taking care at every step. One seam I had to re-do yesterday, down one side, took an hour - rip and pin and check and repin; sew and check and rip again... Even so the fabric on the other side needed some adjustment, and basting together before it could be machine quilted.

Mostly the borders go on in "sew and flip" style, making a line of quilting on the other side. It's especially complicated as I'm changing The Grand Plan all the time, after seeing the results when the border is actually on.

At the end of the week, the wide borders on the pieced side are on, and the border before that has been quilted -The fabric with the Noh actors is quite different from the pieced top - it might need some integration with a bit of applique - which will take a while to plan and execute, before borders on the other side go on, supplying quilting for this border -
There wasn't enough "men" fabric for a top border, so I'll be using these in combination - and in big pieces -
The stripey strip below them was left over from the previous piecing, and might go on after the red&blue fabrics, rather than before - I'll decide once the red&blue have been pieced.

A closer look at the quilting over the stripey border on the pieced side -
Really it fits into the borders on the dragon side. As for the quilting line on the pale border, which is how the "men" fabric is attached on the other side - I'm not bothered about the inconsistent width on different borders; it's much more important that the line is straight within each strip. That took a lot of pinning and checking!
From the amount of batting that's visible, you can imagine how many rounds of strips will be going on this side.

Urban archaeology

At second glance it looks like these buildings were interconnected...

Passing by ...

... the chandelier shop in Crouch End.

Serious coffee

I may have mentioned Algerian Coffee Stores, in Soho, before. I love an excuse to go there - running out of coffee is a good excuse... or, needing loose tea.

This week's purchase was Brazilian Bourbon coffee - v.tasty. Apart from the crowded shop and nice coffee smell, the windows are full of interest, like these little characters -And the retro vision of Cona Coffee Makers - so fragile!
The signs need no further comment -