Bear With...

Trying to see if I can still log into this wretched neglected blog...

Busy as a Bee (sorry)

It's a funny thought but I'm supposed to be moving house on Friday.  We still haven't exchanged contracts but the removal men are booked and what feels like 90% of the house (but is probably nearer 10%) is in boxes in the hall way.  I suppose it's a 50/50 chance at this point...

Anyway, before I could face the horror of packing up my workroom, I knew I had to catch up on a few bits and bats.  For the first time since I joined my two sewing bees, I had COMPLETELY NEGLECTED an entire month.

So, with no further ado, here is my "Squirrel at the Wheel" block for Quiltification (I hadn't realised but judging by that tutorial we appear to share a lot of orange stash):

And my chicken block for Just Jude Designs:

And the last two blocks for my village knitting group's quilt bee, Teresa's Pinwheel and Morning Star II.

Oooh, after the summer "holidays" I've had, I can't lie, it's been lovely to get a bit of a stitch on.  I'll have to start putting it all in boxes tomorrow though.  Wish me luck!

Mi Gerddaf Gyda Thi, A Translation from Welsh by Ms T. Magpie Cat

I do sometimes do things other than sew or mope about my cat.  Such as look at beautiful shops like Buddug, and develop a terrible need for things like this plate:

The poem (just the first verse) on it is rather lovely too, and they translate it as follows:

"I will walk with you across distant paths
Flowers and dreams will bless our journey
Into your eyes I will gaze and holding your hand
I will walk with you whatever may come"

I was very taken with it, and although I can barely speak a word of Welsh, I found an audio recording of it (I've since lost the link, of course) and it is just lovely.  The full text is here:

Mi gerddaf gyda thi dros lwybrau maith,

A blodau, cân a breuddwyd ar ein taith;

I`th lygaid syllaf i a dal dy law:

Mi gerddaf gyda thi, beth bynnag ddaw.

Mi gerddaf gyda thi pan fydd y lloer

Fel llusern yn y nen ar noson oer.

Addawaf i ti'n ghalon i yn llwyr:

Mi gerddaf gyda thi drwy oriau'r hwyr.

Mi gerddaf gyda thi drwy weddill f'oes,

Pan fydd yr haul ar fryn neu'r dyddiau'n groes;

A phan ddaw'r alwad draw, pwy wyr pa awr,

Mi gerddaf gyda thi i’r freuddwyd fawr. 

So then I looked for a full translation of the whole poem.  What I found was...   

I'll be honest, I am not feeling that translation AT ALL.  A bit too much of the golden dreams and starlight and not quite enough of the simple, sincere feeling I had from the bare translation.  But it's a poem that rhymes, and I felt like a translation of it should rhyme too, and so with the help of Google Translate and my wonderful friend who is a native Welsh speaker, I decided to have a go myself. And here is what I have ended up with:

I will walk with you though the road be long,

And set forth with a flower, a dream, a song.

I take your hand, look in your eyes and know

I will walk with you anywhere you go.

I will walk with you when the full moon's light

Is like a lantern in the coldest night.

I promise you my heart, entire and all,

I will walk with you as the shadows fall.

I will walk with you all the years ahead,

On sunlit hills and when the sun has fled.

And when our call is heard, its hour unguessed,

I will walk with you through the lands of rest.

I don't know if it's better or not, but I like it more.  If anyone should happen upon it and decide they want to use it for anything, please do so with my blessing!

Not quilting, not cats, but I was rather proud of it so I thought I'd share.  Have a lovely weekend!

Hobbiton double wedding ring. I may be nuts.

One of the things I do when I'm a bit sad or overwhelmed is disappear into Peter Jackson's films of Tolkein, so recently I've been watching a LOT of the Hobbit.  It's not hard to explain why it's a comfort (provided you don't watch quite to the end).  It's got magic, and swordfights, and several outrageously hot sons of Durin, plus a Bowman, and beautiful scenery, and cosy hobbit smials.

I dunno about you, but I certainly would.

And while I was thinking about Bag End something struck me.  Hobbit architecture is mostly based on circles - rings, if you will.  I've never attempted a Double Wedding Ring quilt but it's been on my bucket list for a while, as I suspect it is for most Quilters.  It's one of those things You Should Do.

What better quilt for snuggling under in my own pseudo-smial than a nice hobbitish double wedding ring?  I dug out all my green and yellow scraps, those being the preferred colours of hobbits according to J.R.R, and got stuck in.  Paper piecing is a very soothing pastime so it's doubly perfect for me right now.



...I am vaguely thinking of piecing in one plain gold ring in the bottom right hand corner.  Is that too geeky?  Oh, who am I kidding.  As if there were any such thing.

International Cat Day

Seems like a good time to return to my poor, poor neglected blog.  There are, as ever, lots of reasons why I haven't been posting but one of them is more important than all the others:

This is Deeley, and she was The Best Cat.  For 14 years she was my best friend, and then on 20th July she was hit by a car just outside our house and suddenly I was stroking her side and sobbing as she took a last few breaths.

It is very quiet around here without her loud meows and chirrups, and a bit cold too without her sleeping on our bed, always rolling in so close she nearly pushed me out of it.

Many years ago I had the idea to get a little black cat tattoo - in fact I planned to do it on my 30th birthday, but then I was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time - but I never got around to it.  The day after Deeley died, I went to a very nice, friendly tattoo parlour called Painted People and made my appointment.

So now I have a little reminder of her on my left shoulder, just under my collarbone.  I'm pleased with it, of course, but I'd rather have Deeley back.  Her ashes are in a little wooden box on the sitting room windowsill, in a sunbeam where she liked to sleep.  She was The Best Cat.

LADDER STITCHED HEXAGONS. Invisibly tidy! A revelation! Who knew??

Going with Flo

Ta dah!  A quilt top, finished, for Siblings Together.  I learned a fair bit from this one, I think - not least the differences between what "a 1/4" seam" means on various sewing machines.  In retrospect, a block that required precisely matched seams may not have been a sensible choice.

There are, certainly, a few places on the quilt where four blocks meet in perfect synchronicity:

And there are a few places where it looks more like this:

I will admit, my perfectionist heart sank when I started pinning blocks together, and for nearly a whole row I wrestled with trimming and easing and generally tweaking to try to make everything exactly as I had imagined it.  And then I remembered a very wise lady whom I worked with several years ago.  Her name was Tracey, and when things didn't quite turn out as planned, she was often known to say (in her wonderfully soft, soothing voice) "Go with Flo.  She's a good girl, is Flo, she'll see you right."

So I did, and I'm glad of it.  It's a beautiful quilt top, with all the quirks and individualities of the people who made it.  The pattern still shines out just as I hoped it would, and I think the effect is fresh and friendly.  I am hugely grateful to the very skilled and very generous members of the ST2 bee.  And it has the Moosh seal of approval too.

It's also HUGE - that's it spread out over our super-king sized bed - and I've never quilted anything this big before.  There is every chance that I won't finish it before the Siblings Together retreat...  but if I don't, I can comfort myself that I have at least contributed.  A while back I dug a few finished quilt tops out of the midden of my workroom that I'd completely forgotten about (I KNOW) and asked if anyone would be willing to quilt them up for ST2.  The very wonderful Sue stepped up and has finished all three!

This one was a sort of scrappy, inverted Irish Chain quilt that I put all my most cheerful scraps into and then forgot about.

This one has a ton of Denyse Schmidt Shelburne Falls in it.  I was finally making something for ME, and I painstakingly devised a block, then set it on point, and just as I was finishing up the top I realised that there would've been a vastly easier way of creating the same effect without having to deal with a million bias edges.  I promptly fell utterly out of love with it, despite the fabrics.  Whoops.

And this last one is entirely made of Madrona Road, intended as a showcase for the range back when I briefly dabbled in selling fabric.  I still really love this range.

But more to the point, isn't Sue a hero?!  I got to do the fun bit and then she's made them actually useful!  Three cheers for Sue!  Fingers crossed I can quilt up that beast at the top and we'll make it 4 finished quilts for the retreat.  Wish me luck...