Sew Liberty: a day of everything that is good in the world

23 Apr

At the beginning of this year I booked a place on one of the sewing workshops held at Liberty’s department store. This weekend I attended this workshop. It was AWESOME. In the quietest possible way, of course. Liberty just get things right. From the, frankly just perfect, floor to ceiling, dark oak panelled Heritage Suite in which the session took place (Mr Libbo’s old office apparently), to the size of the class (eight very agreeable ladies), to the surprise afternoon tea. I LOVE YOU SURPRISE AFTERNOON TEA! We sewed. We tea-ed. We chatted about memories of our Grandmothers and shared details of our favourite fabric suppliers. I have rarely felt so absolutely content in the company of strangers.

On a more practical note, Liberty supplies you with a half-metre of so of different fabrics and the cathedral window technique is fiddly enough to make you feel like a patchworking badass (yet really quite simple once you get the hang of it) and resulting in people being as impressed by a cushion cover as they would be with an evening of magic tricks. Janet Goddard, our session guide, is a lovely lady. One of the universe’s gentle energies. Approachable, down to Earth and the owner of one of the most impressive sewing boxes I’ve ever seen. It was nearly five feet long. She’s my new heroine.

I can’t recommend Sew Liberty highly enough. Go, go, go. I’ll be booking my next afternoon of heaven as soon as I can.

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A grand day out and more fabric I don’t need

19 Mar

Following my office Christmas party last Thursday (far too busy pre-Christmas…) I took my first day off work this year to go to the Spring Stitch and Craft show at Olympia. This one was particularly interesting as the main feature was an exhibition of quilts made for each country participating in the 2012 Olympic Games: A Gift of Quilts. I was, without a doubt, the youngest person there by a good 20 years and, smelling slightly of prosecco, enjoyed an enlightening session creating a seascape from patchwork with a lovely lady named Sally. I want to say her last name was ‘Bercow’, but that wouldn’t be correct. Sorry Sally.

On the purchasing front I picked up a cool, industrial looking embroidery scissors that resembles a flick knife I bought Mr Welch a few years ago (aww, matching pocket weaponry…oh the romance!) and some great fabric packs from a supplier I hadn’t heard of before. Sunflowerfabrics.com has a sweet little range, with all the layer cakes and charm packs hand picked by the owner. It’s nice to have a bit of a change from the usual Moda beauties and, whereas some other print houses can be a bit hit and miss, the Sunflower collections all looked solid and very useable. I definitely spied a mix of Moda and Liberty in one of her mixes, which was refreshing. Apart from that I got a gorgeous Moda jellyroll that I hadn’t seen before – all soft greys and creams with a classic, almost musical vibe to some of the print.

Here are some pictures of some of the quilts. Hope you enjoy.

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Quiltivities

14 Mar

I have been buying lots of tickets for quilty things recently. This Friday I’ve taken a day off work to go to the Spring Stitch and Craft show at Olympia in London. In part to purchase fabrics that I just don’t need, and also to see this exhibition – a collection of quilts made in Britain, one for each of the countries participating in the 2012 Olympics. I’ve booked in to a  cool looking workshop too, for the very reasonable sum of £7, where I will create a coastal landscape using patchwork and embroidery. It’s on from the 15th to the 18th of March.

April the 21st will see me spend the entire day at my beloved Liberty, learning the art of cathedral window patch working. What a fabulous way to spend a spring Saturday! I can barely contain my excitement!

August the 6th is the Festival of Quilts in the NEC in Birmingham. My mum has very kindly offered to come with me. Tickets booked in advance are only £9 from Twisted Thread, who also have listings of all kinds of craft events.

In other news, I’ve turned into a middle-aged housewife named Lyn. I’ve a penchant for slacks from M&S and shoes from Ecco, and spent last weekend making bird feeders for my garden out of yoghurt pots, bird seed and lard.

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Quilting is very manly

17 Feb

I’ve got three big quilts on the go at the moment. While working on each of them a little bit last weekend I looked around at my workshop (the table in the living room) and saw it was covered in lots of pretty, colourful fabrics, multi-coloured spools of thread, bags of jewel-bright buttons…at the same time Mr Welch was putting up some very sturdy shelves in the kitchen and covering it in sawdust. ‘What attractive detritus my hobby creates’, I may have remarked to myself, ‘and what a mess manly hobbies make’. Days later I am reading an entry on quilting in some online encyclopaedia that says quilting is almost always done by women which got me looking for male quilters. I follow some on Twitter and they do seem a bit wimpy (I’m going to hell, I’m sure they’re perfectly nice). But then I found this guy:

He really is quite something. Look at his manly Harley and his heterosexual bandana! See how it looks like he’s painted eyes on to his closed eyelids? That, ladies and gentlemen, is what a REAL man looks like.

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10 things I’ve learned about quilting

7 Jan

1. Before you cut anything measure it. Then, if you’re like me, measure it again because it will probably be wrong. Then, throughout the cutting process,

2. If you’ve made your quilt top out of good quality fabric, don’t try and save money by buying cheap backing fabric. I’ve always regretted it and I never do it anymore. I want my quilts to last and the difference in fabrics is really noticeable.

3. If your sewing machine is acting up try changing the needle. It’s the quilting equivalent of turning your laptop off and back on again.

4. If you don’t already have one, invest in a rotary cutter and some quilting rulers from Creative Grids.

5. Keep it simple and don’t worry. It’ll always turn out ok and your friends will always be impressed. Don’t make more work for yourself, it’ll spoil the enjoyment.

6. Keep a bin handy for all the tiny scraps of fabric and loose threads. They get everywhere and drive Mr Welch mad.

7. If you’re using an normal-sized sewing machine you’ll need to use a lightweight cotton batting (2oz or less) if you have any hope of getting anything bigger than a twin size through it. And bicycle clips. Get some.

8. Watching rom-coms and quilting is one of the best activity pairings in the world.

9. You can use any colour cotton to sew your patches together, you’ll never really ever see it.  Just make sure the thread you use for quilting is the correct colour. Recently I’ve been using completely contrasting thread. I think it looks really cool.

10. Cats are nice.

That is all. Happy New Year.

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I’m So Very Sorry

12 Dec

Open letter to the chambermaid at the Trinity Capital Hotel, Dublin

Dear Madam,

You don’t know me, and my shame about what I am about to admit prevents me from revealing my identity. My husband and I have just returned from a delightful break in your wonderful city, both of which are worth at least a 200 word gush on Trip Advisor. EACH! Thankfully I did not hasten to said website when, earlier in the day, I was convinced beyond reproach you had stolen my moisturiser. My suspicions first arose on Saturday afternoon. I remembered using the moisturiser (Clinique Moisture Surge, only 6 days old) that very morning as I have started, and been uncharacteristically dedicated to, a brand new regimen suggested by the kind ladies at the counter in House of Fraser. I did not voice my concerns to my husband until late Sunday, as it’s not unusual for me to misplace all sorts of things under jumpers, in spare bags etc. But I had checked everywhere by this point and required rational assistance. He, too, checked everywhere and could find it not. I ACCUSED YOU very loudly, many times, of larceny, a word I had learned that morning on a guided tour of Kilmainham Gaol. Now, I hope you will forgive me for what I am about to say. Between Saturday afternoon and the morning of our departure I had created (in my mind) a complete criminal profile of you, the moisturiser thief. My hitherto successfully repressed inner Daily Mail reader decided that you were a European Union female, aged 20 to 40, short, fat, possibly with a limp caused by DVT or childhood surgery gone wrong under a Communist government. You were uneducated but with the clever slyness that petty criminals posses (again, in my mind) which meant that, while you freely took my Moisture Surge you left other fancy face stuff that was part of a matching set, as you reasoned I would be more likely to notice. Imagine my utter disgust with myself this evening when I returned home, forlorn and with a dry, flaky t-zone, to find my moisturiser on my dressing table in my bedroom. OH THE SHAME! I am now moved to something akin to Catholic guilt by images of you scrupulously cleaning our hotel bedroom. Tucking the corners of the sheets under the mattress, just-so. Picking up our pants of the floor. Folding the edge of the toilet paper into a little point. Never once passing judgement on the bits of pretzel in the bed…YOU ARE A PARAGON OF VIRTUE MADAM! I thoroughly deserve to have a dessicated epidermis, as a reflection of my inner grotesqueness. I can only apologise profusely for thinking so ill of you, and guarantee that I will never do so again to anyone of your ilk.

Yours humbly,

The slob in 113

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Sugar, parrots and a short run

1 Dec

I dream of creating my own fabric designs. I have tons of paper scraps with little pictures or designs on that I would love to turn into patterned 100-thread-count lawn cotton. So many of the lovely fabrics I use would just be so much lovelier with a little bit more green here, or a slightly more dense clustering. One of my favourites is the paper seal from the inside of a La Perruche sugar cubes box (pictured, poorly). Unfortunately, the cost of learning how and of producing even a short run of fabric has, up to now, been so prohibitive that the dream has had to remain just that. However, there has been a sudden upsurge of companies that will take your digital designs and print them onto short-run bolts of any fabric they’ve got for a persuasively reasonable price. Be warned, it’s still not cheap, but it’s still a pretty good option. I’m going to try this one out. They’re called Citrus Rain and have a cheery, easy-to-use interface. They happily make ‘sample lengths’ of fabrics for you, using both rotary and flat-screen printing, without you having to pretend you work for some bigger operation. Not that I’ve ever done that…um…Yes. Well. Anyway, they understand that people sometimes just want something individual for their cushions or curtains, and not necessarily 50 metres of parrot-infested cotton. People would think you were a bit mental if you went to town on your living room with that little lot. And they can turnaround in as little as 5 days, depending on what you want. Definitely worth a try.

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