Playing with the layout :)

Hmm this?

or this?

this one?

or this one?

I like the last one best - what do you all think?

Quilting

I have started a new quilting project - you can read more about it on the latest blog post   on my other blog The Crafty Compostwoman

Trip around the world quilt

So now the nights are drawing in and the clocks have changed, I find myself with time to craft, again.

I have been making 2 1/2 " strips from various saved and recycled cotton fabric to start on my next quilting project, a Trip around the World quilt. I also have some strips I purchased from the Quilt show I went to a few months ago and a few rolls I found in a charity shop last month :)

Playing with layout and colours :)

Sewing the strips together

Cutting the strips

After sewing them into tubes, I unpicked the tubes so that the strips started on a different square

Not yet sewn together as I want to make more strips and play with the orientation and design.

If you have no idea what I am up to and want to know more - see this excellent tutorial from  Bonnie K Hunter here

Let there be Light(s)

 
One of the things I dislike about growing older is the way I find it hard to see later at night - my eyes are getting tired by then!  I find now that to read or craft I need extra lighting to aid me and I guess I am not alone in this.

When Compostman renovated the sitting room we had long conversations as to whether we should alter the lighting but decided what we had, was just right for us  - a couple of ceiling mounted pendant lamps and some adjustable wall lamps - all of which can be independently on or off. We also have a small table lamp which provides a dim glow - usually this is on when we are all watching a film and just want a bit of light to see, so as not to tread on a sleeping cat :)
 
It is important to get lighting right for your needs and which fits in with the design of your home and there are some very helpful websites who give good advice about lighting. Here  is the Channel 4 website about lighting design and here is the Energy Saving  Trust site about using  energy saving lighting. I found both of these interesting and helpful.


The pendant lights in most houses are there to provide what designers call "ambient or background lighting" - a substitute for natural daylight. I was surprised to learn that the idea that we should light our rooms with one or at most two pendant lights is a hangover from the days of gas lamps.

I remember in my childhood home ( a large, high ceiling Victorian town house) we still had gas lamp fittings on the walls and we also had a number of beautiful chandeliers, made of crystal, which I was fascinated by. When we were considering new lighting here, I was quite tempted to get some modern versions of crystal lighting, but we have a smallish, Edwardian cottage, rather than a large Victorian, four storey town house so I decided against it. Part of me still hankers after a fabulous crystal chandelier as a centrepiece, though!

Anyway, although gas lighting is long gone from most houses, the idea of pendant lighting remains. The trouble is that, if you only have one or two overhead sources of light, this can cause problems.  Overhead lights alone can create a bland, flat effect in a room but if you use this more general lighting mixed with some other types, you can end up with a room well lit  for all sorts of uses. Usually the background lighting is augmented by such things as wall lights, downlighters, uplighters and standard lamps.We have a mixture of different types here, and it seems to work well for us. 

For example, if I am working in the sitting room during the day  I am lucky enough to have a North and two East facing windows providing lots of natural light. As it gets darker the main overhead lights can be turned on,  and there are also the wall mounted lamps which shine on certain areas of the sofas, this allows me to read or crochet while the rest of the room can be darker. The rest of the family can watch TV, while I can do my reading or crafting. Two other wall lamps provide similar "islands" of light for other people to read, if they wish.

When I am working at the table, reading, writing, painting, sewing, quilting or cutting out, as well as a pendant light overhead I can have one of the wall lights shine onto my work. I also have an excellent adjustable floor standing lamp which shines, over my shoulder, if needed. Compostman bought it for me as a Christmas present.

This, and the wall lamps are called "task lighting" by designers.

Task lighting, however, needs careful placement for best effect. You should apparently always place the lamp opposite your writing hand or you'll be working in your own shadow. The beam of the light should fall on your working area and not reflect onto your computer screen or paper. Common sense, really!

Compostman and I have had similar conversations about lighting in every room we have renovated - we always take the opportunity to rethink the lighting as it can make such a difference to the functionality and usefulness of a room.

So, in our kitchen we have fluorescent overhead lights and some under the cupboard downlighters which are similar to some in the Mail Order Lighting endon lighting range, so there is always lots of light to see what we are doing when cooking.

In our bedroom ( newly refurbished, as I have mentioned several times :)  ) we have three triple, adjustable downlighters on the ceiling. These are really useful, can be operated separately and can also be dimmed. One of them is over the bed head, so one of us can read while the other goes to sleep in the dark :)

If you are thinking of renovating any room, or even redecorating, it is always worth considering what your lighting needs might be. There are many useful guides to lighting around, I mentioned a couple earlier on and  I found this BBC site to be helpful so I knew what "buzz words" to use! There are also many online sellers of lights - I found the huge range of different stock carried by Mail Order Lighting was very helpful, when browsing for ideas.


What do other people use as lighting? Do any of you use specialist craft lamps? If so, are they any help?

Rugs, rags, recycling and a new floor.

This week has been a very busy one for us here  at Compost Mansions. We are having a lot of work done outside as we are having an expanded and redesigned patio being built. I have been redesigning the garden for a long time now and finally I have some new beds to plant up and a whole load of plants I have grown to put into them.

The new kitchen floor is finished and looks lovely, and now the evenings are drawing in I have returned to some crafting at last :)

One of the things I have been doing is play with a small peg loom - I have made a start on a rug made from (again) unwanted cotton tee shirts  and I have also resurrected the rag yarn crochet rug I was working on at the start of the year.

I actually unwound a lot of it as I didn't like the colour scheme and am crocheting it again.  The plan is that this will be a rug for the cats to sleep on in the kitchen as the new terracotta tiles are a bit cold for them, otherwise.

Rugs are also on my mind for elsewhere in the house. Now that our lovely new bedroom has a wooden floor, I want to get a couple of smaller rugs to go with the large woollen rug which sits at the foot of the bed. I want warm comfortable rugs to stand on with bare feet when I get out of bed. I also want them to be woven from either wool or some other natural yarn.

I had a look around on line for traditional rugs for the home and found a company called mail order rugs. I love the fact that on their website you can select rugs by colour, yarn, shape or style. I was particularly taken by the colours of some of the rugs and got some great ideas for making my own.

As far as the rugs are concerned, I want them to be made from natural materials, probably wool. I would ideally like them to be washable or at least damp spongable ( the cats are always bringing us "gifts" and also have muddy paws even as far as the bedroom!) and I would like them to come from a supplier who doesn't exploit rug makers in other parts of the world ( often underpaid children) so I was pleased to see that mail order rugs say on their website

All our rugs are responsibly sourced using suppliers who understand our opposition to exploiting children in the rug industry.

There is a really good Rug Buying Guide on their website as well which is full of interesting info.

A couple of the modern rug designs  in particular caught my eye as ideas for a large quilt I want to make to go on our bed. This will be in shades of brown, gold, green and cream. I have dusted off my quilting tools and sorted out some lovely strips of fabric as well as cutting out a lot more strips. This is for a child quilt :)

 

So, as the nights draw in I return to my crafting :)

Renovations and decorations

One of the things we have been doing recently is moving back into the newly renovated and redecorated master bedroom.

After what seems like a very long time (16 years!) the room is finally completed, Compostman did a terrific job and we are so pleased with the result!

The colour scheme in the bedroom is similar to that which we chose  for the sitting room. With the wooden floor, furniture and doors the effect there was (in our opinion) really lovely - lots of earth tones. It was only after we finished that we realised the colour scheme was similar to one we had seen in an online paint catalogue!

Regardless, these are our favourite colours and we wanted a similar, warm, cosy effect in our new bedroom. Compostman and I discussed colour schemes but in the end we decided we liked the caramel/terracotta/chocolate theme so much that we would use the same colours again. And of course we still had lots of paint left over, so it was a thrifty move to make as well.

So in our new bedroom we have one terracotta wall,

the other three walls are caramel, the woodwork and ceiling is white and we have picked chocolate coloured blinds for the windows. 

Obviously to turn a painted room into our new cosy bedroom I had a wish list of things we needed;  a bed, headboard, mattress, wardrobe, lighting fittings, several chests, new curtains/blinds and at least one bookcase (!) as well as blinds, a rug or two, a blanket chest and pictures, candles etc.

After a good clean up and polish we re used our old wooden wardrobe and chests and with the new (FSC) solid oak wooden floor the overall effect is pretty good, although I do say it myself :)  We removed the old carpet and took it away - we inherited it when we moved in and it was old, even then, but not in a good way.

We have moved our divan bed and headboard from our old bedroom.  I decided to replace the (very old and rather faded) curtains with blinds as I realised just how much better blinds would be to shut out the light. I managed to find some blackout blinds in exactly the right colour chocolate and the old curtains have been washed and cut up for patchwork and rags.

I remembered I had a wool rug stored away in the loft which we inherited from Compostmans parents' house. I got it out and it is just right for the room :)

I am now sorting through the fabric stash to see what I can use to make the log cabin quilt I have in mind for our bed in the new bedroom :)

Apart from a couple of small rugs for either side of the bed where our feet hit the floor and a chocolate valance sheet, the room is finished and it is just how we wanted it. I am so pleased with the result :)






The view from one of our bedroom windows.

Malvern Quilt Show photos

Finally I have got around to  uploading the photos I took at the Quilt Show. 

Maria and I had a lovely time but we did find it all a bit overwhelming - it was very hot and very crowded and there was so much sensory stimulation, with the colours, noise and people.

This was hand quilted - I dread to think how much time it must have taken.

This quilt was actually a set of six separate panels - more of a wall hanging . it was wonderful and deservedly won Best in Show.

 

 This was amazing, hand made and each of the squares was about a cm long

The buttons are normal shirt buttons!

I loved this quilt with an appliqued tree on the top.

I came away with loads of ideas for things to make, as well as some fabric.

An update (of sorts)

Hello all :-)

Not been doing much crafting as finally, finally! the weather has changed and I am outside sowing and growing and composting and planting like crazy :-)

I did go to a Quilt show in Malvern a couple of weeks back which was wonderful and I have been cutting up fabric at nights to make home made jelly rolls and squares :-)

Not much else crafting  done, though - not even managed to crochet a square for a month :-(

Never mind, I will get back to it soon enough.

Malvern Quilt Show and delousing hens.

I went to the The Three Counties showground on Friday, to attend the Malvern Quilt Show. The TCS is the home of the RHS Spring Gardening show and of course the Three Counties Show, as well as many other events.

I had a lovely time at the Quilt show - I went with a friend and we spent about three hours looking around at the stalls and the display gallery of quilts. I enjoyed chatting to the stallholders and especially to Maggi from Sunflower Fabrics. I really liked the quilt she is standing next to (she made it)  and was so tempted to buy her pattern, or even the kit - but I had a budget which I wanted to spend on fabric, so I didn't.

I loved this Green Man, on a quilt made by  Sew Enchanting

The display of competition quilts was stunning. I got so many ideas!

We bought some lunch ( which was ok but we really should have taken our own!) but after about four hours there, we had seen everything we wanted to see and were a bit  "quilted out" so came away. But we both felt we had been inspired to do different things with our crafting.

I took more photos but my friend has the show catalogue so I shall wait until I get it back so I can tell you a bit more about the quilts.
 
As we walked in from the car park it was interesting to see that workers were still doing "take down" of the many show gardens from the RHS show the weekend before - presumably plants and trees not needed at RHS Chelsea?

I had a nap when I got home - the sinus problems I still have are making it difficult to sleep and I seem to be operating on "tired" all day so a four hour walk about left me a bit shattered. It was nice to go out for the day, though and especially nice to spend it with my friend Maria :-)

After my nap I felt strong enough to treat the Ginger Gang of hens, and their house and run, for lice. This is a fairly major job and needed doing today, as we are on a schedule of treatment. The Ginger Gang are prone to infestations as some cannot preen properly due to being de beaked in the battery cages :-(  My usual routine seemed not to be working last month and the girls were very lice ridden (yuck) so I went to see Mike the Vet and now I am having to apply a drop-on wormer/de louser on the back of their necks every 10 days; today was the second of three doses. I have also cleared the run and house of all straw, paper bedding etc and dusted everywhere with Diatom and their run is also covered in the stuff - so  have to "poo pick" every day. I also have to throw all their eggs, not that they lay very many anyway!

 If I can get them clear of lice I can keep them relatively louse free, although total lice free-ness is unlikely due to the wild birds around us, who also carry them. To be honest it is all a bit of a palaver, but the Lice have been banished (so far) so the Ginger Gang will feel more comfortable and that makes it worth the extra work.

Still makes me feel itchy whenever I see the lice, though!

Crafty round up for March

This month I have

• crochet many granny squares - 30 in total to keep up with one a day
• sewed together fabric squares to make quilt
• pieced together the strips of squares to make the quilt top,
• part quilted the ( king sized) throw
• made two more crochet cotton dishclothes
• Carried out many sewing repair jobs both by hand and with machine.
• Painted a couple of small canvases with acrylics and been content with the result
• Done some wet felting :-)

I have also bought 20 new metal bobbins, a walking foot and  a "quilt in the ditch foot" for my sewing machine. Which have helped with the machine quilting no end :-)

I think I must be getting hooked

on quilting...

Not only have I increased my fabric stash by a substantial amount recently ( a shop closing down in Ledbury :-(  had lots of fabric ends on offer as did a couple of the local charity shops)



 
 

but I have bought a couple of different quilting feet for my sewing maching from Ebay. They are actually really useful for general sewing as well ( thats my excuse, anyway!)

And I am still managing to crochet a square a day :-) I can do one in about an hour now AND watch TV  :-)

The Quilt that got away from me ...

It got a bit bigger than I intended..I meant to make it as a table runner but...it is now a King Size topper!

And it does actually cover our bed. With enough to hang down the sides!

I have decided to make it a lightweight quilt, with a sheet as wadding and another as a backing because that way I can use it on a bed and wash it relatively easily. If I use even thinish cotton wadding it will take a long time to dry, and with the cats leaving dirty paddy paw prints on everything I need to be able to wash and dry stuff fairly easily. I do have a lovely quilt in the guest bedroom (where not cats are allowed!) and I knw how long that takes to dry, so this is a better way to make a quilt for our bed.

The materials are all old nightdresses or pajamas of mine and Compostmans, and sheets /pillowcases we had when we were first married in 1985. As they became worn out I stashed them away, waiting to use them for "something else".

A quilt for our bed seems appropriate I think :-)

More on that quilt...

I have spent every evening this week working on my quilt.

Cutting out squares, re arranging them into a pattern I liked, sewing them together into long strips and then ironing all the seams the same way. Last night I started to sew the strips together into a bigger rectangle.

I only had to unpick two squares of one seam, which I think is pretty good going by 11 pm at night!

I spent a fair bit of time making sure all the seams were lined up and smooth
 

 I have three more of the strips to sew on and then I need to add a double width plain boarder all around in a slightly darker pale green.

The backing will be a plain pale green fabric ( old sheet) and I will bind the front with that as well - still not decided what to use as the wadding, whether to go for the cotton wadding I have in store, or use an old fleece blanket. As the fabric is polycotton I think I might go with the fleece - makes it easier to wash if the cats get on to it ( as they will, they get everywhere!)

Having only ever made a basic tiny square quilt for my dolls and a pot holder for my Mum when I was little (40 plus odd years ago now), made of scraps and with an old bit of blanket as wadding,  I *am* really pleased with how I am getting on and how it is progressing :-)

And it is such fun to do - and it must be the first time I have EVER got the iron out without feeling utterly miserable -  actually enjoyed ironing my seams flat :-)