Behind the Times!

I'm SO LATE with this blog-post. I just got stuck in that gloopy mire of being unable to get going so here is what I've been doing over the last week. I did a fair amount of baking. One thing I made which was a HUGE success was Annie's (Knitsofacto) Lemon Pudding. It doesn't look much in the tin but OH! my goodness it was wonderful. Jim only likes Crumbles for dessert, but he loved it too so it will be a regular feature at Gill Acres!

Wonderfully light, with that scrumptious lemony-saucy layer at the bottom. Do try it, Annie gives the recipe on her blog.

The Hot (crossless) Buns eventually became a luxury bread and butter pudding for when my Burwell friend Jane came for a day of music and natter last Wednesday.

And a fair bit of bread making took place; I'm adding more liquid than I used to, and I start it off in the Kenwood until it's less 'claggy'. Still enjoying trying various kinds of flours, and dodging between adding oil or butter, honey or sugar, water or milk/water. And I'm working my way through a packet of ground seeds by a firm called Linwood, adds great flavour and colour - and health!

The weather has been so cold, but we've been blessed most days with amazing sunshine, which does cheer me up a lot. The spring flowers are having a long run, though of course everything else will be way behind this year.

And these from someone else's garden! I love tulips, I would have armsful of them all over the house if I could afford fresh flowers every day.

Been doing a bit of cutting and stitching. Lovely young Georgia sourced me a new top hat, and my 'topper' fits beautifully.

Also started stitching my 'Boro-ish' embellishment on my jacket for my new Molly costume.

Close-up of cuff. Yes, I know there are raw edges. One day (oh yeah!) I may tidy them up a little, but I need to get some colour onto this jacket in time for the weekend. We (Ouse Wahses Molly Dancers) are dancing out at the Backyard Session at the Spiers and Boden gig on Sunday.

                                                               Both cuffs.

           
                                     The back so far ......a long way to go with this!

Oh! Before I go, I need to say something about Google dropping their blog-reader in July - I'm sure you bloggers already know about it. Dc at Frugal in Norfolk has posted some great info about your options, thanks Dc.I will be having a close look at Bloglovin' and Feedly. WHat are you thinking of doing with your blog? I hope the alternatives work as well.

Hoping for some better weather soon, and that you are all keeping well.

Boro -ing an Idea

I'm going to gloss over the awful weather, and the fact I have been laid low with some grim virus for the last 4 days. You will no doubt (if you are in dear old Blighty) be experiencing your own awful weather so let's not dwell on it.

Today I want to talk to you about adapting an ancient textile technique to embellish and totally transform a plain jacket. Long-time readers of this blog will remember a post I wrote last year about Boro, the antique Japanese working clothes repaired over and over by patching with more fabric, simply by long running stitches merging the new fabric with the old. No attempt is made to turn under hems, the fresh piece just 'melts' into the ground fabric. These old garments are much sought after - you can read about them in my post from May 23rd 2012 called Japanese Fabric Collection.

I first read about Boro from a blogger called Jude Hill (Spirit Cloth) who has gone on to present an online workshop utilising the technique to alter a garment. My blogging friend Els, from Holland (visit her lovely blog Fiberrainbow) is taking part in that workshop and has begun work on her garment - a good quality jacket she no longer wears. Els has kindly allowed me to use her photos on my post to show you.

I loved the idea from the start, and it was inspiring me to think about something I might do myself. I need a proper jacket for my Molly outfit. Currently I wear a bit of a French Tart theme with a long black cardigan .....but really could do with something warmer, and I may be changing the dress bit of the outfit as well. Something more was called for! I saw Els' jacket and was so excited! Don't you think this is going to be magnificent? This is the jacket I have....about 20 years old and counting! (and yes it does still fit!) About upper thigh length with a good swing to it.

However I have a dilemma. Should I go for the traditional Boro fabrics as Els has - and I do have some Japanese and Javanese indigo fabrics, and these fabrics on the right hand side are my own hand-dyed attempts at Shiborri; I made these years ago - I should really use them up!

 - or, bearing in mind the bright colours of my top-hat topper:

should I go for the brightly coloured African fabrics from my collection here?

Mmmmmm, think I know where I'm going with this one, don't you?

The other dilemma I have is this. Boro epitomises the ethos of the 'slow cloth movement'. All stitching is by hand. The item evolves slowly over time. This is the appeal and the wonder of slow cloth. However, I need my jacket fairly soon; I don't have time to hand stitch every small piece of cloth down into the black fabric of the jacket. So I will have to use my machine, which contravenes the slow cloth ethos totally. Well, in this case, I will have to live with that. Not for me the gradual realisation of the highly textured, lovingly hand-stitched, soft-to-the-hand garment. But I should be able to produce a wonderfully patterned jacket which should do the Mollys proud. Watch this space!

I wouldn't want you to think I have been neglecting my frugal-food-meal-planning-organisation drive, it's just that I've felt so grim the past few days that food has been the last thing on my mind -oh, after being organised, that is! But I want you to know that my new kitchen board arrived yesterday and I'm just waiting for Jim to return home as he is the only one between us with the energy to open the cardboard packaging! The worst thing about feeling so awful is that I had to cancel my melodeon workshop with John Spiers. Arrgh! Never mind, I know a few people who will be able to tell me all about it. Bye for now, I feel a Nanna Nap coming on!

Open Studio and Garden Stitching

                                      Open Studios, Quilter's Cottage, Marham, Norfolk.

I was out and about yesterday, visiting an Open Studio and re-acquainting myself with a quilting buddy from way back. Jane and I were both members of Samphire Quilters, one of the earliest and largest West Norfolk quilting groups, during the 90's and early 2000's. (Founder Member is...ta dah: our very own Pam from Stitch and Bitch!) We probably haven't seen each other for more than ten years, and in that time Jane has re-invented herself as a polymath! Anyway, I drove across county and spent an hour at her log cabin studio, amazed at the colour and texture and simple.... ABUNDANCE all around me. I decided there and then to ask Jane to let me 'interview' her at a later date for the blog, and just pop a few photos up for you in this post.

The header photo is an action shot of Jane on the deck - sorry, Jane, but I liked this one so much better than the posed one we did seconds later! It was a bit difficult to get a full width picture of the cabin as it is REALLY big.

                                                             Long shot of interior.
Imagine stepping out of your house each day to come here to work! That is, when Jane isn't whizzing about the county teaching at various other venues.

                                 Some of Jane's hand-made stamps, and her litho-prints.

         In the interests of honest blogging I  reveal - the Glory Hole !(tidier than my sewing room!)

I'll have lots to show and tell you about Jane and her work in a later post. I came away buzzing with her energy and motivation - and mentally exhausted by the visual overload!

I spent a lot of the glorious weekend out in the garden, quilting - yes, quilting! As long as the quilt was spread out on the table it wasn't getting me overheated and I could just stitch away in the shade - blissful! I have 20 days to finish this.....

I'd been thinking about the Boro I wrote about the other week, and remembered this quilt I made using some of my hand-dyed indigo fabric, and others from my 'blues' collection. I hand quilted it in varying weights of yarn and threads, altering the stitch length accordingly. It quilted itself, it was so soothing to stitch. You can see a bit along the bottom hem which I haven't quite finished...how did that happen??

     Sorry, awful photo, but it's difficult to get the whole quilt in shot. Apols re orange fence - it's new!

               Ahem. (Arrrrrgggghhhh, NO PUN was intended, just pointing out the unfinished bit.)

                                            My nod to boro patching and overstitching.

I did get on the sewing machine briefly, to make a start on the Naive Baskets and Squares quilt (working title). All I managed to do was surround each appliqued block with a row of squares, but it means I have the blocks out in front of me now, and it is now a work-in-progress rather than an unfinished symphony!

              Bad light, crumpled fabric, sorry, but had to do this fast as it started to rain!

The blocks won't be put together quite like that - there will be much more 'squareage' between each block. Took this today, dull skies and showers. So to brighten things up to finish here is a shot of the 'patio herb garden' ! I can't bear to waste those lovely olive oil tins so I thought I'd pop the basil in - doesn't it look nice, nestling among the mints?

                                                                 Poshed - up basil !

So I'll leave you, hoping we haven't seen the last of the lovely weather. Are you getting geared up for the Jubilee, or, like us, will it just be taking place in the background? Catch you next time.

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Japanese Fabric Collection

                                             Some of my Vintage Kimono Pieces

Whenever I feel embarrassed about the size of my fabric stash, I justify it to myself by 'reframing' the situation. That is, I call it a 'collection of collections'. There, you see! From indiscriminate picker-upper-of-cloth I instantly become transformed into a Textile Collector. Sounds a bit grander, doesn't it?
But truthfully, amongst the piles of fabric there ARE some distinct groupings, and the one which is interesting me particularly at the moment is my Japanese collection. This is broken down into sub-groups. (OCD? Moi?)

                                                             Unadopted hexagons!

First there are the small pieces of vintage kimono, which I pick up, a few at a time, whenever I go to Quilt Fairs. I started to cover hexagons with these some time ago, with no real idea what to do with them. They are so small and delicate I almost don't like to cut into them. They would make lovely Suffolk Puffs (Yo-yos) .

Next are the gorgeously textured woven fabrics. These are a much heavier weight, and include some lovely indigo dyed cloth. I buy these because they remind me of the wonderful "Boro" about which I could write a whole post. Much better that you go and read about them yourselves, and see these incredible examples of patched and re-patched working clothes. I'm eternally saddened that I didn't make it up to York a couple of years ago to see the travelling exhibition. Friends tell me it was amazing.

 There is a definitive book. Boro: Rags and Tatters from the Far North of Japan ed Yukio Koide & Kyoichi Tsuzuki, researched by Chuzaburo Tanaka. This is even more expensive than the Edrica Huws book was ; I don't think I will ever own a copy. And talk about coincidence; having written the bare bones of this post two days ago, I bought a copy of Quiltmania magazine today - and there they have an article on....Boro! Headed, no less, by a poster depicting the very book I've mentioned above.

Then there are my Taupe fabrics. And the reason I began collecting them was  reading the blogs of Jan at Be*mused and Marisa at Quiltotaku. You can find their blogs from my blog list. They have some stunning photographs.These girls have a fascination with Japanese quilting and I have learned a lot from them. I first read about the quilter Yoko Saito in their blogs and from there it was a small step to buying a few(!) books and starting to collect taupe fabric. I mostly buy them from EuroJapan LinksLtd, an English firm who attend all the big quilt shows and fairs, and who also sell on-line.I buy my indigo fabric from them as well.

Now Taupe, as we all know, is another word for...let's face it....beige.  And I do have a friend who can't get her head round the fact that not all taupe fabrics are....er....taupe. Originally they were, or close variations of the hue, but then Yoko began her own line of fabrics which all had the same greyed effect overlaying other colours, which somehow pulled them all together. Other designers followed suit and a whole new contemporary genre was born. Usually woven, these fabrics are often textured and embellished in something similar to intarsia - you can see the floating yarns on the reverse side.

                 A quilt from her book 'Past and Present: My Quilting Life by Yoko Saito

For a few years many of the quilts hung at the Tokyo International Quilt Exhibition were in the Taupe category, which, along with the meticulous stitching and attention to detail, marks them out instantly as Japanese quilts.

                                  'Times Passed Away' by her student Nobue Ishimori

About eighteen months ago, I spied an old English medallion quilt on-line. I fell in love with it and wondered how quickly it would take some enterprising designer to come up with a new pattern for it. Sure enough someone did. Corliss Searcey brought out her lovely 'The English Basket Quilt' and I bought the pattern, thinking I would love to use my taupe fabrics to make a pared down version of my own , I decided I didn't want to make it as large, nor use all the templates. I mainly want to make the baskets of flowers! Because of various domestic events, plus sewing for the craft fair, I've had to delay making a start, but it's now back on the to-do-soon list! Foolishly, in my hurry to photograph the fabrics and pictures for this post, I clean forgot to take one of the Basket Quilt. And I've not got time to do it now so will rectify that next post.

                 The squares are still in strips, I haven't sewn any of it together yet.

In the meantime I have finished four chunkier baskets, designed by Jan Patek, using many of the non-taupe Japanese fabrics, which are another little collection all on their own. I'm going to surround each block with myriad small squares. Just to make life a little more difficult. And no, I haven't forgotten K's quilt!

                             Can't begin to tell you how many more squares I've got to strip!

             These baskets are more naive than those in Corliss's quilt, but I loved stitching them.

Unfortunately, now that you've made me get all these lovely fabrics out to show you, I'm having a quiet drool here, and can feel that impatience to begin that basket quilt nibbling away there....no, too much other stuff to be going on with. Resist! I hope you've enjoyed the show!