In Which Clare Pays a Visit to the Urgence

What was the day and date yesterday?

Got up had cuppa. Went outside to inspect plants and plan the day. Walked down the porch steps. Didn't see lump of concrete at the bottom. Turned ankle. Fell a*** over t** and heard ankle crack!

The Old One, comme d'hab, was a bit slow up on the uptake, but we got into Urgence at about 12.30. Yup - broken! Up to the knee in plaster for 6 weeks. It can't be too bad a break as just plaster and not pinned and one of those light casts too. We were in there for 1 1/2 hours from start to finish, might have been less. Seen immediately. Dr spoke perfect English and a perfect gentleman! On the other hand, the guy who did the plaster was drop dead gorgeous. I just sat there and gawped.

Home with enough anti blood clotting stuff to fill a pharmacie and another X-Ray in 3 weeks.

In the meantime, I've got enough quilting projects to keep me occupied. I reckon by the end of the 6 weeks I should have 2 quilts finished and if I run out of projects I can always pick up Ab Fab.

I just hope The Old One doesn't run over the plants when he mows, can water the plants and cook!

At least it's summer and I can wear shorts!

I've joined the Liberated Quilter's Online Round Robin. The first task is to make up the centre block.

I have decided to use an orphan block which I received in the big box of goodies a couple of weeks ago.

You all know what a sucker I am for blue and white.

I'll be interested to see what Nancie and June come up with for the next round.

More soon.

An Inspiration Challenge

A couple of days ago I challenged the ladies and gentlemen on Lib-Quilters to take their camera with them where ever they went, even if it was just to the supermarket, and to look for inspiration.

Not necessarily liberated, but any form of inspiration.

Today we went to Angouleme which is so full of inspiration my brain positively hurts with trying to take photos of everything in sight.

Hmmm - interesting.
Black and white with a hint of citrus perhaps?

The day I attempt a quilt like this is the day you know I've
lost the plot!

Can we do joined up letters I wonder?
Don't you just love those reflections!!

Not so much inspiration as intriging.

Well ....

.............  two years on

and here we are. 

430 members and growing by the day.

We're making quilts for AAQI, we're liberating fabric postcards, we're liberating quilters who weren't liberated

AND

most of all

WE'RE HAVING A BALL!

I'm opening a cyber bottle of champagne  to Gwen and to Tonya. 

Cheers (hic).

Retreating

It was Labour Day weekend for my friends on the other side of The Pond, so the Liberated Quilters Yahoo group decided to hold an online virtual retreat.  Our online retreats don't just last the weekend.  They can go on for days - just like real ones.  So we are retreating up to and including tomorrow.

I couldn't join in properly until yesterday as The Young One was home from lycée and we had shopping and washing to catch up on before she returned yesterday.

However, once I got the chores out of the way, the cover came off the sewing machine and we were off.

(Please excuse the poor quality of the photos.  Even my lovely Panasonic can't take good photos if it's raining outside!)

First up - another finished top for Q4L

It's gone a bit wonky as some of the blocks weren't exactly 8.5 inches square.  Heigh ho.

When I took the third row off the wall to sew together, I found a crumbs block that I had started, doing L&E's between the red and white blocks.

I just had to start adding to it.  Out came the crumbs bin and the plans for the rest of the day sort of went out of the window!

Then I started getting a guilt complex about not starting my niece's quilt.  I've been pondering about this for weeks.  Not at all sure what to do and promising myself that Estella's quilt won't be overshadowed by it.  The first niece is always the favourite!

Anyway, I've finally made a start.

I'm going to make some more blocks up and take it from there. Sort of log cabin'ish I think. Just keep adding strips of pink

See ya!

Liberating Miss Jane

The current topic of conversation on the Liberated Quilters Yahoo! group is liberating "That Quilt".

We're thinking about doing a swap, or perhaps each making a liberated Baby Jane quilt.

If you were to liberate "Miss Jane", what block would you choose and how would you liberate it?

Wendy at Inky Threads has already liberated some of the blocks.  You can see the first one here.

This could be an interesting idea for another Challenge, similar to Tonya's Amish one.

Another Liberated Quilter

We have a new Liberated Quilter in our midst.

Viv in the UK is making some wonderful wonky houses for a quilt for her son.

Click here to see them.

S is for ....

Spring.

BritiSh Summer Time (ha!).

(copyright BBC)

Spring forward (Daylight Saving Time).

Sun.

Swimming Pool
(waiting for the rain to stop so it can be uncovered)





and most importantly

Stripes or Strings

This is going to be the back of my Liberated Amish quilt.

The Old One actually participated in this. We had fun yesterday afternoon playing with the letters and juggling the words about. He enjoyed the process of sorting through the solids bin finding the right colour for the background and watching it all come together.

I was going to piece "Stripes" together in a block, but on looking at the layout as it stands, I rather like the look of it. I think I'll leave it as it is.

Now all I've got to do is put the whole lot together and probably add some more fabric to make a border.

Anyone up for a challenge?

A few of us on the Liberated Quilters group have decided to try to finish what we've started and not to start anything new until the 1st May.

One person has decided to quilt only to try and finish her UFO's

I've decided to try to get Blueberry Fool fiinshed, finish the quilting on the Halloween quilt and make a start on Family Trees (that is the only link I can find to it.  Don't know where the final photo of it is).

Anyone fancy joining us? It's not a proper challenge, just a bit of fun.

If you do join in try to link back to this post so we know how many of you there are.

I'm off to try and get some more sewing done.

Liberated Quilters Retreat

To celebrate International Quilting Day, the Liberated Quilters Yahoo! group held a virtual online retreat.

Funnily enough, we all trouble kick starting ourselves and most of us, including me, spent a lot of time ripping and sewing and ripping again.  Have you ever sewn an S together upside down, ripped it and then done it again!

I sewed constantly for 6 hours, interspersed with large mugs of tea and The Young One keeping me company while she mucked about on the computer.

I didn't get as much achieved as I wanted to, but I did get 50% of the back done for my Liberated Amish 2010 Get Together quilt.

Apart from the "is", the letters are about 8 inches high.  The biggest ones I've ever done.  Once I got into my stride it felt good cutting really large strips, rather than itty bitty ones.

Two more words to do - "or" and "stripes", but they'll have to wait as the sun is shining and I've got chores to do.

A Letter

Some weeks ago I had the proverbial severely kicked by Tonya, picked up my pen keyboard and wrote to Gwen Marston, telling her about the Liberated Quilters web ring and the Yahoo! group.

I'm useless at writing letters and thought she'd take one look at this badly written letter and chuck it in the bin.

She didn't!

I got a reply on Wednesday.

 

She says she is "both surprised and happy to learn that there are so many Liberated quilters out there.  That is just great!!!!".

Keep an eye on her web site.  The web ring and group may just get a mention some day!

Retreat Progress II

Up with the lark this morning and am drooping at the edges already.

Got the chores done, caught up on mails, what the Liberated Quilters across The Pond worked on while I was making ZZZzzzzzzzz's and then hit the ground running!

First task of the day was to get Blueberry Fool off the design wall.

The top border was fine - fairly sped along with that - and then hit the slow lane big time.  I  just couldn't get the right hand border to go .  The colours wouldn't settle and kept on glaring at me, no matter where I stood.

So I finally settled for this.

Still not happy with it and the outer borders are going to need cutting down AGAIN (sigh).  Also forgot to add the other "blade" in the bottom right hand corner.  Suddenly remembered at 10.00 pm last night, by which time it was too late!

Then started on another AAQI top. 

All my tops are being made from scraps out of the bins and this one came from a lovely heart batik Tonya gave me for the Quilts 4 Leukaemia quilts.

I'm not at all sure about this.  I think it may be a bit too scrappy.   What do you think?

It is exactly 9 x 12 so I hope that by the time I've bound it, it isn't over-size. 

I'm going to give things a rest for a bit.  A quick walk round the block to clear my head and stretch the legs (and shoulders) and then a spot of basting and hand quilting I think.

Retreat Progress

First off a little top for AAQI.

Taking a photo of it on the ironing board cover has given me an idea for the binding.

Look at this!

If you go back a couple of posts you'll find a photo of what it looked like at 11.00 am.  It's now 19.00 and I've only got two more borders to put on which will be tomorrow morning's task.


I've got an idea for another AAQI quilt - L o V e - but the O will take a bit of time.



More tomorrow as I'm signing off - supper needs to be cooked.

Virtual Online Retreat

Pulling out fabrics from the stash, piecing like mad, finishing long outstanding projects, tying quilts and generally having fun.

For a whole 48 hours - woo hoo!  (well - not quite.  I will have to sleep at some point!)

Watch this Space

There are plans afoot for an interesting Liberated Challenge in 2010.

If you want to join in, keep watching the Liberated Quilters blog (here)

or

join the Liberated Quilters Yahoo group (here).

Playing Catch-up

I'm still here.  I'm sorry I haven't been reading and commmenting much, but life has got in the way over the past week or so.

The Liberated Quilters Yahoo! group has been taking up a bit of my time.  We had a virtual retreat last Tuesday.  Great fun.  A lot of quilters participated from all over the world and, as one member said

"I found that just knowing quilters around the world were "with me" all the time, gave me a nice warm feeling in my heart and tummy.".

This is what I did during the bit of time I managed to put needle to thread.

These are scented table mats/pot stands. There are four of them, but the other one was absent during the photo shoot having its innards ripped out!

I made some last year for friends and you can read more about them here.

These ones are being packaged up to send to the UK.  They will match the table runner I made for my Mother in 2008.

What else have I been doing?  Not a lot.  Just sorta fiddling about with this

and that








and the other

 

The beginnings of Blueberry Fool.  It's looking good!

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.  It's hard to believe that this time in 2 weeks the festivities will nearly be over.  We're going to have a very quiet and low key Christmas this year.

The weather here has changed overnight.  We've gone from mild, damp days to a maximum of +2°C, frosts and clear blue skies.  Now that is what winter should be non?

Just a quick woo hoo.  Look at my sidebar.  LQII comes out next month!  It's already on Amazon at a pre-published price and I'm getting very excited.

A plus!

Picking Up Speed

The internet problem (see previous post) still hasn't been resolved, but I'm missing blogging so much I thought I'd give it a go and see how long it takes for me to post (so far 30 minutes waiting for the New Post page to load!). Not a lot of quilting going on (well there is, but I can't show anything or talk about it as it's a surprise so ssshhhhh) so I thought I'd see if the photo uploader works and show you some photos I've taken over the last week or two.

First off. St Front, Cathedral, Périgueux I love the different shades of light in this one. I tried converting it to black and white, but it didn't work so well. Next up. A sort of black and white study. Two ladies chatting in the main square in Périgueux. I cropped the photo to take out most of the grillage in the background (some huge marquees were being erected for the Marché du Gras). Last, but by no means least. Taken in Périgueux the same day. I love the blue and the white. Gives the photo a sort of Cuban/South American feel.

That was the last really hot day we had. Since then its been badly needed rain with accompanying thunderstorms and Autumn has arrived overnight. Strange how that happens. One minute you're in shorts and t-shirts, the next jeans and a sweater! Actually, there is something sort of quilt related. The Liberated Quilters Yahoo! group has taken off. We are up to about 140 members and growing daily. Heigh ho - this post has taken over an hour to load (including hitting the publish button by mistake), so I suppose I had better go and get something achieved today. Will be back soon.

I forgot to say ..........

I've started a Liberated Quilters' Yahoo! Group as the ring is nearly full.

I thought those of you who didn't get to join the ring might like to join this instead.

If you do want to take part please follow this link and click on the "join" button.

I'm sure you are all familiar with Yahoo Groups and how it works, n'est ce pas?

There is Hope

This is the top for my Priority Hope Challenge quilt.  I've started quilting it and hope to get it finished by the end of this week so I can register it and send it off.

Have you checked out the Liberated Quilters Web Ring recently?

There is some stunning liberated quilting going on out in Blogland.

Take a look at Marit's Liberated Stars.

Belinda has got the star bug too, so much so that she can't sleep!

Kristin has been having great fun with solids and she's done some awesome houses.

To round this post off - a photo taken by DD the other day of the Banana Tree in the courtyard (and before you ask, no it doesn't fruit!).

Coming up for Air

We've been busy, getting up at 6.30 am and painting until 10.00 a.m, then collapsing in a heap and trying to get rid of the smell of white spirit.  Why?

Look.

Before

After

And we're off!

The water temperature has hit the magic 22°C.  I had the first swim last night and another one this morning.  Alex's mates are here swimming their hearts out (and shouting too), and we feel that summer has finally started!

And today my cup overfloweth!  I found this gem on play.com.  There was only one left!  Help!  Rang up DS-D who was in the middle of cooking for a dinner party.  Told her to drop everything and get it quick before it went.  Isn't she a star!

And what I am doing now?  Trying my hardest to sew and catch up on those UFO's.  I've cut up an old pink and white skirt and am hoping to start on the quilt for my niece to be.  In the meantime, I've got plenty to keep me busy.

I've also moved the Liberated Quilters web ring.  Click on the Home/Join link on the badge on the right there and see if you qualify.  If you do, leave a comment and we'll get back to you.

A+

There is life!

Haven't been doing too much these last few weeks, hence the silence. So I decided to get my head round some of those flimsies which have been building up.

Here is Bellatrix - finally finished.

Goes to show how much I've been doing in that Tonya's Class is still on the wall and has got to be put together!

As I type this, they have, at long long last, started cutting the hay.

Do you remember ages ago we had View from My Kitchen Window?

Well how about View from My Bedroom Window?

Here's mine.

If you look to the right, you'll see a new badge. It's for a new web ring - Liberated Quilters. Want to join? OK, but you must be "liberated".