Some of you may have read some of my stories in the past, stand alone episodes about breaking an Olfa cutting mat, how to tackle a Moda scrap bag, a festive garland with sprouts, shrink-wrapping a Christmas tree, and a charity quilt that got taken to Kosovo on an aid convoy. There was also the harrowing story of Grenfell Tower and how a group of quilters made 1111 quilts for the survivors, families of the bereaved and first responders.
I also started a light hearted tongue in cheek series about things you can’t put on quilts. Most major Facebook Quilting Groups somewhat frown upon pictures of quilts with babies, children, cats or dogs. Well I managed to cover all of those easily, and managed to imaginatively cover pretty well most of the animal kingdom in my 6 part series entitled “Controversial Moi”. You can find all my previous blogs HERE.
I thought I could get away without writing any more blogs or stories, but the “powers that be” at the UKQU website wanted more of my strange stories or ramblings. I have a butterfly brain which infuriates other people & of course myself, because I jump in a totally irrational barmy manner from one topic to another, in no particular order, and usually frustratingly in mid conversation!
I thought of the name “Marvellous Meandering Musings”, which meant I would not have write stories to be in any particular order, which suited my bonkers thinking and usual haphazard conversation style. I could just write about anything, whenever I felt like it, in no particular order ….. Phew that’s sorted! Then I had a brain burb (other rude names could of course be substituted). I have an old bright blue Citroen C3 Picasso Air Dream. A bit like me she is long in the tooth, a funny shape, but usually reliable. She was my late 93 yr old mother’s car which used to poodle around North Wales, with my nearly blind frail late father as a non commenting passenger, because he could not actually see where they were going! She was new in 2006 and in 2015 had still only done 18,000 miles, and now in 2020 a mere 33,000 miles, but sadly nothing since late February. She is called Mildred so my new blogs are going to be “Mildred’s Marvellous Meandering Musings”. “MMMM” for short.
Mildred has not been out meandering since the end of February, not even to the shops, because I was one of the “Shielded” vulnerable adults made to stay at home for months, and she is still not going out, and she is somewhat grumpy…. Marginally more grumpy than me….. “So what happened to all the blogs you were going to write about me?”…she said glaring at me through the front window, so as I am fed up with feeling guilty…. So here goes!
I am unfortunately one of the people that was in the “shielded” vulnerable category and therefore only allowed in my house and garden and to open a window, which isn’t much help when your house is literally on the pavement. However on the hottest day of May I had to remain indoors all day. This was because my garden was being dug up to try and mend a Thames Water sewer that had been causing nasty sewage flooding issues for a neighbour since last October. I sew a lot in the garden on warm sunny days using one of my vintage machines, either my Singer 201 hand crank, one of my Singer Featherweights on an extension lead or my Pfaff so I had been looking forward to being able to get out in our garden to sew.
I was really upset at the thought of workmen trashing my beautiful garden and my fears were soon realised when my husband showed me pictures of a 9 foot trench under what used to be our patio and the path under the arch going into the garden was taken up too. The 2 chaps that dug it were really nice and were very sympathetic to my shielded status and promised they would restore it very carefully.
I was really upset about all of this disruption and incredibly worried about the outcome. The worse bit was not even being allowed to go outside to my sanctuary, the one place I was still allowed to go to under “shielding” regulations. I spent the day shuffling around 3 charm packs from different ranges into a semblance of a rainbow.
The workmen didn’t find the sewer in the end because it wasn’t even on my land, a previous operative last October had sent the camera down the wrong sewer pipe! You could not make it up! All this worry and disruption for nothing. But I didn’t need to worry because the two chaps from the company hired by Thames Water, to do all the digging, came back literally at dawn the next morning to restore my lovely garden while I finished off the quilt top.
They worked miracles and restored everything perfectly and even presented us with a victorian pale green glass bottle they had found during their dig, from a brewery that used to be in Oxford called Morrells as a souvenir. My house was built in 1870 and used to be part of “Queens Arms Yard”. The pub “The Queens Arms” was next door and my garden was where the horses from the stage coaches were stabled. My house was where they got water, from the well under my lounge floor, and the ground floor was used for beer storage. You could also buy lamp oil from my home. When horseless carriages were invented they used to sell petrol in cans.
For some bizarre reason in the 1960’s the pub was renamed “The Pink Elephant” and became the pub where all the motorbike enthusiasts gathered. My bedroom was where the pool table was located and the 2nd bedroom was the dartboard location, downstairs was still storage for beer. There are people I have met locally who frequented the pub back in the 1960’s and there were motorcyclists from all over Oxfordshire who met up there. There was apparently never any trouble because the diminutive landlady ruled the place with a rod of iron, and no one wanted to get banned from their favourite pub. In the 1970’s this pub annexe where I now live was converted to a house, and the house next door became a piano showroom.
They were happy to pose with the quilt top the next day. I obviously wrote to their boss to complement them on their attitude and excellent work.
The quilt is now finished and has been Quilted with Mettler variegated thread using the decorative stitches from my Pfaff Performance 5.0. After having used small 100 metre spools and the medium 457 metre spools of this range and being more than happy with the outcome, I now buy the cones in my favourite colours from Quilt Direct. This is because they offer such great value at 1372 metres on a cone for under £10 with qty discounts available. I use a Prym weighted thread/cone stand behind my machine, but I know other stitchers have put the cone in a mug with equivalent success. Just because I can’t do Free Motion Quilting (I have been on courses and I am useless) does not stop me making quilts by using walking foot straight line quilting or my fancy pants wiggles and embroidery stitches.
The quilt will now be going to one of the several charity quilting initiatives I support.
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