The Lost Weekend

As you know, DH had his operation on Friday.  I spent Friday unable to concentrate, hence the odd E is the last post.

Alex and I then spent most of the weekend driving backwards and forwards between here and Perigueux.  I am totally knackered, physically and emotionally.

DH is now home and well, despite huge bruising to the right hand side of his face and a nose the size of an ostrich egg!!!

Late Sunday evening I managed to get some quilting on Ab Fab done, but, unfortunately Haunted Houses remains in limbo.  I keep on looking at it and haven’t got the ummppphhhh to get going again.   I’m going to leave it alone for a bit and concentrate on getting caught up with the hand quilting.  I’ve got 2 quilts to do;  Tamzin’s quilt has got to be ready for Christmas as they are off to LA permanently at the end of the year.

No photos – sorry – but some links for you instead.

Force Majeure has written a Bent Needle special on web tools for quilters. 

Have you discovered Kieny’s blog?  She a Dutch Lady living in Taiwan and, like me, is new to this quilting business.  Interesting stories about Taiwan life.  Go over to say hi and tell her I sent you.

Another interesting blog is fellow Viveur, Marie.  An American living in Luxor, but with a passion for France.

Not so Lazy Gal Tonya has opened her online tutorial to everyone.  Go over and take a look and see if the Free Piecing bug gets you.  It’s great fun and you’ll get so much joy out of doing it.  Go on - I dare you!

 A+

Missing in Blogland

Has anyone heard anything from Nancy and Dianne?

I’ve been tagged ………..

by Bea over at Capricorn Quilts.

So I have now got to nominate 5 blogs that inspire me from the huge amount I try to read every day (when I can connect (sniff)).

So here goes.

First, mais certainment, is TONYA. She has opened my eyes to a completely different way of quilting. None of the tricky flying geese for her. Oh no, wonky houses, wonky letters, hearts, stars, firebursts and now I see diamonds!

Second is VIVI. She has been through such a lot over the last year or so.

Third, and I think possibly this should really be the most important one, is DAVO. This boy’s strength and determination to carry on, regardless, is awe inspiring. Please visit him sometime to make him laugh, take him out of himself and given him a lift – he needs it. BTW he was the recipient of the first quilt.

Fourth is SIOBHAN. Again her efforts to overcome MS and carry on as normal amaze me.

And fifth, but by no means last, is MELZIE who needs no introduction to us quilters. She makes me laugh, she makes me cry, she makes me feel sad and the next minute happy. She is one of life’s survivors.

So there you have it. 3 of my 5 are quilting blogs, the other 2 aren’t.

Who inspires me apart from those 5? Well, there is Finn over at Pieces from my Scrapbag, Joyce with her fantastic free piecing and a brilliant imagination, Sassenach and her amazing articles on quilt history. I could go on and on, but I won’t for fear of boring you all.

See you later. I’m borrowing a friends computer who has got ADSL so I’m going to upload loads and loads of eye candy for you which will have to keep you going for the time being until I can get this blasted connection sorted.

WiP Wednesday

Same as last week I suppose, but I am on the home stretch. One more row to tie and then bind and label.

I have to confess that now the good weather is here I would prefer to be gardening than quilting, but we do have yukky April to get through yet.

However, one thing I am doing is going through my RSS feeds. I have an awful habit of just clicking on the link and looking at the last entry on a blog. If it looks interesting I will investigate further, if it doesn’t I don’t. So I was missing out on a whole load of interesting stuff.

What I am doing is altering the name of the blog, so instead of the feed saying, for instance, Dordogne Quilter, it will now say Clare’s blog.

Belated Blog Birthday and Quilt History

Belated Happy Blog Birthday to me. Hard to believe that just over a year ago I started blogging and look at what has happened!

I’m so busy with Quilts 4 Leukaemia that I haven’t got time for anything else; I have made friends with fellow quilters all over the world and hope some day to meet some of you in the flesh; my idea of quilting has changed beyond recognition thanks to a certain person; and I have well and truly amazed myself.

A big hug to each and every one of you and thanks for stopping by over the last year.

Onto the second part of the title.

As you probably know, this last weekend saw the 200th anniversary of the abolishment of the slave trade. On BBC Radio 4 on Sunday evenings there is kids programme called Go For It. Yesterday evening the programme was devoted to the slave trade. I wasn’t really listening (rarely do), but suddenly heard a woman saying how quilts were used to depict safe houses for escaping slaves and contained hidden messages ( Drunkard’s Path, Northern Star, etc).

Is this really true? I only ask because this topic came up on Stashbusters the other month and someone said it wasn’t.

Pictures soon hopefully.

Blog Banners

Fiona has changed her blog banner (I think it looks brilliant) and mentioned the link where she found the instructions on how to do it.

I did exactly the same until last week when, after a bit of Googling, I discovered Brenda’s blog and how to actually place a photo inside the border instead of creating another widget.

I tweaked it about a bit as I didn’t need the URL code and other bits and pieces and the result can be seen above.

If anyone needs any help let me know. Oh and I’ll let you have the HTML code too.