Dreaming Spirals

I’ve been busy trying to clear the pile of quilts which are sitting in my studio waiting for sleeves and labels and finishing off in general.  I finally got started yesterday and finishing one seemed to be the stimulus I needed and now there are four hanging on the walls…

There’s a small problem with the next couple of quilts - I can’t decide which way up they should be!!  What do you think?

or this?

This one is habutai silk hand dyed and machine quilted quite improvisationally.  I added the scrim and appliqued the flower petals as I went along because they felt right.  The whole thing is very textural.  I started off meaning it to be the top orientation but in lots of ways I quite like the bottom one now.  Maybe I should put two sleeves on!!!

The next quilt is one I made with the kids - we glued on lots of small scraps of fabrics and I stitched them down and then quilted it, again quite spontaneously.  Again, I started off thinking it would be the top orientation but now am not sure…

or this?

Any thoughts gratefully received!

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I thought it was time for a bit of visual relief so I took the camera for a walk in the garden this afternoon and turned the macro setting on.  

Not sure what this flower is but it is on a very long stem and looks a bit like a harebell.   We got lots of free packets of wild flowers at a Springwatch ‘Breathing Places’ open day last year in Newport and I think this is one of them.  In fact it is the only new wild flower I have noticed growing in the garden and I’ve scattered a lot of seeds around!

This is herb robert but it is pinker than the photo shows.

Don’t know what this is but it is one of those weeds that you mean to pull up and then it flowers and you change your mind!

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I’ve just been listening to the latest Cast-on podcast and, to my delight, Brenda was talking about Wonderwool Wales, which I visited a few weeks ago. She has a photo of a Soay sheep on her website.

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My Textile Museums map has taken off - thank you to everyone who has sent me more details and to Sharon at In A Minute Ago for giving me a mention on her blog.

There may be a few changes to it in the future because, while perusing the help pages at Google Maps yesterday, I discovered that you can only put 100 saved locations in there - after that they start deleting the first ones! So I may split it into regions but if I do that I will make sure the links are on my sidebar and, if possible, in the Googlemaps page as well.

Odile kindly sent me a link to a Google Map of Textile Museums in France which has been compiled by France Patchwork, who also have a comprehensive list on their website. I won’t add these to mine due to the above constraints but will put the link to their map on my sidebar.

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Whilst trawling through my Textile Museums favourites, I found this picture of a lady using a sewing machine. It is a metal sculpture. I’ve no idea why I bookmarked it under Textile Museums but I’m glad I found it again!

Anyone know where this is?

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I’m happy to say that I have made a small start on the Textile Museums map which I have meant to compile ever since I started this blog. It is on Google Maps here. Let me know if you have any problems viewing it.

I have a whole lot more links to museums saved in my Favourites so I will gradually add them over the next few days (hopefully) or weeks (probably)…. If you know of any more, please leave a comment or email me, preferably with a website if you know it and I’ll put it in. I’ve put a link on the sidebar too.

I’ve been wondering if there is any way to set this so that it is editable by anyone, or more than just me… If anyone has any idea about this, do let me know! I had an idea about putting it on Wikipedia but one look at the map how-to instructions put me off! It looks far too technical for me…

Give me a week or so to enter all my links on the map, and then please see if your local textile museum, or any you know about, is on there and let me know if it isn’t.

You can view it by zooming in on the area you’re interested in, or browsing the links on the left.

Update: in the process of compiling this map, I have discovered a lot of online ‘museums’ and textile resources, so I have put them onto a permanent page on this blog - you can see a link to it on the sidebar under ‘Pages’.

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I’m sitting here reading the Guardian magazine at the moment. And there in the middle was a feature about a jacket made of Tyvek! You can read it online too.

Quilting is obviously the wrong branch of fabric design to be in… the jacket, which looks like nothing more than a glorified cagoule, is £260!

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