Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

or in my case, champagne, cava and prosecco…

It’s been a while since I posted – sometimes life just takes over, and sometimes I lose my direction a bit and get so caught up in what I’m doing that the regular stuff just gets neglected. Not very adult of me, I know, but that’s just how it is. But I’ve started to miss blogging and its associated joys, so here I am again.

I seem to have been very busy over the last few weeks, I’ve sent half a dozen dolls out into the world, and then decided to take a break from them for a week or two. That resulted in me standing back from my close-up workspace and for the first time in a while, actually taking a proper look at the space around me and realising what an extraordinary mess it is (again). This lead to some rash decision making – I decided to turn some of the huge pile of fabric into something more useful – a huge pile of quilts. In theory this seems very sensible, dontcha think? It’s starting to warm up a bit out there now, and it would be so nice to have a collection of quilts to throw over ourselves in the winter, when it returns (probably in about two months’ time). Using up the fabric in this way would:

(a) clear some space in our studio;

(b) be a practical use of my time;

(c) give me an excuse to take a break from the doll obsession; and

(d) make me feel virtuous (a rare state for me).

Also, I just love the look of quilts. You can fold up a pile of them and leave them on a chair and they just look pretty and welcoming.

That was the theory, anyway. As usual (being me) I just launched in and started, without a huge amount of pre-planning. The first quilt was made using a quilt top I had started about 15 or 20 years ago, then put away and never finished. Well now it’s finished – and very pretty it is too. However, it is ENORMOUS – Superking sized at least. Mega cozy and all made in ice-cream colours, which does not go with anything in our flat, but is lovely nonetheless. It was far too big to quilt on the machine, so I had to hand-tie it instead. This is a picture of it smothering the sofa.

The next one is still in progress. I saw some printed fabric which is no longer available, but I loved the look of it, so I decided to try to reproduce the ‘feel’ and the look, but with patchwork where they had used printing. Easier said than done, although I am now getting there. This one is going to be rather more edgy and abstract than the first one, but then again, second children often are…

Here are the first few blocks.

…and yes, that big pile of fabric at the end of the bench? It’s about a sixth of the stash I am trying to use up.

One last thing – here are a couple of the most recent Trippet Castle Dolls having a cuddle (in case you thought I had got lazy lately).