Quilty Pleasures

If I sometimes give the impression on this blog that I am an active outdoorsy kind of person, do not be misled, as while I love walking and the countryside, and the company of other likeminded souls, my greatest pleasure at this time of the year involves fabric and needles. It can be wool and knitting, or any number of types of sewing and embroidery.

 It should involve a big comfy chair so that I can sit amidst heaps of fabric of all colours and textures, and a fire in the hearth. In the perfect world there would be cake of a sumptuousness to match the fabrics.

So often the perfect world gives way to a diet and the need for a big table in the practical world.

This particular pleasure is not really a practical one. In fact my creative life is one of unrealistic expectations, enthusiastic enterprises and unfinished projects.

I know the answer to the question “Am I the only person with more than 2 half knitted garments, an unframed sampler (or 3) a magnificent but undecorated dolls house and a range of cushion covers without filling? “ I know that there are lots of us out there.

There is a considerable guilt associated with this.

In 1977 I started a patchwork quilt using lots of small hexagonal patches of mostly Laura Ashley fabrics. Most winters in the 80s and 90s I found it again and added a few more sections. I lost it when we moved house 10 years ago, and found it with a threaded needle halfway along a patch seam, earlier this month. Of course I started work on it again at once, and put down the waistcoat that I was embellishing.

I started work on the upgrade of my vintage waistcoat because I had been working on last years half finished cable knit hot water bottle covers but took them with me when I visited my family recently (something to do in the evenings) and left them there when I came home.

I want to wear the waistcoat this autumn/winter because if I loose a few more pounds it will fit (no cake you see) so I will have to finish it soon. And there are all of those personal handmade gifts and decorations that I want to make for Christmas. Like my Union flag rag rug. I could not resist the tool when I saw it at a fabric event recently, and my mother-in-law wants a kit so I am just trying it out for her.

I have made an Autumn Resolution that I will start one project and finish it before I begin another, or at least, I will finish some of these projects this year. I know that I will not stick to this promise but I do resolutely intend to work at it in the hope that something will be finished and used.

Just think of the needlepoint rugs I can make, and the dresses for the occupants of this house. It has a conservatory extension and it will be such fun to create climbing vines and pot plants to fill it......before hell frezes over!

And if it doesn’t happen?  Well it will happen. Eventually. Although for me the pleasure is in the doing,  I know that I will rather enjoy wearing the waistcoat and having someone ask, “Where did you get that?” I know that when the winter arrives I will love slipping a scalding hottie into my new cashmere cable-knit cover, pulling the patchwork quilt over my knees and sewing a sampler and scoffing brownies by the fire. Just do not ask "Which winter?"