Monday 29 September 2014

Happiness is a big pile of fabric

Frustrating few weeks. Frustrating term so far. I can't seem to get on with the projects I want to get on with. Recently I have had too many hours getting sucked into the Internet for no good reason, cooking complicated things for hours on end that get wolfed down unnoticed in minutes, cleaning the new kitchen for hours on end to stop the inevitable grubbiness from becoming permanent, finding myself embroiled in other people's problems and inevitably being pulled back into the PTA quicksand when I'm sure I uttered the words that I was resigning. But there have been some glimpses of the happiness I could be helping myself to more of if I just organised my life a bit better:

I have finally started my photography course. Every Thursday morning I can disappear into a little self-indulgent world where I can at last get inside my new camera's brain and start to find out how to take a decent picture instead of just finding once in a blue moon that one has happened by magic. Who knows, the pictures for you here might even improve a little over the next few weeks.

Loud music, fast car. The best way I could find the other night to get away from the gloom in my head brought on by two children deliberately trying to make eachother's life miserable after school.

And yes, more than anything, a big pile of fabric. Why is that? Not just any old fabric. I have the makings of a new quilt in a bag on the kitchen floor. And even more exciting, not a self indulgent quilt for me, but a service for a friend who has wanted a quilt for a while and just hasn't the time. There are little bits of history in the bag, little personality traits in the bag, and some new fabrics that are simply gorgeous in the bag. It was horribly nerve wracking at first, cutting into someone else's fabric, hands shaking for half an hour, but now I am off, whizzing away with the rotary cutter, cutting square after square after square, and it just makes me happy. The patterns shouldn't go. But I know they will. I am following a vague design I used last time, involving 6-inch squares and the magic maths involving the number 6. Got your maths head on? Good. So I have some 6 inch squares....

I have some 5 inch squares, which I can team up with 1 inch squares along 2 sides...

I have some 4 inch squares, which I can use with 2 inch squares to make the magic 6. Or I could do them 3 in a row which would make 12 inches, so a double of the 6 inch square (hope I haven't lost you yet)...

I have 3 inch squares. These of course, if I use 4 together, will make a 6 inch square...

I have 2 inch squares. And yes 3 x 2 is 6 inches...

I have 1 1/2 inch squares. Now 4 of these can make 6 inches....

And lastly I have 1 inch squares. These are great with the 5 inch squares and of course I can put 6 in a row to make, yes, 6 inches. These make me a bit nervous as accuracy is paramount when you work on this small a scale but a few will be great.

The beauty of this is that once I've made up as many 6 inch squares as I can from these various combinations, I can put them together in a lovely random way and the whole thing will zing with these fabulous patterns and colours. Happiness!