Islay finds, makes and bakes...

You know when you're just not happy with something?

I always make sure that the quality of whatever I make to sell is up to scratch (and if there's any flaws, I'll always point this out), but sometimes even if something is made well, it still just isn't right. Whether the design or original idea is a bit off, or the wrong materials selected, when I make something that isn't right it just niggles away at me until I finally give in and redo it.

I recently finished a tablecloth that niggled me like that. Amazing vintage damask linen, complete with perfect monogram, and I wanted to modernise it without losing the elegance of the thing. Suffice to say, having spent hours painstakingly sewing ribbon onto it, I spent most of last Friday painstakingly removing the ribbon, washing the cloth and preparing it to start again on Saturday.

 Instead of satin ribbon, which just felt wrong for this hardwearing but elegant tablecloth (satin ribbon, for all its charms, sometimes just looks a bit insubstantial), I decided to trim the tablecloth in lovely quality red and white 100% cotton quilting fabric. After much loitering in thefabulous crafting store near my house, I picked out a really pretty red and white flowery fabric, by Moda (I think. I'd have to actually go and find the fabric in order to confirm that and I daren't leave Teddy, who is attempting to practise his engineering skills on our home phone).

 The fabric is going together in a patchworkey-type-style, and will trim around the tablecloth. I'm hoping to come across some damask napkins so I can put a trim down them too, but no joy yet in the local charity shops.

 

Quiltgate

You know, I don't know how some of the amazing quilters on Etsy contain themselves. I pretty much leap around the room with pride when I finish a quilt (at a rate of about one a year). I am so thrilled with the one above I actually showed it to the postman this morning (it was in my hand for photographing, honest! And he's a very friendly postman).

Not that I can hope to match some of the amazing quilters on, but I am really pleased with this quilt, made largely from upcycled fabrics. I've never made one to sell before, and I'm really pleased with it overall. It came out just right, with the extra width that I wanted (to tuck down the sides of little beds to keep the little people in them nice and warm). 

 It's also got pretty good eco-credentials - the cream sheeting used behind the vintage upcycled pink linen doilies and as a backing fabric is upcycled too, and the wadding in the middle of the quilt is made from a bamboo and cotton mix (bamboo uses far less water, fertiliser etc to grow than cotton, but its shorter fabric life is much extended by mixing it with the cotton, giving the best of all worlds). I have to confess to buying the pink (100% cotton) fabrics new - I tried and tried to find an appropriate vintage fabric, but I do feel that it's better to add in a bit of new and make something useable and gorgeous than to be obsessive about using secondhand products and perhaps end up with a product that is never going to be used because it just isn't as nice as it could be.

 

If there's a fairy godmother passing...

I'd like to request that Teddy grows up loving books. I have always read anything and everything, from the backs of cereal packets and Roald Dahl (as a small person) to Gormenghast and Vogue (as a bigger person). I can't imagine having missed out on all the colour, depth and escapism that reading has brought and continues to bring to my life.

Here's to many more trips to the library like today's, in which Teddy decided to investigate Beginners' Spanish instead of That's not my Puppy. Aim high, say I.

  

Sometimes I wish I didn't have to do other work

Before I had Teddy, I was a proper technical journalist, producing table after table like the ones above (in fact, I produced those exact ones), and analysing them all to within an inch of their lives.

Having to do a mahoosive repeat order of that this week has really reminded me why I love what I do now so much. Look up, look down, and tell me which one you'd rather be playing with.

ps: those are available in my supplies store. Not the data tables though. Sorry.