Mikki's Material Madness

Ouch

2008-09-16T20:18:00.002+01:00

I took my brother to Chessington yesterday (not the one getting married, the other one) and we had a great time, but today I ache all over. I must be getting old. Still it was brilliant fun ;)

I have to say I don't know what's scarier, the fact that my baby brother is off to uni this week, or that my other brother is getting married!

I've started work on my clothes for the wedding now. It's fiddly cross stitch and I hate sewing with metallic threads but it should look good in the end. I just hope I finish it in time.

Finished!

2008-09-11T17:41:00.002+01:00

Here's the chuppah with all the leaves sewn on. My mum's bringing the frame home this weekend so I can see how it all goes together and hopefully work out how to attach it to the frame. Then I can put the binding on it and start working on my clothes for the wedding...

Leafy Trees

2008-09-08T19:20:00.003+01:00

I've finished quilting the trees and a leafy medallion in the centre (though it doesn't show up too well on photos). I've pinned loads of leaves on and just need to sew them down. Then I have to work out exactly how I'm going to hang this thing.

For those of you who don't know, Jewish weddings take place under a canopy, and this is what I'm making here. So it has to be hung from a frame by all four sides, and the leaves should dangle down. I think in order to get it on the frame, its going to involve a lot of velcro.

Tired of Trees

2008-09-04T19:12:00.004+01:00

I finished quilting the second tree today. Here's a couple of photos. I've finally finished the antibiotics. Still got a few days of steroids to go but I'm feeling better and I can breathe, so long as I don't move too much. Hopefully I won't need another course of steroids and can finally finish these trees.

Wow!

2008-09-03T18:49:00.002+01:00

I finished quilting one of the trees, and it looks good. I'll try to put a photo up soon. My mum saw it and she likes it which is brilliant.

I now feel mostly better, until I try to move and then it all goes wrong. It's getting really annoying. But at least I'm managing to do some things now.

I put out some of my pottery that's been packed up since I moved (over a year ago!) and immediately one of my cats managed to break one. Then he came to me for comfort cos the noise scared him! Hopefully it'll go back together with super glue and won't be too noticeable.

Damn side affects

2008-09-02T19:08:00.002+01:00

I'm starting to be able to breathe again - so long as I don't move or talk... but thanks to side affects from all the meds, I'm still feeling rotten. All I managed to do today is quilt one branch of one tree. But I'm quite proud of it and it didn't take too long, so hopefully once I'm feeling better I'll get it finished quickly.

Still ill :(

2008-09-01T16:20:00.002+01:00

I've been back to the doctor and he's given me another week of steroid tablets to try and deal with the asthma, so I still can't do much. I did manage to sew down the other two trees on my brother's quilt. Unfortunately I have no wall or floor space big enough to take a decent picture of it, so here's an awful photo instead.

It still needs quilting and then I have tons of leaves to sew on, but it's getting there and should definitely be done in time.

Yay!

2008-08-31T20:51:00.002+01:00

I actually managed to do something useful today. I sewed down two trees on the quilt for my brother's wedding. Of course it gave me an asthma attack, but it's amazing how much better I feel just having done even a little. So no new pictures today. Hopefully I'll feel even better tomorrow and manage to get more done.

Harumph ;(

2008-08-30T17:43:00.003+01:00

I keep feeling that if it weren't for all the side affects from all the meds I'm taking, I'd be feeling much better now. On the other hand, walking from my bedroom to my living room makes me breathless and answering the door to the postman gave me an asthma attack. So maybe not.

Anyway, here's my design for today. Actually, its not really mine. Its based on a pattern from a book called Scrap Quilt Sensation by Katherine Guerrier. Her pattern is called Dark Stars. I've added a few different stars of my own to make life more difficult for me. Besides, its supposed to be a scrap quilt and I have a feeling things I call scraps are a lot smaller than most peoples.

I think its going to be called Variable Star after a Robert Heinlein and Spider Robinson book I like. That's if I ever actually make it of course. ;)

Bored, bored, bored!

2008-08-29T13:39:00.003+01:00

So I'm sitting at home with yet another chest infection, bad asthma and far too many medications, unable to do anything and bored out of my mind. So I thought I'd give this blogging thing another try.

One thing I can do at the moment is design quilts, which I probably will never ever have enough time to actually make, but never mind.

Here's the first of my 'too sick to do anything else' quilt designs.

I designed this using EQ6 software, and this is just a computer image not a real quilt. I'm quite pleased with it though. Hopefully I'll even get round to making it some day.

Mystery Quilt: Snow Business

2007-01-06T18:04:00.000Z

So I decided to do the one day Mystery Quilt after all, and it was fun, but tiring. And it took me much longer than a day to do, but here it is. I haven't quilted it yet, I'm thinking of snow flakes, but I don't know what I'm going to do with it after that. Oh well, worry about that later. By the way, if you want to see what other people did with the same instructions, you can see them here.

Bored! Bored! Bored!

2006-12-27T19:17:00.000Z

So I'm sitting at home, my parents and brothers have gone away, so it's just me and the cats and I'm bored out of my mind. I can't go out cos I can't stop coughing and I'm fed up. I mean, really fed up.

Then I got an email from Patchwork Planet about this one day mystery quilt they're doing on New Years Day, and I thought, why not? It'll be something to do, and it needs some preparation before then. Then I realized I couldn't get to my fabric easily, so I tidied up my room, coughing all the time, and started to pick out fabrics.

Now I can't decide, do I do it or not? I love my fabric. I don't want to use it at all! Let alone on a mystery project that I have no idea how it will turn out! Aaargh! I can't do decisions! This is ridiculous. :(

And it will use up all I've got of one fabric. It's an agonizing decision, silly though that might sound.

Chewing Gum Art

2006-10-18T19:38:00.000+01:00

In art class today we had a talk from Ben Wilson. He's a local artist who has done a lot of wooden sculptures in out of the way woods, but he's best known for his chewing gum art. He paints tiny pictures on pieces of chewing gum that people have dropped on the pavement. He showed us loads of photos of his work, and it's kind of cool. Weird, but cool.

He was really pleased to see all the different sorts of things we in the class were doing, and he liked my miniature quilt. He then took requests for pictures he will paint on pieces of chewing gum around Barnet and he gave us all a signed photo each of our favourite bit of gum.

It was a lot of fun, and quite inspirational, to look for art in strange places. So if you happen to be in Barnet, don't forget to look for his pictures!

Kandinsky designs

2006-10-01T00:48:00.000+01:00

I'm trying to design a quilt inspired by one of my favourite Kandinsky paintings, yellow-red-blue. I've taken just the left hand side of the painting and played around with the shapes and colours there and come up with several different designs. I'm not sure which one I'll go with yet, or maybe I'll combine a few or something. And then I have to work out how to build it.

On a much sadder note, I went tonight to the Shiva (that's like a memorial service) of a childhood friend who died this week. I want to design a quilt with the memories I have of her, but I'm not quite sure how to do it yet. I know it has to involve music as we always sang together. I shall have to think.

Art class

2006-09-27T18:49:00.000+01:00

I finally got to ask my art teacher how to draw my cat, Tiggi, without it looking like just a black blob. Apparently the answer is layers but I haven't tried it yet. I talked to one of the guys in the class who's done some really amazing black and white drawings which inspired me to have a go. But I think my job for today is to collect together some inspirational images and start building up a scrap book of design ideas. I'm supposed to do something like that if I want to do a city and guilds in patchwork, but it's something I've thought about for a while anyway so it's time I got on with it.

Grrrrr

2006-09-19T18:36:00.000+01:00

I've just lost the flat I wanted to a higher bidder, despite having an offer acepted. This is the second time this has happened to me in only two flats. I hate this stupid system. And top up tv has taken away my discovery channel which is also unbelievably annoying. So I thought I'd put some more photos up here. Here's the mini sampler quilt I wanted to put up yesterday. It's only 8 inches square, so each of the blocks are only about 1 inch. Insane I know, but it was fun too.

And here's a drawing I did of my cat Kia. It's not great but I'm still learning. I've got an art class at college tomorrow and I'm hoping to find out how to draw my other cat, Tiggi, as she's all black fluff.

Hi. I'm Mikki. I make stuff.

2006-09-18T19:18:00.000+01:00

I make quilts and do cross stich and make things out of clay and fimo and I do some drawing too. Here are a few photos of what I do.

This was done from a photo of a fox who used to visit me regularly when I lived in East London.

This is a quilt I made for a boy named Saul for his Bar Mitzvah. It's called Saul's Jerusalem.

I wanted to post another picture of my mini sampler quilt, but it's not working right now so it'll have to wait.

And finally I would like to say, that this blog, and me quilting in the first place, are all Ferret's fault. So you should all go have a look at her blog too, if you haven't already.