Life on the Inside

This last week has passed in a blur of staring at the computer screen and not much else. The chapter I've been working on is based on the three books in the picture above - I feel like I know them inside out, which I guess from the point of view of my PhD is a good thing but it does get a bit claustrophobic. This feeling is certainly reinforced by stretches of 48 hours plus not leaving the house! Spending that much time in the same environment does always encourage me to try and see the old angles with new eyes, though. The picture below is the view from our bedroom which I normally think is pretty grim but I realised that by focusing on the green and white of the foliage and the brown of the brick it's actually rather nice. This does mean ignoring the concreted over garden of our neighbours, filled with washing and the enormous satellite dish which the people downstairs put on our wall, but that's the beauty of framing!

My reward on Friday was dinner at Mum and Dad's which of course offered amongst its many attractions (good food, lovely company)...cats!

Pity the video is so dark - sorry! But I love how you can see the thought to go for Pip's jugular run through Agnes' head before she does it. They make me giggle those two.

Quilting Green Paper

My first Japanese craft books arrived in the post last week from YesAsia. I got Machine Made Patchworks and then, because it seemed such a waste not to make the free shipping threshold, I added From Quilters Studio too. I had seen Machine Made Patchworks around but was finally motivated to buy it by this post from Manda at Tree Fall Design where she discusses the lovely red quilt she made for her daughter. I've been thinking about doing a quilt for our bedroom and have had some fabric in mind for it. I have a bit of a thing for log cabin designs and I think Manda's quilt with the single colour palette and solid centres is beautiful and really effective. This is the log cabin quilt which features in the book:

I'm planning to do a two-tone colour scheme in yellow and green for ours. I have seven patterns in each tone, mostly half yards and fat quarters.


I cut a few test strips so I could lay out some ideas I had for blocks. For the first one I mixed the colours, using a block of one colour for the middle rounds and the other for the outside.


This second one is a little truer to the book (and Manda's design): sticking to using one colour in the centre and one colour on the outside, I mixed up the fabrics within each colour area.


Although I really like the effect of the second design, I think I will stick to the first one: I like the idea of foregrounding the colour work and letting each fabric speak for itself. Also, Miles prefers symmetry and order so I know the first one is more to his liking. Since he has to share the bed with me, I feel it's only fair his taste is considered too!

For the overall design I'm planning to alternate blocks with green and yellow centres and then maybe join the whole thing together with plain purple borders. Could be a while before it's finished, of course, but the planning is almost as much fun as the making!

Going through the archive

I spent the weekend at my parents' house going through my childhood bedroom trying to thin down some of the 'archive' (aka old tat). The flat was flooded in the heavy rain a couple of weeks ago and Mum and Dad are now staying in my room so I feel I should really sort things out.

No lost treasures discovered but I did come across lots of wonderful book covers, including these 50s Penguin editions of Raymond Chandler. Oh, and the beautiful Pip.