91热爆

This is what I was up to today, I felt a bit of a pinky/purple thang come upon me, but I wanted to be slightly more than just a plain ole piece of quilting. So, out came the acrylic paints & the bondaweb. Mixed up a good few pots of pinks - lilacs - purples & semi slaphappy gave the bondaweb a good ole coating.

There was still a good bit of thinned down acrylic left, so I took a piece of hand dyed fabric & gave it a good splatter of paint as well.

By the time I had painted those two pieces, the table had a good coating of paint itself, so yet another piece of cloth, placed onto the table, went over it with a clean decorating roller & got a nice bit of printing thrown in with my afternoons work. I am now semi impatiently waiting for the bondaweb piece to dry so I can start working some free motion embroidery on it.


So whats it like living in Fair Isle.

Bliss ! We raise pigs, sheep, pedigree aberdeen angus cattle, lavender turkeys, aylesburry ducks, rare breed chickensn & shetland geese, you just cant beat a few hundred yards for food miles ! We did our first crop of bere this summer & I am mid thrashing it all out & look forward to having some for milling, bread baked with 50/50 wheat flour/bere meal is amazing !

It was a complete shock to us when we began to see just how busy the island becomes once the tourist season starts, bird watchers, day trippers, cruise boats doing day stops, at times the pace of life during summer can be really hectic & very demanding, the fact that the island works really hard as a community is the secret behind its success.

It can also be a very hard place to live, living & working on the island means that the other half & I are always in eachothers pockets so to speak and we do get times when we really hanker for a bit of space of our own. I miss the city at times, esp having fabric stores on my doorstep & like minded creative folks arround me, I really miss having someone who shares the same hobbies & being able to bounce idea's around over a sketchbook & a glass of wine... or 3. In that respects, for me its a lonesome place, but I do my best to make sure I can get off the island for a few days at least twice a year, have a run to a fabric shop & catch up on new materials, techniques etc, even if it is only a 2 day stop in lerwick, a change is as good as a rest.

Next year I am crossing my fingers I can do a few extended away trips down to one or 2 of the big quilt shows, as, fingers crossed & I get them finished on time, I will be back to entering quilts & my mum & I can restart our annual *its my birthday* trip down to the scottish quilt championships at the royal highland in october, I really miss the inspiration being totally surrounded in quilts & fabrics & embroidery threads gives me.