Author: Katy

In A Sunshine State

24 April, 2015 / Katy / 0 Comments

At the risk of alienating any of you who aren’t enjoying similar weather, I have to tell you that we’re having one of those perfect weeks in Edinburgh.

A photo posted by Katy Bromberg (@mymisericordia) on Apr 22, 2015 at 3:07am PDT

We’ve been eating outside at all possible opportunities, I’ve made iced tea that will probably be unnecessary before it’s cold enough to properly be called iced and our ice cream consumption has shot up!

The only slight hitch was that we didn’t quite pack enough warm weather clothing, and when we popped back to Misericordia Mansions to get some, we discovered the all the bits of the new bathroom were carefully ranged along the hallway, blocking all our rooms! So we’re sporting the rolled up sleeves and trouser leg look.

What with sitting outside all the time I haven’t got much embroidery done, despite my best intentions. Maybe when it clouds over…

Last Vestiges

17 April, 2015 / Katy / 2 Comments

This is going to be strange…

…for me, more than you (with the possible exception of the four or so of my readers who have inside knowledge).

Misericordia Mansions started out as the Lovely Young Man’s student flat, lo this 15 or so years ago. It was distinctly upmarket for a student flat (the boy has standards), but there were still idiosyncratic touches such as orange radiators throughout, unusual paint combinations, and a cork in the cornicing.

Found it yet?

Over the years, we’ve been upgrading in bits and pieces, but since we’ve moved back, there has been a more concerted plan (and budget).

Next week they start ripping out the bathroom, which is the last big project before our flat looks like a house where grown ups live. (But for Heaven’s sake, don’t tell those grown ups, we quite like it here!)

The only thing that was worrying me was Kipling. Every six months or so, a new generation of mice forget to heed the warnings of their elders and squeeze through a gap between the bathroom wall and floor where they meet this charmer…briefly.

I probably don’t need to fret, in a Victorian tenement another mouse dispenser is bound to appear, but I thought it was a fitting farewell when we heard the unmistakeable sounds of mouse-crunching in the middle of the night.

We’re decamping while works are underway, but I’ll be confecting a little something with these which I can share later in the summer.

Not Quite Hibernating

10 April, 2015 / Katy / 1 Comment

Is there a word for hibernating which evokes lying in the sunshine?

All this baby stuff is certainly different this time around, or perhaps I am different, or (even more likely) it’s a little of both.

I remember feeling an overwhelming urge and ability to accomplish things when Dragon was born. This resulted in the Three by Three quilt (which is much in use at the moment) and a fairly extensive baby book.

This time, while the astonishing range and throughput of infant digestive systems no longer makes me weep, I’m really struggling to do… anything.

Instead piles of things I’m halfway through are mushrooming up around the house while I read Agatha Christie and stare vaguely at the walls.

On the other hand, I sold two pieces this week, so perhaps all is not lost.

Little Lion – in the wild

3 April, 2015 / Katy / 4 Comments

[whispered, in the style of David Attenborough]

Little Lion

Here we can see the most juvenile member of the Misericordia Mansions Menagerie. This young female appears to prize physical contact above all other stimuli and will frequently spend hours in the same position in a more senior Menagerist’s arms. At only two weeks old, she will eventually open her eyes and start to interact with other members of the group, especially the junior male.

nappy change

To demonstrate his new position in the Menagerie, the junior male brings gifts and watches the mid-ranking male and female as they care for the new arrival.

Small scuffles have been observed between the most senior female Menagerists, but these rarely lead to violence and are probably part of a complex ritual to demonstrate their joint status in the hierarchy.

Marking Time

27 March, 2015 / Katy / 0 Comments

Sometimes you’re the chalk, and sometimes you’re the sandpaper. At the moment, I’m definitely the chalk.

I’m trying to get the curtain of the ark project finished and I’m mired in the doldrums of the middle third of a project where it’s obviously not finished but the novelty has worn off.

I’m slowly picking away at it, but it’s a struggle…

That Whooshing Sound?

20 March, 2015 / Katy / 0 Comments

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

– Douglas Adams

For once it’s not me missing a deadline, it’s Little Lion.

Obviously giving them a feline nickname was a mistake, as they seem entirely unwilling to vacate their comfortable nest.

But today’s the day the metaphorical duvet is shaken out and the tedious sleeplessness and vagueness of late pregnancy is replaced by the bewildering sleeplessness and vagueness of life with a newborn.

See you on the other side.

I’m Not Afraid of Hand Work

13 March, 2015 / Katy / 4 Comments

Well, this is quite exciting, Dragon has a proto-quilt!

I always joked that I couldn’t have another child until I finished Dragon’s quilt and, as I type this that’s sort of true (but I’ve scheduled this to post about 10 days after I’m writing it).

My mum was due to arrive on a Saturday morning, and since I’d need to use the spare room/dining room to lay out the quilt ready to baste it, I planned a whole Friday to spend on it.

I thought I’d experiment with starching the top and back before I basted them, especially because there’s an awful lot of linen blend in there, so a little glide between the layers was going to be a good thing.

I’ve been using this tutorial from Oh Fransson! recently, where you lay out the wadding and the top, roll them up, and then lay them out on the backing.

All was going well for the first part, but the quilt top was a little bigger than I remembered. So I duly rolled it up and spread out the back, ready to tape to the floor.

If you have a cat, you’ll know that there is a point where the cat will come in, roll around on your project and generally require you to take a very deep breath before you do something you regret.

That was only a precursor to the realisation that the back of the quilt was smaller than the front, and that I didn’t have enough of the gray linen to just cut two long pieces to go at the top and side.

Six and a half hours of hand piecing later, I had extended the back sufficiently to lay out the top again.

Problem Number 2 then reared its head: How do I centre the top onto the pieced back so that when you turn it over, the binding and the seams of the squares run parallel? I fussed and fretted over this all of Friday evening, until I realised this – No one is the boss of me. Just because I have found someone’s technique useful in the past, doesn’t mean that I always have to use it.

Because the back is more detailed at the bottom left and fades to monochrome at the top right, I could line up the top and back edges at one corner and allow it to go where it pleased as I moved diagonally across.

Once I whip stitched the edges on two sides, I set off with another new method of basting, pad stitching, taken from tailoring, but quite effective and surprisingly quick for basting (some of that may have happened at 4am when I couldn’t sleep).

Overall, I’m quite pleased with how it came out. I appreciate there’s a significant amount of hand quilting to do still, but at least it’s ready to pick up and start.

I’m also glad I remembered who is in charge in this making lark (me, in case I need to check back later on), and discovered the pad stitch method of basting.

Of Ice Queens and Parenting Foibles

6 March, 2015 / Katy / 3 Comments

Parenting is a bit like trying to drill holes in the walls of our Victorian flat.

From the outset you’ll never be quite sure whether you’ll remain as unyielding as surprise masonry or as soft and crumbly as lath and plaster (or in fact be made entirely of newspaper and Polyfilla, but I can’t make that relate to parenting, so lets pretend we haven’t spoken of it).

My large weak spot is costuming. I’m starting to be able to tap the figurative walls and guess when this indulgence will rear its head, and when an invitation to a Frozen birthday party appeared, I knew it would be better to anticipate than react.

Luckily, I’ve been spared the princess-mania and since Dragon’s favourite character is Olaf the snowman, I could suggest a t-shirt rather than a full ensemble.

I’m pleased that this one came together with an investment of £1 in charity shop clothing and some felt (not to mention that I feel I’ve escaped very lightly without metres of sparkly tulle).

Commission – Ladybug

27 February, 2015 / Katy / 2 Comments

This commission has a sad story behind it, but I wanted to share it with you.

It’s a memorial piece for a wee girl who recently passed away after battling serious health problems for most of her life.

Her nickname was Ladybug, and while the obvious thing to do was incorporate that into the piece, I wanted to make sure that there was a little more to it than just an illustration.

Once I’d decided that the ladybird should be about to fly away, the rest of the colour choices fell into place.

The leaves are birch, which has symbolic meanings of youth, regeneration and the bridging the gap between this world and the next in several cultures.

In the Walled Garden – Baby Quilt

20 February, 2015 / Katy / 0 Comments

This baby quilt feels like the end of an era.

Many moons ago when I was child-free and full of time that was my own, a very good school friend had a baby. So what could be more natural than to make her a quilt?

(Look at wee Kippie trying to help!)

Then I had a baby, then she had another baby. I didn’t want anyone to feel I was playing favourites, so I made a quilt. I enjoyed it, but it took a little longer than the first one (still under a year).

Then we had a synchronous increase in family size, her youngest arrived at about the time I discovered there was a Little Lion on the way, and I’ve been working on (what she assures me will be) the last quilt in the series.

It’s a mixture of machine and hand quilting, and I’m quite pleased with how it turned out in the end. (Although I have to admit I got a little stuck in the middle of it all.) Plus, I’ve managed to finish it within the one year self-imposed limit!

I think I’m going to give quilt-making for other people’s children a little break; for one thing I now have two quilts to finish for my own offspring and I’m also finding that hand sewing as a way to relax from hand embroidering is not quite as soothing as it might be.

But watch this space for Dragon and Lion’s quilt updates because I’m determined to get moving while my nesting spell is upon me!

(The photos of the previous quilts link to their original outings on my blog, if you fancy seeing more photos or reading more about their creation.)