Back again.

Above is the small top I made from the Provencal charm squares. As I said before, totally outside my comfort zone and I found it quite exciting to play with bright colours and not quite know where I was going with it. I'm not usually so adventurous (although a lot of quilters would not see this as particularly adventurous!). If I were making a large quilt I know I would not have been able to go without a plan so this is the second time that charm squares have freed me up to be a little bit looser.

I cut all 42 squares in half and used eighty of the eighty four rectangles. I saved four rectangles, one of each primary colour, to make the flower middles - this left me a little short in the strips but I just filled in with a few white blocks. Then I drew very quickly and loosely the petals and backstitched them. I did feel the temptation to use a symmetrical petal template but gritted my teeth and resisted. I do like the result as it is bright, happy and naïve in a childlike innocent way. I've almost decided that my next quilt is going to be a 'tree of life', very traditional, so you can see I'm already reacting against my phase of relaxation. I think there are just two sides of me, one that adores Handel, Mozart and Haydn with their beautiful symmetry and sense of order in the world, and then a side that loves the wildness of Cajun music and (some!) improvised jazz. In my quilts, it's Haydn who wins nearly every time.

Haven't been posting mainly because I've spent the summer holidays enjoyably wasting time, doing chores and looking after guests; youngest daughter, two of Stuart's oldest friends from Scotland, and eldest daughter and partner. Naturally, I put on some of the weight I lost because I was cooking for them and eating out as well. I'm back on my 'good' regime this week but we have more guests coming up; Stuart's brother and his new wife are coming next week - they are about to begin a two-year part-world-tour in a yellow Unimog (like a cross between a four wheel truck and a camper van) as an early retirement venture.
School starts this week, too.

We had beautiful weather in May and June, indifferent weather in July and pretty awful weather in August. I am wishing for an Indian summer to please all my sun-deprived friends.

No picture day

Have just started a small quilt, probably a table-topper, from the Provençal charm pack I had. No photos today as I have been too busy to get the camera out but will do soon. Dental check today ('Perfekt, Frau Johnstone!') and had to rush to buy a new hoover before my appointment as the old one blew up yesterday (probably my fault). My youngest daughter is visiting from England for a few days so I might not have much time for sewing. I decided to keep the quilt very simple as the fabrics are so bright and busily patterned - quite outside my comfort zone - and just cut them in half and did chinese coin strips alternated with white. I plan to use the very few (5) half squares left over to make some applique flower middles and then embroider the petals and then, Horror of Horrors! - machine quilt the lot. I hardly ever machine quilt and I know my hands will be itching to quilt something so small scale and easy to manipulate. However, for once I want to do something seasonal and use this tabletopper while the weather is appropriate. It makes me feel happy to look at it and very summery so I hope to get it finished and on the table very soon in order to enjoy it.

I think then I will finish the two unfinished quilts I have which only need binding and do a bit of my Kaffeerösterei embroidery before I start another quilt. Ideas for the next one are shifting around my head but haven't settled yet so this will give them time.

Have heard quite a few stories about other people who have had a taste problem after a heart op - in some cases it can take months for the problem to disappear; am hoping that my husband does not have to wait that long.

This is the first week of my long school summer break and I have that luxurious feeling of abundant time to do wonders before school starts again. Let's hope I get at least some of the things done around home that I've been postponing until just this time!

Finished and unfinished...

Above is the finished quilt for my sister-in-law, Helen (who doesn't know I've got a blog so will not find out about this).



By doing simple quilting from point to point on the tumbler shapes, quite a nice geometric result happened on the back, and I really enjoyed using the figure 8 template for the bands and borders because it had no stop and start points except for the floral corners, so is a quick pattern to use. Miind you, for some reason, this is a heavy quilt and the quilting was quite hard work. I think it is because I used an iron-on batting and the weight of all that glue stuff seems to make quite a difference.



Logan, the Quilt Policeman, on duty inspecting my stitches and finding a few knots on the back from that awful King Tut quilting cotton I used (King Tat, I call it and will never touch it again, however pretty the colour might be).

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I tried to enhance the colour of this photo as it came out rather dark but although it has left the cream border cream, for some reason it has changed our grey/beige carpet to vivid turquoise. Still, you can see the lovely corner pattern of this nice template.



And the finished article, just needing to be washed (christened) and labelled and then Stuart will take it with him to Scotland on his next visit as it is too precious to post.

Don't know what to work on next. Really want to use my Jane Austen-ish fabrics and my Civil War reproductions, all of which have remained untouched since I got them. But as we have had such warm weather, and it doesn't look like we'll be having a holiday this year, I'm tempted to do something sunny and holidayish to keep in cheerful mode. I have a charm pack of French Provencal fabrics and just might play with them for a bit...

The unfinished thing is my poor husband, who is now home from three weeks' rehabilitation but still not feeling too great. All is well with his heart, everything fine there, but he is having difficulty putting on weight after having lost 11 kilos in the last couple of months. The altered taste problem, which probably came from the anaesthetic or from his antibiotics before the op, has prevented him from eating much. It is getting better and now he is home I am able to cater more specifically for what he thinks will taste okay, rather than having what was given in the clinic (very little choice). So things are improving but slowly and he is an impatient man (probably how he got to be heart-stressed in the beginning) and wants to get back into his life and feel normal again. He is still not supposed to drive his car (but has been as there was a problem with mine this week), NEVER EVER supposed to lift anything above 10 kilos again (he is not a weightlifter or anything but this news has depressed him and made him feel old) and he is still not supposed to sleep on his side for another week. Poor lad, he is therefore underweight and sleeping badly with many interruptions, still taking a load of drugs and on top of that he has given up smoking. So he is dealing with a lot of frustration with no help from a cigarette. He's using an electric vapour cigarette to calm cravings and give him something to wave around - it's an excellent idea and contains no nicotine, just a flavoured vapour, battery-operated. So he is doing really well, considering. Not the easiest person to live with at the moment, however!! He has decided to go to a business meeting tomorrow (something else he shouldn't be doing) but I think it will be good for him to see clients and colleagues and feel he is needed again. It is in Frankfurt but he intends to go by train and stay overnight before the meeting tomorrow, which is a gentle approach.

Well, no quilting group today, so I need to look over some ideas for those provencal prints.

Time to breathe

Finally, a chance to catch up a bit. Quilt photos will have to wait.

The post-mortem was finally done on my father and the results straightforward. The cremation was held on Monday, 9th May, and I flew to England just for the day and met my daughters at the airport. I had to get up at 4a.m. German time to catch my early flight and I was so strung up that I didn't sleep at all during the night. I had time to wait until the girls' train got to the airport so I had a quick breakfast - it felt really strange to be wasting time at an airport knowing that within an hour I would be seeing my father's body. My daughters were tremendously loyal and supportive - they decided they would not let me do the viewing alone and insisted on joining me. Heartbreaking experience. I had the chance to say goodbye and slip in something small and important that I wanted to leave with him.

Very small cremation, just a couple of neighbours and the close family, beautiful weather, food at my mother's house and then back to the airport to say goodbye to my girls and fly home again - got in at 11pm. and slept like a baby.

Two days later, Stuart went into hospital for his double bypass. He was very anxious and then was told that it would be delayed for a day because he has O Negative blood, which is rare and that they had to order it specially for the op. The operation went very well and he came out of hospital after a week, home for four days and then today has left for three weeks' rehabilitation at a clinic near Cologne. He has had very little pain from the op in either chest, or the arm and leg from which the veins were taken. However, he has terrible nerve pain in the arm that wasn't involved. The surgeon says that it is from too much pressure being put on it during the operation so he is left with something akin to tennis elbow. The slightest touch sends him screaming with pain and that has been his main problem. Also, all food smells and tastes chemical to him and so he has lost a lot of weight since the operation when he should have been putting it on. He has grown very thin, very quickly. I have been as patient as I can but must say that I am relieved that he is now in rehabilitation so that the responsibility for his recovery and further progress is left to the professionals. We have paid extra for a single ('comfort') room and he has internet connection so we will be able to Skype in the evenings. I shall try to go and see him at the weekend and I am on half term holiday from school next week, which is very fortunate. I don't like leaving the dog for too long and the journey will be an hour both ways but I need to visit fairly regularly.

Last week was hellish - locking the dog up while I went to work, walking him, locking him up again while I visited the hospital, constantly answering the phone, making phone calls, doing emails, contacting Stuart's work colleagues, family, friends, more dogwalking, work, visiting - you get the picture. My eldest daughter flew out to be with us this weekend when he came home for four days because she knew it had been a bad week for both of us. After collecting Stuart from hospital, getting him settled and leaving him for a long nap, we both took the dog to the nearest nice beergarden and had a delicious lunch of Kölsch, cold roast beef, bratkartoffeln and home-made remoulade. The sun was sparkling and we sat and watched the barges go by and thoroughly relaxed. It may sound selfish but it was just what I needed - an hour and a half of sheer pleasure! (Stuart was still asleep when we got back so we didn't feel guilty...)

Shocked and tired

Today I went with Stuart to his cardiology appointment. Basically, the doctor said he needs a double bypass but they are not sure they can carry it out in his case and they need further discussion before making a decision. If they don't do it, he will take beta blockers for the rest of his life instead. If they do the op, it will be in a couple of weeks. Naturally, I want to be here and we have a conflict with my father's cremation. My mother is still waiting to hear if there has to be a post-mortem on my father's body, so we have no idea how soon a cremation service can be organised. And my daughters are in England not knowing if they are coming here to Germany as planned for Easter with us, staying in England so they can go to the cremation, or coming here to Germany a couple of weeks later so they can be here if Stuart is operated on. I was worried about Stuart when I was in Sylt but had no idea my world would be turned upside-down when I got back. I want to be with my mother, sister and brother, but also want to be with my husband. I need a cloning service. Feeling torn and sad.

Stunning Sylt and sadness too

My quilt group went for a long weekend to Sylt, an island which originally belonged to Denmark but changed ownership a long time ago and is now the most northerly part of Germany. It is one of the East Friesian islands and is a conservation area. We travelled eight hours by train Thursday and so had Thursday evening, Friday and Saturday and then another eight hour journey home on Sunday. We had a wonderful time.

My photos are all uploaded in the wrong order but I can't be bothered to change them round so here is a picture of my meal at the famous Sansibar restaurant on the island. Sylt is a rich people's island and has lots of celebrities and VIPs owning property there and they have made this beach restaurant the place to be seen. This is my main course of Steinbutt (turbot) with giant scallops on a bed of herbed spinach and tomato. It was divine - all the fish was wonderful. We felt like celebrities ourselves.



Below is one of the typical Sylt houses - many of them have thatched roofs and are exquisitely beautiful and maintained in tip-top condition; all the grounds are immaculate with bowling green lawns. If I were a multi-millionaire, I would buy one immediately but that isn't going to happen...



They drink a lot of tea on this island and there were tea shops everywhere, selling wonderful blends of loose tea and often serving tea and cakes as well. This one sold very unusual teapots.



The weather was grim when we arrived on the Thursday and we had a very wild and wet walk to the beach. We thought we would be inside at the hotel spa or quilting the whole weekend as the weather looked so bad. But no, Friday and Saturday were warm and sunny and, though still windy, it was a warm wind. Below are the famous Strandkörber (literally, beachbaskets). They are the traditional beach seats for northern Germany, enabling people to sit and soak up the sun while being protected from the wind. They have pull-out footrests, storage, tables for drinks, pretty much everything you could want to be comfortable and we saw many people comfortably asleep in them later in the day. At night or in bad weather, the back and top fold down to become the basket lid which keeps everything dry.




I have more photos to put up but need to wait a while. When I came back from Sylt I found out that my husband's recent annual medical has revealed a heart problem and he had to go into a clinic on Friday for a heart catheter investigation. After I drove home from the clinic, my sister rang to tell me that my father had just died. I couldn't tell my husband until he got home the next day, so it was a strange and diffficult day, worried about my husband and grieving for my father. I am going to spend a week with my mother in England and shall not post again until I get back.

Tempus keeps fugitting!

Can't believe I haven't posted since 29th January. Time to catch up.

Stuart and I went to Aachen for a weekend - sunny and restful, lots of wonderful old buildings like this one:




Just look at those barley-twist carved pillars and the unusual window shutters! It is now a restaurant and although we didn't eat there as we had already booked somewhere else, on our next visit we shall certainly do so - I want to see the inside properly rather than a peer through the window. Yes, there was a table full of people looking back at me when I did so - when it is old glass in the windows, you can't see anything at first and then you see the faces...

One of the old houses has been turned into a museum and there is in the basement a Tile Room, all walls being completely tiled in different antique tiles. Quilt inspiration galore - really beautiful.




Our quilt group trip to Bremen was great fun and I managed to cut and sew on the borders of my new quilt, sandwich it and get the quilting started. Current progress below:





Have decided this quilt is going to be a surprise birthday present for my sister-in-law - I can post the photos because she doesn't know about my blog.

Next weekend six of us from the quilt group are travelling to the island of Sylt in the north of Germany. We will have an 8 hour train journey (three hours to Bremen and then Renate will join us for the next five hours!) and three nights and two days on the island and then the long journey back on Sunday. Our friend Gisela is married to the manager of the hotel where we are staying and it will be another lovely reunion as Bremen was an unbelievable eight weeks ago. If I don't take the quilt with me I shall take embroidery but have to take something crafty to do with my hands.