Works in Progress

Stuff going on at home at the moment, besides worrying about the outcome of the election.

Tomato plants from Unicorn potted up in the porch (which is something like a greenhouse much of the summer), in three year old home made compost. I have only been intending to do this for the entire time we have lived here, so six years later I get around to it:

Three weeks later they are looking pretty good. I kept the sign from the NHS protest we went to back in March, and it has come in very handy as a plant support. 

Crochet blanket for Claire is coming along well, over half way towards my 144 granny square target.  I sorted the yarn stash and gave the project its own box.

And a trip to town with the girls yielded a lovely wicker basket in which I have hidden my Turkish Coat project. I have done bits of it occasionally but the mammoth task of hand quilting the pieces turned it from a labour of love into just a labour. I need new impetus to renew my enthusiasm.

Julie had a stash clear out and gave me some yarn, partly to encourage my crochet ambitions, and she started me on the Lost in Time shawl. I have combined it with some leftover from my Still Light Tunic. It is slow going but is going to be beautiful.

Turkish Coat Part 2

I have had a busy month, what with the A to Z Challenge and the local elections coming up and helping Ben with his campaign, and then there was the Readathon that took up the entire of last weekend, but I have still managed to make quite considerable progress with my Turkish Coat project.

We paid another visit to Leons and bought five metres of cotton batting, that was allowing for pre-washing and the potential shrinkage.

Then the four metres of yellow linen arrived. This has come from a website simple titled 'Dress Fabrics' based in Ireland, which seems an appropriate place to buy linen. They sent me a small sample beforehand and the colour was exactly what I was looking for. (Just to give a mention to the lovely people at 'Ralston Fabrics' on Etsy, who also kindly sent a sample but the colour was too dark.)

Having dithered, as I mentioned last time, for a long time over the colour choice for this project I chose this yellow because of my beautiful cable jumper that I knitted back in 2012 but spoiled by shrinking very slightly.

I reread the instruction, which appear at first glance to be rather scanty, and finally grasped that the coat is not put together anything like I imagined. Each piece is to be layered and quilted together before being constructed.

All the batting pieces were cut out last week and today I have sewn some more of the patchwork fabric and cut out the sleeves. Here they are in all their layered glory:

I am planning to do a trial run of some quilting, so that is my aim over the next week.

Turkish Coat Part 1 (not an A to Z post)

I saw a picture of the Turkish Coat in a quilting book about twenty five years ago; I wrote to Folkwear and acquired a copy of their catalogue. At the time it was hard to buy stuff from America without credit card, and I didn't have any money anyhow, so the catalogue stayed at the back of my desk, just waiting. A few years ago, clearing stuff out, I came across it and looked them up on the interweb, and what do you know but their range of patterns has remained utterly unchanged in all those years. Making the coat was still something of a pipe dream, but what's the point of dreams if you don't occasionally get to fulfil them. Last year I used some birthday money and finally sent off for the pattern. The time since has involved much fabric research and indecision. Anyhow, birthday money this year was allocated to fabric and, after further dithering, I bought two 'jelly rolls' (long strips of coordinated fabric for quilters) of batik fabric from Casperhouseks on Etsy. It cost me nearly as much again in customs charge when it arrived as the fabric cost, but it is lovely.

The coat is made in three layers; outer, lining and cotton batting between, the layers are then quilted together. Today's efforts have produced a 3 metre length of fabric that has been enough to cut out the main front and back pieces. This is going to be a long term project, but hopefully, now I have made a start, I will aim to do updates every week or so. Fabric for the outer layer was also ordered today after acquiring a couple of swatches, and Monkey and I are going for batting and thread and new sewing machine needles after work tomorrow.