The devil and idle hands

Although I make most of my quilts on my sewing machine I like to have a project that I'm putting together by hand too. I like to sew whilst watching TV, so that I can kid myself I'm not being a couch potato but that I am creating something beautiful and the telly just happens to be on in the room whilst I do it.

Any fabric obsessive will be able to tell that the fabrics I'm using for these blocks are all designed by Kaffe Fassett. In fact, they are just two of his designs (Roman Glass and Paperweight) in many different colours. Of all his amazing fabrics these two perennials are perhaps my favourites. And I was surprised how many bits of them in many different colours I had.

The block is one of a number called Weathervane and I like to piece it by hand because getting all the points to meet and the seams to be accurate can be difficult. I am thinking that I'll put them together with sashing between the blocks although I haven't completely decided yet. And that's one of the great things about hand piecing- it goes at such a sedate pace that you have all the time in the world to think about settings and backings.

Hardly an opportunity for the Devil to make work for idle hands in THIS house!

Time flies

I always knew I wouldn't be a prolific blogger but I suddenly realised that a month had gone by since I last posted. The fact is that the days go by wildly fast. All those people who said that I would be bored in retirement or wouldn't have enough to do had no idea!

So what have I been doing? Making quilts, tidying up bits of the house that had disappeared under clutter, making our garden nicer than it's been in many a year, reading, re-discovering my ability to bake cakes.....

My quilt exploits have centred on three quilts I'm making specifically for the French house. Two will cover the rather tatty but comfortable sofas we inherited there and the other is for the primary guest bedroom. I want to get all of them done before we go back next month. And talking of the French house, there has been much activity there in recent weeks as the builders work on the dormer windows, the plot drainage and some lovely new shutters. I can't wait to get back there.

I will post some quilt photos when they are in situ.

Cross Channel Adventures...again

If you go to the end of our French house driveway, turn left and keep going for 12kms, you hit this. It's the coastline at a pretty little seaside village called Portbail, in Normandy.There is a bridge of 13 arches that spans these sandy flats and takes you to the actual beach, where there is a sailing club and proper "bucket and spade" sand. But I love this view for the sky - the acres and acres of sky.

We are back from a week in Normandy, which was delightful. We hung curtains and paintings  and entertained our first guests and took delivery of the first of our solid pine and zinc units for the new kitchen. What I really loved about sharing the house with others was that there was laughter and music and the feeling that we were bringing love and life back to the house again. We moved some furniture around and I painted the huge dining table, which had been stained with an alarming red wood stain. All little things that made the place feel more as if it belonged to us, and wasn't a rather dismal holiday let, which is how it felt at first.

I am dreaming up quilts for the French house. The sofas there are old and shabby so they need disguises and the simplest way I know of doing this with sofas is to throw quilts on them. So I'm planning two complementary but not matching quilts to take back when we go again in June.

I said that we wouldn't spend this visit painting and apart from the table, which was a whim, we didn't. We visited Portbail and we went to Bricbeque, a small town with the remains of a big castle. We went for walks and explored our own little town a bit more. It was restful and fun.

We haven't introduced ourselves to any of the locals yet, although the 3 or 4 checkout girls in the local SuperU recognise me now and speak to me very slowly in French, with an encouraging smile. I wish I had faith enough in my slowly improving French to engage with them on a deeper level than "can I have another bag please?" One day.

Patterns in Cloth

I have been quilting since the turn of the century.

I had always been fascinated by quilts but daunted by the idea of making one myself. I had no real sewing experience and my previous entanglements with sewing machines during school sewing lessons had not gone well. There was a mystique about them that I didn't understand.

I got over all that though and now I make quilts almost continuously, barely finishing one before I'm cutting out the pieces for the next one. This is going to be one of the joys of retirement for me - that I will be able to spend much more time creating soft, colourful, comforting pieces, making patterns in cloth.

I struggle to explain my passion for quilts. It is undoubtedly founded in the history of pioneering America and how women, who were dragged across the continent in covered wagons, set about making homes out of wooden shacks or turf houses. Their resilience and strength has always impressed me, and it seemed almost like a feat too far that, after a hard day's work, they would then sit by candle-light making incredible art out of scraps of fabric. It was the only way they could express themselves artistically, wrapping up their creativity in something practical so that they couldn't be accused of being frivolous.

I'm aware that all of the above is a gross simplification and generalisation but I wanted to try and explain where my passion came from and it is based in all of that.

You must expect to hear long and often about my quilts.

Cross Channel Adventures

Here it is - the Normandy Farmhouse.

A photo taken on our first visit as owners back in January. How cold it was! No heating because we needed a new boiler and a delivery of propane gas. But we learnt how to light the woodburner and knuckled down to some of the many things that needed doing.

 Firstly, inside, we applied some much needed neutral paint colour to the previously blood-red chimney breast and adjacent wall. The house had been empty for 3 years - well, empty of human beings but not empty of clutter and junk. It was like the Mary Celeste inside, with drawers full of damp linen and toiletries upstairs and cupboards full of foodstuffs downstairs. Although the sale had included the furniture we didn't expect it to include old packets of Birds Custard Powder and a bottle of Cinzano Bianco that looked like a urine sample. So a lot of that first 4-day visit was spent on a massive clear-out, to create the blank canvas we needed before we could start making the place our own.

Outside we spent a cold, bright day up ladders pulling ivy and an old grape vine off the stone walls. Pretty as they may have been (and the vine had looked gorgeous when we first saw the house back in June) there was evidence of them interfering with the pointing. Although the house looks a bit naked with them gone, it will be for the best.

On our very first day there we had a visit from the census lady, who spoke no English but had an English crib sheet. With that, and our rather self-conscious French, we managed to complete the form. But we both thought it amazing that, whereas in the UK you get sent a census form and you post it back, in France they pay people to drive around the countryside to stand over you whilst you do it. It was a perfect illustration of why we love the place.

We have been once since this first visit, which involved yet more painting, the christening of the new boiler, and a scary meeting with a couple of amazing builders, who will be doing the fundamental remedial work that the house needs. We love this place and I can't tell you how much we want to return it to full health and nurtured it in the years to come. We go back again at the end of this month, when we are hoping for fine weather and a chance to explore - this DIY stuff is all very well, but there needs to be more to our visits than painting.

Great Expectations

As soon as the possibility of taking early retirement was raised, I began to dream about the things I would do, the things I would finally have time for, the time I would be able to devote to the things I love. Not incredibly exciting things, but things out of which I get huge enjoyment -my quilting and embroidery, the garden, a bit of fancy baking every now and then. Never having had a break from work in the 34 years since leaving university, I was looking forward to some good old fashion home-making, too, and I imagined beautifully organised cupboard spaces and shining, polished surfaces.

Four days in and I think I probably have to face the fact that I can have and do all these things, but not within the first week.

The basic fact is that I can't slow down. I am making lists and setting myself deadlines as if I were still at work. I stress if I can't get everything done on my To Do list each day. I check my watch too often. 

Yesterday, I had a taste of what life should be without work. I had a long, leisurely lunch with two old friends in the Fountain Restaurant at Fortnum and Masons. It was the first time this week that I slowed down enough to see the bigger picture and realise something. Which was that the real joy of being retired is being able to devote more time to the human connections that give meaning to life. I need to slow down enough so that my lists and weekly objectives don't dominate and get in the way of meeting up with people and maintaining those connections.

So, I'm off to plan some more lunch dates.