Block #3 - Glasgow

It's amazing how time flies when you're on the road. It seems like only yesterday that I posted the last post, though to be fair, I've been working on these off-line, so maybe that's skewing my judgement. I've got several lined up for you already, but I'm going to release them more slowly than 5 at once, to give myself a little breathing room.

Glasgow. I had heard interesting things about Glasgow during my time in Edinburgh, none of which was repeated to my family or friends until after I left. In Glasgow, affectionately known as “Stab City,” you are (apparently) three times more likely to be murdered than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Or was it Europe? In any case, I went to Glasgow with the goal of being careful, a task that was made easier by the fact that I was only there for one night, and that it stayed light out until after 10 at night.

I started my day in Glasgow by getting there, on a train ride from Edinburgh. I arrived about noon, turned my bags into luggage storage at my temporary residence and set about exploring the town.



This river runs through Glasgow, and I walked along it to the main park in the city ***name?***, pausing to snap shots of cool patterns along the way, both of which were from the Glasgow Central Mosque.




According to my guidebook, there was a really cool museum about the history of Glasgow in the middle of the park, along with a Victorian-era winter garden (sort of like a greenhouse, I think) and some sort of factory with a really cool facade along the north edge of the park. By now you might have guessed that I never actually made it that far. As I approached the western edge of the park, I noticed that there were a number of police in the area. As I got closer, I realized that the place was in fact covered in police. They were everywhere. Additionally, there was what sounded like a marching band/bagpipe band playing a little way off in the distance.

Ever the intrepid explorer, I ventured closer to the center of activity (figuring that if there were that many police around, I couldn't help but be safe) until I came upon this group of people that, too be honest, in no way seemed mob-like, but consisted of entirely too many 18-30 year old males for me to venture my way into, so I never actually got to see the band that was playing. Everyone was wearing green, though, and there were several flags at the front of the group, and the speaker that came on after the marching band had some sort of role in obtaining Irish independence, so I can only imagine that the whole affair was some sort of rally for either Northern Irish independence or Scottish independence. Either way, once they started the political talk, I was out of there. I figured I didn't need to be swept up in the middle of something along those lines if it was volatile enough for there to be that many police hanging around.

I headed north through a minorly sketchy area, stopping for lunch and snapping photos along the way, including the one a couple posts ago of the monkey not included ad, and this one of a handy-dandy map on the street that showed a cool garden in the middle of what I think were dorms for a university in Glasgow.



Either way, I couldn't get in to look at the actual garden for myself, so I'm not sure if I would count the garden itself or just the map as inspiration. I suppose the map is what caught my eye, so we'll go with that.

After hiking for some time, I finally reached my destination, Glasgow cathedral and the Necropolis, basically a fancy cemetery that the wealthy merchants of the town decided to establish in their own honor. Lots of of enormous tombs and monuments.



(I don't know who that lady is, she wandered into my picture and I didn't feel like waiting to take another one, though in hindsight this would have been a much nicer picture without her.) I wondered why people, or their families, feel the need to leave a piece of rock multiple times bigger than they were in order to memorialize themselves. I guess the world was less crowded then, but I feel like I owe it to the world to take up less space in death than I did in life. There are other people that need that space. But I digress.

The coolest thing about the Necropolis was that it was situated on a really big hill, probably the biggest hill in Glasgow, so after climbing up to the top, you got a really good view of both the city and the cathedral, of which you can then take really nice pictures.



I find its usually quite difficult to get a whole cathedral in a picture, simply because they're always so darn big.

Inside the cathedral was incredible, as the insides of cathedrals tend to be. I don't think I've walked into any ever that have been less than impressive. This particular cathedral had really neat tile on the Sacristy floor



though when I tried drafting that particular pattern, I realized that it needs something going on in the middle of the block, whether it's a pretty fabric with a big print, or some sort of piecing or appliqué. Any which way you look at it, it needs something, which we'll come to in a bit.

The windows were also really pretty, and have great potential, though they with either involve set-in seams or a ton of little pieces, depending on how I put them together. Something to consider.



Upon leaving the cathedral, I headed west back towards the more populated area of town. I was searching for a particular tea room on the recommendation of my guide book, but when I finally made it the two or three kilometers to the address listed, there was nothing to be found but a vacant storefront, so I availed myself of a different tea room in the vicinity, which had a perfect little table for one in a second story window overlooking the pedestrian street below.

After resting my poor feet for quite some time, and lingering over several cups of tea, I ventured back onto the pedestrian shopping street to head back home. Along the way there were several street performers, and a ton of people out and about. I think it was a combination of it being a Saturday afternoon, and the first really pretty and marginally warm day in as many days as I had been in Scotland. At some point along the fairly substantial walk back, I took this picture of a flower in a planter along the road,




which I think may become the necessary centerpiece in the block considered above.

All in all, it was a terribly productive afternoon, with a great many ideas gleaned from this industrial city. I wasn't too optimistic heading into it, both because of the Stab city moniker and because I had heard Glasgow wasn't as much of a historical city, that it was drab and utilitarian, but ultimately I found it as full of inspiration as any other city I've been to thus far.

Oh, and one more quick digression, just in case you need to straighten your hair on the go, seen in a bathroom in Glasgow:



For only one pound sterling, you too can use the handy dandy coin operated hair straightener! I don't know about you, but I always feel the need to change my hairstyle halfway through my evening.

Well, until next time, Ciao!

Block #2- Edinburgh

My goal in this project is to have a block for every city I visit on this trip, but of course I'm already a couple cities in mind. With that thought spurring me on, you may (hopefully) see me posting frequently, possibly a couple times a day if I'm lucky. Thus, with this new focus on efficiency, let me move on to Edinburgh.

I spent a full day exploring Edinburgh, and I estimate I probably walked several miles by the end of the day, mostly up and down hills on cobblestone streets. I started my day in Edinburgh Castle



where to my surprise I found that it was in fact a special occasion. A 21 gun salute was performed in honor of the master of the castle, the Duke of Edinburgh, perhaps better known as Prince Phillip, consort to the Queen of England.



Quite an exciting day to visit the castle, though I would highly recommend the castle on any other day as well. There were several exhibits/museums on the premises, including the Scottish crown jewels. My greatest interest was the Great Hall, built in the 1500s. The stained glass windows,



added in the late 1800s restoration of the hall, were perfectly suited to my quilt-making purposes, though (ha! fooled you) I encountered something later in the day that was more interesting.

After a visit to and rest at the Tartan Woolen Mills shop/cafe/museum/factory (it was a multipurpose building) I started making my way down the huge hill Edinburgh Castle is situated on. In my wanderings, I stumbled across the Scottish Writers Museum (featuring Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, among others) and took this fun picture of their rather exciting staircase.



All in all, it was a building ill suited to the people that might visit it, as the only means of getting from one floor to another were this staircase and another that had warning signs posted at the top and bottom, explaining that the stairs were intentionally different heights, in order to trip up any would-be intruders.

Upon exiting the museum, I ran into a tour group three hours into a three and a half hour tour of Edinburgh. I had declined the tour earlier, but decided that I could slip onto it for a half hour, just to see what they were about. I followed the group into Princes Street Gardens, a really nice garden area which is so lush and beautiful primarily because the area was a lake that functioned as the sewage system for the city for several hundred years before it was drained and landscaped. Another notable feature of the garden was the floral clock, which was exactly that: a functional clock planted over with flowers and greenery. Better to just show you the picture, as the piece somewhat defies description beyond its name



Now, I'm sure you're wondering what this city's block will be, if I rejected the obvious choice of the stained glass windows at the castle. I was intrigued by the picture of the spiral staircase, and I have a series of pictures to demonstrate my thought processes on the matter, though I do believe that they may have to wait for another day, as this post is long enough as it is. This block will be achieved using template piecing, and I haven't quite decided what I'm going to do about the templates, as I don't really have access to anything that would allow me to scan a scale copy of the templates to post them for you. If anyone would like me to post instructions on how to construct the templates, let me know, but otherwise I'll just photograph the picture of my templates and leave it at that. Happy quilting!

Block #1, part 2

So, on to the much awaited instructions for the block from the V&A museum! I've finally found the time to sit down and put this sucker together, by which I mean I sacrificed about 2 or 3 hours of sleep to piece together the zillion little pieces, then write this blog entry for you. I don't know why I'm complaining, though, considering I made up this pattern. In the course of putting it together, I discovered that there's in fact a perfectly reasonable 6” block to be had from this pattern, with the entire 16” block being 4 of those little blocks, with a little extension and sashing added. I'll try to remember to take a picture of what I'm talking about and post it for you.

Regardless, to take your zillion little pieces and make them into something gorgeous, your first order of business is to take 4 of your red squares and your one yellow square, and lay a black 1.5” square over each corner and sew across the diagonal to make a black triangle cutting off the corner of the square



Repeat this for each of the four corners, creating 5 squares within squares.



Note that you wont get those nifty little dog ears, because I was doing my black triangles differently (a more difficult way, I realized) in order to conserve fabric. Repeat this process for the 4 yellow rectangles around all four corners. Finally do this as well for the remaining red pieces (12 rectangles and 8 squares) but for these only do two adjoining corners to yield a house sort of shape



At this point you'll have three layers of fabric at each of the corners of your pieces. Depending on how well your points match up with that of the original rectangle (in a perfect world, your new pieced block will be exactly the same size and shape as the original), you can do one of two things. If your points match up exactly, or very close to exactly, you can cut away the back two layers (one black and one colored; to a quarter inch seam) to eliminate bulk behind the corners. If your points aren't behaving as well as you may like, you can only cut out the middle layer of fabric (a black layer) to eliminate some of the bulk, but also to leave yourself the guide of the original rectangle.

Iron all of your pieces, then lay them out as they appear in the picture of the block. I wouldn't recommend trying to figure out how the pieces fit together as you go along, because with all of the differently sized and shaped pieces, you're bound to make a mistake somewhere.

The way I went about it was to assemble four units of nine pieces each (the red units in the four corners) then attach the yellow pieces as I would sashing, yielding the finished product that I haven't quite finished yet, but will finish and photograph as soon as possible. As you work through this, make sure that you iron your pieces as you go along, because it will make your life several times easier in making sure that everything comes together. And pat yourself on the back; this was no simple task!

Digression

So, this has nothing to do with anything, but I always get a kick out of the signage in foreign countries, especially Great Britain and Ireland. Case in point, the following sign, posted on a blind curve. You should know that through this whole curve, there were railings between the sidewalk and the street, so you couldn't cross the street unless you were young and spry and willing to vault over the fence into said street.



I'm not really sure what this is meant to convey. This curve is blind, like these people? Watch out for really old blind people crossing this street? This curve is blind, in that only blind people may cross here? This is what blind people look like, watch out?

Also, while I'm on the subject of digressing, the B&B I stayed at had the smallest (full) bathroom I have ever seen in my life. This includes boat bathrooms, and we all know how small those can be. Take a look:



Now, what you see is what you get. You may ask, but Stephanie, it looks like the sink is in the shower, what is that all about? To which I would reply, yes dear reader, the sink is in fact in the shower, and I would caution you not to take a shower and then go to the bathroom in your socks if you intend to wash your hands. On the plus side, this efficient design makes it very easy to do things like brushing your teeth or washing your hands while taking a shower! Exciting, right? However, I would also caution you not to turn on the cold water faucet while enjoying your teeth-brushing shower, as this causes all cold water to divert to the sink instead of the shower, and have I mentioned that nearly every restaurant/B&B/etc in this country has a sign saying "Hot water is extremely hot." All I can say is, bad plan.

Finally I'd like to share this ad I saw while I was wandering around Glasgow this afternoon:



In case you can't see the smaller text, it says "Monkey not included." Personally, I'm surprised people in America didn't come up with this. Think how much lazier it would be than simply having a remote control to have a TV monkey! Imagine, instead of expending the energy it takes to lift your arm and motivate your finger over as many as 3 or 4 buttons, you simply open your mouth and say: "Monkey, channel 7 please." This can even be abbreviated to "7" if necessary. Probably the monkey could even get snacks. Those monkeys are pretty smart characters.

Anyhow, I hope you've enjoyed this digression as much as I have, and hopefully I'll check back with instructions and illustrations to go with that block very shortly. I'm aiming to have a block for every city I visit, which puts me a city behind at the moment, though with a 4 hour train ride to York (and the British quilt museum!) tomorrow, so here's hoping I can get caught up!

Block #1, part 1: V&A Museum

Quick note: I wrote this yesterday and then my computer wouldn't connect to the internet where I was staying, so please excuse the erroneous references to time.

I feel bad, because I've been here for three full days already, what could almost be termed a week in some eyes (since I left on Monday and tomorrow's Friday), and I haven't updated my diligent readers yet. I have,however, been keeping up with my design mission, and to that end I have both a short description of how I've spent the past couple days, as well as sketches and cutting instructions for my first block. Be forewarned, it's not the simplest thing I could have designed; I cut everything out last night and the darn thing has almost 100 pieces in it, and is intended to finish at 16” square. But we'll get to that when we get to that.

I arrived at London Gatwick airport at 7am Tuesday morning, just barely short of exhausted. Luckily for me (or at least, that's one way to think about it) my room at the B&B at which I was going to spend Tuesday night wasn't ready yet, so I left my luggage with them and hiked off to the train station to spend the day in London. I say luckily, because had that room been ready, I probably would have spent the day sleeping instead of being productive. Thanks to the heads up from various sources, I knew that the Victoria and Albert (V&A) museum had a special exhibit on the history of quilts and quilting in Britain, so that's where I headed. I would say the exhibit was so-so, though a few of the quilts were incredible. I probably would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't have been so crowded. One practically had to elbow to the front of the crowd to see anything, which was difficult to stomach since the vast majority of the crowd were grandmotherly types.

After having my fill of the quilt exhibit, I moved on to looking at the V&A permanent exhibits, which lasted a very short period of time before I realized that there was too much to move through methodically, especially in my sleep-deprived state. Fortunately, there were free introductory tours every hour or so, which hit just the highlights of a handful of the galleries. As part of this tour, we visited the Nehru Gallery of Indian art and saw these incredible screens carved out of marble and sandstone:




I could probably spend weeks playing with designs from just one or two of these screens, but weeks to linger on one thing I just do not have right now. Thus I picked one particular screen (second picture, the one on the left) and sketched out this design:



I've considered a couple other options, either cutting it down because the block either finishes at 16” square or requires a million doll-sized pieces to piece at 8” square, or shrinking it just a little bit. The issue with the former is that I don't think I would like how many blocks would go together (the secondary patterns formed would be weird), and the issue with the latter is that it would come out to an awkward 14” square. Not that 16” isn't awkward enough, but it is less so than 14”.

What I really like about this block is that I think you could do some really cool things with optical illusions, especially if you picked your colors right. It may involve putting the block together differently than I've written the directions so far, but if you put several of these together you would get a lattice of yellow crosses on top of red rings, but I think you could alter the intersection points to make it look like the lattice of yellow crosses was entwined with the yellow rings. There's a quick copy sort of place a couple doors down from where I'm staying right now and I was thinking of sketching out 9 or 12 of these blocks together, then having them make copies so I could play with my colored pencils and see how that works out. I'll share if I come up with anything particularly good.

Now, if I haven't lost you by now, I'm going to give you the cutting instructions for this block, as I've come up with them. Keep in mind that I haven't finished my version yet, so you might want to hold off cutting anything up until I make sure I didn't make any major errors.

Out of the black:
 4 3.5” squares
 8 2.5”x3.5” rectangles
 4 2.5” squares
 68 1.5” squares**

** I cut 34 2” squares and I'm cutting them in half diagonally in order to conserve fabric (I've got to last 7 weeks with what I brought) but it's highly annoying, and I wouldn't recommend it, especially if you're sewing with a machine. I'm having to piece the corners the old-fashioned way, drawing a seam line on the wrong side of both pieces, then looking at both sides of the fabric to make sure I'm putting the seam in the right place.

Out of the red:
 12 2.5” squares
 8 2.5”x3.5” rectangles

Out of the yellow:
 1 2.5” square
 4 2.5”x7.5” rectangles

I'm hoping to update tomorrow with the steps to make this block and my exploits from today, so stay tuned for how things turn out!

PS – feedback would be lovely, as I hope to fine tune this format. What did you like about it, what didn't you like? Should there be more on the travelogue side, or more on the quilting side?

Getting ready

Only one full day left until I depart for new places and new adventures! I've been working on getting packed for several days now, it seems like. Reservations for hostels have been made, reservations for train trips have been purchased, plane tickets (for short flights around Europe) have been bought, and I've made several shopping trips out and about looking for everything from a rotary cutting mat the exact size I want (which I never found) and extra underwear.

Typically, all of my sewing stuff is completely packed, while my clothes are still strewn all over the place. After much deliberation, I decided that I wanted to take a variety of fabrics, in colors that are true to what I might find and want to reproduce. It looks like a lot of fabric, and it is, but I've only got about an eighth of a yard of each of those colors, plus a yard of the creme color on the left that I'll use for background. Of course, I've got at least that much that I'm leaving at home that I can use when I get back if there's anything I run out of.

Even though I'm not leaving until Monday, I'm hoping to get packed tonight so I can take advantage of some advice I've given people before, but never actually done myself. I always tell people that are going to be backpacking or the like to pack their bags, gather them up and hike around the block, then return home and see how much they still feel like they absolutely need. Anyhow, enough lolligagging around. Back to packing!