Somewhere underneath that pile of clutter is a dining table ...

I'm destined never to have a neat and tidy house.  I mean, look at the state of this perfectly good dining table.  Having moaned about that, I had terrific fun playing about with the Gelli printing plate again.  Most of the prints you can see are very much works-in-progress, and will be printed over or stenciled over and stamped on.  

Apart from that, I dug out a couple of incomplete quilts in the making, checking what else I needed to do in order to finally get 'em completed.  This denim lap sized quilt won't end up any bigger, so I had to decide whether to use wadding as well as backing fabric for it.  

I think wadding would make it too bulky, so I'm going to add a backing of something like thick brushed cotton.  A cosy fabric, but not one that's stretchy like fleece.  I fancy a bright tomato red, along with red binding, but that might change.  

I really like the differences in colour you get with used denim.  Some darker, some faded.  It's a shame I don't have the right material to back the quilt with just yet, but it'll have to wait until I either pop into Leeds to visit a fabric shop or do an online order.  

As well as the denim lap quilt, I also hauled out what I call my winter quilt.  It's been so long in the making.  Literally years!  I originally wanted a full bed sized quilt, but it's unlikely to get that large. 

I keep an eye out when I'm doing a charity shop rummage, looking out for suitable material to add to it.  This time around I'd some plain brown material with an almost linen look to it.  Using this, I sewed a border around the quilt, making it vaguely rectangular.  

Of course, it's now got stuffed back on to a shelf yet again as I don't feel I can progress any more with it at the moment.  

In the meantime, I've found a couple of things in my charity shop rummages that aren't quilt related.  I'd been trying and failing to enjoy a Suzanne Dunn book 'The Testimony of Alys Twist', which looked promising - set in the time of Mary Tudor - but turned out to be both rather dull and oddly jarring.  The jarring element was the author's choice of words.  Maybe in Tudor days mens names were abbreviated from Michael, Robert and Oliver to Mike, Rob and Ollie.  But those shortened names just don't sound Tudor-ish to me.  They've got too modern a ring to them.  As do terms like 'kids' instead of children, and as for referring to underwear as 'undies'.  Nooooo!!!  I wasn't expecting 'Wolf Hall' levels of authenticity from the book, but 'Alys Twist' simply didn't have that whiff of Tudor authenticity for me. 

Luckily I came across a P.G. Wodehouse book, 'Service with a Smile'.  It's ages since I read any Wodehouse, but his lighthearted style's ideal for a quick and guaranteed enjoyable read.  I also found this Sissix foam and metal cartridge - that's probably not the right term for it, but it's for cutting out flower shapes using the Sissix pressing machine.  These cartridges retail for about £15 quid each - I know, because I bought a couple of hexagon shaped ones for cutting E.P.P. hexies - so I swooped on this second hand one at a mere £1.00.  Someone had done a Marie Kondo style clear out of masses of papercraft stuff, and this was among the odds and ends.  I thought I could either use these flower shapes with my Gelli plate, as stencils or for collage, or I could cut out flower shapes from thin foam (the primary coloured kind sold for kids craft projects) and make printing stamps from them.  Not sure if the foam's too flimsy for that purpose, but I'll experiment and find out.  

Well, I think that's my blog post done for the day.  I'm going to watch some athletics coverage on TV while devouring a large packet of white chocolate buttons and making plans for tomorrow.  Bye!