Tag: Manchester (Page 2 of 2)

Proud2Bee Wall Hanging Finished

May 2, 2018 / laura bruno lilly

As previously mentioned here and here, a few months ago I pulled out my stash of 2½ x ? fabric strips leftover from decades of projects and delved into a diversionary tactic* of piecing together a scrap version of the Dora Quilt**.

My ‘Proud2Bee an honorary Manc’ wall hanging

As I began piecing the scrap-blocks, I realized I preferred the non-calico blocks which included one made out of a bee print fabric scrap. The scrappy Dora Quilt soon evolved into my Proud2Bee an honorary Manc wall hanging with its sole purpose as a means to display my precious Manchester Worker Bee Badge***. A humble gesture by this everyday American standing in solidarity with those affected by that horrific terrorist attack at the Manchester Arena – on children – May 22, 2017.

Examples of quilting experiments

The top, ready for quilting, sat waiting for several weeks before I finally settled on the finishing details.
Using extra blocks as patches to experiment on, I explored a few of the decorative machine stitches on my Bernina and trying my hand at new-to-me methods of machine quilting using the walking foot attachment.
I really enjoyed finding designs from everyday sources and stitching with different types of threads.

Proud2Bee Block detail featuring machine blanket stitching & Manc Badge placement

Parallel to this experimentation, I found I had just enough of that scrap bee fabric to make into single Proud2Bee blocks to send to two compadres**** for use as a mini-wall hanging to display their own Manchester Bee Badges.

Completed Proud2Bee Block mini-wall hanging

corner pockets for hanging dowel

On my own Proud2Bee an honorary Manc wall hanging, I chose to use the machine blanket stitch for outlining areas of the pieced top and a wavy hand-guided stitch for the borders. Instead of a traditional rod pocket sleeve as sewn on the Proud2Bee mini-wall hangings, I tried out the corner method as shown in the photo to the left. I like it, but think it wouldn’t work as well with anything sized larger than 30 x 30.
As for the label…true completion comes with a label, IMHO (not that everything created by my own hands has been labeled). Signing and dating a quilt/wall-hanging piece are pretty basic and easy to slip in at the end of the project.

Proud2Bee an honorary Manc 2017 label

Personally, I like to add the name of the quilt/wall-hanging to the label also.
Thus piquing interest – starting conversations – priming the imagination.
Here is:
Proud2Bee an honorary Manc LBL 2017

(examples of other named projects here, here, here, here and here)
*I needed a breather from other projects
**from: “3 Times the Charm!” by Me & My Sister Designs
***sent to me by my Manc buddy…for basic info on the Manchester Worker Bee as symbolic of the city and as honoring those killed go here
****you two know who you are!

Played Well with Orange

December 25, 2017 / laura bruno lilly

‘proud 2bee an honorary Manc’ quilt top wip

As mentioned in a previous post, I needed a diversion from my Goat Suite (Saga) and Puffin Grant related tasks. I pulled out my stash of 2½ x ? fabric strips leftover from decades of previous projects and delved into piecing a scrap version of the Dora Quilt.
Happily sewing together strips into blocks I discovered the fabric scraps ordered themselves into a cohesive quilt top based upon print design rather than color.

a sampling of calico type scraps – oranges galore!

design-print fabric scraps, with bee print in middle

design-print fabric scrap blocks, with bee print in middle

While I got to play around with color possibilities using the color orange, most of the oranges occurred in the calico/flower type scrap fabrics. No matter how I arranged the blocks, those calico/flower prints just didn’t ‘play well’ with the more abstract, thematic and graphic scrap fabric prints.

I preferred the non-calico blocks and focused on the bee print fabric scrap. Placing it in the center block of the quilt top, it will be the perfect resting place for my precious Manchester Worker Bee Badge* pinned in the middle once completed. A humble gesture by this everyday American standing in solidarity with those affected by that horrific terrorist attack – on children.

Kohl’s stock photo, not our bedroom!

Meanwhile, my taste for something orange had been awakened and needed to be satisfied ASAP. Instead of me creating something orange, I searched for something in a ready-made quilted coverlet. I found a luscious well-constructed one from Kohl’s. On sale, I also used coupons and Kohl’s cash and purchased it for a song…Extra bonus? It looks better than the marketing picture!

Through it all, the edits on the Goat Suite Saga vignettes are almost completed, the actual musical recording of my Goat Suite is ready to send on to be mastered, and the Final Report for my Puffin Grant got written and in the snail mail.

I am so ready for the New Year – how about you?

Note: Gonna be off-line for a while, so responses to comments might be delayed.
Will see ya in 2018!

* sent to me by my Manc buddy…for basic info on the Manchester Worker Bee as symbolic of the city and as honoring those killed go here

NOMA: what are those round-y, tilted buildings?

December 2, 2017 / laura bruno lilly

Photo seen on my Manc* buddy Andy’s blog
(oh, yes, he’s a published poet, check out his books here – perfect for gift-giving, IMHO)

“Whoa, what are those odd round-y tilted buildings?” I asked him in the comment section.

To which he responded with a link to something called NOMA Earth Tubes.
NOMA? What the heck is that?

He further elaborated,
“The atrium is fundamental to the building’s ventilation strategy. Each of its three corners houses one of the building’s vertical service cores. Some 50m3/s of fresh air is sucked into the building from its landscaped forecourt through three giant earth tubes buried beneath the building; this helps temper the air, cooling it in summer and warming it in winter. Air is heated or cooled in a huge basement plant room before giant fans push it up the service cores to the floor plates.”

Huh?
Sufficiently curious, I clicked on his link reference thus beginning a fun google research journey for this lady on a pleasantly cozy, rainy Saturday afternoon. Continue reading

Giving Voice: It Was Children – and – It Was Intentional

May 27, 2017 / laura bruno lilly

My blogger-poet-friend, Andy, is a native Mancunian. These are excerpts taken from his account of and reactions to this attack of the innocents.
Around the time I went to bed the bomb went off.
I was totally unaware of what had happened until around 3.00am, when my wife woke me. Friends from around the country, indeed the world, had messaged us. Then, bleary eyed, we tried to process just what had happened.
There was footage of the panic; people searching for lost children; a distressed woman rang our local radio station with a horrific account of what she had witnessed; friends of ours announced that they were safe.
The friend of my little girl was at the concert with her family. There were other people attending that we know. My daughter herself was at a concert in that same venue just a couple of weeks ago. The arena can be accessed through the train station which I have been commuting from. Not so long ago I attended the Young Voices competition as a staff member with my children’s school choir. 8,000 children were present that day. Suddenly the horror that regularly unfolds throughout the world was on our doorstep…
…Manchester is no stranger to such atrocities. There was the IRA bomb of 1996 which utterly devastated the town centre. The Manchester we know today rose from the ashes of that day. But back then everybody had been evacuated, miraculously nobody was killed. Last night it was people targeted.

It was children. Continue reading

Giving Voice: Woman In A Café (poem)

January 30, 2016 / laura bruno lilly

While reading through Andrew James Murray’s newly published collection of poetry Heading North I was particularly struck by his poem, Woman in a Café.

Inspired by the memory of a woman who used to come into the café he frequented during his lunch break while working in Manchester, her fingerless mittened hands clutch bunched plastic bags while two worlds converge if only briefly but forever remembered.

Re-printed with permission.

Poetry Shoutout: "Heading North" by Andrew James Murray

January 12, 2016 / laura bruno lilly

“I am a northern guy. I have lived the whole of my life in the north west of England. I feel northern. It is in my accent. It is in my attitude. It is in my preferences: my favorite season is winter…”

Thus begins Andrew James Murray in the Forward of his new collection of poems, Heading North.

This idea of ‘northern-ness’ in a non-American context intrigued me.
A mere 35 miles west of Manchester where Andrew resides lies the infamous town of Liverpool. I never thought of The Beatles as being ‘northern’.
And yet, thinking on this further, it begins to fall into place – this marriage of blue-collar work ethic to the arts and education; a gritty, earthy element evident in both (he)artists’ life-work.
Damp, dark mists surround day-to-day living in the North, where cold light slants in mysterious angles. This is where Andrew draws inspiration. Continue reading

Tag: Manchester (Page 2 of 2)

NOMA: what are those round-y, tilted buildings?

Poetry Shoutout: "Heading North" by Andrew James Murray

What are you looking for?

Subscribe to Blog via Email