It's a Small World after all

'It's a small world after all, ...'  Those of you with small children will know this Disney song, and apologies for the fact that it will now be going round in your head incessantly for the next week/month, but these words came home to me this summer in a big way.

I have been visiting Chris Jurd's Patchwork Fundamentals blog for a while now.  Chris is a quilt teacher based in the Blue Mountains near Sydney and shows her own work and the fabulous work of her pupils.

She mentioned that she was doing a trip, taking in the UK, and long-story-short, she came to see me and my pots!

So, in honour of her visit, I made her this large quilt bowl depicting one of her own patterns on its inner surface.

Whilst she was in my studio looking at my work, I casually asked her if she liked this one and whether there was room in her suitcase for it to fly back to Australia.  You should have seen her face!

Top: mapping out the design onto the wet clay.  Bottom: all the usual trimmings

I had to make sure I got the lines and points as perfect as I could on this one!
We had a lovely time together and I was even brave enough to show Chris my first (and only) quilt ... and she even found some positive things to say about it, as all good teachers do!  

We parted,  and then a few weeks after Chris had landed back home, this arrived in the post for me - in the same pattern as the bowl!

Just beautiful!  You can't tell the size here but it's about 2ft diameter.

I'm not afraid to show close-ups of Chris's lines and points as they're absolutely perfect!

Her quilting is better than mine, but as she says ... her pottery isn't!  Lol!

I even love the back of this piece, and especially love the quilt-label she made!

'Though the mountains divide

And the oceans are wide

It's a small world after all'

Blogging, to me, makes the world a smaller and friendlier place.

Thank you so much Chris!  I will treasure it.

x Cathy

Schoolhouse Block

An adaptation of the 'Little Red Schoolhouse' block - not done this one before and I actually found it quite tricky.

Little Blue Schoolhouse ?

Had to make a template and everything!  No 'winging it' on this one!

Making the template gave me the idea of making a little hanging house

Wanted to make the houses all kind of merge into each other, and quite like the higgledy-piggledy look of the finished pattern.

Now available from:  www.catherinedanielceramics.com

Added a kind of brick-wall effect as a border, along with the usual little ceramic button.

Brickwall detail around border

 And, of course, a little bit of sewing up was needed, as always.  I put my potter's mark above the doorway of each house - it's an overlapping C and D - not very inventive really!

Enjoyed using this block and will definitely make more in different colour combos.  May even put 'Home Sweet Home' or similar, in the border?  Might make a nice house-warming gift, maybe?

This must be a result of having houses on the brain at the moment.  We've sold ours and have yet to find another and I have looked at so many online, they are all merging together - a bit like this pattern!!

We haven't moved for 15 years - any tips welcome!

x Cathy