Men (well, Ok, TROLL) and quilting #1

(This is the first instalment of my experiences when mixing Troll and sewing, believe me there is more to come...)

For those of you who don't know about what keeps me busy (other than singing, keeping Mini fed (and Troll when he decides to turn up), brahma breeding and avoiding housework) I sew. Not your everyday making clothes, mending clothes or fiddling-around-with-curtains-and-cushions sort of sewing (although I can do that sort of thing it bores me beyond description), but rather more your embroidery and quilting side of things. Although a fair number of people seem to find it baffling, and wonder what on earth I could get out of it, my sewing is something I couldn't be without - aside from the sheer relaxation of doing it, badly needed when Mini's depredations have left me in a particularly acute state of teeth-gritting rage, it's something I've always done. As soon as I was old enough not to endanger myself and others by being given access to scissors and needle (in truth probably a bit before that, but my Nanna liked to live dangerously) my grandmother thrust a needle into my pudgy paw and I was hooked. Childe Angevin's baby feet were on the path well trodden by previous generations of Angevin womenfolk and examples of my work were soon littering the house and those of my friends. Various charities who were the usual recipients of Angevin Family donations received items as my skills developed under the Stalinist tutelage of Nanna And The Great-Aunts.... you get the picture.

Now, Troll cannot understand this and despite the Grande-Troll doing a bit of dressmaking and knitting herself, has zero empathy with it. Note: Troll doesn't have any equivalent hobbies of his own and doesn't apparently feel the need for any so this might just be 'him' - the jury is still out on that one. The Troll lack of hobby-empathy MIGHT also be partially because the Grande-Troll, despite not actually being very good at said dressmaking and having less colour sense than your average woodlouse, used nevertheless to attempt to make clothes for Childe Troll. Even now the mention of a particularly strident homemade pair of purple dogtooth tweed trousers (this was the 70's) the nine-year-old Troll was forced to sport in the throbbing metropolis of style that is Sutton Coldfield is enough to give him the shudders. A few years ago I lived in dread of having battered parcels turning up at Chateau Angevin when the Afghans rejected the stream of repulsive jumpers we'd donated to them following attempts on the Grande-Troll's part to dress Mini for me. You can sort of understand Troll might be a bit suspicious of home-sewing given this background BUT after 22 years of living with me you'd think he'd also realise I'm not about to follow the Grande-Troll's lead and insist he wears something like, say, a mauve Wallace and Gromit jumper I've kindly made him (believe me, I am not overestimating what the woman is capable of - she'd make him something like that tomorrow were she asked). Everybody who comes to the house appreciates my embroideries... but somehow these bypass what serves as Troll's sense of aesthetics and he usually mutters something uncomplimentary about the place looking like something from Little House on the Prairie. I long ago gave up and just got on with doing my own thing. Cosy tales one hears of couples 'doing hobbies together' is just never going to happen at Chateau Angevin unless Troll finds something I can sew which he can also eat...

Anyway, to get back to the point, I'm in truth a better embroiderer than quilter, largely owing to more time spent on it - but following a major clear up of UFOs (Unfinished Fabric Objects for the uninitiated) on the embroidery front, and the resulting rather-larger-than-expected bill from Graham (not Graham-the-Veg-Man but Graham the lovely framer who lets me play with all the mounts etc. so I get exactly what I want) Troll threw an unprecedented Troll Stomp and I deemed it a diplomatic move to divert my attention to my quilting for a bit and hide my stash of embroidery materials where Troll can't see them. Above-average raids on the Troll Wallet are events which tend to loom large in the Troll memory banks, so keeping a low profile vis a vis embroidery for a long old while is the only option.

It has to be said my decision was also aided by the fact that the English side of Chateau Angevin is almost fully recovered from the effects of the July 2007 floods, when most of my ground floor was a foot-and-a-half underwater. For those who don't know (or to whom indeed the thought wouldn't have occurred in a million years) even with my extensive collection of embroidery materials, quilting takes up a lot more space than embroidery; space which just wasn't available when we were trying to live in half the house whilst SuperNige and Jay-the-Pikey (our superb and cuddly builders who are almost part of the family now) dealt with repairing the flood damage in the other half. Aside from my kitchen, music room, study and utility room, also damaged were a lot of things in the old milking parlour which had been stored there whilst we slowly renovate the farmhouse from the near-derelict mess it was when we bought it in August 1998; unfortunately the casualties on this occasion included my grandmother's quilting frame. Now, putting aside the purely sentimental value of having something my grandmother used, this wasn't an entirely bad thing - the frame had been home-made by my grandfather, mended and amended on many occasions, and even when fully operational could most charitably be described as Heath-Robinson in conception and design. Thankfully my insurers were both overworked and deeply ignorant as regards quilting so I managed to blag enough wonga out of them to replace the old frame with an all-singing, all-dancing brand-new frame all the way from Salt Lake City. Whey hey.. you can imagine the excitement and girly squealing when that little baby turned up... only to be replaced by rather more of a choked gurgle when I realised the thing was flatpacked for home assembly.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not a total incompetent when it comes to flatpacks; I've been known to assemble the odd item of furniture unaided, out of necessity seeing as I am on my own most of the time. I've got the assembly time down to about 15 minutes as regards the flatpacked chicken houses I get from Simon's woodyard, with the secret aid of Troll's new electric drill which I am strictly-forbidden-to-touch. (What the Troll doesn't see the Troll doesn't stomp about). But to compare the assembly of this quilting frame to a Simon chicken house is a bit like comparing making the toy from a Kinder egg to assembling a lifesize operational Starship Enterprise - it takes the issue of flatpack to a whole new dimension. Perhaps this is some sort of Mormon joke, but the instruction booklet alone was about half an inch thick AND, to add the final touch of gibber-inducing panic IT CAME WITH AN INSTRUCTION CD.

I was in a dilemma... I probably COULD, given time, Mini out of the house for the afternoon, a glass of decent red and a couple of hours when my friends and family decide to leave me alone vis a vis the telephone, have done it myself. With the addition of a lot of swearing, no doubt. BUT... as you can imagine, this frame is not cheap and if I, in the worst case scenario, cocked up badly and broke the thing, I would be more likely to be up for the Nobel Chemistry Prize than I would for getting the dosh for a replacement out of Troll - who would doubtless regard the event as God's judgement (albeit emanating from the Mormons) on my naughty, lotus-eating sewing activities. Even a casual flick through the instruction booklet indicated you needed a First in Mechanical Engineering with a bit of experience at the NASA Space Centre to stand a snowball's chance in hell of getting it right... what was a girl to do??

Inspiration struck. I might not have a space scientist on hand, but I do have a mildly autistic geophysicist who has an interest in keeping his stomach full and an inability to fulfil that task by himself. Hehe... TROLL could do it on his return from his Algerian Camp for Autistic Men (aka his workplace): it would give him the opportunity to be mildly patronising as he dons his I-Am-The-Great-Handyman persona (a role he adores) and, more importantly, mean if HE broke the frame he'd have the moral obligation to replace it. That, and the threat of no meals until he did. Thus, as I waved Troll and Mini-Troll off to France I had the satisfaction of knowing that, buried under the mountain of food, in the back of the Aquatic Passat II were the components of my new frame (WELL - HE NEEDED SOMETHING TO DO IN THE EVENINGS WHEN MINI'S IN BED DIDN'T HE?).

What a result: -
1. I get my lovely new frame, and already have the necessary all ready to start hand quilting a project when I get to France at the weekend;
2. Troll gets the satisfaction of feeling he is a Wonderful Understanding Provider for His Feckless Wife's Silly Pasttimes;
3. I get the satisfaction of knowing Troll is gainfully employed and Doing Something Useful rather than reading the ghastly science-fiction novels in which he would otherwise be indulging (or shooting aliens/monsters in whatever foul PC game he's currently enthralled by on his laptop)
4. Troll knows I know he has Done Something Useful and thus Feckless Wife has no excuses not to make him his favourite meals.
5. I have a guarantee that if the thing gets broken in the construction I don't have to 'do without'. The Troll ego will simply not allow him to be defeated by it, a replacement will be bought and there'll be no build up of quilting UFOs.

Everybody a winner... somebody should make me head of the United Nations.
(Although this would be Troll's nightmare as I'd have the world quilting in no time, with the exception of the Grande-Troll - there are only so many offensive colour combinations a body can stand in a lifetime).

[All this having been said... it occurs to me WHAT IF Troll doesn't pull his finger out and get the frame assembled before I get to France?? Perhaps as an insurance policy I should get the mauve wool and Wallace and Gromit pattern now?]