Ho boy!! Is it hot or what? We have had 4 days of temps over 38degrees (100degreesF), with 100% humidity and it doesn't look like geting any cooler. The only thing to do is to live in the A/c rooms and wait it out. So it wasn't any fun when we lost power on two circuits and DS couldn't run his A/c. But the sparky has fixed the problem and we all have our own areas back, and can aspire to harmony again. The heat frays tempers very quickly.

I strangely chose this time to wash and sort all my good china, which
meant pulling everything out of every deep, dark cupboard and piling it throughout the kitchen. It was therapeutic to reacquaint myself with my treasures, and also to decide that I could live without lots of it. We plan to move house this year, and I don't want to face dealing with all my stuff at the last moment.

I have been photographing all the pieces too, and then even when I sell them or give them to the op-shop I still have a record of the patterns as inspiration for applique or colourschemes. Which is why I bought most of them in the first place.


It's 104degrees in our bathroom; we have another 7 weeks of summer to endure....

I'm itching to go buy some fabric so I can start my new fabric book, but we don't have many stores in this town and I've bought just about everything that I like on offer. May have to visit some of my favourite sites, like www.reproductionfabrics.com or www.bearpawquilting.com

I belong to a list that encourages members to use fabric from their stash (Stashbuster on yahoo) and spent a lot of time last year wondering what my views on fabric actaully are. One of my deepest pleasures is buying fabric, and I would hate to try and stop entirely. But I have so much already. I've decided the answer is to use it up at a faster rate, and to buy wisely in future. These are 10 points that I need to bear in mind next time I go shopping...

1. Dont re-buy what I have just got rid of. Florals are a good example. I used up all my florals last year on scrap quilts, because I don't particularly like working with them and wanted to get rid of them. Now I find myself drawn to buying them again.

2. Think carefully about how much I actually need; a FQ is often all I need, yet I buy yardage

3. Don't buy pattern, buy colour. So many patterned fabrics turn to muddy grey from a distance; I need to buy fabrics that read as true colours, not mauve or grey

4.Don't buy long lengths of ho-hum fabric just because it's cheap

5. Try to buy with projects in mind

6. Don't buy too many types of the same thing. 10 shirting prints work just as well as 20

7. If I need to stock up on creams, or double pinks or sky blues, stop buying when I have enough.

8. Say no to gifts of other peoples' scraps and projects unless this is something that I want to do. I lost weeks of productive sewing time last year because I was given a huge amount of scraps from a local shop and felt I had to do something with them

9. Keep track of what I buy, so I don't purchase multiples of the same fabric

10. If I bought it and I love it, I will allow myself to enjoy it guilt free. If I bought it and I regret it, I will learn a lesson and move on.

I made this quilt from donated scraps, and should probably have given them all to the local kindy instead. All of the scraps were strips from the selvedge after swatches had been cut from the fabric. Sometimes there's only 1/4" fabric showing after being sewn. I only did it to prove it could be done. Still, it will be a nice quilt to donate to someone. It's not that crooked, we just couldn't get a photo of it straight on.


This is a photo of a quilt I made from donated scraps, but it was one I wanted to make. In the photo it's being quilted on my friend Joanne's Statler; took me most of a day, but I had such fun. The fabric came from my friend Kaye, and the block pattern is Bonnie Hunter's Chunky Churndash. (http://www.quiltville.com/chunkychurndash.shtml) Half the blocks have the colour placement reversed, and the blocks are set on point with some infill triangles around the edge.

Don't think I will be cooking dinner tonight; might have a glass on wine while I sew some blocks together and get another quilt top nearer to completion.