These triangle borders are slowing me down, I just can't get motivated to tackle the measuring and attaching of them.  I cut and sewed them with no trouble, but I can't get enthused about the calculating and fudging the next step will involve.

 They measure 2" on the long side, which needed to be on the straight grain of the fabric.  I cut 3.25" squares, then cut them twice diagonally to give the right size triangles.  I added an extra step to make aligning them easy.

Before I moved the triangles I aligned the 2" line of the ruler to the diagonal cuts and trimmed off the dogears in situ.

I did that on all four sides, and that gave me really accurate results when I pieced the triangles together.  A rotating cutting mat would make this super easy, but I was too lazy to find mine so I just moved around to get in the best position to make those cuts.

Getting rid of the dog ears made it so easy to line up the triangles, so that there would be a nice straight edge when they were sewn together. 

Trimming them all at once was so much easier than working on each stack of traingles after they'd been moved.

 Next time I need to make this sort of border I will be able to refer back to this post, which is a good thing.  I just know that in a few months time I'll forget what I did.  I just hope I don't forget that I wrote this post :(

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At least I have some progress to show, after two weeks of blog silence.  I've added all the blue diamonds to the rows of vintage hexagons, and now I'm joining the rows together.  The top two rows are together, and the bottom two rows; I'll make two large pieces, then add all the blue diamonds around the outer edges before I join them into one piece.

I'm starting to get very enthusiastic about this project; it's nowhere near completion, but at least it's closer to a finish than when it was just a pile of blocks.  Later today  I'll go through all my white fabric to find a match for more of the white hexagons, and then I need to design a border.  Of course the border will be a whole lot of work on it's own, but at least it will be the final step.  I don't think I'll ever do these fiddly diamonds again!

There's been lots of life going on, visits to family, working in the garden, the local show. The Farmer's Wife quilt that we quilted won First Prize in the quilting, and the Trophy award, so we were pleased for it's owner; she was thrilled with her win.

 I was going to say something about the frosty weather, and how we still have two weeks of winter left this year, and already I'm mourning its passing.  But Spring has arrived, the last two days have been uncomfortably warm, and I'm going to have to discard my woolen thermals. It's been lovely to have such crisp, clear, cold weather; I suppose if it was miserable and wet I might be a bit sick of it, like most of the people I talk to.  They all want summer to come back, and here I am clinging to the cold.  Oh well, everyone gets their favourite weather in turn through the year.

While I've been working on Work things, there has been no sewing time, so today I would love to sit at the machine for several hours.  I did manage to cut up a lot of red and shirting scraps, to make my nine-patches.  As usual, I'm fighting the urge to sew them all up at once, but I must remain firm about them staying as leader-enders. I did manage to make a few, but there's a little problem with two of them;

I'll unpick them and make them right, and next time I'd better pay attention to what I'm doing.

 I need to make a lot of triangles for the border of my baskets, and then I can get that finished.  I've made the two long borders, now I just need to do the top and bottom ones.  I'll have to do a lot of fudging with this, seeing I messed up the setting triangles.  None of the sides are the correct measurement, alas.  I seem to like making work for myself.

The possibilities of a new UFO are very exciting; I'm still loving the old projects. What an odd year this has been on the patchwork front; so many ancient things dealt with, such self-restraint about new projects, such dedication.  It will be funny if I snap and start four or five new things all of a sudden.

One thing I've been doing with my time is rearranging my kitchen, to make space for a gas stove that my DB and SIL gifted to me.  It's pretty big, and I had to shift everything to make room for it, so the kitchen is in chaos.  That's a good thing in a way, because I've had to consider every item, and where it should go; my goal of reducing everything by 30% has not been forgotten, and I've ditched a lot of stuff from the pantry that was out of date, and donated multiples of cooking items to the op-shop.  There's still a fair way to go, but the job is underway, and that's the main thing.

Ah well, there's Spring flowers to look forward to, and butterflies and singing birds, and two weeks of my favourite season left.  Time to switch the machine on, and get some fabric going through, while I watch the archive of the latest Quilt Cam with Bonnie.  Onward!

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I've sewn the basket blocks together, but discovered a major mistake when I started adding the setting triangles.  They were too small, or rather some of them were too small.  They should have been cut from a 11.5" square, cut twice diagonally; who knows what measurement I cut, but it wasn't enough.  I wasn't going to tear my hair out or weep bitter salty tears, so I just shrugged and sewed it all together.  My quilt,my rules.

 This was never going to be a competition quilt, and I'll like it just as much with the points of the blocks chopped off at the edge.  Mereth is having more of a problem with it than me, but there's not enough fabric to recut the triangles, and there's that I-don't-care-a-bit thing too.  My motto is Aim For Perfect, Accept What You Get.

Of course I made another mistake too, because I mislaid the photo of the antique quilt and put my blocks together the way I thought they should go.  When I found the photo (about an hour after I completed the top) I realised that there are half-baskets all around the edges, not plain fabric triangles.  Sigh.  I'm not pulling anything apart, so it will stay the way it is.  I just adore this block and it was so much fun to put together, I can see me making another quilt in this pattern some day soon.

I am going to put a tiny border of triangles around the edge, but I think I planned to do that anyway.

Why didn't I write out a plan of attack and store it with the kitted pieces?  I must try to do better next time.

I'm getting close to having 20 UFOs crossed off the list, so I want to get busy on another couple of them.  I have trouble using one for leader-enders, as I get rather confused, so I succumbed to another project.  A while back Bonnie posted pictures of a red and yellow nine-patch,  from her Leaders & Enders book.  I've always loved that quilt;  I had the book and the fabrics, nine-patches are the perfect leader-ender, it's a huge quilt so I wouldn't have to think about other leader-enders for ages.  I can talk myself into anything.

I'm glad to be working with such strong colours, glad to be using up all that yellow that I accumulated, and glad that I've weeded all the shirtings and reds out of my scrap drawers.  And it will be fun to piece a scrap backing for this once it's finished.

We are having bitterly cold nights and early mornings, I have to chip the ice off my car every morning;

it makes such pretty patterns, I would love fabric like this.

Then it heats up so that the afternoons are almost too warm.  It feels like spring already, so I have to get busy in the garden.  I dug up a nice crop of yacon last month, and have 2 buckets full of the crowns ready to plant again, so I need a whole bed just for them.  It's taken two years for them to produce a decent crop, so I want to make sure that I always have enough plants to have a steady supply. They are so sweet, like a super crunchy carrot, and they're supposed to have a lot of health benefits.  If I don't grow them myself I'll never have them, as they are not in shops anywhere here.

 I also need to plant out hibiscus and crysanthemum, gerberas and geraniums, daisies and gazanias.  There are climbing roses and jasmines that need trellises, and the existing wicking beds readied for spring plantings.  Part of me is cross that we're missing out on a proper winter, and part of me is glad that is perfect gardening weather already.  I can't change it, so I might as well celebrate it.

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Yet another catch-up post is necessary, as life has been busy and I'm too dis-organised to blog daily.

We spent last week quilting and binding this large Farmer's Wife quilt.  I did a double clamshell in the centre, as the darker colours of the blocks meant the quilting wouldn't show particularly well; then Mereth did a lovely freehand feather in the plain border, and it made the quilt really come to life.  We collaborate well on projects like this, where she doesn't want to do the panto bit, and I don't want to do the fancy border.  I also applied the binding on this, 11 strips to get round the edge; I'm glad I gave it back to the customer to handsew down.

Once we were finished with that we were free to run away to Adelaide for the weekend, so we left at lunchtime Friday.  We took Dolly with us, so it wasn't a quick trip; there were two stops so she could run around on the grass and have a  break.  She was a very good traveller though, I was impressed at how sensible she was.

We went all the way across Adelaide to get to our favourite patchwork shop, Tricia's.  There was only an hour of shopping left by that time, but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.  I picked up some more batiks, of course,

and more neutrals;

I had no particular quilt in mind, so I went with the staple choices that I know I will use. 

I also added two charm packs, just for fun; I've got a basket pattern on the drawing board, and the charm pack will work well with that. My fabric chart has climbed rapidly the last few weeks; 16m in the last fortnight alone.  I've purchase over 86 metres this year, not one of my better efforts, but I've used 124 metres.  That means the stash isn't expanding, but it's not being drastically reduced either!

Then it was back to my DD's place, to wait for her to get home from work.  There is a dog park on her block, so we went there with Dolly to run off some energy.  She behaved perfectly, ignored the other dogs and ran herself ragged chasing her ball. 

When it was time to leave she carted it up the steps and out the gate, so cute!  She was being quite the dapper urban dog, until she found a puddle that was very tasty, and cooled her hot belly in it.  That's not very sophisticated.....

We had a lovely night with Seonaid, watching DVDs and the infomercial channels, which never cease to amaze me.  I don't have a TV, so I don't get to see all that rubbish normally, and we just watch it and laugh and laugh.  Such weird people, improbable products, impossible claims.  Very entertaining.

The next day we had breakfast at a really nice coffee place, Coffee Barun;

wonderful breakfast menu.  There was enough time to go home and do some washing and housework before we went back for lunch with Mereth's family at the same coffee shop.  There was a moment when it looked like we would actually squabble over who would hold the baby first, but Mereth played the Grandmother card, and trumped the rest of us.  Seonaid held her while we all finished our lunch; little Isobel was perfectly behaved, sitting and staring fascinated at the world around her, as any 2-month old girl would. 

She's going to be very familiar with coffee shop society, as her parents and auntie and uncle are coffee afficionados.

Home again, to get the evening meal sorted, as everyone came to Seonaid's place.  We had a lovely meal, lots of good conversation and much baby-snuggling.  She's such a good little girl!  Dolly loved the attention too. It would be wonderful to have all the family living close by, we just don't get to see enough of each other.

We came home Sunday, very tired, and now it's time to pick up where we left off.  I'm keen to make some headway on more UFOs, so I'll be working hard on the vintage rosettes. 

 I could have taken them on our trip, but chose my knitting instead; I'll need to put in some solid hours of handsewing to get this back on track.  I have to put blue diamonds on another two rows, then I'll be able to start sewing it all into one piece.

These basket blocks are close to completion; I need 30, and I have 20 finished and the rest sewn into units ready to put together.  It's a project I set aside after the first rush of enthusiasm passed; it was all kitted up and I didn't touch it again till last week. Now it's nearly finished, and I have no memories of making it;  I don't like it when that happens.  I don't seem to have concentrated on it enough while I was sewing, and it's as if someone else did it.  I must be more focused on what I'm doing in future.

It's a lovely sunny day here, but cold with it.  My fingers are frozen, so I'm off to thaw them on a cup of coffee.  And then I intend to sew for the rest of the afternoon; those basket blocks are as good as done!

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