Time is a precious commodity just lately, and there doesn't seem to be any spare.  What few free moments I have are spent in the sewing room working on my projects, but there's not much progress to show.  I would love to have a quiltathon with Judy, but there are too many other commitments.  I'm helping Mereth shift house, and working long hours, plus I'm teaching at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival in October and I need to get everything prepared for that.  Which includes working on a few quilts, so I must find time for that.  I need to give up sleeping.

This is my design wall, fairly well unchanged for several weeks.  I keep making more of those blocks, and lots more of the Square in Square units, and countless Flying Geese,  I still have no idea where I'm going with these blocks, but I like them so far.  I've used up a lot of scraps from the stash drawers, and that's a good thing.

The green and floral triangles are my leader-ender project, a simple way to use the drawer full of large florals that I've accumulated. I don't know where they came from, surely I didn't buy them all?  Anyway, these 4" HSTs will help whittlle them down, and there's always backings to use up more.

A customer dropped off a quilt last week, and I was smitten with it.  I love the color scheme so much that I immediately cut out a few blocks to see what it looked like in my fabrics, and I loved it even more. 

So I immediately started cutting out yet another project.  In my defence I'd already culled all these peachy apricots from my stash, and begged some from Mereth, and was about to cut them up for a brown and apricot quilt.  I like this blue and red and green colour scheme much more.  I won't make a large quilt, so I should be able to pull all the material needed from my drawers and cupboards.  I love being able to do that.

And lastly, this is the most recent quilt I've quilted, a customer's bright Nearly Insane quilt. 

It was fun to work on, her colour choices were so unusual.  I quilted it with a Baptist Fan, and a separate border.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get a good picture of the finished quilt; I'm amazed at the amount of work in a quilt like this, and yet the thought of starting one of my own is tempting.  Must not start anything else....

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Time for the weekly post.  It's terribly slack of me to only post once a week, but it's better than nothing.  Life is busy right now.

Our Show last week had terrible weather, rainy and windy, but we rugged up and went along anyway. 

 If you have to rug up against the weather you can at least be fashionable while you're about it.

First stop was the shearing competition, which is my favourite.

You can see why shearers end up with bad backs.

They were shearing a sheep every 3 minutes on average; I can't imagine doing this for a living.

There's a real knack to throwing out the fleece so that it lands on the skirting table with the tips up and the cut side down, all in one layer, so that the daggy, inferior edges can be pulled off and discarded.

I wanted one of those fleeces so bad, but I have 5 whole fleeces already, so space is an issue; I'd better spin some up real quick.

Then we watched the show-jumping; this is Mereth's favourite show activity.

The horses were so beautifully turned out, they were a pleasure to watch.

When the rain started we ducked into the pavillions to see the exhibits.

There were the usual things, like honey and eggs;

but also some entries in classes that were a little out of the ordinary. 

In earlier times the ability to render fat and dripping from home-killed meat was a necessary skill; I'm glad I don't have to master it these days.

And this is butter sculpture; the lady who made these little works of art is nearly 80, milks her cow every day and made all the butter for these creations.  She's truly remarkable.

We bought a little bit of fabric from a booth, and indulged in a pair of Ugg boots each.  Then it was off to see the birds;  I think pigeon fanciers are a strange breed themselves. 

The proud owner assured me there was a head in amongst all those feathers.

I much prefer this sweet little hen, lovely colours.

Last stop was the mettwurst stall, to buy a metre long pepperoni stick, like this one.

It was very hard to manouevre, so once it was bought we had to leave.  We had a lovely day, even if it was wet and muddy.

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Another busy work week is nearly over, and I'm looking forward to the weekend.  It's our local agricultural Show tomorrow, and we're going to attend for a couple of hours, after a customer consult that is.  It will be fun to see the quilts and the cooking and the flower arranging and the tractors and the show-jumping....  Might take more than a couple of hours.

I want to get a lot of sewing done, and some garden chores, so I've resorted to a list.  I know some people like Judy make lists for everything, but I don't normally work that way.  I don't normally get a lot done either.  So it's a detailed list this weekend, and I'll let you know how I go.  I have to tidy up the garden before Spring bursts upon us in only two weeks time, and I want to spin up a lot of wool that a friend gave me; I need to deep clean the workroom and the laundry and the kitchen.  That's just for starters!

The sewing project of choice is the blocks on my design wall.  When I started off it was to use up scraps and make a block that I'd wanted to make for a long time.  Only when I checked, it wasn't the same block at all.  My memory is not up to scratch.

This is the quilt I've had earmarked to make.  It's from Nancilu Burdicks's pattern book that accompanies the book Legacy, and is based on a quilt her grandmother made.

The blocks I started making are very simple versions of the quilt I actually wanted to make.  No problem, I just start making more complicated ones, and I'll merge them all together.

 Don't look at the photo below if you're squeamish!


Last weekend I was shifting furniture, and an antique table bit me.

All I did was put my hand beneath it to pick it up, and a waiting splinter went right under my thumbnail.  Mereth, in true blogger fashion, looked at it and said 'We have to take a photo of that!' Amazingly it didn't hurt much, and at the emergency room our lovely doctor numbed my whole thumb and then dug it out.  And it still didn't hurt a lot.  I'm very lucky I think, it could have been worse.  All week the two spots where he injected the anaesthetic have hurt much worse than the original injury.  Here's hoping this weekend doesn't have an eventful end like the last one.

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My Stash report for this week shows some large figures in, and some bigger ones out.  I still have another parcel from Hancocks coming (damn their free shipping offers!) so the overall total  will plummit once that arrives.  Still, I've taken more than 170m out of my stash this year, and I'm pleased about that.

Bought this week;   13.75m
Used this week;     22m
Bought this year;   64.7
Used this year;   176.4
Overall total;    111.7

I've cut up mountains of small pieces this week, and sewed lots of Square in Square units and Flying Geese.

I haven't assembled any of the units into blocks though, haven't had time for that yet.  I'll see if I can find time for that tomorrow.

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When I buy fabric on the net I often choose cheap fabric, close-outs and discounted older lines; I tell myself I'm being a wise shopper, and that it's a canny thing to do and saves money.  Then when the fabric arrives I'm a bit disappointed, or not happy with the quality, or just underwhelmed with the whole experience.  The new stuff gets packed away and forgotten, and the next time I feel like going shopping I remember the last time and think, Maybe Not.

The first of my parcels arrived from Reproduction Fabrics.  Unpacking it was a sheer joy.  This time I only chose really beautiful patterns, from my favourite designers, and I'm thrilled to bits with all of it.  There was a special on their shipping, a maximum of $15 for an international order, so I went a bit wild and bought 14 yards.  The actual cost of the shipping was $43, so I certainly saved myself some money there.

I sort of concentrated on the shirtings and madder prints, with some brown and double pink thrown in.  I was very nice and shared with Mereth, but she's a bit over the whole madder thing, having created two enormous quilts from her madder stash already.

I have a quilt pattern earmarked for this lot, and when I get a few more of those scraps dealt with I'll start cutting for it.  I'm going to have a lot of fun with these gorgeous prints.  They are mostly from the Twelve Oakes range by Judie Rothermel, with a few others thrown into the mix.  I may have to go back and get the prints from that range that I didn't include this time.

The downside to all this is that next time I'm tempted to go shopping online I'll be full of enthusiasm, rmembering how wonderful this was.  Not good news on the stashbusting front : (

  But for now I'm just going to revel in these new fabrics and I may even cut some strips to make tiny 4-patches, just for fun, and to get acquainted with the lovely prints.  While I wait for my next parcel to arrive.

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Time slips away so quickly these days, it's hard to schedule regular blog posts.  But I sort of have an excuse; I'm completely obsessed with cutting up my fabric.  It's hard to stop and do all my other chores, because the only thing I want to do is zip the rotary cutter through all these pieces until there's nothing left to put back in the drawer.

Why the grim determination to clear all these small pieces out of the stash?  Well, I sort of went mad one day, and ordered about 20 yards of fabric online.  It was a moment of utter insanity, and I'm not proud of it, but I can't take it back, so I'll have to live with it once the parcels start arriving.  However, I don't like the thought of trying to cram new fabric into the drawers that are already bulging at the seams, so I'm trying to whittle the stash down a little. 

I weeded out snippets and strips and bits less than an eighth of a metre, 800grams worth, which translates to about 6 metres; then I got ruthless and pulled out lengths and FQs that I hadn't ever cut into.  If I didn't love it,  then I needed to get rid of it. I'm going to make some pieced backings out of those bits.

Most big projects look much worse before the good results  are visible, and my sewing room is a pit, a shambles, a teetering stack of remnants. But I can see progress, room in the drawers for my new fabric, and a steady pile of pieces ready to be sewn into the block of the moment on the design wall. 

I'm just going to keep cutting, and keep sewing, and keep thinning out the stash, and before long I know I'll be a lot happier with the contents of my sewing room. 

I've been sewing late at night, with lots of coffee to keep me going.  Last night I was clipping the little dog ears off my triangles, and throwing them into the pretty cup that stops them migrating all over the sewing room. 

It ws inevitable that I was going to get tired and throw them in the wrong cup; when it finally happened I figured it was a sign that I needed to go to bed.  What a waste of good coffee!

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We've been busy these last few weeks, and there has been almost no sewing taking place.  Things have to change, I'm getting cranky at having no time for the things I want to do.  So my new policy is at least an hour a day in the sewing room, and 15 minutes in the garden.  That should help me see progress at the end of each week.

This last weekend saw me sorting out scrap containers and deciding on a new project for all my precious bits and pieces.

I like this simple block, and it will give me lots of practice making Flying Geese units.  I think I'll change that large centre square to lots of different little blocks, 4-patches, 9-patches, square-in-squares etc.  That will keep me interested in the project, and let me use us lots of tiny scraps too.

I came across a heap of black and blue scraps, so I made 56 nine-patches in two days, 

 

and they are nearly assembled into a top already.  If I'd had enough of the pink sashing fabric I could have finished this on Sunday, but it had to wait until the patchwork shop opened on Tuesday.  

 

I'm ready to cut out the rest of the sashing this afternoon and get this top completed; not bad, seeing it wasn't even on the drawing board last week.

And I was a bit bad at the LQS, and 4 metres came home with me.  (Pink and brown and shirtings, I can't resist, and even more hand sewing needles!)  1.5 will go into the sashing straight away, and the scraps I'm weeding out of the drawers will help lessen the pain of writing up more purchases in the spreadsheet..  I'm still over the 100 metres used mark, despite adding a fair bit recently.

Maybe I need to cut a heap of bindings and backings next weekend, to get even more fabric moving in the sewing room.  Sometimes it's a good thing, being forced to neglect quilting for a while; I feel so much more enthusiasm for all my projects after a little break. 

 

Time to finish lunch and get busy!

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We went to Adelaide for a quick visit last weekend, because Mereth's second-born son Rob, and his lovely wife Elisa, were visiting from Newcastle.  John and Liz have a new member of the family, the lovely Jezabel.  She's a sweet, good-natured kitten, very charming.

On Saturday morning Mereth went off shopping with Elisa, and the rest of us planned a trip to Central Market to stock up on fresh food and coffee and little nibbly things.

On his last trip home John wheedled the family recipe for Cinnamon Scrolls out of Mereth, and he and Rob decided to make a batch before we left for the Markets.  It was like MasterChef, with lots of conflicting ideas about hydrating the dough and starting the sponge ahead of time, and which sort of sugar to use.  I was just an amused spectator, except when I nursed the bowl of yeast sponge to keep it warm (it was a cold morning).

With the dough set to rise in the sun by the back door we set off for the markets.  It's such a fun place to visit, all sorts of cooked food available, and stalls selling the ingredients for just about anything you could dream up. 

I don't really care for any of the meat listed at this butcher;  I'm not that adventurous thank you. 

The camel sausages looked OK, but the kangaroo tails were gross; I have no idea how one would go about cooking a kangaroo tail.  Don't want to find out either.  I was much more drawn to the vegetable stalls, these Chinese Cabbage were so fresh and inviting.

We went and had an O-bun, fascinating little Chinese cakes like doughnuts, with a range of fillings.  I had a custard one, which was very nice;

maybe I'll have a cheese one next time, or coconut, or red bean paste

We bought food for dinner that night, and I stocked up on things I can't get in Crystal Brook, like soy flour and cocoa nibs and black turtle beans.  I had a huge carton of really strange food to take home by the time we'd finished.

When we arrived home the dough was nearly out of the pan; we'd taken  longer than we thought. 

John was being silly and worshipping the great god D'oh!  So while we girls sorted out the purchases, John and Rob got straight into making the cinnamon scrolls, with much banter and boasting about who's scrolls were going to be the best.

Once they were cooked we had to taste test them of course, and it was a tie; John's were sweeter, but Rob's were lighter.  They were all eaten in a matter of minutes, they were so good.

It was a quick trip, just to catch up with family, so there were no fabric shops on the agenda; we had a late breakfast with everyone and left at luchtime Sunday.  And it's been work, work, work ever since.  I'm glad the weekend was such fun.

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I have finished one quilt top with the Fig Tree fabrics, and it's very pretty.

It used hardly any fabric though, which ordinarily I would be pleased about; I've still got heaps to play with.  Except I'm not really sure I want to play with the leftovers; I might donate them to someone in our quilt group and be done with them.

I've had several reproduction projects on the back-burner for months, so it will be full steam ahead on those next.  Time  to put aside the duty sewing and devote myself to quilts that I truly adore.

On another note entirely, I wonder how many of us grew up with books showing mice in aprons and little waistcoats, and lots of little baby mice with cute curly tails?  I actively discouraged that view of anthropomorphistic animals with my kids.  When, as an adult, I faced the reality of mice that had to be disposed of I had to fight off that image of Mama Mouse with a wooden spoon and a pinafore, cooking dinner for all the baby mice.  I didn't want to burden my kids with that little hangup.

The whole district  had a mini mouse plague this year; whenever people met they compared mouse stories, and tallies of how many had been caught in one night (12 was the highest I heard).  I trapped 10 in my bedroom alone, erch!!   And as I disposed of each body I thought that most wild mice don't resemble the cute images in kid's books.  These were nasty, nasty vermin.

And hungry too.  These are little silicon moulds that I make chocolates in.  These were left on the dish drainer overnight, and some hungry mouse thought they were worth sampling.  Heaven knows what he was thinking, probably that it didn't taste very nice.

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I haven't done a Stash Report for a long while, but I"m still keeping track of my purchases and usage.

Used this Week:  17 m
Used year to Date: 141.6 m
Added this Week: 2.5 m
Added Year to Date: 38.25 m
Net Used for 2010: 103.35 m

I'm over the 100 metre mark at last, cause for celebration.  I should say that the 17m used this week is the total of two quilts I've been working on for the last month, and I never counted the yardage used till they were finished.  It's not like I had a wonderful week of sewing, cause I didn't.  And they're commission quilts so I can't show you what they were.  : (

I'm really pleased with the amount I've used this year, and the nearly 40 metres I've added is very moderate for me.  In the not so distant past I could come out of a shop lugging 40 metres all in one go, so it's wonderful to have controlled my aquisitions for 6 months.  Mind you, that 40m has cost nearly $500, which is kind of sobering.  If I stay in control for the rest of the year, and only buy that much again for the next 6 months, it's still a total expenditure of $1000 per annum.  

My Mum would be horrified beyond words at that, but $20 a week seems a small price to pay for a bunch of pretty stuff that makes me feel happy.  I could spend that at the movies, or twice that having my nails done, or I could drink it away at the pub or gamble it on Lotto.  2 packets of cigarettes would cost more than that; it's not even a downpayment on fancy shoes.  I don't have to justify it to anyone, but I do need to make sure that I buy what I actually want, not just something that appeals to me on a whim.  No more 'What was I thinking!" purchases.

It would be nice to say there's a bit more room in the sewing room, but there's not.  Or it's so disorganised that I can't tell.  My goal for the rest of this week and on the weekend is to clear out some of the clutter and make space, so I can work happily in there.

There's nothing new on the design wall, same blocks as last time; I will have to get cracking and do something interesting to show you, won't I?

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My design wall is full of projects that aren't the sort of thing I normally make.

I blame the whole jelly-roll thing for that.  I would never buy these fabrics by the metre, yet I willingly pay for a jellyroll of them.  Incomprehensible.The blue batiks are gone, all used up by that top.  However, the Fig Tree fabrics are proving harder to get rid of.

I had a jellyroll and a layer cake of these, plus some strips from a scrap bag from Hancocks.  (must stay away from Hancocks....)

I've cut 20 of these Churndash blocks out, and there is still a great pile of strips and squares and offcuts.

There's enough for at least 2 quilts, and even though these ranges are pretty, they're just not Me.  I'll have to buckle down and use them up, but I do think I need to be more discerning when I buy jellyrolls.  Or not buy them at all.

These Civil War Home Front fabrics are much more to my liking.

As are the French General prints; some of these are wonderful.  But there's that other jellyroll just waiting to be used.  How many quilts can we have in those colours??

 It's so easy to buy a jellyroll, there seem to be so many ideas for them, until the time comes to actually cut into one.  Then it's  really hard to make a decision, you don't want to 'waste' it, but you can't decide what is the 'perfect' pattern.  I should just make a comittment not to buy them in future; I'd be better off  buying a tower of FQs.

What am I saying????  I can't afford to add that much fabric to the stash on a whim!  I think I have to veto all these pre-cut options entirely.  And I will, as soon as I buy the set of Attic Shirtings, and maybe Cocoa Express....

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