I'm running on the spot here, trying to get all my work finished before the end of the week, so I can have the weekend to do whatever I want. I have to go to Bunnings (big hardware place) because I'm having withdrawal symptoms and need to buy some plants and herbs for the garden. I need to spend time in the garden making all the surviving plants comfortable so they can withstand the last blast of hot weather (it's worse now than it has been for most of the summer). I need to visit the fabric shop for upholstery supplies, and the supermarket for vittels for the young'un. And tonight I'm going to the bottle-shop for my stock of red wine, which helps me take a relaxed view of life. I'm so glad the scientists have agreed that a glass, or two, a day is good for one's health. It's good for my soul as well.

I wouldn't normally post 'before' pictures of my sewing room, but I will this time, in the hope that it will make me prioritise the cleaning up. It's going to be a huge relief to see some order in here, so that I can sew in peace and tranquility. I don't like to sew when things aren't functional and nicely laid out; half the fun for me is being organised and orderly.

We have survived the first week of Uni, and I even made it to the gym on two separate occasions. I do weights and an hour on the treadmill at home, but it's good to get to the gym and do some more comprehensive exercises. I'm aiming for three times next week, and as DS has classes every single day I just have to pick the most convenient times to slot in a gym visit. The thing that keeps me wanting to exercise is reading; I only ever allow myself to read while on the treadmill or at the gym, so I look forward to both the exercise and the reading. Cunning plan, ey?

Tonight, after my hour of reading/running, I will be sorting out those tottering stacks of material and scraps and quilt tops, which is the first step in the sewing room cleanup. A little light music, and a glass of red wine and I'll be all set to enjoy the start of the weekend.

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I decided it's time I do a truly maverick quilt, and disobey some of the quilting rules. So I'm making these star blocks out of every last little scrap and nibble of my antique reproductions. I've wanted to do a quilt with a Lancaster Blue background for years, but I've never been brave enough to cut into my hoard of the stuff. But now is the time. I'm loving how these are turning out,, but I haven't decided on a final pattern yet.

The first one is paper pieced and has set in seams, which was OK, but a little cumbersome at the end. The second one has an extra seam through the diagonal and is pieced in two halves, allowing it to be entirely paper pieced with no set in seams. I don't know which one I prefer yet, so I will have to make a few more and then decide. They are so much fun, and I'm going to love the look of the final quilt.

My sewing room is a pit! I've chosen to sew in my few spare minutes, instead of restore order, but I'm afraid I will have to do something soon. I can't find anything I need, which is frustrating, so I will take some time tomorrow to sort out the main work areas. I'll enjoy that, even if it means that I can't get any more blocks done straight away. Can't work in a mess....

I went through some upstairs cupboards and found some tins of ancient UFOs, more than 15 years old and all hand pieced. They will sit by my chair in the loungeroom and I'll get the pieces put together and then use them in my orphan block quilt. I can safely say that if I haven't touched them in 15 years then I don't really want to finish them as I had originally planned. It's better that the pieces end up in a sampler quilt than languish in the tin for another 15 years.

A few years ago I bought this top on Ebay. It has some lovely turn of the century mourning prints in the blocks, but the alternate blocks are a garish '30s print. Sometime this winter I will separate the blocks from the unsuitable setting fabric and piece them together with something more in keeping with their era. It was a bargain, about $15; I love value for money. I may even hand quilt this, it would be a nice way to get acquainted with all the old fabrics. I'll have to be careful of all those bias edges around the blocks....

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I had hoped that this year would be a lot better than last year's jumble of trips away and sad times, but it's not off to a good start. We have just come back from a week in Brisbane, attending the funeral of my darling Father-In-Law. It was all very upsetting, as my MIL has been left on her own after 52 years of marriage. It's awful living so far away from family, it's a 7 hour trip down there, and I think I loathe just about every inch of it, having driven it so many times in the last 26 years. I hate knowing that we can't be there for her.

Dad was a fantastic gardener, so I brought back some of his lilies to remember him by. It will be therapeutic to pot them into good soil and see them thrive. Brisbane has such severe water restrictions that most of his garden was dying, so I've given these few things a reprieve from certain death. We need RAIN in the catchment areas of the dams, and it seems to be falling everywhere but there.

And life bowls along despite whatever else is happening, so I have arrived home to a sea of work and a garden on it's last gasp and cats that are determined to tell me about every minute of their abandonment. Get over it Guys! So if this sounds like a whinge then it probably is. I want something nice to happen.

This morning we have been out to the Uni to collect textbooks for DS, and his course begins again next week. I like driving him to Uni because it makes me schedule my gym visits more regularly; if I'm out of the house anyway I may as well go to the gym.

My poor sewing room has been overtaken by a sea of paper as I print out several huge orders, and I can't get near the machine for even a stitch. I haven't been able to work on the orphan blocks at all, so they will have to sit on the design wall a little longer. But I do like that Tumbler bit, I may have to cut out a whole quilt like that.

I am going to make an effort today to get the room put back the way it should be, and sew something, anything! Even mending would be better than nothing.

I like this Bear Paw variation; wouldn't mind making a whole quilt like this.

This is another quilt that came home from a quilt shop. It's one that I use to teach beginners. I like the brown and blue colour scheme, they are my two favoutire colours I think.


Like everyone else, I get a huge amount of spam and junk mail. Most of the titles are nonsensical, but some are intruiging. I liked the one that advised me "Have a Spatial". A Spatial sounds quite interesting, sort of a cross between a facial, Feng Shui and an out of body experience. Anyone know where I can get me one? Might be just what I need.

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We have been having some wild and stormy weather lately, with tropical thunderstorms and torrential rain. This tree on the road outside our house lost branches in the worst of it, blocking the road. It must have been a bit hairy driving around in those conditions, which is why I was entrenched in my sewing room.

When I came upstairs the back porch was full of brimming buckets of water; DS Rhys had discovered water pouring through the verandah ceiling as the gutters overflowed. I'm glad he was upstairs to deal with it, because I didn't have a clue it waws happening. The funniest thing was that the three cats had taken refuge on the kitchen table, absolutely horrified at the deluge of water. They had to be coaxed down, quaking, as if from Noah's Ark. "Water, Mum!' Bobcat told me, trembling. 'Water coming down INSIDE!' He had to have a snack to calm his nerves.

I was sewing this basket block, just to get the measurements and the cutting requirements in place. I'm not going to make a quilt or anything.... I truly am trying to do something with the orphan collection, and today a few ideas came together. Nothing to see as yet, but I know what I want to do now.

It's hard to ignore the Valentine's Day advertising, but I'm doing my best. It's not a tradition here in Australia, and I don't see that we need to feel guilty for not buying stuff and giving cards and making Hallmark even richer.

And the whole school thing where all the kids in the class give every other kid in the class a valentine, well isn't that sort of like a football match where everyone has their own ball? What's the point? (I know, I'm a heartless cynic, you don't need to tell me...)

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Another set of blocks turned into a finished top, and it didn't take long despite my false start.

This quilt actually came about because of the quilt on Lois' bed in Malcolm In The Middle. I only caught a fleeting glimpse of it, but liked the pinwheels and the brown stripe setting blocks. I couldn't find just the right brown stripe, but this browny-pink dotted geometric looks pretty good too.

This one isn't very big either, 60" x 76", a nice single bed size. I was sorely tempted to make it big enough for at least a double bed, but sanity prevailed. No more big quilts for a while yet. And now I have leftovers to go into my orphan block quilt.

I pulled out all my lonely blocks and UFOs that I will never complete, and sorted them into piles. I have a pile of blue/black/grey/white blocks, a heap of multicoloured cheerful ones, and another lot that are more antiquey colours with a lot of brown and green. It's very confusing and overwhelming to look at such a strange and motley collection, and I was tempted to stuff them all back into the drawer again. But I didn't, and I will let the antiquey ones sit on my design wall for a few days until they start talking to me. They will have to, in the end. Resistance is futile.....

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I try not to be superstitious. It's such a silly foible to have, believing in omens and knocking on wood and worrying. My great-grandmother was extremely superstitious, and my great-uncle once caused her to faint dead away by wearing black and opening an umbrella inside her house. Still, I have never been able to put new shoes on the table without experiencing a feeling that I'm pushing the envelope in some way. (Extreme bad luck will result...) I refrain from running in, screaming, from another room when my daughter is about to put the new shoebox on the kitchen table.

But in yesterday's post, when I said my new project was simple and should be whipped up in a few days I did wonder if I'd jinxed myself. And I knew I had when I discovered that I had only half of the blocks that I'd made, and the rest were completely AWOL. So I spent most of yesterday wandering around contemplating where on earth they could be, and tearing apart every cupboard and set of drawers trying to find the container. I knew where it was before I moved back into my downstairs sewing room; I just didn't know where it was now.

Logically, it always has to be in the last place you look, because once you find it you stop looking. And late in the afternoon I contemplated, yet again, the shelves in the cupboard containing all my backing fabrics. I knew that it was the most logical place for me to have stored the box of blocks, but they weren't there. In a flash of insight I realised that the material didn't reach all the way to the back of the cupboard, leaving a space....

I'm glad to have found the wretched blocks, cross to have wasted a day looking for them, and musing over the fact that it was both the first place I looked for them, as well as the last.

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These blocks were bugging me, and not in a good way. I made them to use up the leftovers from my Grey Havens quilt, and then they refused to co-operate when I tried to put them together. Those madder squares in the corners kept forming a secondary pattern when I tried to sash them with 2" sashing and cornerstones, and I didn't like the effect. I tried dozens of settings and different fabrics and nothing clicked. I din't mind the green and navy setting I showed a couple of posts ago, but Meredith obligingly pointed out that my Square-in-a square blocks have that setting too. And I didn't want to duplicate it. So thanks Meredith, the delay was all your doing.

I finally tried this dirty browny-grey print that I adore, and it worked. I wanted the quilt to have that ancient, multi-patterned look of 18th Century quilts, kind of like a faded carpet. I had just enough to make the sashings, so that is another metre and a half of fabric gone from the stash for good. And seeing it was a piece that I've been hoarding it counts for Judy's challenge.

As a bonus, one of the fabrics that didn't work for this quilt proved to be perfect for another set of blocks, so that will be my next project. It's a simple one, so I should be able to whip it up in a few days. Famous last words. It took great resolve and determination to get this latest top finished, and I had to ignore a few chores this afternoon so that I could get it in one piece. I kept repeating to myself 'I'm going to blog about this tonight, I AM
going to blog about this...'

I stuck to another resolve and kept this small, only 20 blocks. It will be a nice wall quilt, or one for the couch. The colours are very subtle and muted, and look much nicer in natural light than in the photo. I do like muddy combinations though. I'm not much into brights; love what other people do, but I don't buy bright material myself.

I'm going to pull out all my orphan blocks tomorrow and see if I can make a top from them. Just about every top I made last year had leftover blocks, so I will play around and see if I can be as creative as Bonnie....

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Piano Lessons

In the comments on my post about Suicide Tennis Tracey mentioned that she hadn't liked her piano lessons. Well we had to take those as well, and it wasn't a happy story either.

The piano arrived when we were about 9. Mum had recently been widowed, and this piano was a huge expense, even though it was aquired from an estate sale. Mum had wanted to learn to play piano since she was a small child, and now, we were going to live her dream. There was never ANY question of her learning at the ripe old age of 47; she wouldn't contemplate it.

So we were packed off each Tuesday lunchtime to a nearby Catholic high school for lessons with the nuns. To get to the music room we had to walk the whole length of the school, under the scrutiny of the enlightened young misses who attended that Christian community. May they rot in Hell.

It took only a few weeks for them to conspire to make our life a misery. All of them (around 120) would line the path to jeer and sneer and taunt and even spit at us. The only safety was the music room, and there we had to endure whichever nun was assigned to teach us the mysteries of music that week. We were perhaps not in the right frame of mind, knowing that we had to run the gauntlet on the way back, and that there would be no time to eat lunch that day, after we'd biked back to our own school. And like as not get into trouble for being late for the afternoon classes. Tuesdays were nightmare material. Music was so not worth it.

I suppose we were an easy target. There were two of us and we were absolutely identical. We were tiny, tiny children, always the smallest by far in our age group. And we followed Mum's advice of how to deal with the torment by putting our little noses in the air and marching on, side by side, regardless. It was hysterical to watch apparently. We endured that every Tuesday for two years. And no, Mum would not let us give up music lessons either. It would enrich us....

When we went to High School we went to the Convent for our lessons. No more evil tormentors, but a different class of nun. These were strange, elderly, embittered, lonely women, with nothing left of their vocation. They used a bamboo cane on unwary knuckles, scolded instead of praised, seethed with impatience and sourness. The door slammed on our retreating backs after the lesson, and Meredith and I would look at each other and feel that we were returning to the land of the living. And not another music lesson for 6 days and 23 hours!!

Because we were twins we had to play Duets. Nobody bothered to explain to us the concept of a Duet, so we discovered by accident that it sounded better if we synchronised our parts the way they were meant to be played. No more starting off at different times and hammering to the finish independently. Then we were enlisted to play at various church and school functions, and we were a great hit. We developed a Chopsticks routine that brought the house down, starting slowly, working through 8 variations with increasing speed and ending with a crashing, lightning fast climax. It was so popular we often had to play an encore. Bugger!

We had never heard of the concept of passive-aggressive behaviour, but we practiced it to a fine art. And eventually, after 6 years of fruitless endevour we made Mum throw her hands up in disgust and agree that we could stop the lessons. She was very strongwilled, our Mum, but she couldn't make us want what she had so desperately wanted. Sad state of affairs. If she had offered us riding lessons, or singing lessons, we could have done that with a glad heart. But they weren't her dream. Which we ruined for her.

I am glad to have some musical knowledge. Once when I was singing in the church choir a practice was going to have to be cancelled because the pianist hadn't showed up. I volunteered to play and the look on my DD's face was utterly priceless; 'How do YOU know how to play piano??!!' she demanded. There's a lot she doesn't know about her mother. But I still can't sit at a piano without a feeling of loathing.

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It's Australia Day today. The photo is of a little badge that I take with me whenever I go overseas. It's nice to wear the Aussie flag and declare who you are., though I have been mistaken for everything from English to Canadian to NewZealander to Dutch. Hmmmm.... I do have a sort of Pommie accent because I'm a South Australian and we tork posher than the rest of Orstrailya.

We spent the day watching the cricket, Aussies versus the Poms. Honest to goodness, sometimes I just want to shake those English guys until they rattle. They invented the game of cricket for heaven's sakes, they at least could try a bit harder.

I finally managed to sew a paltry three blocks pf my new project together, made from scraps from my other projects. I just can't seem to get to the sewing machine, I have so many other things to do. My colour printer decided it wouldn't do yellow anymore, which left me with some very strange looking prints, so I had to go shopping for a new printer. Of course the new one takes up most of the desk, and the cartridges are nearly twice the price, and there's five of them instead of four... I wish my old printer would co-operate, it was so cheap and easy. Never mind, the new one makes very, very nice prints and I will print out a lot of family photos just because I got a block of 6"x4" photo paper with the printer.

The nine-patch quilt is one of the tops I took to Kaye's to quilt, and it's next on the binding list. I like how the quilting adds movement to the pattern, and I used a cotton batting so it will crinkle up nicely when I wash it. I have made a vow to make smaller quilts in future, 60" maximum. We'll see how I stick to that in the coming months. All I know is that I have a room full of really big quilts, and I don't need any more right now.

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I have been hankering after some hand quilting lately, and wondering if perhaps I can set up my big quilting frame in one of the enclosed verandahs. I can really see the results of my months of downsizing, and there are three places where I could set up my 8' long frame and not be in anyone's way. Once the weather cools down somewhat (none of these places are in the A/C unfortunately) I may dust off all the timber pieces and see what can be done..

The top that I would quilt is this one, a scrap Bowtie that is about 6 years old. I enjoyed everything about this quilt. It was a breeze to mark the pieces as they were large and there were only two simple pieces. I could get the pieces out of a charm square so I had a lovely selection of material to choose from. All I needed was three fabrics that looked nice together, so easy to make decisions like that. I never let myself have a moment of grief about this quilt, which is different from some of the others I've worked on.

I love the way it turned out, and even though it's not quite big enough for our current bed I would like to use it as a folder at the bottom of the bed. I love the look of one quilt covering the bed, and others folded at the foot.

And incidentally, this is my hanger arrangement for the tops that are next in line for quilting. The rod is metal curtain rod that I cut into lengths wide enough to fit in my closet. Then I run a piece of woven tape through it, tie a loop in each end and hook them over a coat hanger. It's strong enough to hold the quilt top and the backing, and I get great satisfaction from looking at my row of neatly organised projects. They stay wrinkle free and accessible till I get round to quilting them.

I am loving the Australian Open coverage, can't get enough tennis. Which is very odd, considering that I hate, hate, hate playing the game. We were MADE to in our teens, and no amount of crying, complaining or sulking would change Mum's mind. It was a Healthy Outdoor Activity, it would teach us the value of competition, make us fit, give us Team Spirit, solve all our problems and bring World Peace.

To us it was a wicked wicked waste of Spring and Summer Saturday mornings. Instead of doing our favourite thing of biking around all the stables and farms to visit horses and friends we were stuck on an asphalt tennis court, in thin-soled sandshoes and towelling hats, with tiny outgrown dresses that showed our knickers when we ran. Sometimes the temperature on those courts was over 40 degreesCelcius, or 100 F. On one memorable occassion my shoes melted.

But we were surrounded by impossibly determined mothers and their odious children, all slave to the great god 'Sport'. They never called it a day, even when we were sunburnt and heat-stroked and dancing on the spot because of the heat coming off the ground.

Even more unfair was the 40 cent ball and court fee we had to hand over. Do you have any idea what two hot and thirsty teenage girls could have done with 40 cents in those days? It killed us to have to part with that.

I found it all slightly terrifying, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the only thing it ever taught me was not to do something you don't want to and don't have to.

Eventually we developed something we called Suicide Tennis. We just never even took a swing at anything, just plodded from side to side as the score mounted. Serving was a whack into the nets. Our opponents would be beside themselves with rage, screaming for their mothers to MAKE us play properly. But no-one could. On a good day we'd be over and done in an hour, and then be off to visit one of our favourite farms, or the abandoned brickworks where Meredith would sketch and I would write in my diary. Mum would be at home, thinking Good Healthy Thoughts about us, and we'd be completely happy again, except wishing we still had the 40 cents....

Eventually Mum gave in, and let us stop going, and attributed every fault of ours in later life to not having played Sports! Whatever. I'll take the Wimbledon coverage anyday over actually having to walk onto a court again.

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Erk, another day of computer work, but at least I am making progress. It's some small comfort. I am spending time in my sewing room, but no sewing is taking place. I make my pattern packs in the sewing room, so I labour away at my cutting table, folding paper and stuffing plastic bags, in plain sight of my sewing machine and all my material. It's a form of torture.

The quilts that came home with me are these: a machine quilted version of a French vanne, all done with a walking foot so even a beginner can do it. It's a nice workshop that I teach, involving using a striped fabric to do the border with easy mitred corners, and then simple, simple quilting to finish off. This photo is taken on my deck, where I let the quilt hang for a day or two after spraying it with water to get rid of the crease marks from being folded up for so long. I like my quilts stored flat on a bed, with minimal folding.

Then there's this one, which I have posted before; it's the mate to my son's quilt, and I think I will have to make him use this one and give the other a rest. Every night of the year he sleeps wrapped in it, I seriously think he will wear it out.


And a woven sort of pattern that I copied from an old quilt I saw on Ebay about 6 years ago. Lots of quilting in that one, using a pattern from my Simply Sashes pack. I have the urge to do this in random scraps, which was why I was about to start looking for it. It's not like my luck to find it BEFORE I started looking.....

New blogger doesn't handle photos any better does it? Why ask for the formatting when they end up all over the place anyway? Hmphh.. I have made them smaller to make them behave a bit better, but if you click on them you can see more detail.

And lastly a photo of Bob, looking serene. He's a different kitty than the one who showed up nearly starved to death 2 years ago. He's still slightly neurotic, but he has his eating disorder under control (he used to eat whenever he was anxious) and is much more laid back now. He is my favourite cat out of the bunch, a real gentleman, but with a playful streak too. I wish I'd known him as a kitten.

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On saturday we went to the shopping centre to do our fortnightly shop, and as usual had a cup of coffee at the food court first. DH always has a cappucino, whereas I like plain back coffee with skim milk on the side. Simple, surely.

I cannot begin to describe the difficulties I have encountered over the years with my simple request. Plain black coffee, cold skim milk on the side. Coffee nazis at their machines have refused to serve it to me, have torn their hair out because they don't know what to call it on those cash registers that have a button for each menu item. I have been told that 'Management don't allow us to give out Milk!' One weevil sneered 'Just the way you have it at home I suppose...' Well yes, actually. It's my coffee, I am paying nearly $3.50 for it and I want it the way I want it!

This morning DH came back, after a very lengthy wait, with a cappucino and what looked suspiciously like a latte. It was. I would never drink that much milk, cold or hot, so I took it back. I explained to the serving lass that my husband had asked for 'Plain black coffee, cold skim milk on the side' and got this instead. 'That's a latte' she offered brightly. 'It's not what I wanted' Utter consternation on her part; I was given an expresso and a large takeaway cup full of milk. Still not right. She whisked away out the back to ask someone with more coffee seniority. Bedlam! No-one could get their heads around it. I said very carefully to the whole assembly of them 'Give me a long black, leave enough room for me to put some milk in please'. Ohhhhh! A long black!

You have to talk the coffee language to be understood apparently......

I quite like going shopping and stocking up the cupboards so that DS can't complain 'There's Nothing To Eat.....'. ($280 later and there's still Nothing To Eat? I don't think so!) But as we have 4 cats we have to spend a while in the pet aisle, loading up with tinned food. There are ridiculous conversations about whether they prefer pate to casserole, and was the lobster and crab mousse popular last time? It's not like we buy expensive catfood, but even processed abbatoir refuse and fish scrapings are labelled like human food. I don't know why we bother, because they seem to exist on dry food anyway. And what they can filch off the benchtops as we prepare the evening meal. 'Max, that's a Carrot....'

I'm working on website stuff and catalogue stuff and tax stuff and all of it is nasty. But the only way out is through, so I keep plodding away. I went to the local patchwork shop last week, to talk about class schedules etc, and discovered I had left four quilts there 18 months ago. Several things struck me about this. I had no memory of leaving them there. I had not been back for 18 months. They were not labelled, and the shop had sold in the meantime, and if I didn't know the new owner and she showed me the quilts then I may never have known where they ended up. I had been about to search for one of them in my house, and it would have driven me mad not being able to find it, and I could never have guessed where it was. Indeed, one I had written off as lost already, after weeks of turning the house upside down searching every place it could be.

I MUST LABEL MY QUILTS IN FUTURE!

And keep a log book of where they go to. I have quilts in shops all over Australia, and a couple in America as well. I need to track them down and keep tabs on them in future. Doesn't this go without saying? I should take a little more care of the things I put so much work into.

One of my favourite sayings; the price of beautiful things is loving care.

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15 years ago Meredith and I each purchased a copy of the book, The American Quilt Story, by Susan Jenkins and Linda Seward. It's a lovely book with many lovely antique quilts, but this one took Meredith's fancy. She talked constantly about making one like it, and I had to agree that it was gorgeous. It was made by Mary Hathaway Alden, and it was one of a pair. Meredith thought it would be great to match new fabrics to the photo, and recreate the exact same quilt. This was in the days before reproduction fabrics, so there was an element of challenge involved, to hunt down that many antique-looking pieces.

11 years ago Meredith had some devestating news. Her second son Robert, 11 at the time, was diagnosed with diabetes. Rob had to be taken to the Adelaide Children's Hospital to stabilse his condition. It was the start of many hospital visits. I felt so useless, being so far away, and unable at that time to leave my own family to go and help. I knew Meredith needed something to occupy her mind and her hands, and I came up with the idea of kitting up the hexagon quilt for her, so she could make a start on her quilt in the hospital, and then hunt down the rest of the fabrics over the coming months.

I cut out enough hexagons for about 7 of the rosettes, and strips of any fabric that I though she could use in the others, and sent it off to her. Then I began my own quilt, so that we were making a current day pair of quilts too.

I worked on this every year at Wimbledon time, sitting up late into the night with my stacks of pieces, industriously basting the material to the paper hexagons, then whip-stitching them together; all very English. It was a lot of fun, and I worked on it for more than four years, until it was finally pieced. Towards the end, when I had trouble finding anything at all that I could use to approximate the old fabrics, I had to use whatever I could. This was before the Stash came into existence!

It was so monstrously big! I hadn't worked out the final measurement when using a 1" hexagon, and the final measurements are 98" x 86". I was slightly appalled at the size, and thought it had grown to be a monstrosity, too big to fit any bed we owned; it was christened the Red Elephant.

Do Americans have White Elephants? It's an English thing; a White Elephant was anything that was more trouble than it was worth, or no use to the owner. White Elephant stalls at Fairs sell donated junk and household objects that no-one wants any more. It's any object that is out of place or not wanted or unsuitable. And my quilt was definitely unsuitable. But Red...I found an elephant print and made this rosette, and then came across this material for the backing. Perfect.For some mad reason I decided to hand quilt this baby, and it took more years than I care to remember, seeing as I can only handquilt in winter, and we get about 2 months of the year that even remotely resembles winter. It seemed never ending. The original was tied in every hexagon, and that must have taken a long time too.

In time we bought a bigger bed, with one of those very thick mattresses, and a large quilt became a necessity. Instead of this quilt being an embarrassment, it's the only one I've finished that actually fits the new bed. It has lived there ever since I took the final stitches in the binding 2 years ago, and every day when I make the bed I run my hand over the rosettes and smile at the memories.

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The star block pictured is one I sketched from an antique quilt I saw at Paducah. The quilt had only 9 blocks, and they were about 18" square, a little too large for my taste. So I drafted up the block in AutoCad Lite, and then resized it several times to see what I liked best. 14" seems about right, but the measurements for the triangles then became totally obscure.

There are three different sized triangles in each star point, and there is just no easy way to rotary cut them and get accurate measurements. The rulers just don't have that degree of accuracy. So I decided I'd better hand piece this, because I can make the templates easily no matter what size they are.

Here's what I do...

Print out the block. I've marked the different templates I need to make. EQ and other quilting programs will do this for you if the block is in the software library. If I can't cut out all the templates I need from the one print I make two or three.

I use a glue stick to stick the printout to my template material, and the little Olfa touch knife and steel ruler to cut the templates out. The touchknife is super-sharp, fits into the hand nicely so it's easy for anyone to use, even if you have hand problems, and is really easy to control.

As an aside, I will attempt just about anything with a needle and thread, but I'm hopeless with glue or paper or craft knives. Last weekend I was helping DH put rubber channel around the edges of the fairing on his bike, and narrowly avoided superglue-ing myself to the fairing as well. I did glue two fingers together briefly, which kept me busy all night trying to get rid of the residue. (Get some solvent next time!) I guess that would be the equivalent of putting butter on cat's paws to keep them occupied; my kids always loved picking bits of craft glue off themselves.

Stick the print to the chosen template material. My favourite is icecream lid plastic. If it was see-through it would be perfect. It's soft enough to cut easily, durable enough to trace around, cheap and it keeps the family happy too. They were in heaven when I discovered an 8 litre container with a lid large enough for even an outsize template.

I always place the steel ruler outside the shape I'm cutting, so that I can see the outline of the whole shape and I don't get confused about what line I'm meant to be cutting. The first cut is just a whisper-cut, to make sure I'm in the right place; with almost no pressure it's easier not to shift anything by mistake. The next couple of cuts go deeper, following the first cut, until with almost no effort the cutter goes all the way through. This is a much better way to cut than one deep stroke, which is usually wrong right from the start.

I work my way around the shape until the template piece is free of the rest of the plastic. Then I label it straight away, including on the back with a R for reverse. If the grainline is important I will mark that on the piece as well.

I never cut out adjacent shapes on my print; I always go to a new area that has the whole shape isolated.

I store my templates in zippered plastic bags that go into a ring binder, and put a printout of the block in with them so I know exactly what they are. I may never use them again, but they are there for someone else to borrow, or I may use an element of the block in some other project. It never hurts to be a little organised about these things.

Once I have the templates made I trace around them on the chosen fabric, leaving 1/2" in between the shapes. I judge this by eye, it doesn't have to be accurate, just so long as there is an adequate amount for a seam allowance. If I'm cutting dozens of one shape I often cut a strip wide enough to accommodate the shape and work with that rather than manhandle fabric yardage for extended periods. It also helps to keep the edges of my fabric neat, which is something I fret about; I hate my stash to look nibbled.....

And then I sew the pieces together with a backstitch, because I prefer it to running stitch. It may be slower, but I get a more even tension on the seam, and I think it's stronger in the long run; never had a seam come apart on me yet, after 34 years of quilting.

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Here is my Eastern Star that I hand-pieced many years ago. The sashing is a dark, dark red and black print, and all the stars are scrappy and fairly unplanned. Looking at the piccie of Tallulah's on Meredith's blog I see I could have varied the background material too, but it was easier to keep it all the same creamy white.

I started this in about 1996 I think, or maybe even 92. I know it was my Olympic sewing for many a year. I love watching tennis and football (Rugby and Rugby League) and cricket and the Olympics while I sew, and many projects were started specifically for sporting events. Some I just sew on until they are finished, others I work on only while that event is going; the Olympics and Wimbledon especially. It takes a while to finish them, but it means that each time the event comes around I don't have to do a mad scramble to find a project to work on.

I like the variety of different looks possible with this one block, just by arranging the light and dark values differently. The scrappiness was fun too, and the small size of the pattern pieces used up a lot of tiny precious scraps that weren't suitable for much else.

The hand-piecing is very soothing after a difficult day, and noiseless so I don't keep anyone up late at night. It's very satisfying to look over the pieced blocks before I pack up for the night, and feel that something has been achieved.

I will go into details in another post about how Meredith and I prepare our templates and patches. I've had a few private emails asking, and figure it would be a good blog entry.

I am going to have to have a mammoth binding session soon, as I have added another 6 quilts to the pile. I will have to be disciplined and do one a day. Most of the quilts are smallish, so I could just get stuck in and see results fairly quickly. I like how this tile pattern quilt turned out, with a panto called Jacobean on it. This piecing pattern is a traditional Morroccan tile pattern, and I Need to make another one in soft and pretty fabrics. This one is entirely from the scrap drawer and the fabrics are a bit cheesy. I love how the pieced back looks, I'm inspired to keep on stockpiling those 10" squares.

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I have run away from home for a few days, and I'm staying with my friend Kaye and quilting some quilts on one of her Statler computerised longarms. Her workshop is a place of wonders, a little slice of quilting heaven. I needed to catch up with the latest developments and get some of my tops quilted.

It's a nice break, and I'm enjoying the bushland setting, and the wildlife. These are some Sulphur Crested Cockatoos that come in for a feed each morning. There were 12 of them there yesterday, quite a gathering. There were kangaroos about early this morning, but I didn't get my camera in time.

It's actually been raining on and off since I got here, which is most welcome. The hills and fields here are so dry they look dark red and sunburnt, it's hard to believe that they will ever green up again. Water is a real worry for most Australians these days, Sydney has only a 2-4 year water supply if the normal rain pattern doesn't resume. This drought is very damaging.

I've tried out some new patterns, and I'm designing more, and just having a nice time of it. I will get home just in time to do the last minute Christmas stuff, and then relax and wait for the day. My treat to myself at Christmas is to do a few jigsaws and let everyone else take care of themselves.

The pattern on the Double Weave top is from my Pantograph Plus pack, and doesn't have a name yet. The pattern on the Single Irish Chain is Clover Meadow, which is still my favourite pattern. I just love the way it quilted up on this quilt; it's exactly the way I imagined it.

Time for lunch and more coffee, then it's back to work. Sometimes you have to get away from everyday life to get something achieved.

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