Time keeps running away from me, and I just can't keep up! I have actually had some things to blog about lately, but simply no time to edit photos and post them. I seem to have caught up today though, and I'm going to get busy on some personal projects in amongst the work stuff. That's the plan anyway.

I had to do a demonstration lecture on borders at the local quilt shop, and decided I needed to throw some blocks together so I could demo a mitred corner. Mereth could come up with 20 sets of blocks to put together at a moment's notice, but I don't tend to make completed sets like she does. If I complete all the blocks I put them into a quilt straight away, but I rarely do finish all of them. I usually lose interest after 4 or 5....

I had 22 blocks of a Many Trips Around The World that I was making for our bed, and made the executive decision to make a smaller quilt instead. (Pattern by Bonnie, over at Quiltville...) One UFO finished, a small quilt completed, more time to move onto the next project; it made perfect sense. Still does. The colours are way off in the photo of the whole quilt, they are like the smaller photo. It's nice and rich and intense, and quite big enough for the spare bed thank you!

And just to make this instructive, photos of how I do a mitred corner. I use a folded mitre, not a seamed one. I don't bother to measure 45 degrees on the border strips, because if the pieced centre isn't a perfect 90 degree angle then the 45 degree mitre won't fit it anyway. Often if you square the piecing up to 90 degrees you chop off points of triangles and lose seam allowances. None of which is necessary because all you need is a diagonal join, not a perfect 45 degree angle.

(Somebody please tell me the shortcut key for a degree symbol! Please!)

I sew my border strips on as usual, stopping the seam 1/4" away from the edge of the pieced top, so that I don't obstruct the seam allowance of the adjacent side. I back stitch for two or three stitches to secure the ends so that it won't come apart when I manipulate the strips in the next step. Then I lay the top on a large surface, like a table, padded with a towel, so I can iron on it. The surface needs to be large so you can lay out the top, one corner at a time, and make sure the corner is flat and the borders are laying right.
I make sure the pieced area is perfectly flat on the table, then fold one strip back at an angle roughly how I want it. Then I make sure that both borders are not stretched out or bent in or anything. Once it's lying nicely I fine tune that fold, matching seam lines between the pieced section and the very edge of the border. A pin through all the important points will hold it in place while you gently give it a press with the iron. No moving the iron back and forth, or you will disturb the placement.Next I pin the layers together, with the pin heads facing towards the outer border.And then I run a tacking stitch along the folded edge using the machine set on a long stitch.
The final step is to slip-stitch the fold to the fabric underneath, keeping the stitches small and unobtrusive. I tend to use a normal applique stitch for this, and if I'm being fastidious I may even change thread colour for the different fabrics, but it would have to be a special quilt to make me do that. I usually choose a thread that will match most colours, and be extra careful to hide the stitches if the thread wants to show up.

I trim the seam to about 3/8", remove the tacking thread and it's finished.
Folding the mitre made short work of this heavily pieced border on my Roman Stripe quilt from last year. This would have been nasty to do as a seam, with all those seam allowances going the same way. The whole quilt is in the post for September 23, 2006, if you want to see it again.
I can't be bothered going to the extra effort of sewing this seam on the machine, getting it wrong, unpicking it, trying again etc. I do folded mitres on all my quilts, and if I didn't tell people, they'd mostly never pick it.

Read more...

Last night I wanted to sew a small block just for fun, so I made a little Double X block. I loved how it turned out, and would like to make 20 of these blocks. They are 9" finished, and will have 1.5" sashing, so it will only be a small quilt. Knowing me it will probably grow into another monster, but it's a delicate little block so I'd be happy to leave it as a small wallhanging or lap quilt.

With the magic of EQ6 I laid it out roughly how I want it to be, and put a few other blocks in there as well. I'm really liking the looks of this, it's rather formal and elegant. It will be quick and fun to do, and I think I will kit it up so that I can work on it when I get a spare day or two.

Debbie asked, in the comments:

"Hope this isn't received as nagging, but when you get some time, would you consider a post about how you kit-up a project? Would love to watch over your shoulder when you do this, and learn maybe some tips on this especially for a scrappy project. The hot weather coming up here in North America cries out for small and portable projects."

I've never actually thought of this as a set process, because I kit different quilts in different ways. Most of my kits are somewhat controlled in colouring, because that makes it easier to plan and cut. Totally scrap would be a bit of a challenge unless I worked with generic size strips that I have already cut.

I don't think I can do justice to this subject in a single post, so I will take photos as I kit up the Double X, and share my thoughts on the process as I go.

And this just may end up as the border for the Maverick Stars, but then again it may not. It's a tad big I think. I'm still cogitating....

Read more...

I am not missing having the huge pile of scraps! I even went to the LQS and bought some new fabric, something I haven't done in a long time. It was very refreshing to see bolts of fabric, instead of shreds.

The materials for the borders, sashes, corner-posts and future binding all came from deep stash. That's stash that's more than 4 years old. I wanted another fabric for the small pink border, but I only had a FQ, which is why I was at the LQS trying to match it. 'It's, oh, about 2 years old...' I told the assistant. No Luck. When I got home I looked through my fabric books, and found that I bought that FQ in Paducah, 5 years ago. Time does march on.

My resolution not to make large quilts went out the window with this quilt. It fits the QS bed, and that's bigger than I intended but it just wanted to be like that. I am helpless in the face of such insistence. I just do what I'm told. Several blocks, like the diamond star and the one to the right of the M block, are pieced with leftover strips from the 1" checkerboard of the Maverick Stars.

I did get a bit desperate towards the end, when I needed three more crumby blocks and the pile of scraps was blechh and down to the dregs. That's when I raided the orphan block pile, and came up with the larger bits and pieces to use as the beginnings of a crumb block. They turned out to be my favourite blocks, that's always the way.

The Initial blocks were just because I've never monogrammed a quilt before. If I had any sense I would have made a '7' block to date it to this year. I may applique that on one of the blocks still, wouldn't take a minute. And I made them blue because it is so out of character for me to be noticeable; I like to be wallpaper, in the background observing, quietly enjoying. I don't do the centre-stage thing happily, and I still feel uneasy at how noticeable these letters are. How bizarre! It's MY quilt! I need to get over that.

I had another border planned, and it was just beautiful. Wrong border for this quilt though, so it's in the ideas basket and I will get round to developing it with another quilt. It was sooo pretty; it always amazes me that in the process of finishing one quilt I stumble across ideas for at least three more. That's why there will always be new quilts to make.

What to start next! I think I may actually quilt something, and then there's a darling thing that Mereth is working on, and I could do some blocks for that to help out... I love this moment, when there's so much delicious choice of what to do next. Once the project is begun I get obsessed at seeing progress and work too hard, so I really enjoy the deep breath before it all starts again.

Who am I kidding? I enjoy all of it. (Though the other night I cleaned the dishwasher filter rather than face those sashing seams right away...)

Read more...

How slack of me, leaving a photo of cheese as the latest post on the blog for a week. I will have to try and do better than that this week. I do have progress on my various projects to show, but I'm being stubborn and want to post the finished product, not the interim photos. So with a bit of effort today I should have one top finished and another well on the way.

Let me just say I am sick of eeny-weeny scraps and want to chop up some Yardage! On the good side I have used up all my wodges and little bits, and now there are just strips left in the scrap drawers. That is a major achievement, seeing these scrap bins were full of snippets from 15 years of quilts. I hope I never accumulate that many again, it was overwhelming. I am going to pick a block, like Crosses and Losses, and make all my scraps into those blocks, not let them pile up in a mountain again.

Later....

I sewed madly all day, in between computer work and running errands, and now I have a finished top but it's too dark to get a good photo, so that will have to wait till tomorrow. I am very pleased with this, it's absolutely mad and one of a kind and made just for me. I can imagine perfectionist Quilt Police types having a fit over it, but I love everything about it. It's Mine! We loves it.....

I am showing you two of my favourite blocks; more tomorrow.



We have had drama with our Maxi-cat, who was attacked by a marauding stray tom. We took him to the vet to be patched up, and he's recovering nicely. If I had a gun I would happily shoot the stray, he's a vile creature. And I'm quite a good shot too, so I wouldn't miss the bugger. Bob is our official Care-Cat; whenever one of the others is sick or in trouble Bob comes to tell us, and then sits close to the afflicted one, being a good friend. I've never seen a cat do that before; he and Max don't always get on, but whenever Max is unwell Bob will be right there next to him. We adore Bob!

DH is in Brisbane for a week, helping shift his mum's furniture into new accommodation. She will stay on at the old house for another month, so it's a gradual move for her, and when the time comes she should be ready to go. It will be a bit of a wrench not to have a Brisbane base anymore, we always stayed with the in-laws when we went to Brissy, so now I will have to impose on my friends for a blanket on the floor. I will bring wine......

I hope I can do a lot of sewing and get all my work stuff up to date in the next few days, seeing as I can stay up all night if I want to. If I can! I don't know if I can do the all-night thing these days, but I'll give it a try.

And now, supper! Why have I never realised before how wonderful green olives are? DH and I went out on the bike last week, and packed a picnic with lots of antipasto type foods. I reluctantly tried one of his olives, expecting to hate it, and was instantly smitten. And they taste great with the nightly G & T as well. Though tonight I'm having a pleasantly robust Shiraz; it has to have some sort of muscle, to compete with that cheese. And I'm not game to eat that rind, it's a leetle funky even for me....

Read more...

I'm not capable of coherent thought tonight, I've been slaving away at business stuff and will have to work over the weekend to get things finished. But there has been sewing; while I'm printing packs I sew leader and ender pieces, and the blocks are building up. I also managed to get the Maverick Stars in one piece, and now it can hang on my lounge-room wall for a while until I decide what sort of border to use as a finish. I like looking at it at night, all the crazy angles and little scraps. I'm very fond of it now. I don't know whether to make it 12 blocks, I don't think I'm finished with those stars yet....

I have done my run on the treadmill, watching my football team get beaten, and now I'm going to have a late supper. Does this look even remotely edible? It's positively glowing! But with a glass of red wine it will be divine.....

Read more...

This is a quilt I made for my son about 15 years ago. I had made a sample block for a house quilt, and didn't use the block in the final quilt. I added strips of blue fabric around the block till it was wide enough, and then added more top and bottom until it was the right size for the top of the mattress. The checkerboard border used up a heap of extra 4-patches from another project. It was super-quick to make and used up a lot of leftovers . I quilted it by machine, and it's still in good shape despite all the hard use it had.

I had plans to make a similar quilt for my DD, using a floral applique block in the centre, but somehow it never happened. I may go through my orphan blocks and see if any of them lend themselves to the same treatment; it's such an easy way to arrive at a finished top.

The other picture is of a Postage Stamp quilt that I made to showcase an English quilting design that I drew up for one of my books. It took more than two years to hand quilt using my floor frame, and despite my best efforts the summer sun faded the pink border fabric. The binding is the same fabric, but looks darker. One of the perils of quilting slowly in a climate with fierce summers.

I have been sewing madly on the Maverick Stars, but I haven't made any progress that looks any different, just more stars and more pieced sashing and more incidental crumb blocks. They will both finish at the same time with a flourish I am sure, so all of a sudden I will have two tops, no more scraps and a clear work table. I can't wait.

Read more...

My Dad was manager of the Interior Decorating Department at a local department store, and every season he brought home the samples that had been discontinued. We had carpet and wallpaper books to play with, delicious pamphlets showing the outdated laminex fashions, and sample books of the new-fangled printed vinyl that you could use for shower curtains or tablecloths.

This was the age of embossed and flocked wallpaper, and enormous murals of Greek ruins and desert vistas. We adored these, and desperately wanted Dad to paper our walls with these emotive scenes, but they were too expensive.

Our enterprising mother duly covered all our school exercise books with wallpaper and vinyl samples, and those patterns were ingrained into my subconscious over the years. I seem to have spent most of my time at school colouring in the designs on my book covers, mad with boredom at the lessons. I wonder if I developed my love of design from those patterns I studied so deeply, or if I just inherited it from my father. Hard to tell. I do know that the lessons left few memories, and the designs have stayed with me.
These sort of painted roses just tug on my heartstrings no matter where I see them; sheets, bone china, postcards, fabrics....

Note the 3-D appearance on the back of the samples. One of the ways I used to amuse myself was to see the leaf veins as popping out, and then try to see them as sinking down into the leaf. It takes a while, but suddenly it seems to change dimension, and you can't understand how you couldn't see it before. I have this ability to be able to imagine what a line drawing will look like as a3D object, which is really useful when I'm designing my quilting patterns; maybe I developed that knack from these dimensional wallpapers.

Meredith, when photographing these books for my post, discovered that within the binding of them is a 2" piece of every sample that was left when Mum cut out the page. Deconstructing the book will let us see all those familiar and loved patterns again. We'll have to think about whether we want to destroy what remains of the binding, not an easy decision.

Incidentally, at the time I cried bitter tears because Mum wouldn't buy brown paper coverings for our books, like all my friends had. I must have been shallow.

Read more...

There has been some chat on Stashbuster about mixed quilting techniques, and I thought I would show you my very first proper machine free-motion stitched on a real quilt. I had made countless samples and practise pieces, but this is the first FM quilting that made it onto a quilt and stayed there. The body of the quilt is done by hand, the border by machine.

I made this quilt around 17 years ago, because I saw a picture of a similar one in a British quilting book and immediately saw how I could strip piece it quickly. My kids were 2 and 3 at the time, and I had very little quilting time; quick was good. Because the original quilt was Welsh, I named this Welsh Bricks.

The colour scheme came from a description of a black and white photo of another old English quilt; rectangles of lavender and buff dress fabrics. I loved the sound of that, and made up my mind to use only those colours and variants in this quilt.

The top took less than 2 days to make; the strip piecing worked perfectly. Hand-quilting was a different matter. I began quilting it that week, but it was still not finished a year later, and I rashly promised it to a friend to hang in an exhibition. I still had no time, and I decided to throw tradition to the winds and finish the border with new-fangled machine quilting.

I wish there had been someone around then to
tell me what I should and shouldn't have done. Number one would have been check the thread tension straight away. I knew to do this on my samples, but the stress of quilting a real quilt made it fly out of my head.

The tension on the whole border is simply dreadful, as the close-up shows. Click on the picture to see it in awful detail. But I figured that no-one would be able to see it in the exhibition, and I would pull it out and re-do it later. I also did my first binding completely by machine on this quilt, and I like how it turned out, so I do all my quilts this way now.

Once the quilt came back from the exhibition my DD claimed it for her bed, where it did sterling service for 10 years or so. Somehow I lost the urge to correct the quilting mistakes, and went on to bigger and better things. Oddly enough, there is not a broken stitch anywhere, in all that dreadful quilting.

That became the basis for my philosophy of correcting mistakes. Live with it for a month; if it still bothers you, pull it out. It hasn't fixed itself, you can come back to it any time, if you still care enough. No-one in my family cared about the back of this quilt, just how warm and pretty it was. It still works as a quilt. And I could still fix it if I wanted, but I use it to reassure my students that their work will improve too, and that even their beginning efforts will be useful and appreciated.

I struggled with the thread tension for years, and ended up modifying the foot that goes on my Janome and a lot of other machines. The top thread had insufficient tension, and was being dragged under by the bottom thread. I tied a piece of bias binding around the upright of the foot, beneath the spring, so that there was less downward pressure on the foot. It meant I could move the quilt more smoothly, not dragging it along and reefing the thread through the tension discs. I know I can't prove anything, but I almost feel like the foot was keeping the needle bar slightly elevated, and releasing the tension discs. It was a cheap solution, and I've shown it to my students with the same good results.

Nadine on Quilt Epiphany has done the same thing to her Bernina foot.....

And the last photo today is the beginnings of my quest for herbal self-sufficiency. I have lots of parsley, Curled and Italian, dotted around the garden. I adore parsley, when we go out to dinner I filch everyone's parsley garnish and eat that instead of dessert. It makes my heart glad to see my plants growing so happily; now to see if the grasshoppers leave any for me.

Read more...

I spent a lovely day in the garden, sewing seeds and repotting plants and planning a garden bed under two huge fiddlewood trees. It seems ages since I had time to work in the garden for as long as it needs, I've barely been able to keep things alive over the summer. But now that the beautiful autumn weather is here I am finding the time to potter around and put everything to rights.

I usually over-extend myself with grandiose plans, so this year I'm concentrating on herbs and salad plants. I want to be self-sufficient in parsley, mint, shallots and simple salad plants like spinach and my new passion, Japanese Mizuna mustard greens. So lovely, I keep picking leaves to eat every time I go past the window-box where they are growing.

I was working on my roses when I saw this fellow. He was so gorgeous I removed him for a photo shoot. I don't approve of the way he is devouring my roses, but I know he will turn into a beautiful butterfly, and the world needs butterflies as well as roses.

I could hardly believe the intricate detail of him, I could only see it when I had the photos in PhotoShop. He's 4" long, and the black, cream and madder patterns of him mimic my favourite reproduction palette perfectly. Some of it even looks like stipple quilting patterns.

His false face was fascinating. When I touched him he would bury his real head and his tail would rear up, with the red horns attracting attention and the dots exactly like eyes. Just an amazing defence mechanism. Still, lovely as he is, I hope he doesn't have too many brothers and sisters out there in the garden.

There are several interesting things flowering at the moment, but this is the strangest. It's some tropical thing, I may try and track down the name of it later. It's growing up the cedar tree, and laden with these strange flowers. Click on the picture to make it bigger and see the detail. It's incredible the way it all fits together.

There is pattern and inspiration in everything around us. Caterpillars and flowers and wallpaper books and seed packets and tiled floors; it's good to be able to take parts of our ordinary lives and weave them into our patchwork. All the colours and shapes I see in my garden and my possessions contribute to the quilts I plan and design. It makes the creative process multi-dimensional, combining memories and symbols, favourite images and patterns.

Read more...

I gave myself a stern talking-to this morning. How could I call myself a Maverick Quilter if odd-shaped scraps made me queasy? What sort of free spirit could I be if I couldn't handle the sight of my table covered in fabric confetti? Was Order so important to me that it got in the way of creativity? How could I go on saving all these scraps if I was incapable of dealing with them? My hoarding of pieces then becomes a neurosis, not a virtue. I really thought I would enjoy this but it wasn't happening.

I realised that I was feeling overwhelmed because I was actually sewing three things at once, with different techniques. I was foundation piecing the stars, crumb-piecing the tiny bits, strip-piecing the sashes and trying to do a leader-ender project as well. I had made no attempt to organise myself so that I could find the bits for each section. I had upended 5 containers of scraps and was burrowing through the mess and not enjoying it one bit. Small wonder! I needed Order so that I could create without interruption.

So I packed away leader and ender pieces, to work on with my next quilt. Then I sorted the scraps into strips and squarish offcuts (henceforth referred to as wodges) and put away all the modern material that wouldn't fit in this particular quilt. That alone was a huge help.

I've made a lot of the pieced sashing , so I put all those all aside to work on later. I gathered up all the stuff for the stars and put that in one spot. And because there was just soooo many small scraps I decided to make 9" blocks in a combination of crumb and crazy piecing to use it all up.

I began sewing the wodges together, with no rhyme or reason. I picked up a bit, found something with a side that measured roughly the same and sewed them together. I did NOT at any stage use my judgement! I merely sewed. I did that for about an hour, then stopped and pressed all the little pairs. Then I repeated the same process to make bigger pieces. By this stage they were long enough to sew to strips, and trim the edges straight again. Behold, I was crumb-piecing!!

When we were in high school we used to go to country dances, in wonderful old community halls. The old-style dances were a joy, and we loved memorising the steps and twirling around those well-worn floors with the country boys. The steps were a recipe for success, everyone doing the same thing, to the same music, and all the dancers part of the intricate pattern.

Mum had been a wonderful dancer in her time, and the love of dancing was something we had in common. Once when watching an old movie we commented on the outrageous dancing some 1930's couple was doing. 'That!" snorted Mum derisively. "That's not dancing. That's jitterbugging." "Did you do that?" we asked, and Mum replied " I most certainly did not. I could have, but I didn't want to." Well it certainly looked like fun anyway.

We have always doubted that Mum ever could have jitterbugged; she just couldn't let loose and go with the flow. She was all about control. She was all about following the steps and getting the right result. That's how she was, but it's not how I want to be. So today when I came to the conclusion that I was being too staid and conservative I threw caution to the winds and just went wherever the scraps led. And I had fun. I made blocks.


How come I have to work so hard to do what comes naturally to people like Bonnie and Tonya? It's a mystery to me. I guess some people are born jitterbuggers, some people never want to do it, and some, like me, can learn if they try hard enough.

Read more...

Collections

I have collecting genes on both sides of the family. My maternal great-grandmother was renowned for never passing up the opportunity to buy a yard of lace, and my (Scottish) paternal grandfather donated 2000 books on Robbie Burns to the National library. My Mum had a serious wool and fabric stash, and my father cherished wood and old furniture.

The photo is that same great-grandmother's sewing basket, with a leather box that once held celluloid collars belonging to my Scottish grandfather. Both inspired me to acquire other baskets and boxes over the years.

I have collected lots of things, but always with limitations. Nothing cracked or chipped or broken. Nothing too easy to find; the hunt is most of the fun. Nothing popular and expensive. If the things I collect do become sought after, I stop collecting them, because I won't pay huge amounts for things I once picked up for a few dollars. It's that Scottish side coming out. As I have down-sized my possessions I've sold a lot of the things I once collected so happily, and I don't miss them at all. And I don't really collect anything now. We change as we get older, obviously.

I did have a serious thing with moulds. Jelly moulds, shortbread moulds, cookie cutters, biscuit makers, ravioli presses, chocolate moulds. I love the idea of being able to replicate exact copies.

I also love making things assembly line, lots and lots at a time. When the kids were little I got so carried away making their clothes one winter that there were 26 T-shirts to choose from in their cupboard. I make my own skirts and shirts in multiples of 5, and it seems to hardly take any more time. I would rather do three zips than one. Strange.

Maybe that's why I adore patchwork too, because so much of it is sewing the same sort of units together, one after the other. It's an act of creative meditation, making clusters of things all to the same pattern.

I was working in the garden on the weekend, and as I planted some seeds it occurred to me that they are the ultimate in replications. From when we were too young to read Meredith and I have been dazzled by the allure of seed packets. Plant these strange knobbled little lumps and they will all turn into nasturtiums, just like on the packet. Want a daisy, or purple beans, or carrots? Just buy the seeds and follow the instructions.

Meredith still has the seed packets we pored over as 4 year olds, a beautiful little slice of the packaging of the time and the promise of good things to come.

And as well as gardening I worked on the Maverick Stars, trying to decide on a setting.
I am rather partial to this checkerboard of 1" squares, which is devouring the 1 1/2" strips in the container at a great rate. I may use a different block as a cornerstone, but I'll decide that later on. I just need to make some more stars. and get busy with those sashing strips. Soon I will have conquered my scraps and strings entirely!!

Actually all I will have achieved is another quilt top, a lot of much smaller scraps and none of the blue fabric leftover. That seems to be the way of scrap piecing.

Read more...

Today I delivered the paperwork for our taxes to the accountant, which is a major achievement. I decided I needed a small treat, so I allowed myself to do some cutting for my next leader and ender project.

Last week Meredith sent me this link to a quilt on Ebay. (I hope the seller doesn't mind me posting the picture here)

I was mildly intrigued by the block, and drew up something similar in EQ6, and fiddled and mucked about a bit. I decide it would be nice pieced as scrap, and I played with settings and different piecing methods until I came up with about 16 variations. Then I made a sample block, and liked it, and decided it would be the block to use up all my remnant 2 1/2" strips.

This is what I've been piecing: it's my ideal block. For each one I make 3 half square triangle units, a dark and a light 2 1/2" square, and a dark and a light 2 1/2" x 4 1/2" rectangle. It's so easy, especially as I have most of these precut and leftover from other projects.

Then I went reading on the Maverick ring, and realised that what I had laboured over in EQ6 was virtually the same thing that Bonnie was making with her baby quilt. Doh! But I still like my blocks, and all the variations I drew up, and I'm piling up the blocks. They are a delight to piece, and they are using up those leftover 2 1/2" strips. I like it on point as well, so I may just amass a huge amount of these blocks and make several quilts.

I haven't abandoned the Maverick Stars, but I'm trying to decide on a setting before I forge ahead. And I have discovered that I dislike crumb piecing and using up odd-shaped scraps. It's too disordered for me, it causes me real anxiety. I guess once I get rid of this lot of scraps I won't make another quilt like this. I will donate all the odd shaped bits to someone who actually enjoys working with them.

Blame any spelling mistakes in this post on my latest craze; DH came home from the pub extolling the virtues of Gin & Tonic. Whatever, I thought, but he bought all the fixings and made me one. Hmmm, I thought, that isn't bad. I have read so many autobiographies of British expatiates in the tropics, and Gin and Tonic seemed to be the drink of choice. I live in the Tropics. Therefore I should drink Gin and Tonic. It makes sense to me...... It's a very complex blend of flavours, and I haven't tired of it yet.

I do like discovering things that I like. For years we ate very mediocre meals because that was all we could afford, or the kids wouldn't eat anything except boiled pasta and steak and gravy. Now we are discovering a whole world of fantastic flavours and tastes, and it's fun. I have lived on spinach, feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes for the last 6 months, washed down with red wine. Mmmmm!

Read more...

The weekend was not very productive, but extremely relaxing, and a most welcome change of pace. I worked on some more Maverick Stars, finetuning the pattern to make it easier to piece. I don't mind set-in seams, but I need a project that won't take forever to piece, so I've changed the size and the way I'm piecing it. The block goes together really fast, with no awkward spots, and I'm happy with how the finished blocks are looking. Now for the perrenial question, what size d oI make this thing?

My goal is to completely empty three small scrap containers like the ones shown. I've been hoarding some of these bits for 10 years and I'm sick of them. My problem when I finally come to use the saved scraps is that I try to conserve them, use up every last little thread, and that's not the aim of the game. I need to use them up and throw away the leftover bits and move on. Not agonise how I can get two teeny bits out of a mere snippet; use another snippet and get on with it!

If I don't maintain some sort of pace then I get mired down worrying which way is the most economic use of fabric and then I go and clean out the Tupperware cupboard instead because it's all too hard.

Read more...

I had an extremely stressful week, which I declared officially ended as I hefted the last parcel onto the counter at the Post Office. I do love getting big orders from shops, but I like to have more than 2 days notice! And three enormous orders in one week was a record.

I bought EQ6 last week, and it arrived today. I am playing, and watching the instructional videos, and drinking red wine and making more of the Maverick Stars. The weekend, a Stashbuster Retreat, is shaping up well.....

Read more...

Meredith and I swap a list of short-term goals each week, in an attempt to make us more focussed on what we need to be doing. Sad to say, my list is often the same for a month or more. I rarely get to cross everything off, even though they are all worthy items. I need some motivation. I did manage to finish the couch cover, which involved a bit of muscle as it was very thick decorator fabric and rather heavy when it was all in one piece.

(Incidentally, that white stick leaning in the background? That's my craft lamp. Every standard lamp I've ever bought has ended up like this, because the kids sit watching TV and play with them, twirling them round and wrecking the threads that hold the whole lot together. And it's another thing they don't grow out of either; even DH is guilty. One day I am going to splurge on one of those floor-standing Ott lights, and heaven help ANYONE who even breathes on it.)

I've decided that when I get my current list finished (20 items, but some are very tiny goals) I am going to allow myself to join a fabric club, probably a Judy Rothermel Civil War one. I have been virtually no-buy for 5 months now, and I don't miss the stash acquisition at all. In fact, as I am now doing my taxes and totting up all the fabric purchases from the year before, I am very relieved that I haven't spent any more on material. But I need something affirmative in my life, I seem to be working 10 hours a day lately. Working with my current stash is not very exciting, so a little infusion of Judy's wonderful range of reproductions would maybe pique my interest. First I have to get busy crossing things off the list.

Couch cover - check!
Post blog entry - check!!

Remember this blue and white quilt on Mereth's blog? This is my version of the same pattern. It's amazing how the different fabrics can vary the appearance of a simple block. My quilt hangs above our bed normally, but it has been retired for a rest as it was getting pulled out of shape. I'm thinking that to replace it I'd like to make a wall-hanging from those tumbler shapes that were on my design wall a few posts ago. It can go on my list of things to do....

Read more...

An interim photo of the sewing room, clean-up in progress. I've cleared away a lot of the clutter and fabric, sorted the scraps and put away the sewing tools. I need to reorganise the storage though, as I can't get to the cupboard where the strips of fabric are stored, and I need to change that. But there will be sewing taking place very soon, which will be a major achievement, even though it will only be turning the 7 metres of fabric on the floor there into a couch cover for the lounge room. It's on my list of things to do, and it will get that big wad of material out of the room and off my concsience.

Mereth was talking about her 'Never Again' sewing moment in this post; my personal moment was 15 years ago when I was asked to make 17 pairs of 'Happy Pants' for a bowling team, 9 men and 8 women. They were simple elastisized pants, with side pockets, but the material chosen was a wool/polyester plaid in a very large assymetrical check, which meant it was a pig to cut out and match the lines. Then they bought a single copy of a woman's pants pattern, which meant I had to cut out all the larger sizes first, then cut the pattern down for each smaller size, destroying the pattern in the process so I had to get it right first time. And I had to recut all the pieces for the men because they didn't want the waist as high as the ladies pants. I had to measure all 17 people in the lunch room at the bowling club, and taking the inside leg measurement of 9 strange men in public is not my idea of fun. The whole thing was a disaster, and I vowed that I would never again sew clothing for other people.

I thought that the whole incident was lost to everyone's memory, thankfully, until two years ago when my daughter was having driving lessons. She parked outside the house, and her driving instructor got out of the car and said 'You made happy pants for us' and I could have died. Let's draw a veil over that whole sorry episode. Last weekend while cleaning up the yard I noticed something half-buried in the ground under the trees; I couldn't believe that it was a scrap of the revolting plaid from those pants. It's haunting me.

Read more...