I made this quilt to use up a pile of 2.5" strips, and it worked well. I really like the block because it uses large pieces and goes together very quickly. I'm callling it a Stacked Album, because I'm too lazy to go look in EQ6 and see if it has a proper name.From the 2.5" strips cut one 10.5" rectangle and two 6.5" rectangles. Cut two 2.5" squares.From the background fabric cut two 4 1/8" squares and cross-cut diagonally twice, to give 8 large triangles. Cut two 2.5" squares and cut them once diagonally, to give 4 small triangles.

Sew a large triangle to each side of the 6.5" rectangles and the squares.
Make sure they look like this when finished. Snick off those dogears at the edge.Fold a 6.5" rectangle in half and crease; do the same with a square.Line the folds up and pin.
This aligns the edges in the correct place, so all you have to do now is sew the seam.

Add these two pieced bits to the centre 10.5" strip in the same way, matching centre creases.
Then add the corner triangles.

Your block will look like this; it may be a little mis-shapen; I trimmed mine to 9".

As I said, I'm done with the red and gren strips, now I want to do something totally different. Red and BLUE!

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I've been sewing madly in between other chores today, and much progress has been made. I've finished adding the sashing strips to the PA Dutch quilt, once Mereth professed herself totally over it, with only the outside bits to do. I wanted to see this in one piece, so I completed it, and will choose borders tomorrow when the light is good. Rule number 1. is never choose borders or sashings at night; it all looks different the next day. I will post a photo of the whole thing later.

I'm sooo pleased with how this little quilt turned out; I can just see it as the backdrop for our Christmas tree, so I'd better get it quilted without delay. I will do up the directions for it as it was a delight to stitch, and used up whole bunches of my red and green strips. I don't feel like I've finished with the block yet, I enjoyed stitching it so much, so there might be another one in a diferent set of fabrics soon.

And I put the borders on all the placemats and they're just waiting to be quilted and I can cross them off the list. I think I may be done with the whole red and green thing for a while.....

Settlement day for my hall is getting closer, and I'm trying not to be impatient. We went up there yesterday to have another look, and it's almost empty so I took some photos. We could have a dance in that back area, if we ripped up the ghastley blue carpet. There is dreary wood grain lino beneath it, and pine boards under that. Hopefully the boards will be worth polishing at some date far in the future. I need windows out there far more urgently.

I read on Nadine's blog about her dilemma with inaccurate rulers and markings; Mereth and I have found the same thing with different brands of rulers. Mereth is much more concerned with accuracy than I am, I tend to fudge and trim and lop off what shouldn't be there, while she wants everything to measure what it should. Many of my rulers have variable measurements, which is a bit frightening; the longer the ruler the more it shows up. It's hard even to know what to use as a standard, but I measure them against a steel engraved ruler as the markings on those are very fine and easy to see. So far I think my Omnigrip ruler is the most accurate, but I only have one of those. I don't think I'll be replacing all my rulers any time soon though. My 6" pinwheel blocks had 44 pieces each, and were 1/16" larger than they should have been, but I can certainly live with that.

Of course, once you start doubting you can never be sure of anything!

I remember when I was in primary school we were subjected to a visit from the School Inspectors each year. They were exalted beings, and even teachers, those lordly beings, were scared of them. I recall two visits very clearly. One inspector, to demonstrate the weight of air, borrowed Gavin Lugg's wooden ruler and balanced it half on, half off the desk; laid a large sheet of paper over and hit it karate style, snapping it in half. We were all astonished, not that he had proved himself so thoroughly, but that he just calmly handed Gavin's useless ruler back to him.

Another inspector picked up a ruler (I guess they just had to work with whatever was handy) and flummoxed the class by asking 'How do you KNOW this is a foot long? It could be wrong!' He then launched into a dreary talk about official standards for weights and measures, but in that instant I had become a sceptic, and learned a valuable lesson; Trust Nothing!

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I've hardly stopped sewing this weekend, it's been just wonderful. These are just some progress photos, to show you what I've been working on.There were two drawers of red, yellow and green 2 1/2"strips that I cut years ago for a Pennsylvania Dutch quilt. Mereth began sewing these blocks in April, and I finished up the last four yesterday, so now there are 31. ( I miscounted what we needed.) They will have their setting decided sometime later, right now I'm moving on to the next projects destined to use up all those strips


This is ultra simple, and will have a blue or green setting fabric to make them look suitably Pennsylvanis-Dutchish. They are so easy to sew they multiply like magic, so I won't stop making these until the containers are empty.

And they nearly are, after making 22 of these blocks, and 6 Christmas table runners.
Plus the 20 ninepatch blocks from my Pretties. I tell you, I'm out of control!! There are two other sets of blocks on the design wall too, but I won't show them just yet.

Mereth came round last night after tea, and I moved the TV into the sewing room and we sewed till 3.30am. It was a brilliant night, watching Seinfeld episodes and then Harry Potter movies. We weren't even tired when we decided to call it a night, and both pulled up just fine this morning. Maybe we're not too old to do this sort of thing after all.

I have to curtail my sewing efforts for a while, as it's Carols In The Park tonight, and Mereth and are going to wander up there with chairs and join in the singing. I've been listening to the sound checks all afternoon, and some of the performers are very good. It's making me feel all Christmassy at last.

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Judy is having a Quiltathon weekend, and I'm joining in. I'm in a mad keen sewing mood anyway, so I might as well dignify it by calling it an official Quiltathon, and the last one for 2008.

I'm sewing these blocks first, made of leftovers from my pinwheel quilt. They are so pretty that it's slightly saccharine, but I figure there will be enough for a sweet, girly quilt and then I can go back to my muddy 1800s reproductions that I love so much. And if I don't 'do' pretty then why on earth do I have so many in my stash??

I'm going to get the borders on this quilt this weekend, and piece a backing out of those two fabrics. Then there is nothing else to do except load it on the machine and quilt away.


In the comments Stephanie remarked " I love pinwheels too-these look like spinning ones surrounded by clouds of fairy floss, like you'd find at a rural show." I thought this was amazing, as I've been calling it the Showgrounds quilt as I worked on it. The pinwheels reminded me of the ones we got at the Crystal Brook show each year, and the pretty flowery fabric was a reminder of the long grass and the wildflowers, and all the colours of the crowds and exhibits. So I think it's going to be called Country Show from now on.

And as an aside, this little salt shaker is a keepsake from the Crystal Brook show when I was about 7. I won him on one of those clown games, and I begged and begged for another go, so I could win the pepper one as well, but Mum wasn't sympathetic. I thought he was truly gorgeous, and it made me sad to think he would never be re-united with his mate. I was an odd child; I even felt sorry for the teacups in our china cabinet that didn't have matching saucers. I think I needed to get out a bit more......

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I seem to have gone a little mad today, and my design wall is full of new blocks that I want to work on. I can't seem to choose which one to concentrate on first, so I am making them all, and getting in a fine old mess. Mereth sat and chatted to me, and cut pieces if I needed them, and wanted to know why on earth I was working on 5 things at once. Who knows, but I had a delightful day in my sewing room. Pictures tomorrow, it's too late to take photos tonight.

My pretties quilt is in one piece and just needing borders. I think it turned out well, and I'm planning some spectacular quilting for it once Millhouse is free of customer quilts. I bought the backing for it while I was in Perth, so I'm all ready to start quilting as soon as I do the borders. It will be so nice to finish one of my own quilts for a change.

I've made 6 Log Cabin quilts in my time, and it's a block I love. I always think I'd like to do it with smaller strips, and for a while I've been stockpiling 1 1/4" strips for just that purpose. When I did the 1" pinwheels for the pretties quilt I had heaps left over, and I though it would be cute to use them for the start of the log cabins. I like how it's turning out, so it's one of the projects up on the design wall. It makes my head spin using these as leader-enders, adding all the rounds on in between sewing other blocks. I am getting lost and putting things on the wrong side, or confusing light and dark rounds. I need to slow down and take more care of what I'm doing. But they are tremendous fun, and I have a whole drawer of strips that Mereth cut from my Judie Rothermels, and it will be fun to start using them.

These last photos are of a garden next to my brother's place in WA. I have no idea what these native flowers are, but it was a spectacular shrub. I took a lot of photos of it, the flowers were different at every stage of develoopment, and it was truly amazing.

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Yesterday our patchwork group had it's Christmas outing, and we went off in three cars for a Mystery Tour. Only the two organisers knew where we were going, so we had to make sure we didn't lose sight of their car. After two hours of driving and a couple of hair-raising U-turns when they thought we were lost but we weren't, we arrived at Maggie Beer's Farmshop in the Barossa Valley. Maggie is a renowned cook and food writer, and presents the TV show The Cook and The Chef. We went through the shop and sampled all the lovely local products, and then had lunch on the verandah, overlooking the lake. It was very civilised to sit and enjoy a glass of excellent shiraz, but we made so much noise laughing and talking that no-one else would come out on the verandah with us. Squibs!!

This is one of our lovely hostesses, conducting a cooking presentation on The Actual Set of the TV show; us country kids were suitably impressed.Of course there was a trip to a patchwork shop afterwards, where a little fabric was added to the stash, then a trip to a coffee shop and time for home. We had a fun day with all our friends, and got to know each other a lot better; we have all seen one of our number in a G-string (thong) now, although there was a lot of debate among the older ladies about whether she had it on backwards or not, and as it was over the top of her trousers anyway it lost some of the effect.

My big printer that I use to print pantos is called Gilbert, and he and I have spent a lot of time together the last few days, filling orders. My workroom was swamped with 10' lengths of paper, but now it's all parcelled up and posted, so I am allowed to sit in my sewing room and play. I made this trial block, called Chain of Arrows, that I want to make in some of my delicious Civil War greys.
Then I sewed up a storm, and finished the last of my Pretties blocks; I'll have to think of an official name for this quilt. As you can see, I am in the process of joining the blocks together now, and getting excited to see the final result. I just love the way it's turning out.While I was away Mereth 'organised' my sewing room. She's very good at that, and I don't mind her doing it, but it's a bit disconcerting when she says 'Now don't be mad at me, but...' My mind whirls at the prospect of what I'm about to see. But she had just moved a few pieces of furniture and stacked everything neatly in baskets and sorted out my tottering piles of fabric. I was not the least bit perturbed by any of it. I'm sure she could have a career as a Stash Elf; she could just appear each night and put a sewing room to rights as if by magic.

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My trip to Western Australia was so much fun, I'm very glad I went. At the gathering I met up with Nicola and Blogless Kathy, both longtime longarm friends. I said that we were becoming the Old Ladies of Quilting, as we'd been doing it so long. That sounded dreadful, so I amended it to the Elders of Quilting. We don't sound so decrepit that way.
This little guy was minding the pins on Terry's treadle machine. He's made of batiks, Log Cabin style, with a cute little parrot tail. I think I will have to make one like it for my own.

I talked so much during the three days at Terry's that I completely lost my voice; I know we didn't have to stay up past midnight talking every night, but we had to finish off the wine, it doesn't keep once it's been opened!

We went shopping and I bought myself some Crocs, having finally found a pair that suited me. I bought them instead of a pair of reindeer at this Christmas shop, which was full of utterly beautiful decorations. I will be sad at not having the reindeer, but my feel will be nice and comfy.

Terry delivered my to my brother Doug's place on Sunday, and I drank more wine and talked even more. It was all very relaxing and fun.

Doug's garden is lovely, I spent a lot of time wandering and taking photos. This Asiatic Lily was amazing, very decorative. I've never grown lilies, but I think I might have a go.The State flower of Western Australia is the Kangaroo Paw, and we saw plenty of them as we drove around. They flourish here, and some bushes were nearly taller than me.

When you look closely at them you can see the furry little flowers that do look a lot like the front paws of a kangaroo.

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There's nothing quilty about today's post; I've had a thoroughly lazy day, lounging around and doing absolutely nothing. I had a hard day's travel yesterday, leaving at midday and getting to bed at 3am, so I needed a day to recover.

We started the day with a wander through Terry's beautiful garden, which is so wonderfully perfumed it's enough to make you swoon. The roses are gorgeous, the star jasmine a riot of flowers and the hollyhocks taller than me. I wish my garden could look like this, but we have much tougher water restrictions, so it's just not possible..I love these poppy seedpods, such lovely blue-grey colours and sculptural shapesWhat better way to spend the morning than a visit to Spotlight's sale, and 30m of fabric to take home. I got enough fabric for 5 backings and 3 bindings, 4 skirts and 3 blouses, plus some stash additions. Not a bad haul.

Then onto the Marina, where we had a mocha, lunch, and a wander through the shops. What a Life!!
We came home full of plans to work, but lost the plot. I slept for 3 hours, then we had streak and salad for tea and demolished a bottle of very nice Merlot and talked the night away. I'll have to be up early to get ready for the Gathering; should be great fun. There are more than 30 longarmers coming, and it will be a great chance to network and share knowledge. I'm off to get my beauty sleep now......

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Well my first Workathon was such a fabulous success that I did it all again last weekend and I got a lot done. I cooked, worked in the garden, sewed on my projects and also did a lot of printing for orders. Last week I tried to catch up with computer work, and put together the arrangements for a quick trip to Western Australia for the machine quilters gathering over there. I hadn't meant to go, but all the planets were in alignment and so many things fell into place that I sort of HAD to. I leave tomorrow, and will have a day off before the gathering on Saturday. It will be good to catch up with quilter friends over there, as well as family. I'm looking forward to the trip, even if there's a lot of preparation still left to do. More printing, collating and folding before I get on the bus for the airport.

So what did I achieve sewing-wise? Now don't laugh, but this is my attempt at a random arrangement of my scrap 4-patches. I honestly tried to just throw them altogether, but it goes against the grain with me; I'm a pattern sort of person. I spent far too long fitting all the tiny pieces together just so; I think I will use this as a tablecloth, it's just the right size and it's very pretty with all those pastel background squares.

After I'd finished that I gritted my teeth and tried to do random once again. And it still didn't work. I should give up I think, or work blind-folded. But I have two runners like this, quilted already, and I have NO more 4-patches, not a single one. I am happy with my empty strip drawers, and ready to cut up some prettier scraps for future quilts.

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We always seem to miss out on the quiltathons organised by Stashbuster, or Judy L. I'm determined to have my own workathon this weekend, not just quilting but cooking and gardening too. I seem to spend my life rushing past all the things I want to do and promising that I'll do them later. This weekend is IT! And I really should have a Cleanathon, but not right now....

My scraps are overwhelming me, and I'm running out of cut pieces, so I will cut up this tiny pile of pieces to restock the strip drawers. That's 3 yards of fabric there; I weighed it. It will give a nice variety to the scrap project on the design wall, but it won't help the stashbusting much. That's about 1/4 of one of my scrap drawers; I must have 35 yards in scraps alone, just waiting to be sliced up, that is just stuff that I have discarded from my Real Stash.

I put all my tiny 1.5" scraps in this old milk billy, and every few months I sew them all together and make 4-patches from them. I know, MORE of the little sods. But it uses up every last little bit, and they are very useful to have in the orphan drawer. I'm sewing my way through the pile, adding in a HST now and then. It takes a bit of trimming afterwards, and is probably not worth the effort involved, but it's just something I've been in the habit of doing. I have great trouble being random with my colour choices and placement, and this helps me get over all my agonising. It truly doesn't matter what pieces I sew together, they all blend in.

Before I forget, if you are interested in the Judie Rothermel fabric club you can join it here; I just received a shipment of reds, and they are delicious. Don't go and look in the rest of her shop while you're there, it's far too dangerous.

During the week Mereth and I kept stopping in at the Op-Shop, admiring two lovely green chenille bedspreads, and talking ourselves out of having them because we had no idea what to do with them. Then our friend Sonia showed us some beautiful stitcheries she'd made, intending to turn them into cushions. The green in the stitcheries was a wonderful match for the chenille, and Sonia loves chenille; we bought the bedspreads the next day, and they will be great as the back of the cushions, with a little bit scattered in the patchwork on the front. We will have fun working on these. I really want to use the fringe around the edge of the cushions, that would be fun.

It's funny how some colours show up again and again, once you start noticing them. We saw this ensemble in traffic in Adelaide, and just had to grab some photos. That is a very cool looking set-up!

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I don't buy a lot of quilting magazines these days, as I have a collection of hundreds dating back 30 years. Not a lot of the current ones have anything new, or exciting enough to pique my interest. However I saw this in the newsagents last week and it's full of cute projects, all designed by a French quilter and shop-owner. I love that bag on the cover,so much! I've pored over it several times, each time finding some new delight in the pictures of her crowded shop and home. It's just bursting with good ideas. There are a lot of projects other than quilts, all naive style, and while I don't normally do that sort of thing, this lot really appeal. I don't mind buying books of projects that I have no intention of making, because it's worth it for the ideas it sparks. If I really want to make the projects then that's a bonus.

I am so definitely going to make this lovely project caddy. I have a metal frame on castors that I thought I would make a canvas bag for, but now it's going to be one of these. I have a few pieces of vintage 50's fabric that would look great, and I might use metal rings in the corners instead of bows. But I also want one with a wooden frame that could live in the loungeroom and hold my knitting. It's so great when an idea inspires you so much you just want to jump right in.

A local secondhand dealer is a mate, and when he heard that we were interested in sewing machines he promised to bring two in for us to have a look at. They are both 99k models, and not in tip-top condition, but worth having. I spent this morning digging and scraping the gunk out so that I could give them a good oiling. The belt on one just fell apart, and I thought it interesting to see the construction of a vintage machine belt. It's strands of black linen twine with a canvas sheath and a rubber coating. It's amazing how synthetics have changed our world; modern belts are just a piece of plastic. And this is a not an original belt, but probably a replacement belt from a Singer 185, green to match the original machine. How cute is that?

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