Nov 09

This is a quilt that I put together using Bonnie's instructions from her Quiltville website. It doesn't photograph properly, the colours are very rich in real life, but they always look grey on my computer. I quilted it with one of my pantos, Celtic Scroll. The rows of the panto run from top to bottom of the photo, but there is a diagonal line to the overall pattern so that it's hard to see the rows of the panto. That's a good thing. I love this panto on Log Cabins and checkerboard quilts, really breaks up the straight lines of the piecing and gives the quilt movement. We took another flying trip to Adelaide yesterday, for Mereth's study course and to run business errands for me. It's so hard to leave Miz Millhouse, but lots of other stuff demands precedence right now. There is a big craft show being held in Adelaide, and I will be helping Kaye on the Gammil stand over the weekend. I will also be collecting my DS from the airport, he's arriving tomorrow for an extended stay. He thinks he's here for a holiday, so I'll break it to him gently that he's going to be working! I hope he's prepared to start straight away, printing and handling orders and getting my computers tuned up. It's hard to get a good tech guy, sometimes you have to breed them yourself. He's come a long way since the days when he put flattened Smartie boxes in the floppy drive slot and then denied all knowledge..... (Smarties are candy like M&Ms but bigger, if US readers aren't familiar with them). This is another photo from our drive in the country last week. I've always loved this tiny little building in Caltowie, built with as much care and attention to detail as the bigger buildings. I'm sure it's builders had plans for additions and expansions, but they never happened. I like the green door, and all the different textures of stone and metal and wood. This fuchsia is flowering mightly on my front porch, such a pretty, dainty flower. The garden shops are full of new season fuchsias, and I have bought three that I couldn't resist. I've been deprived of their beauty for 26 years, so now I intend to indulge my love of them.

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We went down to Adelaide last Thursday, and attended the guild meeting, and saw the prizes awarded to the winning quiltmakers. We sat with a friend who had won her division, and it was fun hearing about how she made the quilt. She doesn't make traditional quilts, but I love what she does, she's so innovative and clever. I would link to the winning quilts but the site doesn't appear to be working right now.

We were off early the next day, to meet up with fellow blogger Tazzie for coffee before she went to work. It was great to actually meet her, and talk about our quilts, and recent fabric purchases, and plans for the future. We can't call her our imaginary friend any more, having met her for real!

Then it was off to the show, to meet up with friends and look round the quilts and shops. We were very subdued with what we bought, not because we didn't want anything, but because we were determined not to stock up on more fabric, just to add to the stash. This is the sum total of my purchases; Mereth cast her eyes up to heaven when I rejected the peach and yellow and green flower head pins in several booths, and kept hunting for the blue ones. But the blue ones are prettier! I had to have them and no other.

The fat quarter bundle is from our mate Lisa, of Dyed and Gone To Heaven. My camera refused to do justice to these gorgeous fabrics, they are a wonderful range of sea greens, but they just look grey on my screen. They are lucsious in real life, I can assure you. Lisa challenged us to try something a bit different from our normal palette of reproduction prints, so we're going to do a mini quilt each. And we have to send her pictures when they're done, so she can see we actually used the fabric.

And I bought this American magazine, which is totally unsuitable for our season, but it has an article on reversible cables which I want to know about. It will sit and wait till next year, when I can start knitting in the cooler weather again. We just havve to get through the summer first.

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My weekend was spent finishing two projects, and I was pleased with what I managed to accomplish. The first project was the Colonial Squares, which had grown so large it was taking up all the design wall, and most of my sewing table. When things gets to that stage I just want them finished and done with, so I devoted myself to getting it in one piece. At no time was this ever hard or irksome, I really enjoyed every bit of it. I would even make another one, but not right away. It was an excellent leader-ender, and it looks exactly as I wanted it to. I'll quilt it with a clamshell I think, and use just a simple tea-dyed calico binding.

I don't have photos of the other Finished Object yet, but it involved lots of glue and I was aghast at the mess I can make with a simple glue bottle and a pile of cardboard and fabric. I just wasn't cut out for gloo-ing, and only the cuteness factor of the FO kept me going. I have plans to redesign the pattern as a Sewn Object instead, can't face all that stickiness again.

On to the next thing, whatever that may be. I will have fun consulting the folder full of Quilts To Make...

It's been very, very hot, with nasty dry winds. Dolly has never been through a summer, so she was absolutely unprepared for the heat. She spent a lot of time panting and looking at us with a 'Make It Stop!'look on her face. It was too hot even to play; this is how Dolly amuses herself in hot weather.
She looks like a baby crocodile, just hanging from the rope that I was holding. Occasionally she gave it a tug or too, but that was too strenuous.

She just lay there, head suspended by the rope, jaws locked in that famous Staffy grip, and eventually she drifted off to sleep, still hanging on to her rope. What a life she has....

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After two dedicated sessions in the sewing room the Star Struck top is finished, and I'm very grateful. (For some reason I was referring to this as Spinning Stars, and Bonnie actaully calls it Star Struck; I would have realised that straight away if I hadn't been too lazy to go and link it the first time, duh!)This seemed to take forever to get done, I have no idea why. It wasn't hard at all, I think I just may have become bored with the controlled colour scheme. I need to break out and throw a whole bunch of scraps together, just for fun.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out though, and I hope John will like it when it's presented to him as a house warming present. He's shifting house next month, so it's great that this quilt was already underway before we even found out. It's just one of those things that are meant to be.

I was ready to just slap the borders on and call it done, when it occured to me that it would be interesting to add the little red triangles in the border to complete the hour glass shapes. It wasn't hard at all, and I can see myself doing this again. All I did was measure the distance between the two straight seams of the red triangles along the edge; I cut a border strip this length, plus 1/2" and put the appropriate colour flippy triangle on each end. The other strips to complete each border just had a single flippy triangle in the correct colour, and the strips were seamed together to complete the length for the border. It was so easy, and just adds a little extra touch of colour to the inner borders.

I need to run and get to the supermarket before it closes, but I hope to get back into regular posting from now on. I'm getting really intruiged with photography again, so hopefully that will inspire me to put up more photos and posts. Gotta run.....

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This is the full shot of the bright quilt that was on Millhouse last week. It was made with scraps donated by Elaine from the patchwork shop in Jamestown; I made the blocks, and my friend Bev put them together and made the border. We're all pleased with how it turned out, and it will now be donated to the bushfire appeal. Our last lot of quilts will be sent off next week some time.

On my design wall is a Spinning Stars quilt, that just seemed to start itself. I made a few units for the scrap workshop, then the fabric just demanded to be cut, and the patches sewn, and now I'm well on the way to a finished top. While part of my mind was saying 'What have you started this for??" another part was trying to tell me it was the perfect quilt for Mereth's number 1 son, who really needs a nice quilt for his lounge. We spend many nights at his place in Adelaide, enjoying his hospitality, so this will be gifted to him when it's finished. Sometimes my subconcious knows what it's talking about; I should listen more, and not argue.

I was very shocked at how many grey and black fabrics I've collected over the years, all the while acknowledging that it's not even a colour I like. I just seemed to think that they were necessary for a balanced stash; which is poppycock, as most of them had never even been cut into. Some are 12 years old. And even now, I can't cut certain ones up because.... they are too good. I will never understand why I think the way I do about some fabric.
I love the Spinning Stars pattern, it's so effective, and just eats up the scraps. I worked out that each block takes a full 2.5"strip of fabric for the base, and a half strip for the triangle units. I'm making 56 blocks, so that is 2.3 yards just for the blocks. StashBusting! Hmmm. That doesn't sound like much after all; still, I've completely used some fabrics, and made a serious dent in others, and there are still borders and backing to make.

Having begun to ransack the grey fabrics, I think the process will get easier in future. I have a photo in an old magazine of a grey and pink quilt, which probably inspired all this collecting in the first place. I will track that down and put aside the prints that I want to use in it, and then work at using up the greys that are left. I have two drawers and a plastic crate full of them, and I want that amount halved at least.

And another top finished; this was a UFO from about 2000 I think, 3" hexagons cut from my vintage stash, and a lot from Mereth's. It's a charm quilt, no fabric used twice, and contains some truly hideous prints, but all authentic. They came from all sorts of places, leftovers from Mum's sewing, rescued from rubbish bins in secondhand shops, gifted from older friends, picked up in opshops. Some are from my clothing in the 70s, and one is from my daughter's baby outfit. Seeing as she's 22 now, that makes it vintage in my eyes. I might have grumbled a bit as I was making this, about how ugly it was going to be, but now that it's finished I feel a great fondness for it; all those fabrics, all those years since they were made, all the people who have owned them, all add to a history that is unique. It may not be pretty, but it's special.

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This week has involved a lot of travel and teaching, and I'm just a bit relieved that it's over. There's another workshop to teach tomorrow, but that's here at our Hall, so it will be fun and easy. And then next week I can start working on all the chores that were neglected this week.

We left early Wednesday morning to travel to a little spot an hour away, close to Burra. The early morning scenery was so beautiful, I had to stop the car several times so we could take photos.
You can be forgiven for never having heard of this place before, it's tiny and out of the way, but a lovely little town for all that.

The scrap workshop was held in the community hall, and it's a wonderful building, with lots of rooms and a huge hall with a stage. It may not look like much from outside, but it was so well equipped inside. The kitchen was superb, with two sets of sinks, a stove and even an old copper. It would be perfect for a dye workshop as well.

We made lots of scrap blocks during the day, and one lady made some fantastic crumb blocks from this pile. I'm hoping we converted the girls to becoming dedicated Scrappers from now on.
One of these days I'll pop into the Booborowie Pub for a drink or two; it's been there since 1917. I just love our old South Australian buildings.

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This quilt on the machine is a donation quilt, and it's the third quilt that Millhouse worked on yesterday. We have a few deadlines to meet with customer quilts, and every second of Millhouse's time is accounted for. It helps to have two people running the machine, because even though Millhouse is computerised, there's still a lot of standing involved, and it's really hard on the feet. While I'm tending to the machine Mereth can work on designs, or binding other quilts; then she takes over and I have a break from standing. Having said that though, my feet are still aching at the start of a new day; hope my new Crocs help with that.



I found time in between everything else to make the smaller version of my Framed Cross, so now it's just a matter of cutting the kits for the new set of blocks. Can't wait to get started on that one.

Like Judy, I'm always trying to clean up and get organised, and I never get anywhere. Mereth and I have both shuffled furniture around in our sewing rooms recently, to accommodate new Billy bookcases from Ikea. I love the way it is now, but my Stuff is still a shambles. Like a lot of other bloggers, I'm making a committment; from now until New Year, I'm working on UFOs, to try and clear out all the boxes and baskets. I did the same thing when I moved house, and it was very refreshing. I can't imagine what my sewing room would look like now, if I hadn't been so ruthless then.

I said last year that I'd be happy with 10 hand-work UFOs, and 10 machine-work UFOs. I'm thinking now that I can do with less than that, especially the hand-work. 5 is more realistic, given that I have so little time for it. I will have to get all ruthless again, but that's for the Greater Good. I need to finish those projects, or ditch them. Simple.

We are having such a wet start to Spring, it's most unusual. The garden will appreciate it, but for now my back yard is sodden, so there's not a lot I can do out there. Luckily I have loads of potplants, so I can enjoy beauties like this gerbera on my kitchen table. Flowers are so cheerful, they are a lift to the spirit, no matter what the weather.

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The Colonial Squares project took on a life of it's own during the week, and I started working on it exclusively. That seems to happen to all my leader-ender projects, and so I just shrugged and gave in gracefully. I definitely needed mindless sewing; my laptop died, and I've been busy buying a new one, loading all the software, retrieving backed up files and trying to track down all those serial numbers for the software. Most of what I had on the old computer is set up and working, but it's just like the whole week was in aid of getting back to where I was originally. Oh well, it could have been much much worse, if my files weren't backed up. Thank heavens for squares to sew together, it was a great stress reliever.

Mereth gave me a great tip about sewing it together; she said to make the centre square first, then make the corners, thus avoiding all those long, long rows of blocks on the diagonal. It's been a breeze so far, just three corners to go and it will be a finished top. Then I will just have to deal with the leftovers, of which there will be a pile. I was a little enthusiastic when I was cutting for this quilt, but that's nothing out of the ordinary for me. I'd better think of a block pattern that uses lots of 3.5"squares....

And because it felt wrong not to have a leader-ender, I substituted these cross blocks. For some reason I have a whole drawer full of these pieces, and if I ever had a plan for these blocks it's long forgotten. I thought I'd better get the blocks made, and then I can start thinking about what to do with them. Maybe they would make a nice border, with a set of simpler blocks in the centre. It will be a while before I have to decide, I must have 50 of these to make. I wish I would write myself little notes, to remind Future Me what on earth I was up to.

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I spent the weekend working outside, and made a start on my summer vegetable garden; lots of capsicum, tomatoes, chilli and lettuce seedlings planted, and seeds sown for baby spinach, salad greens, beans and zucchini. My hands look dreadful now, with broken fingernails and scratches, and stinging nettle rashes. It will all wear off or grow out, but right now I have hobbit hands. I had planned to bind three quilts, but that hurts my fingers anyway, so I have to let my hands heal a bit before I tackle that job. Binding is tough on the hands.

I did manage to do a bit of sewing in between the outside work. I put these Framed Crosses into a top, which has loads of white space to show up the quilting that I plan for it. As soon as I had the blocks in one piece I decided I needed to remake the quilt with a smaller block, so I drew it up in EQ6 and resized it to 9.5". I will end up with two nearly identical quilts, but there's no way I've had enough of this block after just one quilt. I need to make another 40 or so...

I've been using my 3.5" squares as leader-enders, and the Colonial Squares has grown to this size. I'm probably about 1/3 of the way there, and I'm liking it so far. I'm not in any hurry to finish it, so it's a good project to have as a leader-ender; no temptation to race ahead and work on it exclusively.

I succumbed to another temptation, and added this litte Singer 538 to my collection. I usually sew on my Mum's 201P, and I decided to give it a holiday. It's very precious, full of memories, and I don't want to overwork it, so it will be my paper-piecing machine; I can leave it set up with a small stitch length, and sew regular seams on the 538. Which incidentally does the most awesome 1/4" seam out of any of my machines; my Framed Cross blocks are so perfect it's eerie! I normally don't achieve that degree of perfection without a struggle. I haven't named this machine yet.

Good thing I worked in the garden over the weekend; there's thunder and lightning outside, and rain threatening. It's a day to stay inside and tackle more UFOs. That's no hardship at all.

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In my quest to cut down on UFOs I pulled out a pile of blocks and put them together over the weekend. Choosing the fabric took more time than actually sewing it, and it was a pretty painless project overall. The top turned out much prettier than I expected, and when I took it to Patchwork yesterday quite a few people offered to adopt it and take it off my hands. As a favour of course. It came home with me despite the offers.

I made these as a Colour Sampler, which is a workshop I teach. All the blocks have the same construction, it's just that the fabrics are in different places in each block. It's an exercise in learning about colour and tone, and I always enjoy making one of these quilts, or watching students build the blocks. There are always surprises, and something to learn about how colour and pattern interact.

I think this is my favourite block in the quilt, and it's not my usual choice of fabrics, but I love how soft and sweet it looks. Everyone agreed that it wasn't Me at all, but I must have loved all the fabrics or they wouldn't have been in my stash. I think there are a lot of Pretty quilts waiting to be made from my stash, not just 1800s reproduction lovelies. I do love most fabrics, except for that piece of sock monkey stuff that Hancocks threw into one of my orders. That found a home elsewhere quick smart.

I vowed that if today was a nice day I would be out in the garden, and that's where I'm heading. I have loads of cuttings to repot before our hot weather, and things need to be tidied after the winter of neglect. I'm becoming more and more interested in succulents, not only for their drought tolerance but for their amazing geometry and superb symmetry. I bought this one from Ikea (honestly, you can buy anything there!) and I love the patterns of the spines. I have to keep turning it round in the light, or it will grow lopsided, and we can't have that. You can't see it very well, but each of those bumps has a long sharp spine, about 1/4" long. I'm very wary whenever I put my hand near this plant; it bites!

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I felt like the blue and yellow top wasn't quite finished, so I added a border of 2" half-square triangles. Now it looks complete, and I'm really happy with the result, even if it drove me insane for two days. It seemed to take forever, and I came so close to sewing one strip of triangles on the wrong way round, discovered my mistake just in time and repinned. If I'd had to unpick it I would have wadded the whole thing up in a cupboard, I'm sure.

I needed some frivolous sewing after that, and these Messenger Birdies by Melly & Me were perfect. Sonia and I bought the pattern for them, along with the reindeer, at Moonta on one of our excursions, and were determined to sew whole flocks and herds of them. Mereth and our other friend Sonia were most unimpressed, and thought we were nuts. Hah! Who's silly now? We made 3 complete birdies in one sitting, and they are so cute. We all love antique buttons, and chose to attach the wings by sewing through buttons on either side. This has the added benefit of making the wings movable, which is seriously cute. They need eyes, but we're waiting on black seed beads.

Next up are the reindeer, but there's no way I'm doing those antlers in fabric, I think they'll be thick felt or something. I have a limited patience for fiddly bits.

My son sent me this picture of his cat, Squeak.

'I haz died in sympathy'

That's one tiny mouse; he said she was well pleased with herself!

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Here on the ironing table are four tops that I'd like to get quilted soon, along with their backings. Backings are great for stash-busting, there's 19 metres there, about the most painless way to get rid of yardage apart from giving it away. My friend Kaye uses plain fabric on the back of her quilts, to show off her gorgeous quilting, and I have thought of copying her. But I just can't resist the chance to use these large print fabrics in great chunks, so the beauty of the design isn't lost in little pieces.

I now have 6 tops on hangers, waiting for quilting, and I'll have to step in quicksmart and grab the machine in between customer quilts. The zippered leaders work great for us, so I don't have to finish the quilting in one session, I can put my quilt on the spare bed when Mereth starts work in the mornings.

We've had a few diversions lately, quilty trips away. There was a dash to Jamestown, to pick up a backing. Dolly loves car rides, and after a few complaints, has resigned herself to the harness. She manages to make herself quite comfortable on the back seat, and gets some quality nap-time.

"Are we there yet?"

That's the window and door of the quilt shop in Jamestown, so yes, we are there!

On Tuesday we went on a reconnaisance trip to Adelaide with our mate Sonia, to suss out our group's Christmas excursion. We went to a discount fabric store first, with predictable results, then on to the lovely Hettie's Patch, with a similar outcome. Honestly, what's the use of going to these places if you don't buy something? And anyway, I just used up 19 metres in those backings, so I'm allowed to restock, surely. We had a lovely day, and came up with a plan for the group outing, so it was time well spent.

The lemon tree is loaded with beatiful fat lemons, and I will have to find some recipes to use them up. There are still a few oranges, and I have bowls full of fruit everywhere. Matthew picked me a bunch of wattle on one of his walks, and my kitchen table is glowing with green and gold.

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Is it really September already? I can't believe that most of the year has flown by already, and I wasn't paying attention. I know I was busy doing things, but if I didn't have the blog I don't think I'd remember any of it. I've been reading a few blogs lately that agonise over why they blog, and whether they should go on doing it. My attitude is that it's a great way to keep a record of what I'm up to, and so long as I enjoy it I'll keep posting. Simple.

We've been having Spring weather for weeks, so the official start of the new season isn't a huge thing. I even have a tomato on a volunteer plant that came up over the winter months. There's something not quite right about a winter-flowering tomato; where's the cold winds and the frost? We had one frost this year, and while I'm grateful for the mild weather I also miss true winter. Maybe next year it will revert to normal, and I'll be complaining bitterly.

I've been in my sewing room whenever I can, attacking ancient projects. I kitted up these blue blocks before I left Rockhampton, so it was at least 3 years ago. As I unpacked the pieces I remembered where my conversationals had gone, cut into pieces for these blocks, and then forgotten. Life is a constant surprise for me these days!

I sewed these 30 blocks in two sessions, and put them together into a top in a third session. I am so glad I have a nice DVD collection to watch as I work; I watched Law & Order and Morse, and it does help the time pass pleasantly.

Once I had the ancient pieces together I started on a more recent project, red and white blocks from 18 months ago. I haven't worked on these blocks for the strangest reason. I love making them sooooo much that I don't want to finish them, because then I won't be able to make them any more. Is that odd? Obviously I just need to get on and finish this lot, then make a blue and white set, or scrap, or brown or.... I've wanted a red and white quilt for so long, you'd think I should be happy to be getting closer to a finished item, but it's not working that way.

I'm really trying to work through my UFOs, which are a whole year older than when I catalogued them. So I've pulled out these vintage hexagons, from 2000, and I'm sewing them together at night, by hand. The hexagons are 3" along each side, which is huge, so it grows very quickly. It won't be pretty, the fabrics are too disparate for any sort of harmony, but I'm sure I'll be very fond of it, uglies and all. I remember fabric shops from my childhood when I see some of these prints, and how I desperately wanted material of my own to play with. What is that saying; Careful what you wish for, for you will surely get it. I surely did!

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