I'm a bit sick of being bossed around by my patchwork.  I should be like Judy and plan everything out before I start cutting fabric. But that's not the way I work, so I will have to accept that I'm the sort of quilter who wings it at every stage.  I just wish the tops would be a bit more vocal about what they want, before I've made a zillion units that are just wrong for the quilt.

I made this top last year in January, determined to use up every scrap.  As if that were ever going to happen.  It seemed unfinished, I knew it needed a border, and needed to be longer and a little wider, but I was sick of it and left it sitting on the clothes rack for a whole year.
Then all the HSTs seemed to be the answer, and I made the mistake of thinking pinwheels was what the quilt said.   Apparently not, they were violently rejected as soon as I put them on the design wall.  But I made about 50!  And I was also mistaken in thinking I was just going to slap it all together no matter how it looked.  Muttering curses I went back to tthe sewing machine and my eye fell on some little blocks I'd put together and set aside; just 4 HSTs all in the same orientation.  Hmmm, I already had quite a few....

Well, they were just what the quilt was looking for, so then it was only a matter of making enough for the top and bottom borders, and attaching them.

  And we were all well pleased, except that I now have a stack of pinwheels, and there are still triangles to spare.  Sigh....

The next top to be dealt with it this Plaid one; (there are 6 spare blocks, but the quilt is big enough already, so looks like I'll be making another quilt in this pattern)

 I thought I could bully that into submission and make it accept the pinwheels, but it's not having them either.  It didn't mind some light-coloured pinwheels, but it wasn't fussed about them.  Didn't like the 1' squares either.

 That's when I opened a container and found all the rest of the strips that didn't get used up in the Strip Spiral.  I need an intervention for my over-cutting problem....

The Plaid quilt is delighted with the strips, so that's what I'll be sewing this afternoon.

After that, I need to catalogue this basket of blocks; all through the year, whenever I ran out of leader-enders, I'd pick a pattern and just make random blocks from scraps, anything, just so that I could feed the pieces through the machine.  Which is admirable I suppose, except now I have the beginnings of about 5 quilts in this basket, none of them planned, and some of them downright ugly.  I hope I've learned my lesson, and will use only designated leader-enders this year. 

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but it feels like this picture is worth a thousand hours! 

I've been very good about not overdoing the sewing sessions, I've tackled this in little increments and never once got overwhelmed by it, or felt ill at the thought of going on with it.

 But it took ages, and I'll be very very glad to be sewing something else in the future.  Of course there are still the borders to tackle, but they will be the leader-ender from now on, and I'll be sewing something with a bit of Colour in it.  No more grey for a while!
I don't quite know whether to start something completely new, or go on with my plan to cut down the number of UFOs in the sewing room.  I want to splurge and fill up the design wall with something exciting, but then I also want to get those half-finished projects closer to completion too.  Guess I don't have to decide straight away, and I could make one or two 'Trial' blocks of patterns that intruige me, and see if any of them want to take centre stage.  Not another Major Project though, I need something frivolous I think.

I've sewn up most of the 2.5" triangles into pairs, and they are building into pinwheels for a scrap border.  Now that the design wall is free I'll be able to put them up there and decide on the next plan of attack. I still love these colours, but I've made an awful lot of quilts that look the same, so it's time to branch out on the next lot.   BLUE!  I need to use up my blues.

A trip to the local Patchwork shop resulted in a bit of stash acquisition; I was on a mission to get more creams, but nothing much appealed to me, all too yellow.  I finally succumbed to these ivory-whites from the Etchings line; 

I'm making it my mission to lighten up the stash, steer away from all the sombre reproductions that I love.  I will still buy them when I see something that appeals, but my shelves are stacked with them already.  With these fresher colours I hope I'll make some prettier quilts with a lighter feel.

It's been the most horrid day here, so hot that the air itself burns you; We're supposed to get a cool change tonight, which will be very welcome. The poor dogs don't like it at all.  Lucky there is air-conditioning to take the edge of the heat.  There won't be any walkies tonight though  :(

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 I've been alternating between sewing and tidying, trying to do an equal amount of both.If I sew for half an hour, I have to tidy for half and hour.  I can see results, so it's worthwhile, but the tidying is bringing to light some bad habits of my mine.  Such as my overcutting problem, which has been well doucmented in the past. 

Instead of looking for things I know I've already cut, I'm just as likely to grab  new fabric and cut more pieces.  This works fine for me at the time, as I figure I've saved the time I would have spent trying to ferret out the old pieces from wherever I've hidden them.  But when I do the Big Clean, all is revealed.

Oh I thought, that's nice, I have a few 1" four-patches stockpiled.

There was another bigger box of them.

And some 1" HSTs too apparently.

And some more.

And then I unearthed the 2" cache;

and some more.

 I can't sew along with Judy's Quiltathon this weekend, as I have other chores that have to be done, but I've decided to sew all these bits into borders for two scrap quilts that have had me stumped for over a year. I'll have little scraps of time between my other work, and this sort of sewing is easy to pick up or leave at a moment's notice.   The boxes will be empty, the quilts will be finished, and I will have a whole lot more space in the sewing room. 

I guess it's pointless to say I'll never let the little bits mount up this way again, because I know I will do it.  But in future I should have a single place to put them, not scattered about the sewing room in 9 separate containers.  None of them labelled.  Mereth despairs of me sometimes......

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I'm hoping to be more organised this year, which will allow me to achieve more things in a more orderly manner.  I get rather tired of racing around at the last minute, meeting deadlines with no time to spare, or not meeting them at all.  Time management techniques would help with that I'm sure, as would tidying things up so I can lay my hands on whatever I need.  These months of hot weather, when I'm confined to the airconditioning, should be spent sorting and ordering and organising, not just sewing and surfing the net.

Sorting out the rest of the house will be done because I must, but sorting out the sewing room is always a labour of love; finding things I've been looking for, meeting old projects again, admiring fabric and tools and patterns, getting inspired all over again.  I've already started, and it's fun so far.

Of course, while I'm sorting there isn't any sewing taking place, which is a bit frustrating.  So I've been making a list each night, of things that I want done the next day; sew six blocks, make strip sets for 5 new 16-patches, cut the remainder of the sashing strips.  In between my other chores I can switch on the machine and sew long enough to cross the task off the list.  It's working well, I keep the jobs small enough to do quickly and I'm not tempted to just keep on sewing until it's become a marathon.  I think my obsession with finishing what's on the design wall comes from not knowing where I'm going with it, or how long it will take, and also fear that I just won't finish it at all if it goes on too long.  My list of tasks for the day keeps me focussed on smaller steps, so that I don't start worrying about the actual finish line.

I enjoyed the paper piecing I did on the Dear Jane blocks, and decided I needed to have a machine set up permanently for paper piecing.  My Bernina 730 is perfect, her tension is wonderful even with really tiny stitches and it's easy to see the line on the paper.

 She's been making HSTs for this project, and they're turning out perfectly.  I must name this machine, she's a beauty.  Part of the reason why I'm sorting out the sewing room is to make a space for her to live comfortably, instead of balanced on the end of a rickety table. 

I'm trying to tackle this grey quilt in an orderly fashion, and when I use the project parts as leader-enders I get muddled sometimes.  I've been using the 16-patches to separate the chains of piecing on the grey quilt, so they are building up rapidly.

I'm up to 40 complete blocks, and 12 more ready to sew together.  This will be a set of blocks that just seemed to appear without any effort on my part.

I have half of the grey blocks sewn into rows, and only need another 6 blocks.  Hopefully I will have a photo of it tomorrow, nearing completion.  Then it will be time to tackle the borders, which in the original quilt were complex.  I don't know how my patience will last, but I'll have a go.

   

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It was a quiet New Year's Eve for us, a nice curry for tea, with panetonne for dessert.  Very multicultural.  We made a great list of plans for next year, but unfortunately just ran out of energy and couldn't wait up till midnight.  Oh well, we're not as young as we used to be.  Today is a different matter, I hope to get lots achieved.

 I'm very happy with how my grey quilt is coming along.  I love the sashing fabric and I'm so glad that I waited for it.  Now the quilt is going to be just the way I imagined it, and I don't get that nasty niggle every time I see it on the design wall.  Another victory for the little voices that tell me when a quilt is not quite right.  And because this is the second time I've started putting it together, everything is going so smoothly; I worked all the kinks out the first time, and these pieces are just flying together.  I just cannot decide how big it should be though.  I'd love to have it hanging on a wall, which means it shouldn't be too big, but I tend to favour Large quilts.....  Just can't make up my mind.

I've been sewing strata for my 16-patches, and have a lot of them stockpiled now.  I love slicing them in to strips and making the blocks, everything goes together so easily.  It's very relaxing sewing.

 I did a mockup in EQ7 to see how many 16-patches I might need, and for a decent size quilt the number is 72.  The blocks are so easy I could accomplish that in no time.

I've been pulling out boxes of UFOs and seeing what I want to continue with, and what needs to be abandoned.  It gets easier and easier to jump ship on a project, especially as there are so many that I'm much more enthusiastic about .  I still love these indigo Yankee Puzzle blocks, and they are high on the list to be completed.

  I have 30 of them kitted and ready to go, so there should be some progress on that very soon.

 These blocks are left over from the Jacks On Six quilt I made many years ago.

They are 9", quite large, so I could make one or two more, add a wide sashing and have a small quilt with not much effort.  Or I could put them on Ebay, so some other quilter can have fun with them.

There are 24 of these Log Cabin blocks and they are a longterm UFO; they need to have another two rounds of logs added, which is good leader-ender sewing).  I have boxes of strips cut for these blocks, and dozens of the 1" HSTs for the centres; I just need to start sewing them again.

I have so many project boxes, more than I thought, and it will take the rest of the week to document them and decide on their fate.  That's a good way to spend the first week of 2013, putting the house in order. 

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The discussion topic today is 'Obsession: is it a good thing?'

There has been lots of lovely chat and conversations with many different friends and family over the last week, about their Christmas experiences and the families the've interacted with.  Stories about lots of wildly different people and they way they live their lives.  One lady lives to drink, plans all her holiday excursions around what will be available and how cheap, and whether she will have to travel far to get it, or if she'll be have to do some work to feed her family or be able to make them just look after themselves while she gets down to the bottle in hand.  Maybe not a good obsession.....

Another woman is fanatical about housework, won't have a thing out of place, demanding utter perfection in her house and grooming.  To the point of taking two hours to get ready to leave the house, immaculate down to the last hair.  Lots of people would think this is a good thing, but it's not for me.  So this obsession gets a tick from some people and not others.

A quilting friend announced on Boxing Day that she was working on a quilt, and added that it would be the last one, she wasn't going to make another one.  She will turn 80 very soon, and has supplied all her family with quilts for many years.  It will be an honourable retirement, but knowing her, there will always be just one more. 

My obsession?  Whatever is on my design wall.  I didn't used to be like this, but just lately I can't rest until the project up there is done, or almost done.  (I'm still on track for the DJ to be in one piece before the New Year, but it's not up on the wall anymore.)  I know I said I wanted the strippy quilt to take a little longer, but that didn't last.  I just wanted it done.


I can sew for hours at a stretch if I have something good on the TV, and my something good lately has been DVDs of Transatlantic Sessions.  They feature a mix of Celtic and Bluegrass musicians, and I just adore them.  There are five series, and we own 2, 3 and 5.  Next on the list is 1 and 4, and we'll have the complete collection.  So I've spent hours and hours in the company of Ally Bain and Jerry Douglas, and now I have a finished top.

 It demanded to be big enough for a Queen bed, which is odd since I have a double;  it looks great on the QS bed at the hall, which we use to store our customer quilts awaiting collection.  On my bed it comes all the way to the floor on both sides, but it's not too big to use.  I'm sure this quilt is destined for a QS bed somewhere, maybe not for a while; at least I won't have that pang of regret 'I wish I'd made it bigger....' What is odd is that I kept thinking, 'This will look terrible in the photo, maybe I shouldn't have added the extra strip, and maybe I should have put borders all round...'  It looks good on the bed and that should be my main concern, I can't focus on how it looks on a wall or in a photo.

I just love the way the grey, pink and shirting prints look against the green and yellow. 

I think there will be a quilt in my future with those colours predominating.  Every quilt I make sparks ideas for a new one.  At this rate I'll never be able to say 'Well that's all the quilts made'.

A customer arriving to pick up a quilt looked at my huge collection of potted roses and flowers and remarked, 'But what are you going to do with them all?'  Well enjoy them mainly.  And also pick many bunches of flowers for my kitchen table.  The Princess lillies are loving the early summer heat, as are the gerberas. I think this counts as a good obsession.

As for Dolly, she has four main obsessions; food, balls, small animals who run away and pop-up sprinklers.

These are the big sprinklers on the football ground, which throw a jet of water 50 feet or more.  She will bite at the water till she's exhausted; I have to put her on a leash and lead her away.  She gets as bloated as a tick with all the water she swallows.  This is a bad obsession, but it's funny to watch.

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Being a postie at Christmas is a bit of a nightmare, especially in this age of internet shopping and mail order.  The parcels were brutal, 20 huge bags full on Monday, hundreds and hundreds of things to be delivered.

It was a quiet Christmas Day for us, as only Mereth's son Matt was here.  Somehow it seemed busier than usual.  We had a nice Christmas lunch with Matt and the dogs at my place, and watched a DVD in the afternoon.  Then it was time to drop Matt home, and go round to the brother's place for Christmas dinner.   I came home from there around 9.30 ,and I was too tired to do anything more than sleep.
 
 This morning I had to catch up on email and work stuff, then it was time to go to friends for lunch, and we had a thoroughly lovely time.  The weather is beautiful, perfect for sitting in their back garden and chatting for hours on end.  It was very relaxing.  Now it's time to get ready for an evening meal with Liz and John, who are on their way home from Adelaide.  I have had only an hour or two to spend alone, the socialising has been great, but means there has been no sewing taking place.  And it's back to work tomorrow, delivering all the parcels that didn't make it in time for Christmas.

Only two more work days, and then we get a four day weekend.  I hope to get the green and yellow quilt in one piece, and most of the Dear Jane assembled.  I'm aiming to have both done by New Year's Eve, which is entirely possible.  I've started putting the strips together on the design wall, and it should be easy sewing.

 Next two strips are prepped and ready to go..... I really love that pink and green and grey combination, I would like to tackle a quilt in those colours.

And then there will be a collossal clean up of the sewing area.  The place is full of scraps, and I'm not in the mood to be dealing with them.  Mereth's going to get the whole lot I think.

And she won't complain a bit.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas, and that there are relaxing times for all of us between now and the New Year.

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I'm steaming ahead on the pieced strips, and even though I've tried to slow down the end is in sight.  This was a lovely quick pattern to sew, and no agonising over colour placement.  I could have made the strips a lot scrappier, but I wasn't in the mood for that, I just wanted to use up the strips I'd cut. I love the colours in this quilt, and I don't think it suffers from not being too scrappy.  I have only half of one row to do and then it's time to put all the strips together, which will go fairly quickly too. 

For those who want to try this pattern, the strips are cut 3" wide, and I strip pieced them so that I could slice it into 3" sections.  The triangles at the end of each strip are made by cutting a 5.5" square and cutting it diagonally twice.  The triangles are oversize, but I just trimmed off the excess as I sewed them.

 When the strips are sewn togethere there is extra green fabric floating the squares, which helps if you need to even up the edges of the strips later. 

You won't be cutting off the points of any squares.  And as a green strip will be sewn to each edge, it will all just blend in anyway.

I took a photo of the end of the strip so you can see how easy it is.

 I'll put a green triangle on each of the corners later, but that will be the work of seconds.  I'm more interested in getting all the major construction done first and I'll attend to the details at the end.

It's 42 degrees C (107 degrees F) here today, just horrible.  On Friday everywhere we went people were talking about the weather forecast for today, about how hot and windy it was going to be and how we'd all have to take care to stay inside and stay cool.  Once upon a time we didn't have such accurate predictions, so it was always a nasty shock when the temperature climbed to these silly levels.  I much prefer knowing in advance, so I can be prepared, and can get the garden battened down.  And now, having finished the last customer quilt for the year, I'm going into my air-conditioned sewing room to really make some progress.

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The pieced strips in this quilt grow quickly, I have one finished already, and the other five are more than half done. 

I think I procrastinated about making this quilt for so long because I knew it would go together very quickly, and it would be finished only be a matter of days after I decided to start it.  I'm stretching the sewing out a bit, I don't want it over too soon.  Some quilts go together so quickly I have no memory of making them, and I don't want that to happen with this one.

I love sewing these strip set together, it's fast and easy and I can watch the TV while I sew.  The 3" strips are fun to work with after the 3/4" ones in some of the DJ blocks.

I'm trying to formulate a few pre-New Year's Eve resolutions, things to be working at before the end of the year arrives.  I want the DJ in one piece, which is totally feasible.  I would like this strip quilt top finished, again, totally do-able.  I want my sewing room restored to order; that's a bit of a tall order, but a single night of determined sorting would make a huge difference to the mess.  I have DVDs, and red wine; it could be a lovely way to spend an evening.

And I would like the UFOs all in one spot, and catalogued so I know what is there.  It's all a big jumble now, and I have no idea what I could work on next, ot what is close to completion.  I need a list, and a rough outline of what to do next for each project.

I like the idea of working my way to the end of the year, trying to make every day count towards my goals, instead of coasting along with the attitude that I'll see out the year and then make a fresh start.  I could be in a much better place with my projects in two weeks time, if I just apply myself.  Mereth and I won't have anyone here for Christmas or Boxing Day, so we'll be able to do exactly as we please, which sort of compensates for the lack of family.  Sort of....... but not entirely.  Where's that red wine?

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I packed away the Dear Jane blocks,clearing the design wall and allowing something else to be put up there.  I was so excited to see the blank wall that I went a little mad, sewing haphazardly on three different projects without waiting to tidy away the debris scattered over every surface.  I sewed like a crazy woman for two hours, then sat down and ironed it all and debated about what to concentrate on first.

 

In the centre of that lot are 35 grey and shirting fourpatches for Bonnie's Easy Street mystery, which Mereth asked me to make about three weeks ago.  Done now.  

There's another 6 of these green and cream blocks to add to the pile.  I only have three kits left of them, so I will have to rustle some more up to use as leader-enders.  I have no idea what to do with these blocks, but I'll investigate setting possibilities in EQ7 soon.  They are still fun to make, but the controlled colour scheme is so boring (yawn).

  

I remembered my 16patches from last year, so I made another 6 of them, and sewed up the strips for a lot more.  They are so easy and cute, but.....   Maybe they'd be even cuter if they were smaller; strip set of 1" finished strips included for comparison.  Maybe too small; might just have to try 1.25" finished and see if that's the perfect size.  I'm very Goldilocks in my approach to designing.

The basket of fabric that I referred to as a Kit was in fact nothing more than a lot of fabric thrown in haphazardly, with a few strips cut and a lot of green triangles.  And a couple of pieced bits that I'd tried for size ( see Goldilocks comment above)  

The quilt I'm aiming to repoduce is this one, and copying it has been on my list for more than 10 years. I bought it on Ebay, from a very concientious seller.  I paid $37 for it, and then she emailed me that she was so ashamed of it's condition that she couldn't sell it to me.  I protested hotly that I wanted it anyway.  When it arrived, there was a cheque for $15 in with it, to assuage her guilt at me having paid so much for such a rubbish quilt.  It has some stains and a few worn spots, but it's still lovely, and totally worth what I paid for it.

I'm strip piecing the rows, so it will go very quickly, and the strips are cut 3" wide, which seems enormous after the Dear Jane blocks.  This is my progress so far;  

I might put an extra row in, and it might be black and pink, or it might be grey and pink.  My onboard computer will process that while I work on the other rows.

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My DD came to stay for two days, it was so lovely having her around. We made gingerbread cookies again, but it was so humid they kept going soft, so we couldn't decorate them.  We were forced to eat them instead, so there will have to be another baking day before Christmas.

It was so horribly hot that we made a quick trip to Port Broughton so the dogs could have a swim and cool down.

 Shonny took them out into the water, which made them cooler, but then they spent the rest of the time galloping about and making themselves hot again.

And Oh the Indignity! of having your belly washed at the tap in the playground. 

Dolly was mortified.

The downside of living in a tiny town is that there aren't enough jobs for young folks, so it's not likely any of my kids can come and live closer.  That's why it's been special having my nephew John, and his wife Liz, living in the next town.  We've had weekly get-togethers all year, and I've loved it.  The good news is that John has accepted a permanent place at the school as an art teacher, so they will definitely be here next year as well.  I see more family dinners in our future.

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Summer is starting early this year, we've had some nasty hot, dry days already.  After I've watered my garden and tried to protect all the delicate plants from the scorching sun, I retire to my sewing room and work on the Dear Jane.  I was going to have 6 rows completed before I packed it away again.  However, I actually had 5 complete rows already, and it seemed a bit wimpy to just make one more row.  So I decided I would have 9 rows completed before Packaway.

As I pieced the blocks for rows G-I the easy blocks in the remaining rows kept sidetracking me, delaying Packaway date.  Finally I caved and admitted that I wanted to get the whole darn thing finished and off the wall, so it was full steam ahead on any block that appealed to me.

 So the current status of my design wall is 7 rows pieced with sashing strips (the 4 rows at the left are joined together in one piece, pretty exciting) and 25 blocks yet to piece.  My room is a shambles yet again, but this is the final 25 blocks, kitted up and ready to go. 

I'm going to give Mereth all the miniscule scraps, put the sewn strips on a hanger till I get all the blocks completed, and start working on another project that needs to be completed.  I do love the Dear Jane blocks, but they do my head in; I can't stand the confetti and the paper piecing doesn't allow for chain piecing, and I miss that.

I'm pretty sure the next thing will be the grey quilt, now that my fabric for the sashing is here.  I hope it looks as good as I imagined it would, or I'm back to square one.  The fabric I bought to fill up space in the mailing envelope is pretty nice, I'm admiring that daily and wondering what I'd like to do with my massive collection of blue prints.

Mereth and I discussed the weighty problem of Bonnie's new mystery, Easy Street.  We couldn't use her colours without buying a whole heap, which we're not going to do, so we came up with our own version in traditional repro prints.  We're going to share the sewing, and the finished quilt.  Bonnie's mystery is such a lovely tradition at this time of year, it adds to the excitement of Christmas and the holiday season.  Thanks Bonnie!

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