This morning I tidied up my strings, and thought rather smugly that I was using them up really well and that soon there wouldn't be any left.  Should have known better than  to come to a conclusion like that.  I was looking for something in a stash cupboard, and found a box containing my real strings; crooked pieces from straightening up fabric, last little bits from fabric long since used up, leftovers from backings and borders, scraps gifted to me by friends, strange bits from op-shop scrap bags.

It's the mother-lode of strings/scraps, and I should be grateful to have lots more variety in my blocks, but I realise now that one string quilt won't take care of all this lot.  I'm going to have to choose another pattern to make after this one, if I want all those strings gone.

It's really good that I found a heap of wide scraps, because I can use those as the corners of my squares.  There's also a pile of bigger pieces that I will cut down into smaller strips, or maybe triangles even.  I have a die that has strips in 1", 1.5" and 2" widths, so I'll send the wide strips through the Go Big, and have an instant string collection.  Anything I really like I'll cut into triangles and stockpile them.

Even this panel for a stuffed toy will be used; it came in an op-shop bag, and I've cut out the printed bits.  I'll put the text instructions into my box of words and letter fabric.

Leah Day had an interesting post on cleaning up, and being more organised, something that I need to address in my own sewing room.  I think this need to deal with the scraps and strings is part of my own feeling that the lack of organisation is getting in the way of quilting, or even enjoying my quilting.  I'm quite determined to concentrate on this until I can see a difference, and once I've dealt with the clutter, the sewing should be a total pleasure again.  At the moment I"m blocking out the mess, and only seeing what I'm working on, but it will be wonderful to walk to my design wall without tripping over something or having to move something.  I am Committed!!

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I'm just back from a trip to visit the family in Adelaide.  I was only supposed to stay 3 days, but it's so hard to leave, especially when Isla begs me not to go home and wraps her arms around my neck to make sure I can't make a move for the car keys.  She loves having me there, I'm her private audience to listen to all her songs and stories, whereas Mum has to take care of the house and baby as well.  Being a Nan is a very important job these days, making sure that Isla doesn't feel left out. So I stayed 5 days instead.

I was so sewing deprived that I made another 10 string blocks as soon as I got home, staying up way later than I should have.  I'm trying to put the blocks together as I make them, so I won't have a huge assembly job at the end.

I'm still really enjoying them, though the mess is reaching colossal proportions as the little snippets from the strings build up.  I'll put a heap of them in the bin this afternoon and tidy up the strings that are left and try to be a bit more organised.

I went a bit mad at Spotlight and bought a heap of clearance fabric; a lot of it is for a quilt for Shonny, so I'm excusing my extravagance.  It was all very cheap, $1 per FQ, so I picked up some bargains.  It's inspiring to have new fabric to add to the projects on the go.

I'm collecting blue prints to repair the quilt that DS Rhys wore out; I still haven't found the exact blue I want for the borders, but these fabrics will help replenish my depleted blue stash. 

I chose the material with 0s and 1s because it's binary, and Rhys' work is some complicated computer thing.  Full-stack Developer, whatever that is.  The damaged quilt was backed with fabrics depicting things he liked, Coke, dogs, fishing, tropical fish, WW2 planes because both his grandfathers were in the Air Force.  So now his involvement with computers will be on there as well, patching the holes he wore in it.

My sewing machine is ready to be collected, so I'll dash into town tomorrow and pick it up.  I'm not really desperate to have it back because I'm still immersed in the strings, but it will be nice to know it's ready and waiting for me to get back to my 9 patches.

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String Project

I made a start on the string piecing yesterday, and I really enjoyed it.  I don't have to worry about an exact seam allowance, and the 631 just zips along.  We're getting on very well together.

I'm making this quilt, which is a little photo in a very old quilt book. 

I think I chose this quilt to do because I had a length of this rusty orange, and I wanted to use it up.  I rarely use solid fabrics, so I'm hoping that this will behave nicely and make me braver about  using solids in future.  There's no place to hide your mistakes, those pleats and puckers that happen sometimes; I love plain colours in antique fabrics, and I have a stash, so it's time to start including them.

The mess isn't bothering me much so far, but I know that after a while it will irritate me so much that I'll have to pack it away.  That's why I want to get as much done as I can before then.

I sewed 8 blocks before I stopped, and I'm still full of enthusiasm.

This last picture makes me happy.  Firstly, my last surviving rose made it through that really hot day, and is even blooming.  Second, there are raindrops.  We had a spot of rain and it was very welcome.  I'm glad summer is giving us a rest from those awful temperatures.

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I was sewing the other night, at almost 2am.  I knew I should have called it quits at midnight, but I wanted to get what I'd done so far in one piece.  It was a hot night, but the sewing took my mind off the discomfort until Suddenly, nothing happened.  The machine just stopped, and an ominous warning error message lit up the screen.  Stop for safety purposes! I was devastated; I'd broken my darling machine. I googled the error message, and while I didn't find an exact explanation, I think a fuse on the mother board has blown.  A thermo fuse.  Does that mean I was sewing so much I overheated the machine, or was the sewing room too hot, or a combination of both?  I will have to wait and see what the repair man says.  Looks like I won't have my machine back till the end of next week, so I had better organise a replacement, from my collection.

It's always the electrics that let these old machines down.

Beloved has worn out her foot control, and it's a very unique one, so I haven't been able to source another one in several years.

 Bernie the Bernina has ground to a halt too, she only works intermittently.

I brought my old Janome 7000 back from Shonny's house, but Hayden did some 'sewing' and messed up the timing, so that has to go off to be repaired too.  Good grief, I should do a sewing machine repair course.

I tried sewing on this little sweetie, but she flipped the switch on my meter board and threw the sewing room into darkness.  That's a definite no. (That's an old photo, with my budgies in the background.  No more budgies for me, ever again...)

So finally I dragged out this 631 slant shank machine, and will work at fine-tuning the 1/4" seam allowance on her.  Lots of piecing strips together will help with that.  But I still don't feel that spark of joy when I sit down to sew.  I miss my 6500.

Of course, this could be the Universe, telling me to stop sewing and go clean up my kitchen.  But that's not a message I want to hear right now....

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And then it was Febrary...

I don't like the idea of our months flying by, but at this time of year it means we are getting closer to autumn, so I'm not going to grumble.  My problem is when my favourite seasons fly by as well; I could live without summer quite happily.

Luckily we've been having a few cool days in between our record-breaking heatwaves, so there's time to catch up on chores and get back into the sewing room.  I'm equally inclined to sew, and to clean and sort, and I'm alternating between them.  I know I'll be able to sew in peace if I make the sewing room tidier and more organised, but I just can't keep away from the machine for long.  Marie Kondo has no idea what it's like to want to create things, all the time.  Throwing stuff out gives her joy, whereas keeping it all gives me joy.  I'm not a convert.

It's hot again today, but I hope to spend my time in the workroom, cutting pieces for new quilts and maybe doing a jigsaw. I didn't get to do my Christmas jigsaw, so I feel I'm owed one.  I love vintage ones, they remind me of childhood Christmas days, settling in after lunch with the latest jigsaw and broaching the tin of toffees.  Back when I liked sugar that is, now I wouldn't eat a toffee if you paid me. 

My scrap quilt is coming along, it's nearly half way finished.  I'm enjoying it, but looking ahead to what I can work on next.  I have a string quilt project picked out, which will create even more mess, and cause me more anxiety, but in my clean up I've discovered many boxes of itty bitty scraps and strings. 

This will be my last ditch effort to use them.  Once I get sick of this, they're going in the bin.  Mereth is doing a Log Cabin with 1" strips, 1/2" finished logs.  That's a bit extreme for me; she can have any of the strips that are cut to 1", but the ragged strings are in the bin if I don't use them.

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I doubt that my scrap project is going to become a Leader-Ender.  I just want it done and all the scraps dealt with; I gave Mereth two lots yesterday and I don't regret that at all.  One was my collection of triangular scraps, which I've been meaning to cut into useable sizes for years.  Hasn't happened, so I gave it to her, and she probable went home and did it straight away.  We are very different in our attitude to scraps.  The other lot was 1.5" strips that were short, and I was sick of trying to use every last scrap, so now they're gone.  I'll be cutting more 1.5" strips to finish this quilt, but I"m fine with that.

I like going through my stash drawers, weeding out any bits that are an eighth of a metre, and then cutting them into strips or HSTs.  That seems like progress, and fun, but using up every last ragged strip is not what I love.  I don't like having to work with random colours, just because that's what is left in the scrap bag.  I've made some scrap quilts that I thought were genuinely ugly, and I don't  have enough time left to make ugly quilts.  Even if I'm quilting into my 80s or 90s, I want to make beautiful quilts, not ones just for the sake of using up the fabric.

One of my problem with scrap quilts is that I'm not comfortable until I've made a pattern out of the randomness. I wasn't enjoying the layout of these blocks because it was such a mish-mash of colours and values, so I decided that I would make blocks with a medium value square in the centre,

then link them with a pieced sashing that contained only lighter squares.

That calmed it all down in my eyes, and I'm happily working away at finishing the blocks now.

Another problem to solve was the triangles at the edge of the quilt. 

I ended up using a pieced triangle to finish the edge. and I like how that looks.  I can get so hung up on a detail that I can't do anything else until I've worked out a solution.  Another way that Mereth and I are different.  She would go on calmly making blocks until the solution presented itself, and I'm all about forcing the issue to be solved.  Do I have control issues?  I think that I'm scared it will become a UFO if I don't deal with it straight away.

I have almost all the blocks I need for this quilt now, due to some epic late night sessions, so I'm looking for ward to putting it all together. 

I need 14 more ninepatches, hopefully these pieces will be enough or I'll have to keep cutting and sewing. If I end up with two many leftover strips I have plans to make another of these with the light-dark values reversed.  And I have a couple other patterns in mind if I have anything left after that.  But there's no way I'll be doing them as Leader-Enders.

I rather think I'll go back to these 3.5" Puss In The Corner blocks as my leader enders; I still have plenty of them kitted up, and they are so quick to put together.  I always have a Plan B.

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Since January 1st I've been mulling over the state of the sewing room, and my stash, and what I want to achieve.  Every year I have a meltdown over my scraps, and either try to conquer them, or give them away to Mereth, and yet I still have boxes of bits and pieces cluttering up the place.  It irritates me, and yet I feel this need to deal with them, not simply pass the problem onto Mereth (she doesn't see it as a problem, but she has even less room than I do, and she doesn't need to be overwhelmed by my cast-offs).

I tried really hard to choose a block that would use up a heap of scraps.

This one was on the design wall for about a week, while I tried to work out why I didn't like my fabric choices.  Still don't like them, but still don't know why. Too dark, too murky, who knows.

I tried a different way to piece the block, in different colours.

Nope.

Then I tried this block, which I do love, but I just couldn't get a handle on the colours I wanted for it either  It was easy to cut, and easy to sew, and I love the block itself, but I still couldn't throw myself into it. And as I discovered, you have to make sure all the blocks are spinning in the same direction.  Plenty of room for mistakes there. Sigh.

Then, as I continued to find boxes of strips and units and scraps and offcuts and remnants of other projects, I realised that I was actually trying to make a new project with those stars, not use up all my scraps.  Each star used 18" of a 2.5" strip, and most of my scraps are narrower than that.  I was fussing over the colours and actually cutting new strips for it. It was never going to help my existing scrap problem.

I've done a lot of quilts that use 3.5 and 1.5" strips in the last few years, with all the resulting leftovers. I needed a pattern that would use those up, and that would be random enough that I wasn't constantly trying to match colours, and that would use a heap of the pieces already leftover from other quilts. And was simple.  I was trying to be too clever, trying to choose the 'perfect' block that would make all my scraps disappear.

Once it occurred to me that I needed a pattern that would use all these existing bits together, without the need to cut lots of new pieces, I remembered a favourite pattern from long ago, from this book.

It's so easy, just Rail Fence and 9-patch blocks.

I made this pattern, about 20 years ago, and it was DD's bed quilt for many years.

It's an easy pattern to piece, and will be perfect as a Leader-Ender. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it will use up those scraps and help me clean up the sewing room.  Now that I've decided, I just need to get sewing.

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We've survived another heat wave, which is exhausting, but it's summer after all.  There were new records set all over our state, with 49°C at Pt Augusta where my brother lives, and 48.6° here.  That's 120° and 118°F , and that is just beyond a joke. The best way to get through these hot days is to focus on sewing and forget how uncomfortable it is. My sewing room doesn't have air-conditioning, but the workshop does; when I get too hot to function I can take a pile of stuff over to the workshop.  Dolly likes the air-conditioning more than I do, she's always ready to head on over there. Poor old girl feels the heat, she doesn't cope well with our fierce summers.

Flaked out on the camp bed in the workroom; she doesn't look happy....

My AC usually quits once it gets over 42°, so I had to spend the really hot day at Mereth's, in her tiny air-conditioned lounge room, with her and Matt and the three dogs.  We watched YouTube clips all day, and while it was better than being out in the heat, it made me realise how much I like to be Doing Things, not just sitting and watching. We watched a lot of videos of crafts in Ireland, a series from the '70s, and it was fascinating, but I'd rather be doing things myself.

With that in mind, I'm going to try and prepare a lot of projects that I can just pick up and work on here and there.

 I started a hand-piecing project last year and never touched it again, so I pulled that out and I've put in a few hours stitching.   

I need to mark a lot more pieces and then it will be easy to sew in odd moments of time, when I'm trapped in the air-conditioning.

I also want to make some small quilts this year, no bigger than 24".  Everything I do turns into a big quilt, and a marathon effort, and it would be nice to just play with little pieces and finish a small quilt in a day or two. Plenty of people in blogland have committed to one small quilt a month, and I feel like I'm quite capable of that. 

I definitely want my quilting to be more fun than it has been lately.  I always enjoy my sewing, but it's not playful.  I get so focused on getting through the project that I forget to just relax and see where the ideas take me.  I'd like to try more techniques, more string piecing, more crumb piecing, more paper piecing, more applique.  I already have projects started in all those techniques, so I need to pull them out and see if I can make them more enjoyable, and therefore more likely to be finished.

I intend to catalogue all my UFOs this year, 27 at the last count, and make a plan for getting them further towards completion.  The number of them doesn't bother me, but I'd like there to be newer UFOs at the end of the year, not the same ones that have been hanging around for 10 years or more.  I still love most of them, so it just needs some organisation on my part to get them done.

I haven't decided on a word for 2019, but I think it might be Commit.  I want to decide on a course of action, and then actually DO it.  If I actually commit myself to doing something, then it will lead to results.  Unfortunately, I let myself get derailed and distracted too often. Maybe this year I can focus on actually carrying through on all my good intentions....

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Hello 2019, you sprang up on us  out of nowhere.  I didn't even have time to think about the end of the old year, I was too busy with little people and family, travel and adventures, wild weather and storms.  I'm hoping for some quiet time to get my house in order, literally.

I spent Christmas Day with the family in Pirie, which was crowded and fun, with a traditional hot midday meal.  That's not what our side of the family does for Christmas, but Liz and her 2 sisters were hankering for their childhood traditions, so we had roast pork, roast turkey, roast ham, with all the trimmings, plus plum pudding.  It was very nice, but such a lot of work on a really hot day, catering for 8 adults and 5 children.  We all agreed that if we won Lotto we'd have a white Christmas in Canada with the biggest roast dinner ever! And kitchen staff to do all the work....

I drove down to Shonny's place on Boxing Day, which is actually a really nice day to travel, as everyone else is sitting at home with a food hangover instead of being on the roads. Shonny and Co, spent Christmas at Hayden's family home, and arrived home after I did, and then we had another round of presents and play and a meal of all our favourite things.  Hayden's Christmas Thing is a huge plate full of leg ham, with 2 or 3 sliced tomatoes.  Nothing else, no salad or bread or condiments.  He had to text a picture of his plate to his grandfather, who demanded that each Christmas and started the tradition for Hayden. Family history is all so different.

The next two days were very idle, just playing with the kids and making sure no-one in the house was hungry for even a moment.  And then we were off on an adventure, back to Pirie with the camper trailer for four days, ready to see in the New Year.

It amazes me that such spacious living quarters are contained within this trailer, and that it only takes two hours to transform it. 

The kitchen is at the front, two bedrooms behind that.

Shonny and Hayden worked as a team putting it up, and I played with Isla and Thomas and kept them safely out of the way. As soon as it was all done the kettle went on for coffee, it was all very civilised.

The kitchen area is amazing, the sink and stove swing out from the trailer, and it's ready to go. 

We stayed at a caravan park on the beach front, at a powered site; we had fans and lights, and a camping fridge, so we weren't roughing it entirely, but I think I'm too old to do without some comforts.  The fans were essential, as the temperature was in the high 30's every day and the tent got extremely hot without any airflow.

The first night a huge storm broke overhead, the loudest thunder I've ever heard, louder even than a tropical storm. The lightning was constant, the whole park lit up with pale purple and gold light and the sky an electrical firestorm.  Very beautiful, but frightening for the kids, and rain was pelting down.  The storm trundled off over the hills eventually, grumbling like a bad-tempered herd of cattle, and we finally got to sleep.

We spent the next two days relaxing, taking the kids to the pool and the beach. It's lovely to have no plans, no agenda, no place that you have to be by a certain time. The only plan was to watch the New Year's Eve fireworks on the beach with Mereth's family, and that's what we did.

 

It was sooo noisy, but Isla loved it.  Thomas slept through everything, didn't hear a thing.

It was a lovely holiday break, lots of family time and the kids enjoyed all the adventures.

New Year's Day saw us packing up the camper early, and they set off for home while I was off back to my home.  The temperature soared into the realms of the ridiculous, 44°C is too hot in anyone's language; 111°F is insane. It's finally cooled down, so I might be able to get into the sewing room and get something achieved, after a lengthy break. It's time to take stock of 2018, and have a think about where 2019 is likely to take us.  More quilts, more fabric, more family, more fun.  Onward!!

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On my last visit to see the family Thomas generously shared his cold with me.  I've been laid low for the last 10 days, surrounded by tissues and cough medicine, while the temperature outside reached silly heights of 100 degrees.  I object to having a cold when it's so hot, and summer colds often seem more severe.  I'm through the self-pitying stage, now I'm into the frustrated stage where I just want this to be over with so I can get stuff done at last.

I did tackle one UFO.  My Economy blocks were started in December 2016, and assembled a month later, and they've sat waiting for borders ever since then.  I knew I wanted Flying Geese borders, and I worked on them for a year or so in between other things.

And then it all just sat there waiting.

It took several days to try out various options, ponder which one I like the best, and then actually sew it all together.
I was stuck dithering between two choices of the width of the inner border, swapping things around on the design wall, taking photos and comparing them, agonizing over which one worked best.  Then I realized I was having such a hard time choosing because there was no 'best' option.  Both looked good, and I could choose either one.

Once I came to that conclusion I just picked the one that had appealed to me all along, and had the top finished the next day.  I make life so difficult for myself sometimes.

 It's such a wonderful feeling to finish a long term project, though it was a bit of a surprise to go back through the blog and realize how long it had been languishing. I thought the project was a year old, not TWO years.  But it's finally done, and I can move onto another one of those UFOs that have been waiting patiently.

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Another catch-up post is in order. I'm just back from 2 weeks in Brisbane, visiting family. Three visits in one year! My MIL's twin sister died, just before their 89th birthday, and we thought seeing Thomas and Isla would cheer Mum up. It was a hectic time, organising get-togethers and navigating city traffic, but it was well worth it. 

Isla really enjoyed being with the Brisbane and New Zealand family members again, and Thomas was much admired.

We stayed with DS Rhys, in an inner city suburb; his apartment is very secure, with fobs and clickers to operate doors and lifts and the garage.  I managed to deal with all that without losing anything or locking myself out of anything, but it made me long for my uncomplicated life back here.

His apartment is all modern and sleek, which makes a quilt even important, something to soften the edges and provide a bit of home comfort and love. 

I quilted a top for him, and brought it with me, as I thought it was safer than posting it.  He has a quilt I made him when he was 15, and he's loved it to pieces.

The binding is fraying; only the top layer of the double-fold binding, but it still needs to be replaced.

The fabrics are very faded and worn, I'll have to go over it and repair any weak spots.

There are actual holes in the backing, I don't think I even want to know what caused these.....

But I'm so pleased that this quilt has kept my son warm and comforted through the last 15 years, and that whenever he wraps himself up in it, he's reminded that I love him.

I told him that the more he uses the new quilt, the softer and more familiar it will become, and in a little while he'll have his old friend back,  rejuvenated for another 15 or so years.

I call that a quilting success story.

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