Lone Sock Productions

I'm glad I'm not an actual parent.

2012-03-22T03:47:00.000+10:30

At what age should someone stop believing in the tooth fairy? Maddy is nine now, and even though I don't know at what age I stopped believing*, I'm fairly sure it was younger than that. Along with money, we have sometimes written notes, so maybe it's our fault

Is fault the right word to use? Is it a good thing or a bad thing that she believes in the tooth fairy? I believe that stories such as the tooth fairy are important, since it primes us as children to accept things that don't exist (like santa or the easter bunny) in preparation for the grown up things that don't really exist that we nonetheless have to believe in to be functioning members of human society, (like truth and justice)

But then that's a theory I got from the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, along with a belief that the most logical set up for tooth fairies would be some kind of franchise operation.

The internet seems to think about 10. But I think my internet either has some kind of separation anxiety going on, or either it thinks I'm fat, because whenever I go out to the kitchen, it stops working. It's fine if I go to the bathroom, or to work, but if I go to the kitchen, dropout. So clearly it's deranged, and not to be trusted.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I'm worried that my otherwise very smart little sister is going to be derailed into a life of Nigerian bank scams and fake European lottery wins because I fabricated some quite flimsy evidence that the tooth fairy exists, based solely on the fact that once upon a time I used to do all my as like the computer does instead of like a circle with a stick on the side, which is how Maddy thinks I write. If she falls for that, how will she be able to tell if that email from paypal is real, or a nasty phishing scam?

Ooh, hey, new justification for not giving them the good desktop. Yay!

*I have to think very, very hard about what I did last week.

Does anyone have a therapist they can lend me?

2012-03-21T04:40:00.000+10:30

I find myself getting more and more anxious before beginning a new project. I don't know if I got it before and just didn't pay any attention to it, or if it's just a recent thing, but I've been so worried lately that if I start something I'll only screw it all up and waste all the fabric, that I just... don't. I get out a heap of fabrics, come up with a bit of maths, and then demure, and look at super magnets on ebay, and watch comic-con panels on youtube until it's too late to start, and then I put my fabrics away and go to bed. It just seems easier.

Couple my newfound unwillingness to start anything with an apathy toward binding anything, and I'm a bit stuck. The monsters have provided an alternative, but I'll be honest, I'm not a lover of machine applique, and the fact that they need it is what keeps me from doing them more often. I find I'm better at starting something if I use freshly bought fabrics (probably because they can be replaced if it does all turn to shit) but I still get worried about the amount of money I just spent on them.

Still, there are things that need making, and tonight I sucked it up long enough to make a strap. For a bag, which was a bit too much to ask of myself tonight. It's for a gift, so I want to get it right. Except I haven't actually decided what it's going to look like yet, and that's never been a good start to a project. Hopefully it'll be a quiet night at work tomorrow and I can sort it to my liking. I'm using new fabric at least...

Oh, and last night's post was #700. I knew it was coming up, but I forgot to check exactly when, and now we've missed it.

Somebody...

2012-03-20T03:12:00.000+10:30

...has been playing with my pincushion.

I'm not that OCD.

I did some stuff!

2012-03-19T04:05:00.000+10:30

Today was not good. I haven't been that hungover since the night that I can't remember any of. I need to stop trying to drink as much as Casey drinks. She can drink more than I can, I need to accept that, and not try to keep pace. Lesson learned, until next time.

So anyway, I could barely stand, let alone sew, for most of the day. I know, theoretically, that it's better for you to eat something as soon as you get up, and get outside and moving, but I just don't want to. I just want to nap a bit more, maintain horizontality, and maybe be sick a little bit. The alternative makes you feel better sooner (I know that from BnS balls) but when you're feeling shit, you may as well wallow in it.

I didn't get started sewing till 9, but I've managed to do all the faces on the custom monsters, and I've sewn and turned the arms too. Five of the eight new monsters have horns. Horns are popular, it seems. Hard to turn those little points, but I found a bobby pin.

It's been a bit weird to be making pairs, but it's not the first time - I made a matching set years ago for one of my friends from work's sons.

2012-03-18T03:34:00.001+10:30

And so really, actually, Jeffy and Casey are both quite a bit bigger than me, so it's not my fault if I get really drunk trying to keep up with them.

FTW!

2012-03-17T04:02:00.001+10:30

All the custom monsters (fortunately there were only 8) have been cut out.

Achievement!

Dontwanna.

2012-03-16T04:19:00.000+10:30

I hate binding. I don't get people who are all "I love doing the binding! It's the best bit... I spend a week sewing it down by hand and really savouring the process..."

Blergh. I know you can send a top off to be quilted; I wish I could send off my quilts to be bound. I've worked out probably the quickest, neatest method imaginable and it still feels like it takes forever. One day I might time them both, and see which actually takes longer - the quilting or the binding. There's so much faff to binding, there's cutting and pressing and pinning and folding and turning and sewing really carefully.

To that end, tonight I trimmed my edges, zigzagged them together and cut the binding strips. Just doing that took 20 minutes, and I haven't started the complicated stuff yet.

I need a binding fairy.

No, Sara.

2012-03-15T04:11:00.001+10:30

Since I had to go back to Spotlight today for more hobbyfill, I figured I may as well get some fabrics too. And since everyone's been saying how nice the blue and grey is, well, I figure I'd do it again. But betterer.

I've taken out the prints with other colours in them, taken out the solid blues, added a lighter grey and some more DS blues. Apart from the solids, there's three non-DS fabrics in there - the black, grey and white hashed fabric, and the two greys with dots, which are actually the same fabric. I used the wrong side on the original, and I'm going to use both the wrong and right sides on this one. There really aren't that many grey fabrics to choose from, but I'd like to do this one bigger again, so I'll keep an eye out.

I also went to Lincraft and Stitch & Knit today to get some more monster fabrics.

The purple spot is a flannelette, and it and the two batiks came from Stitch and Knit, the blue hashed one was from Spotlight and the other two dots were from a mixed Lincraft bundle, which was half price.

Meagan and I had a bitch sesh after work so I don't get home till 1.30, and then it seemed like a good time to change the background on my phone. I like to use photos of fabrics, and have decided to go with the plaid from the Teddys Garden range.

Dammit, now I want to buy more.

Working out my issues.

2012-03-14T04:14:00.000+10:30

So last night I lay awake angsting over my backing angst. Yes, I angst about angst. I'm pretty meta. But eventually I realised why I was so unwilling to make a start on piecing a back.

Normally, I quilt on the horizontal and/or the vertical. Straight lines or wavy ones, but really, in a maximum of two directions on the one quilt. Which means that I can do very intricate pieced backings (often leading to arguments over which is the back and which is the front) as long as they are set on point, or at least, much nearer to a 45 degree angle, because this way I don't have to match up any quilting lines. But this design has quilting on the diagonal too. Both diagonals in fact, in different parts of the quilt. So pretty much anything I pieced would have to either line up perfectly, or else be cut on some really weird angle, in three different directions, so it didn't line up anywhere.

And because I'm lazy, both of them seemed too hard, and because it's only 120 wide, I went to spotlight in my lunch break (they were kindly open till 8 tonight, and had 30% off everything) and bought a really really really nice cotton chambray that was 140 wide and only $7 p/m. And you know me, I love a yarn dye, and because this was navy and white it looked grey, cleverly making the backing both grey and blue at the same time.

Having resolved that issue, I got home tonight, basted it all then quilted it.

Pretty quilt lines... I must confess, looking at solid backs makes me want to do something whole-cloth, even if it's just wavy line quilting in a rainbow variegated thread on some black.

Yet another thing to add to my to-do pile. It's getting pretty big.

An evening of quilt appreciation.

2012-03-13T02:33:00.000+10:30

The sunset quilt came of the dryer all nice and boofy and crinkly and I realised, I don't appreciate my quilts enough.

So tonight, I had quilt appreciation night.

A fancy way of saying that instead of sewing, I curled up on my bed (with my pretty new quilt) and watched Big Bang Theory.

It worked!

2012-03-12T03:08:00.000+10:30

I had told myself that I was going to piece the backing for the blue and grey quilt tonight, but after going out to dinner with a friend I hadn't seen since high-school, I got home and wasn't really feeling it. I finally got around to sewing down the fold over binding for the sunset quilt now that I've bought some more hot pink cotton, and then I got into a flat bag.

I'd done a test version with just the lines drawn on the other night and nearly finished it before I realised I was doing it all wrong - trying to sew it like I'd sew a lined pouch with a zipper instead of constructing it like I used to make laptop bags with the top flaps. So tonight's version worked much better.

I still have to sew a clasp into it, and I'm considering maybe making the gusset go the whole way around as opposed to tapering off to a point just beyond the corners, because they're a bit messy. That photo is actually stuffed, well, It has my spare phone and car keys and a lip gloss and a pack of quick-eze in it, which is pretty much everything, except for money, that I need for a night out.

I think next time I'll do an edged handle too, because the black kinda vanishes. I considered using piping on all the edges, but I got lazy.

Still, as a proof of concept, coloured in with fabric markers, I'm pretty pleased. Next one I'd like to try one of the side zipping ones with two handles, but I think tomorrow I should try get that grey and blue quilt backed.

Everyone bow...

2012-03-11T03:22:00.003+10:30

Long day.

Long night.

But it's nice to know that yes, I am still the queen of zips.

Good. Nice. Likin it.

2012-03-10T04:55:00.001+10:30

My favourite thing this 5am Saturday is the fact that the latest batch of monsters are all finished. But I'm also a big fan of fabric markers, and HSTs, and insisting that my 48 year old machine is as good as most of the machines in the $400 range of the market today (and I wonder how many of them will still be going in 48 years?)

Tomato sauce is pretty good too, as are facebook groups and spontaneous sewing gatherings.

Lipsmackers which are comically oversized amuse me, as do magnets, when you try to stick them together the wrong way. I am easily amused.

And realising that you made your test bag all wrong is a bit annoying, but then when, 5 minutes later, your brain points out that you know exactly how to do it, since you did it this way all the time about 3 years ago, well, it's a nice feeling to know that it will all be better next time.

Video crack.

2012-03-09T05:14:00.000+10:30

Yes, I did have to tidy the end of my bed somewhat to take this picture.

But it's all sewn now (not pressed, but yay progress) even though it didn't get done till after 4am becasue I got distracted by youtube.

Damn you youtube!

Bribing myself.

2012-03-08T03:39:00.001+10:30

Tonight after I got home from the gym I told myself that I had to at least sew the strips of the blue and grey quilt before I started sketching 2D handbags.

It worked. But my clipping it up didn't, really. I need more coathangers (what look like the across seams are sewn.the down ones aren't, but the threads between the strips are still attached, so it's like a big net at the moment)

And I've started sketches too.

Bag with flap won't need a zip = yay, but single handles make me sad.

And now that I'm going to bed, I'm not going to draw any more bags till after all those seams are pressed out, at the very least. And pinned too, preferably.

Want. With changes.

2012-03-07T02:00:00.000+10:30

Have any of you heard of Jump From Paper? They make these amazing bags that look completely photoshopped.

That's an actual, physical bag.

And dammit, I want one.

Thing is though, on the backs they've left them black. I suppose, technically, since it appears to be a 2D object, the back shouldn't matter. The angle is important when it comes to "looking" right, and since it's really only meant to be seen from the one direction, not going to any effort on the back would seem somewhat logical.

However, if I'm going to pay $70 for a bag, I want it to be double sided. I'm pretty sure that it would be possible to have the design reversed on the back. I'm pretty sure that you could put another zipper on the back too, even if the pocket was completly flat and attached wholly to one side of the gusset. I'm pretty sure that I could make something similar, but a bit smaller, and double sided, and I'm not totally sure about the "side pockets" on theirs, I think I'd ommit those. I really only want one to use as a pub bag, because I live to mess with the minds of drunk peeps. Also, I love my regular handbag too much to replace it fully, even though the magnet clasp is broken. How the hell can you even break a magnet?

Making a double sided, half size version of this is going to be my side project, that I basically spend all my time thinking about. It may even finally get me spoonflowering.

And again with the monsters...

2012-03-06T03:28:00.001+10:30

Tonight I laid out all the blue and grey HST units so I could pin them together and start sewing them. Naturally, I had a sudden dislike of my positioning, and spent an hour sitting on the floor moving sqaures till I was happy. Well, happier.

It's a lot easier to do a shuffle when the HSTs are still HALF square TRIANGLES. Once they're a whole square, it's a lot harder, since you've got to be happy with the position of both fabrics. And when I look at old quilts, it's never the slightly off points that get me, rather it's the positioning of the various fabrics, especially if they're randomly placed. But there has to come a point where you go, "Suck it up Sara, and just start sewing the goddamn thing already."

And since it's pretty much all new fabrics, if it all turns to shit I will simply sacrifice another $30 of my moneys and buy all the fabrics again and start over.

And:

Tie-Dyed Flannel

The little yellow guy looked like a Bee Gee before He got the massive arms. Now he doesn't.

Spotlight now has cartoon-style safety eyes. Only used on one monster, and I'm still not sure about them.

The little guy with the purple horns is purple on the back too, but the back of his horns is green.

The fabric of the big guy was horrible to use because it was so lightweight and shifted like crazy when I was trying to sew it.

The centre lady is the only monster so-far to get a name - Rosa (der)

Possibly father and son?

The problem with double sided batiks and nearly-but-not-quite-symetrical body shapes is that sometimes you get them half pinned before you realise it's back-to-front.

The one on the top had a spontaneously occuring hole just next to his right underarm, so I had to handsew him a wider seam allowance to contain it, and then I had to do the same to the other side so he was symetrical. That's why his arms are so close to his sides.

These two are toats my favourites.

Monsters!

Only a couple of them have been handsewn though.

Bocket o' Monsters

2012-03-05T04:56:00.001+10:30

It is 5am, but, but for the handsewing of the turning holes, all 27 monsters of batch #4 are complete.

Some of these guys have amazing teeth. I'm jealous. But most of them have no depth perception (having only one eye) so I guess, you win some you lose some.

Pinteresting?

2012-03-04T04:32:00.001+10:30

After a morning filled with being awake, an lunchtime filled with existential angst, an afternoon spent napping and an evening at work, I came home and got to pinning monsters for the night. It's good that it's a very much "in front of the TV" kinda task, because it's quite frustrating.

Because you sew and turn out and stuff the arms first, and because monsters are under no obligations to conform to the ratios we find pleasing in a person, often their arms are longer than the boddies they have to be pinned inside of.

My tip, for anyone who wants to make monsters of their own, would be to sew them once, over the edges that have arms or horns in them, and then shove the arms well out of the way and sew the groin area. If you try to do it all in one hit, the position of the arms can get distorted, and they'll be pointing in all sorts of weird directions.

Also, the movie RED is very enjoyable, and good for watching while pinning monster bodies.

Yay for stuff

2012-03-03T02:50:00.001+10:30

Its yay for stuff time, but with a difference. Instead of being at home in my bed, with my sewing, I'm at booby-ella, our family's shack at Racecourse Bay. I'm chillin in my swag, in a room full of teenyboppers who all agreed they were bored and should go to bed, but who haven't shut up since then. Still, I've had a surprisingly enjoyable evening with a group if people I wouldn't normally like (rich, private school 17 year olds) who've been incredibly welcoming to my 24 year old formerly-public-schooled self. It may just have been because I had booze, but they all seemed genuinely warm and friendly. So yay for that, for starters.

And as I mentioned before, yay for my swag. I'd had out in the boot for a few weeks after Charlegrak and it was totally handy when it came to sorting out what to bring tonight. Honestly, I filled an esky with cider from the fridge, and my swag was already in the boot and so was my gym bag, with a handy change of clothes. Yay for my gym bag too.

Yay for jeans as well, especially super comfy ones I've had for ages. I didn't realise it till today, but with all the hot weather while I was at holidays and now being back at work, it's been about a fortnight since I've worn them.

Yay for sharp scissors, even though they stab you in the finger. Yay for safety eyes, because they're easier than sewing on buttons. Yay for polyfill for its smooth consistent stuffing properties.

Yay for grey. Its all of a sudden my new favorite fabric colour, and I've been looking at lots of greys on the internet. Yay for the blue and grey quilt, even though its barely started, because I can feel it's going to be awesome.

Yay for HSTs. Did I yay them last week? Possibly. My feelings towards them haven't changed. Much like with miniatures, where half the size means twice the awesome, a quilt with HSTs looks twice as awesome as one with squares.

Yay for the bottle (bag) of water in my gym bag, which tastes way better than the rainwater here.

Yay for mini sausage rolls.

Yay for blogger on my phone.

Yay for not working fridays.

Yay for being warm and cozy and comfy and contented. I'd make a fantastic cat.

Pathetic. (Me. I'm pathetic. Not the monsters.)

2012-03-02T03:45:00.001+10:30

So, with the new sharper pointier scissors that I bought yesterday, I started cutting more eyeholes in monsters this afternoon.

Well, I say started. I pushed the tip through the fabric and straight into my fingertip.

See that tiny, tiny spot on my fingertip? Look closely, it's tiny. It's been 14 hours and it hurts like hell. I'm a little bit of a sook, in case you haven't noticed. But I appear to own the world's sharpest, pointiest scissors, and they only cost me $7, which seems pretty good value...

Anyway, tonight after work I got the rest of the eyes done, I got all the little arms and horns sewed (all 62 of them) and I snipped all the inside curves and turned them all inside out and I've stuffed 30 of them, but I've run out of episodes of Long Way Down to watch and also, it's 3am.

Just to amuse myself, I've strung my little rope of arms across my fabric shelves - if you're going to mass produce 62 tiny arms, leave them in a chain together, because it makes them much easier to turn right way out and stuff. And you can hang them on your wall.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, here's Casey's poem:

The number of this Aristocrat,

Is the answer that you seek,

Don't get hooked on the Enchanted Forest,

We've a wedding this time next week.

Two to go, and about an hour tomorrow to do them in.

My brain leaked out my ear and it made me start typing like an old Italian lady.

2012-03-01T03:40:00.001+10:30

You know how I love quiltmathing? I'm not so keen on other types of mathing.

Tonight, I have spent 4 hours mathing out a number hunt for my sister and some friends to do for a hen's night this weekend. They have hired a bus and are going to some local country pubs, where part of the challenge is to write down some numbers and add them all up to work out what the answer is.

I'm quite confident none of them read this blog. The answer is boobs. Or, more to the point, the answer is 58008 upside down on a calculator. It's also the bride's nickname, and it was an easier number to work toward than 10,032,012 which is the date of the wedding, and our original plan. We roadtripped it a couple of weeks ago to find some numbers and I had to work them all together. And then I had to write little poems for each of them.

I don't even get to go to this hen's night. I'm working. I don't even get to go to the wedding! It's one of my sister's best friends, she's the maid of honour, we run in the same circles and go to all the same BnSs and bonfires, but I'm not invited.

It mak'a me cross.

Actually, I haven't done all the poems. I've done ten, leaving Casey with three, and even though they're the last three on the trip, they would seem to be the hardest. How exactly does one write, in four lines, the 2nd and 4th of which rhyme, that in the pokie room at the Bellum there's a machine called the Enchanted Forest that has "Aristocrat 540" written on it and we want them to write down the 540 and add it to all the other numbers?

Casey gets that one. She's lucky I like her or she'd've got them all.

Naww...

2012-02-29T03:28:00.000+10:30

They look even cuter with pupils.

Unfortunately, it seems that my sharp pointy scissors don't really have sharp enough points so I've given up after half a dozen cause it's too hard. Looks like I need new scissors too.

Monster Mash

2012-02-28T03:34:00.000+10:30

On a completely unrealated note, it was photo day at Grant High School today too.

They at least (hopefully, though you never know with east-enders) had their eyeballs. I'm not sure where my collection of safety eyes is, so I'll have to go and buy some more tomorrow.

Hi Ho (Hum)

2012-02-27T03:56:00.000+10:30

Well, my holidays are pretty much over. In 10 hours time I'll be back at work, for a 9 hour day, no less. I think that the first half of your first shift back should be holiday-paid too, so your first day back is a half-day, to help you ease back into it.

And yes, I know it's only been two weeks, but they've been a fairly full two weeks:

I learned how to make shoes, culminating in spending the last two days wearing a pair I made.

I quilted a mid-sized quilt, and the binding's 3/4 done too, but I've run out of pink thread.

I made (as in, fully completed) two baby quilts.

I'm about half way through 25 monsters.

I made three skirts.

I pieced and quilted a pillow case.

I cut and began piecing a 4th quilt.

I went to four parties, and a country music festival.

All in 17 days.

Worse, I feel like I'm really starting to build momentum, like if I had another week off I could fully double that output. Though I will confess, both weeks I had a Monday/Tuesday slump, so maybe I'm just imagining it.

Anyway, no photos of the grey version of the peach spotted skirt I made yesterday, because it got vomited on by Anna's dog. Luckily I had packed the peach one too, in case of something like that happening, so I just switched halfway through the night. And then my shoes really did coordinate with my outfit, since I'd made them in the same peach fabric.

I realised last night too that the skirts really really needed to have pockets (I kept putting my phone down and freaking out 30 seconds later), and even though it took me a bit of thinking today, since I hadn't done pockets in a long time, I eventually got them worked out.

Not that you can see them in the photo. The fabric is a very lightweight poly-cotton blend, that I don't love the drape of as much as the rayon, but which I love the retro browns of. The crinkle made it hard to cut straight too.

I spent a couple of hours tonight sewing the faces to the monsters, and I've found that the keys to raw edge applique are to have your machine on the slowest stitch speed, and do something else every other hour, lest you go blind and/or insane. All the black around the eyes and the big smiles is done, now I just need to do the whites of the buck teeth and then the associated mouths.

In between the two hours spent turning fabric in circles watching a needle bob slowly up and down, I cut all my HSTs for the blue and grey quilt I bought for earlier in the week.

And it seems the key to correctly cutting an entire quilt is to only use new fabric that can be replaced tomorrow if any mistakes are made. None were, and after my second hour at the monsters I laid this out.

And I'm so in love. Here it's laid out at 1.4 by 2 metres, but there's pretty much 4cm of seam allowance for each block, so it'll become quite a bit smaller. That's the worst thing about HSTs, you lose 2cm in the 45 degree seam and then if you sew with a wider allowance so it's easier to do neat points, as I do, there's the same gone again. Still, it's going to be at least 1.6m long, and that's nearly as long as me, so it's plenty big enough.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here...

2012-02-26T03:00:00.000+10:30

The different sciences tell us different things. Physics, for instance, tells us that every atom has a current state, and that its prescribed future state, and the state after that, is fixed to the point where, if you could chart the position of every atom in the universe, you could then calculate what every single atom will do and then do again, until eternity, and you would therefore have predicted the future.

But computer sciences point out that even though processing power will continue to increase at an expenential rate, it will never reach the point where it can chart the position of every atom in the universe before said atoms have moved, simply because it too will be comprised of those self same atoms, so maybe it's easier to just let the universe run as its own computer simulation, and we'll see how it ends up simply by letting it happen.

Certain branches of philosophy on the other hand, state that reality does not exist except as we percieve it. Indeed, certain psycologists and even biologists will agree with them on this point, since so much of what we feel we are receiving from our senses is either extrapolated by the brain or even flat out invented. What we think we see, we might not see, and really, reality is as we percieve it, and we percieve it from within, each of us telling a different story of what did, and what will, happen. None of them are necessarily right or wrong, since we only ever see them from within our own brains, and even factual innacuracies can be glossed over if you believe hard enough.

What's the point of this post? Well, physics says it was inevitable, computer sciences says it was possibly a waste of the processing power of the desktop to simply type it up in a practically ancient program like notepad, and psychologists and biologists will say that I only precieved the creation of this post, and that it's possible that the physical universe about me that I feel it was typed doesn't actually exist at all.

Thing is though, life will go on, no matter what, real or not. Even once we're dead, the universe will continue to turn (though not the universe as we perceive it, unless we have moulded enough minds to see the world as we do, and even then, not exactly) since, whether or not we loose that 21 grams at death or not, there's plenty of momentum behind it already. Shit's gunna happen, no matter what, and once it's happened it's inevitable that it would have happened, and all you can really do is carry on.

For the record, yes, I am about 6 ciders into the night, feeling philosophical, and no, noone has died. But, in much the same way that it does every instant of every day, tonight, our lives changed irrevocably. Tomorrow will never be the same as today was, but that's life. And now that that's been spell checked, I'll be out in the bar living said life if anyone wants me.

Finally

2012-02-25T04:21:00.003+10:30

I did so much sewing last week and now I'm nearing the end of this week (and therefore my holidays) I'm getting a bit disappointed about how much I didn't get done.

Still, today at least I didn't do too bad.

I made a skirt.

Which I will be re-making tomorrow in the same fabric in the grey colourway - it's a rayon that was on the clearance racks at spotlight for $3p/m and it's so soft and drapey and beautiful, and because it has no stretch it sews like a dream. 60cm cut of it's 144cm width, sew it into a circle, hem the bottom and put some wide elastic in the top, and it's done. I made a belt for it too, just grey homespun with a little cumberband buckle, but I've chopped it up ready to re-do it tomorrow with interfacing.

The reason for the clothes making is that it's one of my my sister's and one of my best friend's birthdays early next week, which means parties this weekend. Becky had family dinner tonight and is having a big piss up here tomorrow night, which I will be leaving after an hour or so to go to Anna's. Becky is getting a Spotlight voucher and instructions to buy herself at least 3 metres of quilt fabric, since after the bag I know she'll decide she doesn't really like whatever fabrics I pick for her. Anna is getting a potential quilt too, since apparently her Dad's buying her a swag, but since I don't know the actual size I just made her this.

I bought the fat quarter packs a while ago when they were on clearance for $6 each, so I've cut them to their biggest square (44cm) since squares are easy and used the strips from the edge to do this, since pillows really only come in one size*. And then I chopped the leftovers of that into 3cm on-point squares, and sewed her a card.

It's not much, but today I sewed everything I needed to sew, and went to the pub for a bit too.

*okay, yes, there are Euro pillows and bent pillows too, but regular pillows.

Those monstrous eyes...

2012-02-24T03:54:00.000+10:30

Before I do monsters again, I think I need to get myself a BabyGo or a Cricut - my poor thumb has been rubbed raw from cutting all the little circles for eyes. The main problem is how thick it is - I fuse together some white quilting cotton with white wool felt and then another layer of webbing to fuse them both to the face. And since if you draw on the fabric or the webbing it bleeds through when you iron it, there's the layer of paper too. A single layer of cotton isn't enough to cover the print and the wool tends to pill, which shits me, so this is pretty much the only way to get the finish I want.

Still, fusing down the faces is the least production-line-y bit of the process, and therefore one of the bits I like better. What were just shapes now have personalities, even though they don't have eyeballs. One of them appears to be a reincarnated BeeGee, and one of them is shrugging without having shoulders. That's quite a talent.

I also seem to have mainly single-eyed monsters - possibly because I went with bigger eyes this time (easier to sew down) and less eyes also means less cutting. Still, I like one-eyed, since it gives the impression of monstery-ness even though most of them are four-limbed creatures same as us.

Angst

2012-02-23T03:06:00.000+10:30

Once upon a time, I could quite confidently throw together a bundle of fabrics, safe in the knowledge that the quilt that came out at the other end would be wonderful. Now, in the words of Eric Carmen, those days are gone. It takes me a day, maybe two, sometimes as much as a week before I'm sure of the choices I've made. Lately I've even been needing to chop bits up before deciding if I like them or not. What's worse is that back in the day I was mainly doing nice simple stack and slash quilts, that were solely about the fabric choice, without even a nice pattern to distract from a bad choice. And yet, most of them turned out pretty well.

So here's what I'm currently angsting over.

Some of these fabrics have been in stash since I started quilting. It's a huge variety - therse's some from the early Fabric Traditions bundles at Spotlight, before the quality turned to shit, there's some from Lincraft's mixed bundles, there's some mid 2000s Moda, a bit from the remnants bin at Stitch and Knit, a couple of bits of one of the the new DS ranges and some random internet purchases too.

The plan is to cut them into 20cm squares and HST them into another, quite a bit more random version of the second baby quilt I made for Meagan.

Probably the middle one on the left.

As well as that bundle, today I bought some (well, a lot) of the new DS line, which went on sale today. Unfortunately, our store didnt get a very complete selection of the range - none of the greens and only about half the oranges, so I had to add in some solids when I (naturally) got angsty about having the blues and oranges together.

I'm bummed about the orange especially, because I'd love to do an orange quilt. Still, we're apparently going to Adelaide sometime late March so I might be able to find the rest then. These are 20cm cuts, and there's two more lighter oranges and two more darks, and that would give me almost enough to do the 7 by 9 quilt (top row) which is at least a decent grown up couch size, so I could use it instead of fobbing it off on a random child.

Prototype'd

2012-02-22T03:40:00.001+10:30

I devoted most of tonight to cleaning my room.

Well, I say that, but really, I devoted most of today to standing about my bedroom with my hands full watching Long Way Down, or staring at my fabric shelves coming up with new ideas, and moving my clothes around. Still, my room looks a bit cleaner, mainly because the clothes are in the cupboard and/or the laundry.

And once I had performed the nasty task of re-compressing the mess after it'd been magically expanded to fill the whole room and, worse, cover the bed I was wanting to sleep in, I sat down at the machine for two minutes to have a got at this little prototype.

Two birthdays this weekend, and both of them are getting quilts I wont have made - Becky because she always seems to have a problem with the fabrics I choose so I'm giving her a Spotlight voucher and instructions to buy at least 3 metres of quilting fabrics with it, and Anna because she won't be getting her swag till after her birthday, so I don't know how big a quilt she'll need for it. I figure a tiny quilted card is the solution, and I wanted to see how my machine would go with the card. Great, as it turns out, except the bobbin ran out half a square before the end.

Oh well, it was only the prototype.

Monsterising

2012-02-21T04:59:00.000+10:30

When I was little, Helen used to call me Sara Scissor Hands.

Tonight, I used scissors for about 3 straight hours, and HATED it.

I missed my rotary cutter. I tried mixing up the scissors, so they weren't constantly rubbing on the same places on the same fingers. I tried big scissors and little scissors and scissors somewhere in between.

I now have a flat pack* of 26 monsters ready to be faced. I think it gets a lot more interesting once you start giving them faces - that's when the personalities come out.

*These are fantastic for keeping all the little bits together and flat - they're an A4 case about 1.5cm thick that are meant for keeping paperwork in - usually found in the stationary aisle.

The Next Generation....

2012-02-20T04:23:00.000+10:30

Tonight, I couldn't be bothered doing real sewing, so I watched a lot of youtube videos and cut out some more monsters instead, only now I have a blister on my right index knuckle from the scissors. Ow.

To which the correct response* is "shit story, needs more dragons."

And while I don't have more dragons, I do have this.

Maddy's first ever quilt. It's only little - they're 10 cm squares from the hundreds I still had left over from the very first quilt I made, but no matter. I pulled out the other good-condition machine the other night for her to use without the foot (just turning the crank by hand) and she'd made herself a couple of simple shape cushions with my help that night. Today though we got up after our 6am hometime arrival from our spontaneous country music festival adventurising to find she had made a freaking awesome SpongeBob, without a pattern, out of some of the felt we bought at Spotlight on Friday.

Unfortunately, I think Mum's hidden it to keep forever and ever, so I don't have a photo.

With that I concluded that she was probably grown up enough to start using a foot pedal, but the one I used to use was still broken, so we had to send Dad out to fix it. And then we had to gaffa tape a pencil sharpener underneath it so that it woudn't go above a certain speed.

And no matter how insistent I was that we maybe just piece some cushion covers first, she wanted to do a quilt, so I haggled it down to a little blankie that we could use as a mat or for one of her toys. It seemed like a lot of hassle to iron out our seams, and I also figured it would be an easier bodge job for me at the end if they weren't, so we chain pieced it in it's entirety and just pressed the seams to one side. And since I hate having to bind stuff that I've sacrificed my good fabrics and many many hours to, I just put the backing on right sides in and told her to sew around it, and we'd leave this one without any batting.

It was at this point that the kids from next door came over and asked if she'd like to go out and play, and therefore it was also at this point that she became a real quilter.

Because it's not finished, and is therefore her first real WiP.

*This is a response to pretty mych anything in our house.

Oww.

2012-02-18T23:43:00.001+10:30

I am drunk. I am at the lake charlegrak country music festival. I have snuck off to hide under a tree because I have terrible terrible heartburn. It hurts. Finding out that my ex cheated on me hurt less than this heartburn does. I've had two zantac and two quick eze and still it hurts. Ow. On the other hand, Meagan liked her quilt, ergo life is good. Except for the heartburn. Actually, its receding. I'll be okay in a couple of minutes. Except for the twig poking me in the arse. As I sit under a tree.

Favourite things 4am Saturday

2012-02-18T04:04:00.000+10:30

Men's vintage wrangler watches.
Cider. Pref Bullmers Pear, but Strongbow Sweet will do.
Wavy line quilting.
Road trips.
Writing stupid poems.
Maths.
Over-ear headphones.
Varigated thread.
Miniature anything.
Orange mentos.
The way the washing machine makes quilts look about a million times better.
Tie Dye.
Maccas at 2am.
Knowing that something's a bad idea but doing it anyway.
White metal roads.
New moons.
Cushions.
DVD box sets.
Internet on my phone.
Wendy's Mint Madness ice cream.
Yarn dyed stripes.

Gender neutral prints.
CD burners.
Electric blankets.
Pretty buttons.
Ebook readers.
Bumchange tins.
Finding cider in the boot of the car.
Lying on the trampoline at night.
Staring into the abyss.
Saying goodnight to the abyss and going to bed.

2012-02-17T04:00:00.000+10:30

It is possible that I am sewing too much.

Last night my dreams were full of me having to hurry up and do whatever it was I was doing (stealing chewing gum from a hospital(?), smuggling my inflatable horse out of my hotel(?)) so that I could get back to sewing some more. And then this afternoon I found myself thinking, after I had gone to Spotlight to get some binding, that I wanted to go have a browse at Kmart, even though I didn't actually need anything, and when I asked myself why, I had to admit, grudgingly, that I was stalling on going home, because there was yet more sewing to be done.

Really, apart from going to the gym last night, and then to see Meagan at maccas, all I've done all holidays is sew. And yes, I know that was the point, and yes, Baby Shower gift is all done now, But I really really had to stop for a bit.

So while I was at Kmart, I bought a novel, called The Girl in the Steel-Capped Boots. It was... well, it was everything I thought it was going to be. Cliched, mainly, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it. Main character, a newly graduated engineer, gets sent out to the edge of nowhere to help 350 blokes build a big jetty, overcomes all their sexist prejudices to win the affection of all and the heart of the gruff, sexy, mysterious head of the company that owns the jetty. Yay!

Still, for all that I knew the ending by page 24, it was a nice three hours away from the machine, and, time suitably taken off, I got to binding.

But, a step back in time. Had my internets not chucked a hissy fit last night, I could have shared with everybody the tribulations of Baby Shower Quilt #2.

See that missing triangle? It is supposed to be blue stripe. But you can only get 8 triangles from a fat quarter - not a problem with the red spot, since I had a spare 3 metres of it, but I needed 9 of the blue too. I had a similar stripe that I had put in there, but it was more aqua, and too close to the green, and I tried a red and blue spot, and a yellow stripe, and a blue check, but I didn't like any of them.

Solution? Change the direction the stripes faced and drop off the corners.

My first ever octagonal quilt. Bound in a yellow, terracotta and blown stripe that I absolutely adore for it's unashamed retroness. Backed in a red and white narrow seersucker stripe I had originally hoped to use for the front, but was too crinkly after washing. About 105cm at the wide bit.

And there's the back for the bright baby quilt - more HSTs.

I'm really loving HSts at the moment, clearly.

But which one do I actually give to Meagan? She said when I showed her the big bundle of pastels that she liked the idea of having a very babyish quilt, so that she could put it away when the baby got a big bigger in order to bring it out when it got a lot bigger. But she also liked the bright bundle, because it was bright.

I don't know.

Grr

2012-02-16T04:22:00.001+10:30

In much the same way that three times seems to be the limit for unpicking and resewing a seam, three times is also the maximum number of times I'm willing to reboot my modem at 4am...

Meagan: Don't look.

2012-02-15T03:52:00.001+10:30

Have you seen those surveys that the big quilting websites occasionally do? The ones where they ask you what type of quilter you are, how experienced you are, what fabrics you like.

I'd like to add a couple of questions to the bottom of that, because I think we'd all like some insight into how anal we are compared to all the other quilters.

Firstly: how far off does a point have to be before you will unpick it and do it again? This question needs to be asked twice too I think, since it's different for prints and solids. Prints I'm usually cool with anything up to 3 or 4mm, but solids it's less than 2mm. I think that's reasonable. 4mm is surprisingly large.

Secondly: how many times are you willing to unpick a seam before you just set the whole damn thing on fire? And does this number start off small and get bigger (as you've put in more effort and therefore care about finishing it) of start big and rapidly shrink (as you lose patience and your head explodes)?

I ask because tonight, everything turned to shit. My maths was wrong (shame), my very first piece I cut was 5mm too small, I did the HSTs perfectly but then as soon as it came time to sew together the squares, I sewed along the wrong side, realised, unpicked them, sewed them again, pressed them, discovered the aforementioned wrongness in the maths (each small block was 3.75mm too big), unpicked it again, trimmed them all down, sewed them all back together again, pressed them, realised I really shouldn't have trimmed the medium sized blocks too, unpicked them, sewed them with a narrower seam allowance to make up a few spare milimetres, pressed them and ease sewed them to the now only 2.5mm too big large squares. At this point, the universe clearly realised that it had taken the joke a little bit too far, and let me finish the rest of the quilt in peace.

Thank god it's a) really pretty and b) what should be a really quick quilt. Had I not screwed up pretty much every single thing it was possible to screw up, I think I could have almost had it done in a bit over an hour - as it was it still took under 3, and there was a lot of unpicking to be done.

It's pretty small, about 1m by 1.1m. Baby sized.

Tomorrow I have to come up with a back for it. There's still quite a bit of the green and both blues (maybe a fat sixth?) and there's the half metre of purple I decided to not use. I might do all cool colours on the back, and I'm going with grey for binding.

Ow

2012-02-14T04:15:00.000+10:30

Do other people get pin finger? Or are they smart enough to own and use a thimble?

Anyway, I obviously pinned too much last night (shoes get kinda thick) and now the tip of my index finger is all sore and it hurts too much to pin anything.

So, naturally, to ease my sorrow, I went shopping. I was looking for a red and white stripe to add to a potential bundle and found a nice one at Stitch and Knit.

That solid is an off-white. It looks yellow. Anyway, once I'd added the red stripe, I had to take out a blue and a green, because they didn't look right anymore. So I made them into a new bundle, which coordinates very nicely with some John Deere fabric I bought for a backing.

But it seems a bit boy-ish. As does this bundle of Groove fabrics I bought at Stitch and Knit - They were $10p/m with a 30cm minimum cut.

But really, I've got 5 days to make a gender neutral baby quilt and a sea of fabric-choice-indecision. So after I'd given up on making bundles and auditioning maths, I packed up for the night, before spontaneously deciding to sew together some of the HSTs that have been hanging about since I cut waay too many making the big pinwheel quilt.

I've done some tentative maths, and I need more white. Which means I'll probably accidently buy lots yet again.

Shoe proof and progress.

2012-02-13T03:34:00.000+10:30

Tonight I did something I've never done before: I made something according to the pattern.

And, even though it worked, and the pieces fit together with an eerie precision, it still wasn't the result I was after. And so I was going to give up for the night when I had another look at one of last night's failures, which had a perfect toe but an incredibly muffed up heel (I was having a go at just using a straight piece)

And since I was using an old piece of lace to measure my curves because I couldn't find any string, I got to thinking how nice that toe would look in some old faded denim with just a piece of lace across it. And even though I don't have any old denim, I had a few pairs of old RM moleskins that I had removed the badges from, and thought maybe it would ne nice to have a go with them.

And it turned out lovely. I came up with a new heel curve after looking at the brown spottly ones, since it got kinda baggy on the pinkie toe side - I narrowed it and gave it a curve at the base, and it sits really well on the white shoe.

Only problem is it's about 2cm too long for me. That's why I've been constantly refering to it in the singular - The top of the second one has all been assembled but it's not attached to the heel, so I'm going to try to shorten it, and if that works, I can just make one more to match it.

Shoes cont.

2012-02-12T04:08:00.000+10:30

Today I made 4 pairs of slipper shoes from four different made-by-me patterns, and athough two pairs are quite wearable, they're still a bit too slipper-ish for me to be happy with. I went into Spotlight and bought some vinyl for the soles which I'm liking a lot, as well as a few 20cm cuts to make my test versions with. I know it would seem more sensible to use old stash fabric, but I always worry when I use something from stash, especially on a single fabric project like these are, that I will need it's coordinatey brilliance later on, and my brain will be all "I know we have the perfect thing... what is it...?" and then I'll search for half an hour before remembering that I used it to try make some shoes that turned out not-quite right. And that would be terrible.

Better to just buy $10 of new fabrics, and save myself the angst.

Late, as usual.

2012-02-11T05:14:00.002+10:30

Just one favourite thing this 5am Saturday.

It's a working phone handset you plug into your 3.5mm headphone jack on your mobile. I bought my sister a blue one on the same order and now have to buy 4 more for friends and relatives that want them.

Just type "retro mobile handset" into an ebay search if you want one - I paid $15 and got free postage, but I've since seen cheaper ones.

Shoes

2012-02-10T03:11:00.000+10:30

Tonight in the car on the way home I decided that what I really needed to do was sew myself some shoes. Most of the free tutorials were baby shoes and those that weren't were, for the most part, just scaled up versions, and I want something that looks less like an overcomplicated sock and more like a shoe. I really dislike most of the flats you can buy at the moment, simply because they don't cover your toes, and that makes me really cross. So I had a look on etsy for some patterns - no doubt I'll change them anyway but it seamed easier to pay the six bucks than waste time measuring my shoes.

I have gone with:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/71430645/everyday-loafers-sewing-pattern-computer

and

http://www.etsy.com/listing/83272991/no-217-olivia-women-shoes-pdf-pattern

And hopefully tomorrow when I wake up (first day of holidays: squee!) they'll be in my inbox waiting for me to have a go.

Also while I was looking on ebay I found this pattern:

Which I don't need to buy since it's blindingly obvious. But what's also obvious (to me, anyway) is how awesome that would look if you gave it a green zip and surround and pink sides. Watermelon pouch!

I may need to buy some black sequins for seeds.

P.S. the potato and gravy offensive seems to have succeded so far in staving off the sore throat. What's more, today sucked in a Thursday way (ie, late night shopping really busy running behind staff are hating on one another war is imminent kinda way) as opposed to a Tuesday way.

2012-02-09T04:08:00.000+10:30

Have any of you seen the latest episode of Castle? I was wondering if it was possible for 42minutes of televison to erase the pain of the week of Tuesdays. Actually, I was thinking that maybe the new episode of White Collar could do it, since Sara's back, and you gotta love a character that shares your name. But the 40's noir flashbacks, narrations and funny accents, coupled with my ability to work out what was about to happen (on average, just early enough to say out loud, to myself, "oh, oh...") made for an episode I was very nearly about to wake siblings up to watch at 2am.

And a quick catch up on the progress of the week of tuesdays: Dad made me help him rake up tree-bark and leaves and my throat's doing that horrible "pre-sick" thing, two days before I go on annual leave.

Day 3 of the Week of Tuesdays.

2012-02-08T03:38:00.000+10:30

Last week was blue week. We wore blue at work and generally had a good time. When you work in retail, casual days are the best, because you get to be a ninja. Customers think you're just like them when you're not behind a register, and when you are behind a register (especially if you're one of the few and/or the only one in casual) they feel bad for you, assuming for whatever reason that it's so desperate in store that they're forcing employees to come in in casual and help out. It's lol-worthy. Last week was lol-worthy.

This week, not so much. I've been refering to it as "the week of Tuesdays" after the fact that bad things always seem to happen in our house on a Tuesday.

On sunday I was hungover and I lost a battle (but not the war!) against microsoft copyright protection and my wallet broke. Unrelated incidents.

On Monday I spent 2 hours going around the mount trying to find a replacement wallet. I pretty much failed, eventually buying an iphone hardcase because I like hard shell cases. It'll suffice for now, since I'm not much of a cash carrier - I really only needed it for cards and bum change. Then I went to Red Rooster and got denied my request for 8 nuggets (apparently now they can only sell me six) before going to work to find that Meagan has neo-natal classes now on mondays, so she's switched nights. I got Maccas on the way home, and they put mayo on my wrap. I hate mayo. Also, I couldn't use my kitchen or my bathroom, since handymen were coming in the morning.

Morning. Tuesday morning. The actual Tuesday in the week of Tuesdays. There were guys coming to install a new oven and get rid of the old bathroom vanity and replace it but through my sleepytimes and my closed door, it sounded like they were removing it with a hammer. And maybe light explosives. Loudly. During what is, for me, the middle of the night. I was a half hour late for work (actually, this Tuesday 4 weeks ago I was late too. I have 4 week rolling roster and my brain has obviously remebered it wrong) and we were a tad understaffed. When I went to the post office, instead of a funky new phone case or a bag of fabrics, there was a speeding fine. From Victoria. 106kph on the highway. There should be an exception for South Australians. I was under MY speed limit (110), isn't that more important?

Tonight, in spite of the fact that it is the week of tuesdays, I had a go at quilting the sunset quilt. I bought a spool of varigated pink a week or so ago so I filled the bobbin with hot pink thread for the back and threaded this expensive stuff through the machine.

Guterman Sulky Cotton 12 doesn't work well as a top stitch thread... Actually, it goes okay so long as you don't stop. If I could quilt the entire thing edge to edge in one smooth movement I'd be okay, but I can't, so I'm not.

On the bright side, It's very easy to unpick.

I like zips.

2012-02-07T03:58:00.000+10:30

Size 7 (standard chunky) zipper from Spotlight is available in black, white, navy and cream for (I think) $1.99p/m.

If you buy a zip around pencil case from Neds it costs you $4 and you have to do a bit of unpicking (but they use a very long stitch length, so it's very quick) but you get 2.5metres AND it's in pretty colours.

From this:

To this:

You only get 2 zipper pulls per pencil case, but they have rainbow ones with lots of short zips for $3 and you get about a dozen pulls from each of them.

Be not afraid of the zips, people. They can be your friends.

Except the ones with the metal teeth. They chip your fingernails.

Even blogging is too much.

2012-02-06T03:00:00.000+10:30

After 4 not-particularly-fun hours, I'm sick of computers.

...

2012-02-05T05:05:00.001+10:30

22 years ago, Bon Jovi sung that he "...don't know where I'm going, only god knows where I've been...."

These days, it's not just god, but anyone who can follow your places tagging on facebook.

As for me, it went: Work, Home, The G, The Commersh, The South Aussie, The G, Shads, The G, Shads, Maccas and Home.

Weird fact: when I'm drunk, I can't feel my nose.

I need a supersoaker.

2012-02-04T04:38:00.000+10:30

Tonight I had a look through an old harddrive, and if I'm honest, what I found ranged from amusing to horrifying, and that was just in the photos.

Me, Casey, Glenn and Lisa, 16th Nov, 2005, Vansitart Park Playgrounds. Blowing off school with my sister, my bestie and his girlfriend.

I haven't even looked through the documents yet, though fortunately back in high school I password protected quite a lot of files, and I can't remember any of the passwords 7 years on, so that at least ought to protect me from reading the musings of 17-year-old me.

Me, 16th Nov, Vansitart Park playgrounds. After mucking about for a bit, we got fish and chips for lunch, then walked to coles and bought a bulk pack of icypoles. We couldn't eat them all, so we gave the rest to random kids.

Still, it's left me feeling a bit bummed and nostalgic and, frankly, irritatingly existential.

Out the front of the 2nd driveway of our house, 19th Nov, 2005. This was the week my camera arrived in the mail - A no-brand 8MP I bought on ebay for about $80, when to by a 4MP locallly was a massive, and expensive, deal. It took beautiful photos in sunlight, but was a piece of crap indoors or at night.

I'll be honest, I don't really know what I'm doing with my life - I live in an eternal now that I am, for the most part, pretty okay with.

Sunset from the back shed, 1st Feb, 2006. Possibly the only bad thing about working evenings is that I no longer get to take a million photos of every single sunset.

Did I think I would have done more with my life by this point? Well, frankly, I'm not sure. I have a really shit memory of everything except song lyrics and credit card details, but then I'm often unconvinced that reality even exists, and go through life in a bemused state of wonderment that life seems to be pressing on without me really doing much to facilitate it except eating and pooing.

Ignore the date shown - Mum never set the date on her camera but I know it was 22nd Jan 2006, because it was my 18th birthday.

Do I now, at 24, have a pressing urge to get out there and do something?

The Blue Lake, 14th Nov 2007. I was trying to be "artsy" with my framing.

Well, not really. Even though, in the words of Five for Fighting, I've "only got a hundred years to live..."

Me, Sports Day, 13th Feb, 2006. Big Red, the bear I am laying on, was the mascot I made us - He was essentially a massive bean bag. We would throw epic parties on sports days, bring in heaps of food and drink and have a wow of a time - we once got told off for having "too much fun" - apparently we were not respecting the importance of the day.

Life is going to continue whether I know what to do with it or not.

Inside the Cave Gardens, 15th Nov, 2005. The actual day the camera arrived in the mail, and the 14th picture taken. Since then I've had two other digital cameras that I've used a lot, before moving to mainly using my phone now, but I don't think any of them have taken as nice a photos as this one did.

In the meantime, I'm just going to get on with living it as it comes.

Me, 28th August, 2006. Judging from outside the window, I think it must have been taken at Potters Point. Judging by the date, the car was Elsie (LC), the little corolla.

Missing this little guy.

Ralf, 20th Nov 2005. I still have this picture in my wallet.

And wondering what happened to this little guy...

I made him as a present for my then-boyfriend, and we always joked that if we ever broke up we would sell him on ebay (similar ones have sold for over $500) and split the profits, but I haven't seen any money, and I really don't think he deserves to keep him. I just hope he didn't get incinerated.

Indecicively definite.

2012-02-03T02:37:00.001+10:30

It's very rare for me to have a go at a non-repeating quilt design, but that's what I did tonight.

First I did some scribbling on paper. This is rare for me, but it's back-to-school season, so I had some graph paper.

Then I put it into the computer for the colours. I had EQ on my old laptop but I never used it. I'm a bit unused to old-style MS Paint (mainly the fact that you have to go through menus to zoom) but it's still nice and uncomplicated.

Shift colours and diagonal lines on little squares for about 3 hours.

Write colours on little diagram.

Finally, work out maths. This is, as always, the easiest part. After 3 hours of colour indecision, it was so nice to get into the bit that had definite right answers.

You know what else is definatelly right? Day off tomorrow! Yay!

First, I wasted 3 hours on etsy...

2012-02-02T03:01:00.002+10:30

Due to sudden-onset-extreme-anxiety over the previous bundle not being gender-neutral-y enough, tonight I went back to fabric shack and ordered another 9 yards of solids - 4 1/2 yards of bright oranges, blues and greens as an alternative, 4 yards of very (really very) dark colours* for a quilt for me and a couple of quarter yards to add to the not quite gender-neutral-y enough bundle, because just because I'm worried that those dusky purples and reddish-browns are too girly, doesn't mean I'm not a girl, and would just maybe like the quilt for me. And that isn't the reason I'm doing this - If it was I'd instead be buying all the same fabrics as last time and making me and Meagan's baby have matchies. We'd be toats cute.

I'd suggest someone needs to take my credit card off me, but I didn't even have to get it out tonight - I know my numbers off by heart...

*angst = emo, emo = dark colours. Stop judging me. If I ever actually get around to making it it will be gorgeous, trust me.

Maths. So much maths.

2012-02-01T02:39:00.000+10:30

If it's hard knowing at what point a scrap is big enough to keep, it's even harder working out at what size a scrap is worth going to extra effort to make.

The quilt that I'm currently mathing out is for Meagan's unborn baby. Today I went to Spotlight and added 3 more solids to the pile, making a total of 15. Two blocks of each colour makes 30 blocks (a number I like because it's 5x6)

More to the point though, each of these blocks will generate a scrap piece measuring 3x7cm, but, if I cut the two blocks of each fabric at once, I can make a combined scrap of 6x7cm, and that seems like a useable size. But is it useable enough to have to warrant measuring out a 64cm long piece of fabric, and then cutting it into strips, when I only have a 57cm long cutting board and a 60cm ruler? At what price effort?

Well, actually at this price effort:

91x110 (aproximate number of square cm of fabric in a yard) = 10,010

6 (dollars, rough price of a yard of fabric) ÷ 10,010 = 0.0006 (dollars per square cm)

0.0006x6x7=0.0252 (price per scrap, each will be 6x7cm)

0.0252x15 (number of scraps) =0.378

Less than 40 cents? That's the value of the fabric I'm saving by going to all that extra cutting effort? I was wrong. That decision isn't hard at all.

Want to have a go at working out the value of some of your scraps? I've forgotten how to use visual basic (sad face) but instacalc works fine too. Just change the numbers in rows 1, 3 and 4, and remember that number 3 needs to be in centimetres.

Aww, pretty...

2012-01-31T04:00:00.002+10:30

Packages from fabricshack are great just becasue there's so much in them. They squish in 9 yards for you, so there'll usually be a couple of quilts worth in each package. Mine today had: This bundle of gender neutral solids for Meagan's baby.

Four of the solids in this pile (supplemented with a couple of stash - It seems that the pink/orange/yellow combo is something I'm really feeling right now)

A half yard each of these Spirit fabrics.

And a few randoms. I got 2 yards of the wonky check, but I wish I'd bought more than just 1 yard of the blue tye-dye. It was clearance and they don't have any more :(

Anyway, after I'd pawed over them for a bit, I decided I'd try a new zipper pouch design, just because my brain was quite insistent that it would work and I wanted to check. It did, but of course I made the turning hole a bit small and trying to get it right side out was like it was giving birth to itself. And when it was out, the doctor said "congratulations... it's...

...an ipad cover..." and everyone was like, well, this is awkward, since we don't own an ipad. So we don't know if it actually fits an ipad, only that it's 26cm tall and 19cm wide, and that's how big wikipedia says an ipad is.

More importantly, the opening is 19cm wide, because I used one bit of zipper looped around instead of two sides, and I curved down the other ends (this was the bit I wasn't sure about but it's come up great) so it doesn't have the tabs at the ends that so many tutorials insist on. Which stop the ipad from getting in, even if the rest does fit perfectly.

On tomorrow's to-do-list: hunt down an ipad, ask if I can borrow it for about 35 seconds.

I'm sorry, tummy.

2012-01-30T03:10:00.002+10:30

Turns out that if you eat 2 kilos of strawberries in as many days you end up with a belly that could be confused for one containing a 4 month old foetus, as well as the related tendencies to lean back slightly into your weight, say "oof" a lot and rub the underside of your belly. I was told today by a co-worker that were it not for the fact that I hadn't shut up about strawberries all day, she'd think I was pregnant.

I'd love to see that in the maternity ward. The doctor'd be all like "congratulations... it's a... strawberry!" and we'd all make excited noises and start whipping ourselves up some cream.

Anyway, tonight I finished downloading the entire series of Scrubs so I've been watching that and since it was too hard to concentrate on actual sewing and new TV, I decided to make a start on the next batch of monsters.

Only five cut out, but an achievement is an achievement, and anyway, I could only find crappy scissors.

Here's one I prepared earlier...

2012-01-29T03:45:00.001+10:30

It's a good thing I got the top for the Sunset quilt finished yesterday, because apart from my roadtrip to the Portland Strawberry farm this afternoon, I haven't really done much tonight. Browsed ebay and eaten strawberries, mainly.

And yeah, they are my feet at the bottom.

Favourite Things

2012-01-28T03:19:00.001+10:30

DVD commentaries. Cookie dough. Long hot showers in the wee small hours with the music cranking and really bad singing. Plaiting my hair so it'll be curly tomorrow. Early 90s music. Good fuel economy. Really sharp scissors. Videos on my phone. Headphones that clip on the outside of your ears. Using cushions as mousepads. Mechanical pencils. Writing bogan parody versions to songs. My new RM Williams shirt. 100% cotton sheeting. Showing the ladies at Spotlight a voucher on my phone instead of actually printing it. Stubby holders. Spare batteries for my phone. USB extension cables. Columbines. Yarn dyed checks. Cold cans of coke. Spontaneous roadtrips. Strawberries.

Spontaneous roadtrips to strawberry farms. Tommorow. Looking forward to it.

Straya...

2012-01-27T00:19:00.000+10:30

So today was Australia day. Yay for a day off work and/or double time pay for all my fellow Aussies who didn't already have the day off anyway, and for everyone else, especially those of us who aren't really listeners of TripleJ, well, the sun was shining, so that was good.

Today I decided that I wasn't gunna push myself to sew, because my mojo's still up in Adelaide somewhere, I think, and I was hoping that maybe by not pushing it, I'd just somehow spontaneously feel like finishing off the sunset quilt.

It didn't work. I downloaded about 40GB of TV shows, sorted all my hardrives, installed every useful piece of software I could think of onto the new computer, went down the river, hung up some "slow down" signs cause it's boat like a dickhead season down there and I helped my Dad reinforce the jetty (which is falling apart because everyone's boating too fast and their wake is bashing our houseboat against the jetty.) Yay for power tools.

Speaking of Dad and the new computer, guess who's the most excited about it? Not the Mum whose birthday it's for, or the little sister who also gets listed as a recipient, but the completely computer illiterate dad, who is nagging every day for me to set it up in the longe already. He likes to have all the photos as a screensaver (basically making it into a 20" digital frame) and plans on "learning the internet" now that the screen's big enough for him to see it all on.

The other thing I did today: set it to create a restore point Every. Single. Day. Quilts are tougher to accidentally destroy, but they won't stream youtube videos for me.

And on a completely random note, I strongly advise NOT eating an entire bag of Columbines in an afternoon. My tummy hurts, but at least my bin is pretty, from all the wrappers.

I put that warning there for a reason...

2012-01-26T02:32:00.000+10:30

Do you wanna know what I did tonight?

Warning, contains ya mum jokes. And obscure bogan references.

Bummer.

2012-01-25T02:15:00.000+10:30

I've been in denial about this, but it's time to admit it.

My new doona is really really warm. I'd say it's too warm, but the truth is, it's warm enough. It's all the quilts that are on top of it that are too warm.

So some of the quilts have to go. It's making me a bit sad, because of all the quilts I've already got in storage, and the idea that even more of them are going to go unused is bumming me a bit.

Good thing my bestie's preggers - I hope it's a girl so I can fob dozens of quilts off on it.

Other things...

2012-01-24T03:32:00.000+10:30

There were quite a few things I was considering doing tonight:

I thought maybe I would go to the gym.

Or finish the top of the sunset quilt.

Or watch The Guild DVDs that I bought myself for my birthday about a month ago from amazon.com that finally arrived today.

I went and bought an ethernet cable so I could set up all the important stuff on the desktop (first post from it!)

I'm going to write myself a handy reference guide to all the quilts I've made and how many and much of what kinds of fabrics I need for next time I'm in a shop and don't know what I might want to make. I could have worked on that tonight.

I'm going to write a parody of LMFAO's Sexy and I know it. An Aussie/Country/Bogan version. I should have started weeks ago, had it done in time for Australia day on Thursday.

Instead I went to maccas with Meagan and Brenton and taked about random weird shit till after 2am.

BTW, this isn't a complaint, merely a statement of fact. I had fun.

It's still mah birthday! (sorta)

2012-01-23T02:13:00.000+10:30

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was the kind of person who always, always had a spare ethernet cable on hand. But circumstances changed, I lost a boyfriend (how careless of me!) and gained a life and somewhere along the way, and far, far more carelessly, I also managed to misplace that special spare ethernet cable, along with it seems, all of the ones that I used to actually use. Fortunatelly, it's an annoyance as opposed to an actual problem.

See. today, for no immediatelly apparent reason, I bought another computer. A desktop this time, an ex-rental I got, complete with a monitor and a keyboard and mouse and slightly shoddy speakers, for $250. Officially it's a combined birthday present for Mum and Maddy (whose birthdays are next weeked and the one after respectively*) but really, I just wanted something I could shove some extra ram into and use as a workhorse whenever I needed some video footage ripped. IN the meantime, it's also a handy monitor for me to watch movies on (I set it up in my room while I get it all sorted) though like I said, the speakers are a bit shoddy; currently picking up quite a bit of interference.

Only problem currently is the lack of an internet connection, something that could be rectified in under a minute if only I could find a damn ethernet cable.

Anyways. It's well after midnight now so it's no longer officialy my birthday - a cousin suggested I should do birthday boxing day (though here in South Australia it would be birthday proclamation day) but I've just decided that it still gets to be my birthday till I go to bed. Which means of course, that it's time for the birthday wrap up post.

I started the day by going to visit the lovely Shay for birthday breakfast chats, finally meeting her husband (who I apologised to re. all that fabric) and her two dogs, who are roughly the size of small horses. There was a cat too, but she seemed less interested. I got a lovely sewn card and a spotlight voucher, which has of course already been used.

While I was aiming for a few more, I only managed 3 stores today - Munno Parra, Clovercrest and Gepps Cross. I of course also went to Allingtons too (tried on a couple of shirts, marveled at how cute I am with wavy hair, got into an argument with myself over whether or not it being my birthday was an excuse to be up myself and left) but didn't buy anything.

Quick store review: Munno Parra is the biggest store in SA. It's freaking huge. Their range of quilting fabric wasn't truly epic though - I was most impressed by their range of prima solids (our store has about quarter, I think they had them all) and the fact that, unlike the mount which has a 1m minimum, they let you buy however much of the clearance fabrics you want. So even though we've got all these fabrics down here, the chance to get just a bit of each was very good.

Clovercrest is Shay's local store, in she picked a damn good suburb to live in - this was by far the best of the three for quilting fabrics. Most importantly, they have lots of designer fabrics for $12.95p/m (minus 30% off plus 10% for my birthday), something we don't get any of out here. It seemed to be completely random - Last time I was there I got a heap of flourish, this time I resisted buying a heap of the pink colourway of mingle, instead buying this lot, which should do an entire pavement quilt, front back and binding (hopefully)

Only bad thing about that store the lady who served me cut to exactly the centimetre (which pretty much guarantees that at least one of them will have less than I asked for) and she was a bit rude.

Gepps Cross is where I was set to work if I had moved to Adeliade. I'm glad I didn't: their range is a bit dissapointing. Two of the fabrics in the above bundle came from this store, and I also bought 4m of a green stripe flannelette that should make some nice gender-neutral backings.

These came from a mix of the stores, and are really just stash, cause I thought they were pretty/funky/cute/useful/it's my birthday stop juding me.

I was on my way down to a 4th store when I cam across the Radio Rentals that has the big clearance bit downstairs, and the advert in the paper yesterday had some really nice laptops listed, but they were pretty much all gone because it started yesterday morning. But mum had been talking yesterday while I was installing her new printer (what I was going to get her for her birthday, before she went and bought her own) about how she was just going to throw out our old desktop, since we haven't turned it on in about 3 months. And fair enough, it's a) ancient and b) shit, but I think that, much like a landline even though we all have mobile phones, a house needs a desktop even though it's got some laptops. And it's running great, I've test run some video files, and typed all this up in notepad... but since I can't find an ethernet cable, it's not online.

Yay for USB sticks is all I can say.

As for presents, I spent the voucher Shay gave me (thankyou!) and the money from Helena and Mum and Casey and Nanna Joy, and then tonight when I was nearly home I stopped in to see Anna who couldn't come this weekend becasue she's got the flu and she gave me this.

And then when I got home I got a message that said "Oh, and look inside the box" so I did.

I love columbines! Unfortunatelly, so do my sisters and my mum. Fortunately, there's about 5+ bags of them in there.

*Yes, we do all our birthdays about a week after one another. That's enough time to recover between them, but gets them all out of the way nice and quick.

It's mah Birthday!

2012-01-22T01:31:00.002+10:30

If I'm honest, I've never been that huge of a fan of my birthday - I spend most of them waiting for the 23rd to roll around. My 18th I worked 9-5.30 (though we did have a lovely party in the lunchroom) and my 21st we had dinner at my nans. I can't remeber any of the others, though I recall spending one waiting half the day for the RAA man to come and jump start my shitty old car.

Anyways, yeah, I'm not really a birthday person. Nonetheless, it being after midnight, it's now my birthday according to my drivers licence - I won't consider myself to officially be 24 till after 7.45am.* In the meantime, Im chilling in my motel room after a lovely drive up to Adelaide and going to get chinese twice tonight (once as soon as I arrived and again just as they were closing, 3 1/2 hour gap between)

The last time I was staying at the Granada was the night before Myponga BnS last year, and Casey and I made jelly shots in our room. Tonight I've just eaten lots of satay chicken, watched a really sad movie on showtime and a lot of amusing clips on youtube (yay supplied wifi!). I put my carton of banana milk into my washed out coke bottle so I could shake it up nice and frothy, but that's the extent of my motel-room culinary delights.

Probably for the best really.

Tomorrow I'm just gunna go with the flow, see how many Spotlight stores I can visit in one day - I'm going for 6...

*after the horror of being shoved through a cervix, I was never up and about that early again...

It's random good stuff Saturday!

2012-01-21T02:49:00.000+10:30

Okay, so that title isn't as catchy as it's real name, but oh well! Yay for stuff! Yay for the word Yay! Yay for the excalamation mark!

Yay for calling the computer mouse a remote. I haven't had a mouse in a very long time, and It's a habit I've aquired out of nowhere and I can't shake. Ironically, my old laptop DID have a remote, and I never used it.

Yay for the moments when the math comes out right. I spent about 4 days on my latest maths, just going over it again and again, forwards and backwards, in both measurement systems, because I was convinced it had a fundamental flaw somewhere, but I've cut my pieces and they're all fitting back together again.

Yay for $5 shirts from cotton-on. Boo for pretty much everything else from cotton-on, because it's really not my kind of fashion.

Yay for hot pink denim shorts from the kids section at Target for $8.

Yay for pronouncing Target Tarjay because it makes you sound posh.

Yay for Chocolate Almond clusters, made at home by me, so that they have more almond than chocolate.

Yay for the kind of lazy-consumer world we live in, where I can buy blanched almonds instead of having to boil them and naked-ify them myself.

Yay for coloured pencils. Any yay for back to school specials time, when coloured pencils are cheap.

Yay for the fact that it's my birthday on Sunday.

Yay for the fact that tomorrow (well, today, after I've done sleeping) I am going all the way to Adelaide for the sole purpose of getting chinese food. For my birthday. I'm also available for cathing up, fabric shopping, and randomly recieving presents. And I kinda want to go to Allington's too, cause pawing over boots makes me happy even when I don't buy them.

Yay for the fact that my new laptop lights up like a christmas house when I press the capslock button. I used to never notice on my old one, and I'd have to re-type stuff all the time cause I'd pressed it accidentally.

Yay for Daemon Tools, a handy bit of software that lets you trick your laptop into thinking it's got a DVD even when it doesn't.

Yay for having the next lot of little bits all lined up ready to chain piece.

Yay for having a new cutting mat. Yay for Columbines and fairy bread and lettuce. Yay for little plaits in my hair. Yay for checkered shirts with the sleves rolled up. Yay for magnets and glitter and varigated thread. Yay for extention cables. Yay for graph paper and bubble wrap and gaffer tape. Yay for spare phone batteries and roadtrip CDs that stay playing in your car for the next month.

Yay for being happy, knowing it, and then clapping your hands.

Sunsets. It looks like sunsets.

2012-01-20T03:27:00.001+10:30

So today I went into Spotlight with the handy $10 off vouchers that Helen got but I didn't, and bought myslef some more pinks, purples and oranges. Unfortunately, despite giving me $10 to spend on whatever, they didn't give me that much in the way of whatever (by which I mean solids) so I had to get a couple of tonal prints. Still, they're pretty good at reading as solids, so one must forgive.

I also bought needles, because since I'm not spending actual money, I figure it should be spent on stuff I don't want to have to spend money on. I'm okay with spending money on fabric - that's what money is for. But spending money on machine needles and pins is almost a waste of it - if it was up to me, the government would subsidise my new stepp-nadels. Or at least let me claim it back on tax.

Tonight I got home and a got chop happy. This is probably the biggest variation between the metric and imperial maths I've ever worked out, simply because I did it backwards this time - instead of doing myself a lovely bit of number-crunching and then adapting it for the internet, I did the imperial math first (because I liked the idea of having the "scraps" be exactly the same size as half a charm square*) and then pretty much just picked random numbers for mine, since I would be cutting up actual fabrics for the scrap pieces anyway. I don't think I've really ever used 13 as an important number in a quilt before, but mine is all 13s and 6s and there's a 29 thrown in there for good measure too. But it all fit when I did it with my numbers and I'm fairly confident that the inches will fit too. It consistently comes out to 42 inches, and that's not quite as wide as fabric is.

Anyway, since this pattern is laid out by eye rather than by design, I got my nice neat little 6cm squares and laid them all out in a six by six grid and shuffled them about till I liked them. When I was fairly happy I squished them all up on top of one another so they made a tiny tiny version of the quilt.

And once I'd taken myself a layout photo,

I remebered I had macro focus.

And a damn good one at that.

Of course, since I had something I was happy with, I figured I'd play around with the 6x13cm rectangles, and had a go at a more graduated layout.

And now I'm really not sure which I prefer.

Thoughts? (keep in mind that the random layout shows a 1cm square of the fabric whereas the graduated one shows about 6x4cm. They will be rectangular, and have a small rectangle of contrasting print in the off-centre)

*I have very few scraps. I can't be the only one. I also like things to coordinate.

Yawn

2012-01-19T03:08:00.000+10:30

I think it's nice how the single most tiring thing you can do, more tiring than running a marathon or organising all the vidoe files on three harddrives, is changing a doona cover. Because once you're all done, yay! there's a bed to lie down on.

Not only did I cange my doona cover tonight, I also changed my doona. I had been sleeping underneath two coverlets bought from woolies inside the one quilt cover (and another 7 quilts on top of that, but they're not up for discussion right now) but when we went to the Aldi in Portland there was a quite nice looking doona there so I bought that. It's much lighter and loftier than the previous one (two? in one?) but I like a boofy quilt, so that's good. And all the ones I've made are on top of it giving it plenty of weight. Yay! (and sleep)

Solids

2012-01-18T01:04:00.001+10:30

So today in my luchbreak I went to Sotlight cause I suddenly remebered my best friend is having a baby in 4 months. And while that may seem like a long time away, lets not forget the trauma of the last quilt we had to rush to finish before the baby got cut out, or, for that matter, the late nights of last week making Casey's quilt. Not to mention the fact that the due date has already been moved forward two weeks, and she doesn't even want to know herself what she's having, let alone tell those of us who have, let's say, been asked to make it it's first quilt.

I think, if there was a chance there was a tiny penis growing in my belly, I'd want to know. And I'd want to tell people. Everybody. I'd just go up to random strangers on the street and go "tee-hee, I'm making a penis, right now," But then, I can be a tad immature. That's why I make quilts instead of ~~penises~~ babies.

Anyways. I went and bought some solids, cause solids are a) easy and b) cheap. Or well, most of them are. This is the pile I picked, and I should point out that they're actually a lot more muted than they look - more like intense pastels than actual brights.

But two of these fabrics are not like the others, and two of these fabrics just don't belong (on the shelf with all the other $6.95p/m fabrics.)

The brown, it turns out, is a "tea dyed linen" which means it's $7.99p/m. That's not too bad, though I'm a tad worried it's either dyed with actual tea, and therefore going to stain everything when I wash it, or going to shrink way more than the cottons.

And the yellow, which looks and feels just like all the others (but was the only solid yellow quilting fabric they had) was grown organically, and therefore costs a whopping $14.95p/m.

As for what I'm actually going to do with it all... I've no idea. I've handily re-worked the math I did for Casey's quilt so I can do it much more efficiently by using printed scraps in the middle, but I think that it works best with a tonal range as opposed to a spectral one. I've picked some purples/pinks/oranges to have a test run with tomorrow night.

Settling.

2012-01-17T01:58:00.000+10:30

So I've had my new (old) laptop for a few days now and we're going okay. Sure, Vista double and occasionally triple-checking if I want to do stuff is a tad annoying, but all I have to do is pretend I'm my mum and I feel the urge to install codecs or updates or add-ons drop right away. And yes, the touchscreen doesn't actually respond when you touch it with your finger, but I can still scribble myself a quilt pattern in paint using the pen, so that's okay. And while I haven't gotten used to the little nodule in the middle of the keyboard that you're meant to use instead of a touchpad, I've plugged a mouse in and that feels quite familiar, after using one with mum's laptop for the last month.

If I could work out what I actually want, I would buy it in a heartbeat, cause a lot of what goes on with this laptop isn't really what I'm looking for. But since I don't know what I'm looking for, I'll concede that what I'm looking at isn't doing too bad of a job.

Feels like home...

2012-01-16T00:03:00.000+10:30

I am home. I am slightly sunburnt and a bit achey. I am tired. Very tired. But I had a hell of a lot of fun. And so did our first-timers apparently, since they both seemed pretty keen for the next one.

I spent a lovely bit of time this morning chilling out here, on a rock in the middle of the Glenelg river.

Of course, at this point (right next to the ball site) it bears no resemblence to the river we went down to for a swim later thisafternoon. It has to travel for 150km, pick up a bit more water and carve itself a lovely big gorge through the limestone before it becomes the Glenelg river I spent my childhood upon, but damn the bit of it that passes through Harrow is pretty.

It's shallow enough at this point for cars (well, high riding ones) to cross and even though it was a bit slippery, you could walk through the bits where you couldn't jump form rock to rock. Later on there was people actually swimming in it, but we decided we would just come home and go for a swim in it a bit further south, though I didn't end up in the water - Jess spent so long getting in that the sun had fallen past the cliff and it was getting a bit nippy.

I've already had an hour or so of nap time earlier on but I think it's about time to add to it. Electric blanket, big fluffy pillows, come at me!

I'm at a BnS...

2012-01-15T02:15:00.001+10:30

Posting from my phone, cause I managed to get rid of both of the annoyingly persistant boys that wanted to take me back to their swags, and instead I'm nice and comfy in my own, chatting with ball-virgins-no-longer Anna and Jamie. It's a lovely evening...

Happy times :)

Yay Stuff!

2012-01-14T04:39:00.000+10:30

So, friday. Well, Saturday now, obviously, since my timing tends to be a little skew-whif, but still, that means favourite things.

I had been thinking that what I would put as my favourite thing this week would be my sheer unadulterated awesomeness, since I managed to design, piece, quilt and bind a quilt for my sister's birthday this sunday in just 3 days, but then I realised if I was as truly awesome as I thought I was, then I would have decided to get started weeks ago, and I'd be getting in some sleepsies before the BnS ball tomorrow night, instead of sitting here having just finished. I'd have also remembered to take a photo before I put it in the washing machine, and I wouldn't have made that cutting error as I was finishing the binding.*

So, other things.

The fact that mum is worried about the ethical implications of my messing around with her netbook and using Daemon Tools to convince it that it has a DVD player when it doesn't just makes me laugh. "But you're lying to it..." she goes, while telling me that it's silly for me to feel bad about the death of my old laptop.

My phone. Still. Three months on, I'm still loving how it just does stuff. No faffing or fart-arsing about. It does everything I want it to do, except maybe print me money.

Having a real laptop again. Sure, the fact that it's running Vista is really irritating, as is the fact that the touch screen only works with the pen, but as a stop-gap till I decide what I actually want it's excellent. Look at me, blogging away on it. Nice keyboard, too.

The "slow" button on the foot pedal of my sewing machine. I thought it was pointless the first time I saw it, but it was very handy tonight, stopping me from rushing the binding and making a(nother) mistake.

Being indecicive about which ballgown to wear, because it means I have the kind of life where I a) occasionally wear ball gowns and b) have enough ballgowns to have indecision between them.

Having a CD burner. Saying "I need a new CD" and going and making one.

Oh, and the fact that I'm going to a BnS ball tomorrow night, and I'm taking along one of my best friends, who's never been to one before. Toats exciting!

*Fourtunatelly, although it shit me, it really only added about 5 minutes of work, and about half of that was just me despairing.

Progress.

2012-01-13T04:26:00.001+10:30

Progress is, um, progressing. Casey's quilt top is assembled and the lines of quilting have been done either side of the vertical seams so tomorrow it should only take me an hour or so to fill it in and I can get on with the very nasty job of binding.

Progress on everything else BnS related hasn't progressed at all.

Bugger.

2012-01-12T05:05:00.000+10:30

Remember when I said yesterday that it was a bad idea to try do any big sewing projects in the same week as a BnS ball?

I kinda forgot is was my sister's birthday this weekend.

Well, not really forgot. I know it's on Sunday, but my brain didn't really reconcile the fact that it was her birthday this sunday with the fact that it's her BIRTHDAY on SUNDAY.

My brain is dumb sometimes.

Anyway, I remembered remembered this morning and so I figured I'd better get on it. I haven't actually made Casey a quilt yet because she has an amazing ability to be both very picky AND very vague - she's always very specific about what she does and doesn't like in what you're doing, but then she'll go "Can you just make me (insert whatever here)... I don't care what colour/fabric/width/shape..."

So where does one go with that? Well, I've started with the back, which is the two yards of half-naked-cowboy fabric, added an altered version of what I was planning on doing as a top to test my new back arrangement and sacrificed to the cause a quite nice collection of solid Konas in the green to purple section of the spectrum.

The colours in this photo are all wrong. The purples are way darker and those yellows are actually greens.

Not yet actually assembled, but I got the math done, the colours picked, the fabric cut and the blocks sewn in 5 hours, so I'm happy to stop now.

If it looks like a bit of an off shape, it is - since I'm making this top as something to have on the other side of the back, which is what's actually featured, it's the same size as the back, ie long and skinny. 105x175 is what I've mathed to, which is about 42x70 for those of you that think imperial. I considered shortening it to make it a bit more or a normal ratio, but one of the girls at work pointed out that a long quilt can go across the knees of two people, so I took that as a decent reason not to chop it up.

It'd be a shame to lose any more hunky man-ness than I need to.

In related news, and in celebration of Harrow BnS being only 3 days away, this video made me laugh.

I was never any good at puzzles.

2012-01-11T01:02:00.000+10:30

So tonight I was at the gym and the episode of Buffy I was watching was one I never really liked so my mind was wandering and then I remembered the pink pavement quilt. And how it was sitting, unbacked on one of my shelves. And I couldn't quite remember - was that 120cm wide? Could I try out my new backing for that?

Turns out, the answer is no. I made it be 135cm side, and repeated maths were stating quite insistently that the widest my backing could become was 145cm, and while 5cm is technically the width I trim my fold-over-bindings down to (I like a wide binding) I wasn't positive that it would still be 5cm after I'd quilted it all, so it looks like I might still need to make a new quilt top anyways.

What I can show you however is how you do it. You need 210cm of 112cm wide fabric, with about 6cm of selvedge cut off, since you need to do both sides. This is shown here as a piece of paper 21x11cm, which is why the points of the diagonal aren't right on the corners. I haven't trimmed that imaginary selvedge off.

You cut each of those 45 degree lines and shift the triangles to the other side. They don't have to change direction or anything, just put the top one at the bottom and the bottom one at the top.

It's pretty much the lamest tangram ever. It's now a 145cm square though, and that's the important bit. And all your seams are at a 45 degree angle to the ones on the front, meaning you don't have to match anything up when you're quilting. The only bad thing would be that the points on the corners will make it bulky at the part where it's already got extra layers at a fold-over binding, but given the amount of trimming I do on my corners anyway, I think it'd turn out fine.

I'm bummed I'm not gunna get to try it properly for a bit, but I know better than to try and make anything non-urgent in the week before a BnS.

Doing it backwards.

2012-01-10T01:47:00.001+10:30

Today I came up with a fantastic method of turning 110 cm wide fabric into a 120 cm wide quilt back, plus a spare 20 cm so you can do it as a fold-over-binding, AND it's all on point so you won't get big bulges in your fold-over-binding.

Unfortunately, I don't have a 120 cm top that I can quilt in one direction and do a fold-over-binding on. But I've done some maths for one.

Rainbow Pants Monsters.

2012-01-09T02:03:00.000+10:30

I had a look through my scrap bag tonight because I figure I should start thinking about the next batch of monsters rather than cramming them into a frantic 3 days come early February. Also, I was at the salvos the other day and found some fantastic handmade (the sewer had problems with the tension on their overlocker. They're not the only ones) rainbow batik pants for $3, and I think they'll chop up into some really lovely monsters.

Back to my scraps, and I was pleasantly surprised. I'd had a rummage when I was doing the last lot of monsters, but there was still a fair bit of decent stuff in there. Lots of narrower bits too, I noticed, about 10cm wide, so I drew up some more skinny monsters to use that stuff up. And while I was drawing, I sketched out a couple of four legged shapes, because most of them are a wee bit humanoid. Mainly because it's the easiest to make, but I should stretch myself, and four legs is only a little bit harder than two, whereas four arms is a surprisingly large amount more work.

I think the thing I learned most doing the last batch (other than "don't decide 5 days before christmas to make a dozen monsters really really quickly for the facebook crowd") was that I really like long arms. There's going to be a lot of long armed monsters in the next few batches.

Tooooo Much.

2012-01-08T02:45:00.000+10:30

Do you ever have one of those days where you think to yourself, "Um, I've drafted too many different blog posts in my head, and now I don't think I can cohesively link them all together or choose which one to use"?

Also, I've been up since before 8, and yet here I am, at 2am, still keeping my normal nighttime hours. Probably resulting in even less cohesion, if that's at all possible.

Right, first things first. Last night, after sitting on a haybale pondering humanity, I got up, had a bit of a dance, and when the music stopped, we all went back to the van of filth to settle in for the night. And then a boy appeared, and even though I didn't actually want him, I still wanted to try. I think it's a bit like how my dad goes cray fishing, even though noone in our house eats crays. Except instead of ending up with cooked crays sitting in the fridge, staring at you with their dead, beady little eyes every time you open the door, I ened up with a boy, who I had been being affectionate towards, and who was reciprocating, and then I realised, oh, that's right, I don't want a boy. I have no real use for one, and they're not even selling for about $80 a kilo, making them handy barter should I want to get on someone's good side.

Awkwardness. But catching boys is fun; funner certainly than catching crayfish, where you have to go out on the boat, and you get all wet, and there's sharks and stuff. And yeah, awkwardness, but drunk boys are even more suggestible than drunk girls, so I got rid of him eventually, no hard feelings.

Still, we were all (and when I say all, I mean the four of us, including the 8-year-old) up till well after 3am, meaning we were still pretty bleary eyed when we got up this morning and went to maccas in Portland. We also went to Aldi, which was less impressive than I thought it was going to be (except yay for honey wheats) and some little cheap stuff shop that also happened to have some quilt fabrics in it. Slightly random, but there was a few nice Riley Blake's amoungst it, so I got a half metre of these two.

At $15 a pop it's cheaper than most of the stuff at Stitch and Knit and about the same as most of the regular priced Spotlight stuff.

We stopped at the strawberry farm on the way home and picked ourselves a few kilos. And then when I got home I ate at least a half a kilo. Delicious, but it has given me the farts.

And I completely forgot about it yesterday, what with going to the rodeo and all, but I got some fabrics from Stitch and Knit. They're from Fresh Air by Chez Moi, and it's quite an old line - so old it's not even on the United Notions website any more.

I'd bought a couple of half metres a few weeks ago from the $12 box to use in a pavement quilt and so I got some fat quarters of the few prints that were still available. It's not my usual colour palette but I think it's nice - I'd like to try to use a tan brown or a mustard yellow* or something for the sashing instead of white, but I haven't decided yet. I might just go with a beige.

*See the yellow of the bottom flower in the middle fabric? That.

Faking it.

2012-01-06T23:43:00.001+10:30

I consider one of my best and most important talents to be my ability to fake it. Being able to blend into just about any situation is probably one of the best talents you can have short if having an actual superpower. With a weeks notice and about fifty bucks I can get myself prepped to sidle my way into just about anywhere. I can have the outfit, the attitude and enough knowledge to politely follow the conversation and make the occasional witty interjection. It's not entirely difficult; with wikipedia and ebay it's even easier than ever.

Getting into the country crowd is surprisingly easy with regards to the attitude and the knowledge, but quite expensive when it comes to the look. You know those cowboy hats you can get at cheap as chips or wherever? They don't fall for them. If you can't afford an actual akubra, you'll be best to look for an old hat advertising a tractor dealership. And any old boots wont work, you need ariats at the least. These are people who probably own 5 shirts. But they've probably cost them $100 a pop. It's a hard group to fake your way into on a budget, and probably not worth bothering if it's only for a weekend.

But if your bestie is already in, and is about the same size, and is offering you a full and perfect outfit for the weekend, wouldn't you take it? The chance to slip seamlessly in without any hassles; I'd jump at the chance. But Anna is obviously a bit weird, cause she WANTS to look out of place next weekend. And while I get wanting to be individual and true to yourself, I thought the whole point of her coming was to get away from her life and into mine for a bit.

Maybe I'm being all judgmental, but I think she'll have a lot better time if she's not spending half the weekend convincing people to listen to her even though she's a city princess.

Tonight I'm at the Tirrendarra Rodeo, a curious blend of country folks who've travelled a long way to come see it (we drove about an hour) and all the locals who came cause it was on. And even though we're in the middle of nowhere, the locals are the ones who I think look yuppie, in their skinny jeans and flats.

People are interesting.

Go figures.

2012-01-06T02:34:00.000+10:30

So, was last night an abject failure? Did I lie awake half the night, tossing and turning and worrying about all the stuff I could be doing?

Well, if it had been a two hour night, then yes, but since a standard night is apparently 8 hours, then well, it's not so much half the night as is was about 12.5%. On the other hand, though I was asleep by about 3am, I still slept in till 1pm. Go figure.

Anyway, tonight I'm going to bed early not as some kind of crazed experiment, but because I'm too lazy to actually do anything productive. Also, it's my one day off this week tomorrow, and I feel like actually doing something with it. Not sure what yet, but something.

I'll probably wait till after the end of next week before I have a proper go at changing my sleeping patterns... the schedule of a BnS Ball is pretty much the complete opposite of the early nights favoured by farming types, and much more in line with my current timing. Go figure that too.

This wont work.

2012-01-05T02:13:00.000+10:30

This probably wont work, but I, Sara, am going to try getting into my bed right now in hopes of falling asleep at an hour (2am) which is, for me, very early.

I'm probably about to set myself up for 3 hours of lying here bored, but I ate some foods today that I haven't had in a while (sausage rolls, beef and mashies and hot cross buns*) so it seems to be the day for trying new stuff.

Wish me luck!

*they were available two days ago. In the next week, bags of the little easter eggs will arrive at our store and start going up on clip-strips at the ends of the aisles.

Finally

2012-01-04T03:18:00.001+10:30

So today, finally, a few days late I know, I came up with all that new years stuff. Last year, I went with keeping my phone charged and checking my junk mail folder. The first one saw slight improvements for a while, followed by massive ones upon the purchase of a fully bitchin' new phone, which I subsequently had to use as a computer when my laptop failed, causing the previously-going-well resolution number two to fall in a hole and die.

This year I am going with watching all of Buffy at the gym - with still about 130 episodes to go that means about 3 times a week. I'd also like to end the year with less WIP/UFOs than I started with, though I still need to do a count. I'm not saying I need to finish everything I start, and I've given myself a get-out clause in that I'm allowed to say to myself "no, I will never finish it, I therefore let it go" and either turf it or pass it on to someone who might*.

I'd like to go on more adventures. I had some good ones last year; Balls, shoots, the trip to Adelaide on my own, as well as the one with Meagan, Anna and Brenton. I'd like to go on more spontaneous ones, and especially more on my own. Just to take a day and go somewhere, pointlessly, see something and come home.

I'd like to eat with a bit more variety - I'm one of those people that eats about a dozen things. Chips, nuggets, chicken and lettuce rolls, cheese, plain beef or fish, spaghetti, donuts, lamingtons, strawberries and vegemite on toast. That's only eleven. Icecream. And that's pretty much what I've been eating lately. I need to eat more sausage rolls, or rice, or bowls of cereal, or roast spuds. My diet's pretty boring, which I think is why I fall back on chocolate and cheese so much, and I know it's mainly laziness that stops me from going to the extra effort of getting other foods, so I really should start getting over this.

I'd like a pet of my own. Since that cats left, Graham is still ignoring me, Logan (budgie) is still pooping on me and Nimrod (guinea pig) is still hiding from everyone and everything. I don't want a boyfriend but I still want cuddles.

I'd like a slightly more regular schedule, but not too far backward. 10am seemed like a good get-up time, I'd like to try to get back to that. Not tomorrow though. It's already after 3.

*I was considering that as a whole resolution in itself - to give up on things instead of deluding myself that I'll do it one day, leaving me burdened by yet another unfinished guilt trip of wasted time, effort and money.

Lovin' it.

2012-01-03T04:43:00.001+10:30

I've just realised it's been a few weeks since I did a random good stuff post. So here's one.

I love columbines. I love how long they take. As a scoffer of chocolate/lollies, I like that you have to take your time, lest you be left unable to open your mouth. I also prefer the ones in blue foil, for all that I know that there's no difference between them and the ones in pink.

I love demazin. I love how it makes me be not snotty, and how it comes with a measuring cup, and has a delicious vanilla peach flavour.

I love those little hair ties that are essentially a tiny, smooth elastic band. I never used to, when I had lots of hair, but now that I only have a little bit I'm going through them at a fierce rate. I need to get some more tomorrow.

I love all the public holidays there've been lately. $45 an hour, get in my wallet. Actually, that's not right, since I keep my money in my phone case.

I love my phone case. It's purple, and orange inside, and full of phone, and also money (see above).

I love the hot weather we've had lately. A lot of people have been poo-poo-ing it, but I think it's great. Except for how the roads are melting. That kinda sucks.

I love whitebait. You scoop them up, you chop their heads off and you fry them and eat them. They are tiny, fishy deliciousness.

I love that my youtube addiction has finally come in handy, entertaining me for the last 3 hours as I've copied some TV for a work friend.

I love that the first harddrive has finished copying and now I can set the second one to start (cause that one will probably take about 5 hours) and go to sleep.

I love sleep.

Warn. Your. Children.

2012-01-02T04:16:00.000+10:30

Most of you are probably too busy having lives to know this, but if you play an MMORPG (those big online computer games) it lets you know if you've been playing it for a certain amount of time - a little popup ever hour or so to remind you that there's a world beyond your computer screen.

Why doesn't youtube offer this? I'm watching it on my phone - surely they could tell me after I've been running the app for more than an hour. Two hours. Three hours. Four hours.

Ah well, I hadn't made any progress on that quilt top in about 6 months... what's a few more days? And you would think I would have learned after I did exactly the same thing last night, except curled up in bed till 6am instead of standing at the kitchen bench with my cutting mat in front of me. It's still going right now. I've gone from Paley Panels to funny ads to beer ads to clips from the Melbourne Comedy Gala.

I actually came up with the term "Youtube Hangover" to describe it today. With people asking one another how they pulled up after last night, I was having to explain that I'd had 2 drinks, walked it off, eaten some delicious fairy bread, driven home at 2.30, gotten into bed... and clawed my way out at 11.30 after, confusingly, just 5 hours of sleep. But many, many Related Video tabs.

So please, for everyone's sake, lay off the youtube, kiddies. Just say no.

Especially after the 4th hour.

NYE lessons.

2012-01-01T03:11:00.000+10:30

It's not that bad working till 10.30 NYE. There'll be very few customers, and most of them will be drunk co-workers coming in to say hi. If one of them is your manager, and she's drunk, ask her if you can slack off. Mine said yes...

5 inch heels are bad. Pretty, but bad. Mine were pretty enough, and only slightly bad enough, that I forgive them. This rarely happens with heels. I have a small blister. This happens often. Pack bandaids.

If you happen to be out and about on NYE with the only good friend of yours who would recognise your ex-boyfriend, at a distance, from behind, and you happen to both spot him in the same instant, laugh uproariously for the next 3 minutes. The kind of laughter you'd do if there was only 3 minutes worth of oxygen left in the world and you wanted to use it the right way. This may need to be explained to the guy you're with, who won't get why the slightly lame joke he just made got the best response ever.

Fireworks are pretty.

Groups of people (especially drunk people) are terrible at making decisions. It's much easier if you just tell them all what to do. Cheerful drunk people appreciate direction, especially if the directions lead them to more drinks. Grumpy drunk people should be left at the kerb.

Sad songs are good. "I know this room, I've walked this floor" from hallelujah, when walking past your old high school, slightly tipsy, in the middle of the night, is particularly good. Angie Hart's "Blue" is good no matter the occasion. Sad songs in the presence of one of your best friend's exes, when she's off making out with someone else and he's not over her, are bad. Except Angie Hart's "Blue" since it's about accepting being alone. Unfortunately, while it's very good, it doesn't have magical powers, so you'll still have to listen to him go on about how he can't get over her.

Holly Williams' "Sometimes" (I wish I was a fine wine, I wish I were a good drug, and hey if I were Jesus, maybe I could heal all of us..) would be a good song in this occasion. "Empty Chairs" by Don McLean is a bad choice.

Gutters are for sitting in while looking at the stars and quoting Oscar Wilde on facebook. This gives the drunker members of your party time to catch up.

Just because it was in the low 30s during the daytime doesn't mean it's going to stay warm into the nighttime. Pack a nice cardi, or you'll have to wear the hoodie in your gym bag. Pack a quilt too. Everybody loves quilts.

Oh, and if I could tell the world just one thing, it would be, that we're all okay. Thanks Jewel.

Happy New Year Everyone. It doesn't look all that different to the old one, but the fireworks at changeover time were pretty.

Lessons. And also fish.

2011-12-31T03:58:00.001+10:30

Remember a few weeks ago when I said that deconstructing items of clothing was a much better alternative to just plain old constructing them?

Yeah, I didn't, which is why I spent tonight sewing three different versions of a dress, none of which was quite right, before giving up and taking the slightly saggy bodice off of a dress I bought on ebay about a month ago, leaving me with a lovely hot pink silk skirt, which, when worn quite high over the same long singlet dress I was going to wear under the lace dress I was trying to make tonight, with a wide belt, looks excellent. Yay.

The other thing I learned tonight was that sewing with lace is a fantastic way to realise your fingernails are quite chipped. And that lifting up slimy, spiky, prone-to-crumbling rocks on the banks of the river in pursuit of the crabs that live underneath them is a surefire way to quite badly chip your fingernails.

The things I do for tiny delicious fish, and also to get my dad to stop nagging at me to come to the boat for the next couple of months.

Why do I keep doing this?

2011-12-30T02:31:00.001+10:30

The hardest thing about dressmaking is fabric selection. Fabric selection for a quilt can be tricky, but that's purely a design thing. Even if you've got the most horribly clashing prints imaginable, as long as you're using 100% cotton with a shrinkage rate of less than 5%, you'll end up with a functioning, if not necessarily aesthetically pleasing, quilt. When it comes to making clothes though, fabric selection is waaay more tricky.

It's all about drape, see. I hate drape. Partly cause I don't really have the figure for it (ie. I'm a boobless stick) and partly because it's pretty much impossible to economically design an item of clothing with drape without a mannequin. Ever tried to pin clothes around yourself? It doesn't really work. And making the same item over and over again doesn't work either, because fabrics with drape are usually about the same price as quilt shop cottons, and the cheap stuff you use for making your practice muslins doesn't drape.

I remember now why I didn't go off and do fashion design. That next batch of monsters might get made sooner than planned. At least they always work.

Nothing, oh, sweet nothing...

2011-12-29T01:56:00.000+10:30

I have two whole days off, and nothing very much to do.

SWEEEEET!

Well, I need to find something to wear for new years, for which I am working till 10.30pm, rushing to a co-worker's house for the event and heading home not too long after since I have to be at work at lunchtime (an early start for me even on a non-hungover day) the next day. Oh, and apparently it's going to be about 35 degrees, so no jeans and boots for me. Anna and I are going shopping tomorrow so I'll have to find something. I have plenty of clothes, but it's shoes that are the problem - I really struggle with sandals and thongs and heels. Boots I'm good at, sneakers I'm okay at, work shoes I bought the same pair 4 times to save the horror of having to find a new comfy pair for at least a year or two, and anything strappy just doesn't work on my feet.

Maybe that's why I like BnS balls so much - cause no matter what else you're wearing, you then get to chuck your nice comfy boots on at the bottom of it. I wish every outfit could be that easy.

The cake is a lie, but will give you +5 sexterity...*

2011-12-28T03:23:00.000+10:30

I expect very few of you to recognise or get these. That's okay. I can respect that. Most of you have lives, and haven't wasted goodly portions of them on computer games and internet memes.

Lucky you, I guess. Because despite making some Weighted Companion Cube pillows from the game Portal, instead of having Still Alive stuck in my head, I've got (Do you wanna date my) Avatar from The Guild stuck in my head. And having theme songs to computer games or web series' about computer games stuck in your head is kinda sucky. Those buggers are cat-chy.

*Do you wanna know? Really?

Meh.

2011-12-27T02:10:00.000+10:30

I must admit, I'm not good with makeup. Actually, that's an understatement. It's something I barely do at all. I have, apart from my collection of lip smackers, pretty much just two bits of makeup - some very pale foundation powder that I use to cover up blotchy days, and which is pretty much exactly the same as my skin tone in sunlight but which makes me look like a scary ghost in photos, and some mineral makeup powder that is a bit darker that I put on over the top of the pale stuff just in case someone whips out a camera, but which in the mirror looks kindof orange, so I usually take half of it off with a swispers before going out in public with it. Make up is, for me, in the too hard basket, along with sewing with stretch fabrics and fre motion quilting. And because I can't be bothered, it's not something I really spend money on - both those cost less than $10. If it's something I'm going to do maybe 30 days a year, it's not something I'm gunna invest a whole lot of money into. Not when there's fabric that needs buying.

Because of this, it's both a surprise and not surprising at all that all I bought today, boxing day, big sales day, was 3 mascaras. $10, from Woolies. Some kind of special Christmas pack, I dunno. I considered it when it was $15, but that seemed excessive. I wouldn't pay $5 for one, but apparently I would pay $3.33. I tried one tonight, and it seemed a tad underwhelming. Maybe I've been watching too many ads on telly. I though they should be poking someone else's eyes out they'd be so long. Instead, they were a bit darker, and quite stiff.

It all seems a bit of a faff to be honest. The $4 spent on chocolate cake seemed much more enjoyable. I might go eat some more of it.

Most Sparklyest, Rainbowest Present Ever!

2011-12-26T03:39:00.001+10:30

If I'm honest, I'm glad it's over. I'm not a huge lover of Christmas, since it always feels like it will be a huge hassle, and, yeah, usually it is. There's lots of driving about, often with people in your car you would never otherwise have, the awkwardness of having to say hi to relatives you loathe for a variety of reasons and the always fun job of pretending to ignore the fact that two of your sisters are hating on each other, and that your dad is slightly too drunk on account of how he hates Christmas too, and probably for the exact same reasons. Except the driving, cause that's not allowed after a whole bottle of Wild Turkey.

This Christmas though, contained a ray of light not seen every December 25th. And while I loathe surprises and being out of the loop, this was my present from Helen and Casey this year.

I found it on ebay a few weeks ago and put out an open invitation on facebook for anyone to buy it for me, but it was near enough $100 so I doubted anyone would. It ended and was re-listed at 20% off and I seriously considered buying it but by then, someone already had. I took it as a sign, since really, I don't live the kind of life that caters to a wardrobe of rainbow sequined dresses, but today I opened up a little box and saw some sequins through the tissue paper and almost peed my pants.

If it hadn't fit, I probably would have locked myself in a bedroom and bawled for a bit.

Apparently though, pretty much everyone except me knew I was getting it. I messaged Anna as soon as I got it since we'd cooed over it together and she already knew, as did Mum and Nanny. As someone who doesn't really "do" secrets, the fact that everyone around me does is somewhat disconcerting. Thankfully they've (so far) only used their powers for good instead of evil.

So thankyou to Helen and Casey. I must come up with a suitable occasion to wear it. And some new boots to wear with it.

I'll post a link to them on facebook when I do. My birthday is only 4 weeks away now...

Merry Christmas.

2011-12-25T03:17:00.000+10:30

I got everything finished on time, even though I didn't get out of work on time (a saturday when you have to do all the sunday jobs? Too confusing.)

And so it is, officially, in my time zone at least, Christmas. 3 hours in.

Santa has been, though I still have to wait 5 hours to find out what I got in addition to an RAA roadside assist membership and some hopefully-bitchin new headphones. They cost six times my usual headphones so one would hope they are six times better, though they're probably just 6 times more likely to get lost.

I hope everyone has a good one, whether they've still got a whole day to wait or just a few stolen hours of shut-eye.

I think I might get away with not sewing for a whole day now. Yay!

Feelings

2011-12-24T05:11:00.000+10:30

It's been a day of interesting feelings today. There was the time spent in the perfume section of Priceline, feeling ignorant and alienated (because I'm anosmic. Google it). There was the time tonight when I realised that I'd made a goddamn stupid mistake* on Casey's bag and had to spend 20 minutes unpicking the zipper, feeling stupid and angry at myself. But on the other hand, I got a small child happily into bed, and that felt quite good, since it's not something I would have previously considered myself capable of. And selling all the monsters tonight at Helen's, in the space of one slightly frenetic hour, actually felt kinda great. It's a lovely feeling to have my stuff be very much wanted, and, even though I'm certainly in no rush, to leave them already wanting more.

Now though, having pretty much finished Casey's bag (I've just got to neaten up and overlock the inside seams) I'm pretty much just feeling tired.

*I cut the vliesofix and had it as my pattern interfaced to the lining to give me the size I needed. But because it was the start of a new piece from spotlight, the edge was wonky and though I remembered to draw a nice straight line to square it off, I didn't actually cut that line, meaning one zipper edge was, at one end of the zip, over a centimetre wider than it should have been. And yeah, I didn't realise it till I had sewn, threaded and cut down the zipper.

Yay!

2011-12-23T05:20:00.001+10:30

5am, we meet again....

Yeah, I'm not good at this whole "going to bed" thing. Buuuuuut.....

Faced, sewn, stuffed and ready to hand-sew closed tomorrow. My favourite is the pale blue one at the right. He has really long arms, so you can fold (knot) them and he looks really gangsta.

I think I'm doing it wrong....

2011-12-22T03:12:00.001+10:30

I'm not particularly good at this "Christmas decorating" thing.

Though some of those little arms do look kinda like stockings.

All this batch of monsters are fully faced now and all their little arms have been sewn, but not stuffed, cause I didn't get out of bed early enough to make it to Spotlight and Casey got there at 5.25 and didn't think to name-drop her way in. Silly Girl. Stuffing is another of those things I have *somewhere*

I'm feeling extremely grateful that I have the day after tomorrow off, since I still have a lotta lotta stuff to do. My goal is to get these guys sewn and stuffed tomorrow night/friday morning and drop them into Helen, and hopefully she'll be nice enough to sew them closed for me, since I hate that job.

Here we go again...

2011-12-21T04:48:00.000+10:30

Because I am a sucker.

I couldn't even find my old patterns, let along the half dozen half-faced monsters I know are somewhere. Lucky I posted all the patterns on here a while ago - look under the tutorial label if you're wanting it.

Spotlight didn't have any opaque white fabric paint, so I've had to sew on a layer of felt with a layer of white quilting cotton fused over the top - that's the only combo that properly covers the prints underneath, and doesn't pill like the felt does on it's own. Fortunately, without actually practicing or doing it all that often, I suddenly got quite good at raw edge machine applique. Yay me.

But my vision's starting to go blurry from staring intently at a turning circle of white and my bobbin ran out. And if an empty bobbin isn't a sign to stop for the night, I don't know what is. Maybe the fact that it's a quarter to five. That works too.

Lying.

2011-12-20T04:38:00.000+10:30

Have you ever made someone something and then been all bummed that you don't get to keep it?

Any of you that said no, I'd like to remind you that Santa is watching, and you've only got yourself to blame if you don't get anything on Sunday. If I know you're lying, then Santa does too.

I've been working hard* on Casey's bag tonight, and I want it. Want want want. Sulk. Maybe I will steal it later. It's not yet finished yet, and I have some distractions, maybe I can pretend that it can't be finished, and then sneaky finish it and keep it for myself.

The distractions I mentioned are a sudden call for lots and lots of monsters, in the next 4 days. Helen put them on facebook, and people went and bought them all, and wanted more. And they're not having Alex (he remains my monster) so I'll have to see what I can do.

*Just because I spent long periods of time getting distracted by making myself a new headband, cooking some rice, playing with some zippers, painstakingly cutting some fabric on the grain, and wrapping a couple of presents, doesn't mean I wasn't working hard, y'know, in between all that stuff.

I am a dull and uninteresting person.

2011-12-19T02:31:00.000+10:30

I know that music aficionados say that the richest sound comes from vinyl. I know that the best method of digital compression and storage for audio is FLAC. I know that I much, much prefer being able to download an album in 17 seconds. I know that it took me 3 minutes, and the assistance of one of my sisters to work out how to merely open the one remaining cassette player in our house today.

I didn't know that cassettes ran two channels of audio. Or maybe I just hadn't thought of it. Cassettes were a dying breed when I was in my formative music years, but I was there for them. My first ever album was on cassette (it was Hanson. The ones that sang MmmBop. My favourite song was Yearbook.) I can remember friends bringing over their cassettes and CDs and making mix tapes. You couldn't do that in 17 seconds - you did it real time, having one play in slot 1 while you recorded in slot 2.

Today I didn't make a mix tape. Today I did the reverse. Six weeks ago I wrote about a song called The Melbourne Cup which I couldn't find anywhere. My sister (the same one who can remember how to open a cassette player*) told me that it was on the Home Among the Gum Trees cassettes we had when we were little. I looked on eBay, and there was one lonely copy available. I bought it. "That's excellent," said Casey. "You can put it all on the computer for us and then give it to Nanna Joy for Christmas."

So it's on the computer, in 25 minute blocks of 7 songs per side. Digitized by plugging an audio cable from the headphone jack of the almost-never-used sound system in the lounge to mic jack of mum's laptop, and pressing record in my music editing software, and waiting 25 minutes before flipping the cassette. Each channel of audio is different, and I'm breaking it down into little bits by listening to the beginning and end of each song through my headphones, and yeah, one ear is hearing different things to the other.

It's not beautiful sound. There's a lot of noise in the background. Not actual noise, of us putting up our Christmas tree, which we finally did tonight at about 11pm because it was the only time all six of us were home, but the faint buzzy cracklyness of the cassette.

Weirdly, even though I'm listening to it through the sound card on a computer, it feels soothing. Familiar. Songs I haven't heard in 15 years, from a cassette 25 years old. I wonder if it's because of the cracklyness. I'm planning on having a go at cleaning it up some other day, but maybe I shouldn't. Maybe it's important.

Also, I have the worst Deja Vu of my life. Not just cause I'm listening to songs from when I was a kid - I don't think I ever listened to these songs at this house, just in Dad's ute or on the houseboat. But I feel as if I've sorted this audio before. Maybe just because it's taken me the last 4 hours to get halfway through.

Anyway, if any of you remember any of these songs, or maybe want them, or came here cause you too realise that, for reasons beyond your control, your identity is tied up in some songs sung three decades ago and now unavailable to anyone not lucky enough to do the right eBay search on the right day, message me and I'll send them to you.

Home Among The Gumtrees - Bullamakanka

Old Man Emu - John Williamson

Ridin' - Smoky Dawson

The Gondiwindi Grey - Johnny Greenwood

Click Go the Shears - The Hawking Bros

Redback on the Toilet Seat - Slim Newton

I was only Nineteen - Redgum

Downunder - Men At Work

Put Another Log On The Fire - Bill & Boyd

Little Boy Lost - Johnny Ashcroft

I'm The Sheik from Scrubby Creek - Chad Morgan

Theme from Picnic at Hanging Rock - Paul Lennon

Tenterfield Saddler - Peter Allen

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda - The Bushwhackers

Our Don Bradman - (No artist listed)

The Wild Colonial Boy - Smoky Dawson

Waltzing Matilda - The Sundowners

Theme From Rush - Brian May and The ABC Showband

The Melbourne Cup - The Hawking Bros

Santa Never Made it to Darwin - Bill & Boyd

Flash Jack from Gundagai - The Bushwhackers

The Ettamogah Pub - Ray Kernaghan

Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport - Rolf Harris

Come On Aussie Come On - Frankie Davidson

The Dog on the Tuckerbox/Road to Gundagai/Back to Yarrawonga (Medley) - The Sundowners

Theme From Cash & Co - The Bushwhackers

I Still Call Australia Home - Peter Allen

As for craft, today I did none whatsoever.

*The stop button is also the open button.

Progress

2011-12-18T04:13:00.000+10:30

I think I might be bored with HSTs now. I finished the top of the christmas quilt and pressed it all and thought, well, that was fun, time for something new.

Except, well, I can't really start anything new, since I have a whole lotta stuff still to be done in the next week. I did pretty good today though - after I finished the top I got it basted and quilted - now all it needs is trimming down and binding. I've already got the strips cut, and I've got the strips cut to bind that red and green one I made a few weeks ago to see how much I disliked wool batting, but I'm puting it off. I hate binding.

I got the other three christmas sacks finished today too. We always used pillow cases as a kid and then we would lug the pillow cases around to wherever christmas was that year, so this year I have made us some ones in pretty christmas fabric that are still the size of pillow cases, but have squared off bottoms and handles. Handles are handy, as the name suggests.

I made the lining for Casey's bag, and devoted some time to berating myself for deciding to make hers a fancy bag. Bags without pockets and with handles that go from one end to the other instead of up the sides are much, much easier, but she wants a little bit of leather from the back of some jeans sewn to hers and for whatever reason, that makes me feel like the bag has to be as fancy as the pants it came off of.

And I made a stubby holder, just to see if I could remember how to do it. I can - yay me!

Unfortunately, at some point while I was doing all this my phone went flat, so I couldn't take any pictures. It's charging now though, so I'll take a heap in the morning.

Yawn.

2011-12-17T05:16:00.001+10:30

I'm so tired I may have passed, about 45 minutes ago, into that land where you're basically drunk, only it's better, because there's noone around to tell things to, no drinks to spill, and it's cheaper, and you wont feel as terrible in the morning, and you're not feeling like throwing up (unless you've only eaten cheese for the last 8 hours) and you actually achieved quite a lot.

It's so much better in fact that one could consider making it their favourite thing for friday, except that, well, it's not actually a nice feeling at all.

Instead, my actual favourite thing is going to be those pencil cases made out of zips. Now for the record, I think they're a stupid idea. They were cute and twee when it was only crafters making them, and yes, the one that zippers around and around forever was a very cool variation on it when it first came out, but now that you can get terribly made ones at all the cheap shops they, for the most part, really annoy me. But... on the other hand, as someone who uses a lot of zips, they're handy. While honestly I'd much rather just be able to buy a metre of bright orange size 7 zipper, I understand that it's a niche market, and am therefore kinda glad to see a frankly silly looking phone pouch made out of exactly that for $3 at Neds. Sure it means a 5 minute job with the quickunpick, but the people in the sweatshops have kindly set their machines to the longest stitch length, so it's not like it's hard work. And while Lincraft have size 3 pulls you can buy, they don't have size 7, so a pencil case for $4 which gets me 12 zipper pulls is not too bad a price. I don't have a use for the 12 brightly coloured 15cm lengths of zipper they came off of yet, but I'm working on that bit.

Other good stuff:

Furnishings fabric. We forget about it with all the pretty quilting fabrics at our disposal, but they have some really nice yarn-dyed stuff.

Electric blanket. It doesn't matter that it's summer. I'm using it.

Computer mouse. As a dedicated laptop user, and also a touchscreen aficionado, I've never really used them. But mum's laptop, with it's oddly clingy touchpad and screen that just sits there no matter how much you prod it really benefits from the presence of the little red mouse.

Multitasking. Tonight I worked for about 10 hours on 8 projects, flitting from one to another when I got bored. None of them got finished, but I made a lot of progress on most of them.

Pin magnets. Actually, any magnets, since all you need to do to make a magnet a pin magnet is throw a pin at it - a handy fact if you're lazy like me.

Shopping for clothes in the kids section. Trackies for $8, thanks. Undies for $2, ta muchly.

Totally being a trendsetter in the adults section. Remember these?

I went into cotton-on today and found these:

Theirs have a blue ribbon and slightly smaller check, oh, and they cost twenty bucks! I paid $4 for a metre of the fabric and made 2 pairs, bringing me to my final fave,

Bargains. This might be 30 years old, but for 99c it's got some damn good stuff in in.

Though to be honest, that tennis outfit isn't one of them...

Slow and steady

2011-12-16T03:27:00.002+10:30

HSTs are sewn.

Now to make the most of three days off - get the last couple of bits of christmas shopping (mainly nice foods for the grandparents) done, and sew sew sew. Finish this quilt, bind the other christmasssy quilt, and make 3 bags for the sisters.

Actual quilting!*

2011-12-15T03:48:00.000+10:30

I'm a bit behind on my TV viewing. Now that my laptop is home downloading has resumed, but there's still 2 weeks of watching to do, and not much time between work and sleeping and going to the gym and doing stuff for christmas.

Tonight when I got home I decided I'd make a start on the christmas quilt. And I decided I'd watch some Castle while I did it. I must say, the episodes were both brilliant. Beckett working through her issues with the sniper in the first one, all deep and emotional, with crying and stuff, and then the odd comedy/thriller of the next episode, where they're trapped in a room and don't know how they got there, and then there's a tiger. And they're trapped in a room with a tiger. And it's oddly hilarious, while absolutely gripping. It held me up quite a bit. The morals of this story are a) don't quilt and watch new episodes of Castle at the same time, and b) a tiger can knock over an on-it's-end chest freezer, making it an unsafe place to stand atop of. If there's a tiger.

Still, although progress was slow, I did get all my triangles cut. 80 of them, though I only needed 72, but since I placed them randomly it was good to have some spares to get a good balance.

It's a shame I didn't have another darker red triangle. to put at the right hand end of the second row down, but all my leftover triangles were of the mid-shade.

I'll see how I'm feeling about it once my pairs have been sewn - I've got more than I need of the binding fabric to cut another one to put in, but I don't remember it looking that noticeable in the real world. Taking photos of quilts does funny things to them.

*That title's a lie since no actual quilting was done, but cutting up fabrics is what quilting's all about, even if my sewing machine didn't get plugged in.

Uuuummmm...

2011-12-14T03:14:00.000+10:30

It's much harder to choose a fabric for someone else than it is to choose one for yourself. And it's much more difficult again to choose a single fabric. A quilt, where it's a whole big cohesive thing, that's practically easy compared to picking a single fabric to make a bag for someone.

Two someones actually: I'm planning on making a bag each for Casey and Becky for Christmas. Casey thinks that maybe she wants a red, blue and white check that I've already used to make an identical bag for Meagan, and even though it would look a bit different if I put it on point, it's not that different. And I don't really like re-making things. And all the other yarn dyed* checks at Spotlight are horrible crappy loose weaves that look scratchy and horrible. Except gingham, and that looks a little bit too cliched.

Becky's even harder to pick for, mainly since I don't really get on with her that well, and therefore have no idea what she likes - as far as I'm aware, it's the colour orange, taking my things without asking and making a mess in the bathroom. And I've failed (unsurprisingly) to find a fabric that encapsulates these things.

I'm gunna have to pick something fairly soon though - I have 3 days off this weekend and then just next friday off to get everything done.

I think I'm still a bit thrown about it being less than a fortnight away cause we still haven't been out to get a tree yet. Yes, that's right, I'm the only person in the blogosphere still without a Christmas tree.

There has to be someone who's last, right?

*Unless it's printed on point, in which case it's okay, a printed check just doesn't look as good as a woven check. I can't explain why, but it looks more "right" - actually I can explain why. It's because it is right.