Okay, kinda a little bit dead.

Remember back in MAY when I said I was gunna make quilts?

I procrastinated. 

Remember how I said they had to be in America by September? 

It is September.

Now, these fuckers have 1200 pieces per top. I'm gunna blame my procrastination on the fact that my laptop was in a truly terrible state*, and noone wants to try designing on something that takes 5 minutes to open a file in photoshop. I’d designed the first one, and got a top made, but the other two just weren’t working (though I ordered some fabrics based the requirements of a design I didn’t love, in a fit of misguided optimism) and I slogged through attempts with about 6 different reference pictures to no avail. But then I got a new laptop, and I could use photoshop again, and make the designs work. I ordered more fabrics, and some spoonflower labels before that, and waited. 

When the labels didn’t arrive on their due date (the 26^th of last month), I worried. Then a couple of days before the solids were due to arrive (I was hoping for the 5^th), with the labels still nowhere to be seen, I discovered I had my due date wrong. Not only was the post office not giving me what I needed, but I’d fucked up all on my own too. They needed the quilts by the 19^th, not the 26^th. 

On the one hand, I accepted my fate. Got over it. It wasn’t possible. No more worry. I agreed to work an extra shift that weekend after all. I made plans to go out and get drunk afterwards.

On the other hand, the universe had had my back on this one thing – Spotlight happening to have the one exact shade I had incorrectly ordered. So it came down to: if the solids got here by that Friday, and I could organise some kind of express courier to get them halfway around the world in a week, it would be possible. Not necessarily a good idea, but a doable thing. A thing that I could do. Possibly.

The fabric came that Friday. I still had a full quilt top and a half to do, as well as making the backings and doing the actual quilting for all 3. I timed my steps along the way:

Cutting:                      3 hours

Sorting:                      4 hours

Chaining:                    4 hours

Pressing:                    2 hours

Pinning:                      2 hours

Sewing Rows:             4 hours

Pressing blocks:          1 hour

Assembling:               1 hours

Backing:                     2 hours

Basting:                     .5 hours

Quilting:                     4 hours

Binding:                     3 hours

And even considering what I already had done, I worked on these for over 60 hours in the past 10 days. I cancelled on the going out and getting drunk thing, but I still worked 36 hours too. Oh, and uni, though I gotta confess I did the summaries I had to and ignored the rest. And...

Tomorrow I need to get up really early and call the DHL people and find out who I need to drop the box off to so that they can send it for me. Like, 7am early. The kind of early I’ve been going to sleep at (cause you don’t do secret projects in the middle of the day).

The nice man on the phone when I rang to check on Friday said that if they got it Monday afternoon, it would get to Dallas by Thursday. That’s the goal.  

*To be fair, I spilled hot chocolate on it.

A new quilt and too much other information.

Once again, it's been a while between posts. But the combination of "ergh, I'm so much ache right now I could die, I'd better say my farewells" and "OMG OMG OMG I actually made a quilt" have come together to inspire a post.

Second things first; that's right, quilt! A whole one, pieced top, quilted, bound, everything. Admittedly, it was a fold over the back binding, but whatever, I was rushed. It was for a birthday last Tuesday, though fair's fair she really only wanted to show it off Saturday night, and I made it Friday night so all's well.

It's for Casey, obviously, and tells the gripping tale of a man and his tractors. I'm not sure where he gets these tractors to try and fail to pull up a tree, but maybe there's a prequel panel somewhere out there. It's about 1.3x1.6, and the backing is butcher's twill. Never in the whole of human history has there been a quilt so perfect for someone.

And last night, quilt showing-off night, was Harrow BnS. My first in over 6 months, what with missing Longy with laryngitis and Paruna getting cancelled. We took two virgins (by that I mean people who'd never been to a ball before) and a 5L keg of strawberry cider and about 100 jelly shots. And we drank and danced and ended up funny colours and found boys and new exciting ways to inadvertently injure ourselves.

As a result, I suspect this will be my last ever post*, what with the culmative aches acquired on the weekend all banding together and leaving me convinced I won't survive to the morning. A nasty bruise 3/4 of the way down my spine. Don't know how I got it. Another quite large one on my left leg. A painful, odd looking friction-burn-and-bruise combo on my right elbow that I got by miss-executing a decent down the chain ladder on the playground. And a friction burn on my knee that I got becasue I managed to pick up the only guy there with a swag smaller than mine. But I guess that's what I get for picking up floppy haired emo boys at BnS balls. "But I love them... They're my favourite" I say when anyone warns me against it. Of course, they're not quite as specific as, "Don't do it Sara, he'll have a tiny swag and very long gentleman parts and it will be quite awkward trying to reconcile the two in a sexy sexy manner without injuring either yourself or him" and I kinda think they're worse friends becasue of it.

Real friends will violate the laws of space and time and find this shit out for you and travel back and let you know to hook up with Dreamboat instead, in order to avoid the kinds of aches that follow an evening with a boy still in his teens. But it's okay, I am, for another 48 or so hours at least, still in my early twenties, and can therefore still choose the 19 year olds instead of the 30 year olds.

Even if it's a terrible decision. No matter, I'll be dead soon. Remember me fondly, and raid my stash fairly...

*I am of course, being over-dramatic for comedic effect. When I don't post for another month, it'll be because I'm too busy being an alcoholic and watching sitcoms to post, not because I died from the assorted aches of a debauched last-big-weekend-before-entering-the-mid-twenties booze-and-boys-fest.

I love coats.

Apart from the obvious stuff like having to do buttonholes and getting a nice corner on the tips of the collar, I think it's a lot more difficult to significantly alter a coat than make one from scratch.

It all started Saturday night on our very quick party trip to Adelaide. There was a boy, (as is so often the case) wearing a quite dapper coat. I love a good coat, so naturally I ended up doing dancefloor things with him. Turned out the coat wasn't his though, he'd just found it earlier in the evening, which meant getting it was a simple matter of giving him my number. Didn't even have to do anything inappropriate :)

Still, even though he said it was a bit too small for him, a men's medium is quite a bit too large for my size 8. So last night I chopped it up and tonight I made a start on putting it back together.

Taking down a shirt is fairly easy, even when they've annoyingly flatlocked the side seams, because it doesn't have a lining. This coat is fully lined but I've given up on keeping the lining perfect, because it's all gotten a bit... complicated. I've lowered the seam of the shoulder but raised the set of the top of the sleeve. I've taken in the underside of the sleeve and in the sides but the underarm was still too low so I've had to add in a bust dart to make the sleeve hole small enough. So the lining's way bigger than the shell, and the shape of the sleeve hole is terribly wonky and the lining doesn't match it. I'm just going to tack it all together and zigzag the crap out of the inside of the set-in sleeve.

But it's 5am so it won't be finished tonight, not that I need it in any real rush, but it's nice to know that I can do it. It's easier making one from scratch though, since you can make a muslin and test it all out.

Speaking of coats made from scratch, today I found some gold... something-or-other on the clearance rack at spotlight so I can make a rockstar coat to match what instagram came up with. And they have solid coloured rayons now! I didn't buy any because they weren't on sale and, well, I've had other sewing lined up, but I'm happy about it nonetheless.

I think I need better things to get excited about.

I wish so hard that it was real...

So a couple of weeks ago, for reasons that now escape my memory, it came up at work that I knew one of my co-workers credit card details off by heart. Obviously, a couple of the girls at front end immediatelly decided we should use them for something, and an epic international holiday was decided on. Over the course of the rest of the shift, this hypothetical holiday was hashed out, attendees decided apon and dates chosen. There's about ten of us. I say "about" because we have been arbitrarily uninviting and adding people as we see fit.

We left for our hypothetical holiday yesterday morning.

First up is 4 days in New Zealand. We arrived at Mt Hutt last night and spent today skiing. Tomorrow we are going to try snowboarding. Then we are flying to the north island, because I want to visit Hobbiton. That's what we're doing Thursday, and then Thursday afternoon we're doing a tandem bungee jump. Annalise, Emily and I are agreed that this is very important, (so important it may actually become a real life - albeit more local, thing) and we want as many of our co-travellers to join in as possible. Brenton has to, we have decided. It's his credit-card we're using, so that's only fair.

Friday morning we are flying to Hawaii. I picked Hawaii, mainly because Shay was there at the time, and I was jealous. I haven't made any hypothetical plans for Hawaii yet, though I believe it has been decided that we shall learn to surf. I claimed my plan was to start drinking on the plane and not sober up till we landed back in Melbourne. That was before I was quite ill on Sunday, so I have postponed my drinking till we reach Hawaii, at which point, mimosas: come at me. Nonetheless I have hypothetically sourced some lovely south island red wines.

I had though it would be fun to photoshop our faces onto pictures of people standing in the snow but Google has been rudely unforthcoming with the kind of starter images I need for that. If there's something worse than finding out that your plans for a huge international holiday on a friends credit card can't follow through because said card only has a $1000 limit, it's finding out that you can't even fake the holiday in a fun way for facebook.

Actually, no the fact that I'm not actually on the trip of a lifetime right now is worse.

If anyone wants me, I'll be on ebay, buying myself some souvenirs, while I sit here in bed eating crumbed parmesan from the jar...

Weekend

Before having an arguably ridiculously big night last night, yesterday I went into Spotlight's Quilt Expo that they were having. I'd taken in a half dozen quilts for them to display, to help get out word that it was going on, and probably a quarter of the quilts they had there were mine. I got there pretty late because I was up till 8am having a spontaneous bedroom cleaning spree, and really, I don't need to be taught how to make a block. But they had all dress fabrics at 30% off, and I wanted to buy some pleather to do a dressier version of my jacket, but I didn't really want to pay $23 a metre. I'll have to try to do it without pinning it, but I figure the fabric won't stretch or shift as much as fleece does.

Today I spent being hungover and watching True Blood. Tonight I am having an early night.

The BnS Post - Stonerollers 2012

...

(That would be the pause I give when someone asks me how my weekend went.)


Well... (that would be the traditional beginning) It was awesome. I had been a bit worried for the last couple of weeks that a) the weather would be shit and b) that I would have hyped it up a bit too much in my brain, resulting in the inevitable dissapointment.

But, thankfully, wrong on both counts. Saturday morning we left a dreary grey sky'd Adelaide, and we took the curly mountain road (Eagle on the Hill) instead of going through the tunnel, and that was AMAZING. All Caps amazing. Pulling onto the the off-ramp from the freeway, going up the mountain, it got super-foggy. There was NO view. Just white. Curly, twisty roads, up and down hills, white either side of the road and visibility ahead of about 50 metres. It was like living a dream sequence. I considered doing a loop and having a second go, but Casey was driving her car ahead of me, and I wanted to keep convoy. But back on the freeway it all burnt off, and even though it wasn't exactly warm, it was nice in the sun.

There was a pretty big line at the gate, and we all decided that, obviously, we'd start drinking. But I accidentally got one of my strong ciders, and had 3 standard drinks in a half hour... by the time I actually got to pay for my ticket I was dying of indigestion and trying really hard to play it cool. One we were actually in I pulled back a bit, but I kept at it and didn't return to real sobriety till today.

The ball itself consisted of me dirty dancing with as many people as I possibly could and making out with a dozen guys. I stopped my actual alcohol drinking at midnight, which is a good plan if you don't want to wake up with a walking dead hangover, and got on with the all important picking up. I even managed to get about 4 hours of sleep.

Recovery today was almost more bonkers than last night, because I did it all again sober. More overambitious dancing, more boys, and a wet tshirt contest that was very much about the wet and not so much about the tshirts. They'd chopped them down but thankfully my boobs are small enough that they were still covered. No-one else's were, so I kept a shred of dignity by comparison and got my horrible sticky clumpy hair somewhat rinsed out.

We hung about till about 3pm, sitting in the afternoon sun at the campsites after recovery stopped at 1, then we eventually got mustered to go, got KFC and headed home.

Tonight, I faced the biggest challenge of the whole weekend - there wasn't enough hot water left when it came time for me to take my shower.

It was horrible.

The Impulsive, Handsewn Holiday Quilt

Last night, while I was watching weird movies, I was bummed that I didn't have anything to do while I was doing that, so today when I was wandering around shopping I tried to keep an eye out for some little crafty thing to do while I was bumming about my motel room. You know, crochet or something.



Instead, I found some pre-pieced fabric on the clearance racks of one of the spotlights for $4 a metre. And there was some coat fabric for $3 a metre. So I got them both (150cm of the pieced stuff, since that was the width of the coat fabric, and 110cm of the coat, since the pieced stuff was narrower) and I picked some woven tape for the binding, since I couldn't find any actual binding in a colour I liked, and anyway, since this'll be going to a BnS ball, I wanted it to be tough.

While caught in the after-school rush hour I thought about it some more, and figured that maybe I should get some spray baste. So I got some of that at the next Spotlight I went to, as well as some Husky fleece as batting. The three fabrics ($6, $3.30 and $5.50) came to less than the price of the spray baste ($15.95)

What does one choose as a soundtrack to getting high on glue fumes in a motel room, on your own, 500km from home?

Well, I went with Chasing Airplanes by Gary Allen, but then, right now, that's my go-to song for pretty much everything. And once it was all glued, I switched to a bit of Dierks Bentley. That's not a band name, that's what the guy's actually called. Also, he totally looks like Waz from The Block last year.

Amazingly, I got it all quilted in 2 1/2 hours, but then, I haven't done an award winning job or anything. Big chunky stitches on the diagonal through every second row. Double thickness variegated brown cotton, if you were wondering. It took me another hour to get a bit under a quarter of the binding done, but once again, the sewing is rubbish.

And then I devoted some time to trying on all the clothes that I bought today. Huzzah for late night shopping in the 'burbs; I managed to get a lot in cause I could keep shopping till 9pm. No pics though, cause I suck at selfies.

Hey Adelaide, it seems like only last week that I... Nevermind...

Today was a beautiful day for a roadtrip: chilly outside but sunny enough that inside the car was quite warm. I loved it. Five hours of listening to music and talking to myself and thinking about stuff and marveling at how pretty it all is.

I got in at about 7 and got myself some tea, and since then I've watched some artsy movies that I'd been meaning to watch for a while, and then I did some more thinking. I had planned on going up to Eagle on the Hill tonight too but the internet is so vague on it and even though my brain is saying that's where you see all the lights from, I can't actually remember, and this motel annoyingly sometimes runs out of carparks, and I don't want to risk it. I might check tomorrow sometime.

Here I go again on my own...

Man, I have got to stay off youtube - that was 5 hours of my life I'll never get back.

Just as well I actually got stuff done during the actual day bit of today. There was the getting the car serviced, and the sorting out more car food, and the repacking of the under-the-seat-box-of-everything, and the repairs on my fur coat.

It's kinda crazy to think I've had my coat for nearly 3 years now. That said, when you look at it, you can kinda see. There's a lot of food dye on it still, and when that bloke at Longy that year put it on he split a lot of the seams at the back and I had to re-sew them, and I kinda lost it between the last time I wore it an now, and it hasn't fared all that well. A lot of the fur at the top of the back was just tearing, so I had to sew it all back together with some old towel (the one I'd cut up to clean some of the food dye off) underneath it to stabalise it, and then I even ended up just cutting out a heap of the weak stuff and filling it in with a patch of the scrap from the faux-fur roof lining of the new ute. It's not quite the same, but since quite a lot of it is still blue, and it's mainly under the collar anyway, I don't think it matters. Also, by the time I'm wearing it, everyone will be shitfaced anyway.

Tomorrow is my second roadtrip in a week. I think I'm keener for this one - afternoon travel, lone-wolfing, CDs instead of radio, my own car, no definite plans. Should be fun.

Still yawning...

Well, it's midnight. I've had a pretty big day. I was up at 7 yet again, and, even though Meagan thinks she might be able to reset my body clock, I'm pretty sure that I'll sleep till 2 on monday afternoon and then I'll be back to normal.

Today was shopping for wedding dresses day. I mean, that was the whole point of us coming to Adelaide, and we had appointments and everything. But I found myself thinking how glad I was that I didn't do fashion design, because I may well have ended up working in a place just like those shops. And even though I've been lucky enough to get a nice bride, the fact is that the girls at those shops have to deal with a dozen every day, and some of the ones who were in there when we were seemed like right cows. I get that it's stressful and all, but you're devoting a day to trying on pretty dresses, in flattering lighting and with people whose job it is to make them look as good on you as they possibly can. Maybe you should try cracking a smile?

Anyway, we found two dresses she really liked, one at each store, and we ended up going back to try on the first one. I'm really glad we did, since I liked it a lot better, and once she'd put it back on again she did too. Also, the people at the second place were really rude, and the quality of some of the bridesmaids dresses looked a bit skiffy. I certainly wouldn't have paid $350 for them.

After we had that sorted we went to Marion Shopping centre for a bit, and it made me very very keen for next week, when I get to spend two whole days lone-wolfing it. It's been lovely spending time with Meagan, but I still don't feel super close to the other bridesmaids, who were all at school together. Don't get me wrong, they're all very nice, but I don't know them that well yet. Certainly not well enough to spend two hours wandering around a really big shopping centre with them, which is why I was really glad we split up for the second hour.

Tomorrow... well, I've no idea what we're doing tomorrow. Driving home at some point, one would think, but it's all a bit of a mystery.

Off, off and away...

Bags are packed, CDs are burning as I type, car foods have been organised and spare batteries charged. And though it probably wont actually work/help, I'm going to try for a couple of hours nap time.

Solo roadtrips, that take off at lunchtime, are much more my thing.

Good Questions.

Why is laundry so much easier when you're dancing badly to the music in your headphones?
Why do I only ever get the urge to tidy my room at 2am?
Why did all these coathangers end up under my bed?
Why do I own so many dresses?
Why do none of them look as fabulous as I want them too?
Where did my boobs go?

I ended up finding my boobs in one particular green dress, after trying on SEVENTEEN other ones. That's right, I had 18 dresses to try on tonight. In my cupboard. There are actual dress shops with less dresses than I have. I didn't even try on my fancy dresses, since I'm trying to get started on my packing for Stonerollers next weekend, and I'm not going to wear one of my good ballgowns to a BnS ball.

It's a bit early, by my standards, to be getting sorted for a ball, but I've got quite a week ahead of me. Thirsty Thursday is off, because in the wee small hours (actually about 6am, but that's still barely medium sized) I've got to go into town so I can get driven to Adelaide. As long as my snoring doesn't wake the baby, I'm allowed to sleep in the car - it's a bridal party trip to the city to look at dresses and flowers and such for Meagan's wedding. Three days in Adelaide, then two days at home, then back to Adelaide for a lone-wolf shopping trip, and then it's Saturday and time to drive down to Murray Bridge for Stonies.

Gah, crazyness. So it's best that I start now: two loads of washing done, dress picked, fur coat found but not yet cleaned. It probably needs to be professionally done, but I think they'd disapprove of the fact that I let it get covered in food dye and then put it in a box in the shed. I only paid $16 for it, so I don't feel all that bad, I just know it's gunna make a mess of me when I go to clean it out. Food dye, even when it's dried in, gets everywhere once you wet it again. I'm usually covered in dye days before I even get to the ball, but with it forecasted to be cold and miserable, I'm gunna need my coat.

In the meantime...

Even though I had a fun weekend, it was also incredily long, and I'm soooo glad to be home to my real bed.

Home.

It's so nice to be home, in my own bed, under my own quilts, with my electric blanket. That 5 hour drive, after getting about the same amount of sleep last night, wasn't particularly fun. But loud music helped, and I only nearly died once. And even then, it wasn't that nearly.

Before that though, I spent a lovely afternoon at Shay's house, walking her through sewing a couple of zip pouches with really no swearing at all, trying to understand a tutorial that was missing about half the steps on a site which I had assumed would have higher standards, and getting there eventually, and then making a little pouch with a recessed zip, just to prove how easy it was. We also spent a lot of time playing with the dogs, being ignored by the cats, and watching my team thrash hers in the footy. Good times, and I can't wait till the end of July when we get to do it all again.

I've put all the new fabrics into their respective bundles, but there's still the other quilts in the finishathon to get through first - I think I have one more to quilt and then it's all bindings.

Ergh. I might have to run away again.

whoops.

In hindsight, maybe going out for drinks tonight wasn't the best of ideas...

Actually though, I only had three; I caught up with a friend from high school and we went to the movies, followed by a pub which was horrible, and then we went back to his house to watch a couple of movies. So not so much drunk, more just late...

Driving the empty streets of Adelaide with only the occasional taxi for company was nice though.

When I got back here I took a photo of my haul from today.

It looks a bit random, but there's additions for about 5 different potential quilts I've started bundles for at home. My only rule was to not buy fabrics currently in stock at the local Spotlight.

And I caught up with Shay, and we've planned our zip setting itinerary. Now I just need to sleep for 5 hours :/

Good ol' Rant.

So I'm in my motel room in Adelaide, and the design of the height and angle adjustable shower head here was almost good enough to be my favourite thing this week. Seriously, as a piece of industrial design, I'm kinda in love, and I want one at my house, since ours is old and decrepit.


But really, a shower fixture does not a favourite thing make. Instead, here goes.


I love long drives, singing, loudly and badly, and so intensely that your face starts to hurt. For mile after mile.


I love finding a pace car, and becoming really really attached to it, and having one-sided, long and emotive farewells when it turns off. For the first 100km today, my pace car was a swift, and that was even better, because it was like we were a gang. And then I did see a gang - The Finks were in Tintinara when I drove through and they overtook* me about 100km up the road. And I'm not sure why the government is going through all these hoops trying to outlaw them - in 5 minutes I saw about a dozen road traffic offenses EACH, and that's more demerit points than they have, and once you're out of demerit points, you can't ride your bike any more. Unless it's a push bike. Seriously, the government should hire me. Minister for Obviousness.


I love literally rolling into Adelaide. The last 5km is all downhill.


I love this motel, for its free wi-fi and the fact that the best satay chicken in the world is directly across the road. I could have gotten it twice tonight, but I told myself no. I also love this motel for its shower fixtures.


I love my GPS. It's about 5 years old now but its still great, especially since I only paid about $100 for it new. It's called a "travel companion" too, which fits in well with my habit of anthropomorphising things. I have taught it an epic, round-Adelaide route for tomorrow, so I have time to get everything in.


I love the fact that, with facebook, it's now quite easy to bad-mouth someone that no-one who's reading it has ever met without the incompetent shop assistant ever knowing. It saves embarrassment all round, while letting me get it off my chest. Though if anyone but a teenaged boy had just pushed the scissors along the fabric, shredding the edge in the process, I probably would have leaped over the table and stabbed them with their own scissors. And granted, by putting it on facebook instead of telling it to his face, he'll probably just do it again, but the other woman behind the counter looked like an absolute cow, and I didn't want her going and being all passive aggressive no-one-else-minds at me when she was the one who should have taught him to cut the fabric in the first place.


I, apparently, love ranting about things.


Finally, I love these.

*When I say overtook, I mean my pacetruck and I got surrounded, and they sort of wove in and out of us and the car behind me and the cars coming in the other direction, with about 30cm to spare, and after I had to break suddenly for the third time, I considered just running them down, and charging the government for services rendered.

The good ones.

Even though camping has been fun, it's so nice to be home in my bed, with its electric blanket, in my house, which isn't rocking with every gust of wind. Internet and phone chargers are nice too, but when it's been such a long day, it's the little things, like, um, having an actual toilet*, that matter.

I got up at 7.30 this morning, which, as I'm sure you're aware, is incredibly rare for me. I can even tell you the last time it happened - January 15th, the day after the last BnS ball I attended. That's pretty much the only thing that gets me up early of a morning, the fact that I'm camping. Not that it wasn't a stunningly gorgeous morning - I had woken up briefly as the sun was rising, when a gust of wind had made the annex sound like it was collapsing, to the view of a stunning sunrise out the door, and it was still bright and clear, if a bit windy, when we properly got up.

Barbecue bacon on toast for breakfast was delicious, and then, since the weather was so lovely, we took turns canoeing down the creek: first group capsized less than half way down, second forgot to stop, decided to head for Tasmania and then capsized 20m out to sea, but Kelsey and I soldiered through, arriving dry but on the wrong side of the creek, meaning we had to wade the boat to the side that the ute was on. Still, victory for us.

I took Mum and Kelsey home in the early afternoon and paid Helen a visit, during which time the weather turned, quite badly, with sheeting rain and gale winds. Still, I had promised to take potatoes back down there for tea by 5 and did so, but it was miserable so we huddled in the little van playing Sequence while tea cooked, before moving to one of the big vans for the eating. The roast lamb was incredibly good, but the roast potatoes were a bit burnt.

The rain eased off and we moved back to the fire with some quilts too, and when we started to run out of wood, Carol and I proved our bravery by stealing some from the people in the next campsite, after Dad and Greg chickened out.

It's been quite a while since I've done family camping - we used to do it all the time but it's been pared back mainly to just Easter and Christmas now. And while it can be unpleasant at times (the fact that 3 of the 4 awnings had to be taken down because of the very weather they're meant to shelter us from being a good example) I quite enjoyed this little jaunt, so it can be my Favourite Thing this week.

*Oh, and the fact that if you say shit yeah really quickly it sounds like shit chair; that's a favourite too. Because for a month or so there's been an old chair sitting under a bush across the road from our house, and we decided we should take it down camping with us, to which I said, shit yeah. And guess what we cut a hole in the centre of and put over our dunny hole? The shitchair.

Yay for stuff

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.

Hi Ho (Hum)

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.

The Next Generation....

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.