The good and the... well, nothingness, really...

Still no sign of Babycat, but tomorrow is Monday, and I'll be calling all the vets and the pound, and hoping for the best.

Did at least get some good news today - BJ is fixed! Hurrah, and even more hurrah for the fact that it is only costing me $900 (last time it was about $1700) on the proviso that I buy something Japanese, soon, and never bring a Mondeo back again. Seems fair enough.

I've been using an Astra for the past few days, and well, it's certainly not "the one". It has very uncomfortable seats, and windows that you wind up by hand. It goes like stink though, which is nice, but if I'm spending twice as much, I want it to be twice as good. This is simply not. I should also point out that it goes like stink compared to BJ, who accelerated at a pace not dissimilar to continental drift.

After working all day I did some prewashing and ironing (I'm comfortable now with not prewashing the more expensive fabrics, but the cheaper stuff from Spotlight definitely gets prewashed.) After the success of yesterday's quilt I've remembered how much I missed the stack and slash quilting I used to do, so I've sorted out 4 bundles of 6 fat quarters each, and cut them into neat16ths (two bundles are 23x25cm, one is 22x25 and one is 23x24) ready to slash when I get to them. Two are boy colours (well, there's a blue and brown and a blue and green, in flower-free prints) because I'm worried that I don't have enough boy quilts.

I don't start work until 5.30 tomorrow night, which is good, and since I realised tonight that the icky feeling I've had all day is probably just indigestion, I doubt I'll be calling in sick like I had considered. Still, the late start means I should at least get one top done before work.

Also, I the weather is nice, I promise I'll take some photos.

Where has my funny gone?

Still no sign of Babycat.

I'm getting quite glum about it, no so much that she's missing, but more that she's not here. She makes me laugh. She does stupid things. She tries to pull my necklace off. She falls off things. When you walk along she runs behind you and tries to jump up your leg. It doesn't work, but she tries.

I love Honeycat, but she's nowhere near as funny.

To cheer myself up I decided I would do a bright, happy quilt. It's in the wash now. 6 hours from first cut to in the machine, and that included eating and going over the mitered corners by hand, because they were, frankly, a bit crap. It's 105x85cm ish so it's only little, and I didn't piece the back which saved me a huge amount of time. Top is 6 fat quarters out of a Lincraft bundle, all reproduction fabrics, including a yellow that's also in the original Retro quilt. Back is some random fabric I got from Spotlight a few years ago, a rainbow mosaic-y print on white. Binding is something purple from fabric.com, that I used because I wanted the thing finished. Blue would have looked better, but I couldn't find anything nice.

We're off to the show now, to see the fireworks and replenish our fairyfloss stocks. It's also country karaoke tonight, but I'm not sure if I feel like it.

No Luck thus far...

Babycat still hasn't, shown up, but I'm not really sure what I should be doing about it. I have checked the highway a hundred metres of so in each direction from our house. I have asked the neighbours if they have seen her. I have checked all the sheds and cars, and up the trees. What should I do next? I'm under the impression that I should call all the vets and the pound, but it seemed a bit premature to be doing it today, and I don't know which (if any) of them are open over the weekend.

I can't tell if Honeycat is worried or not. Sometimes it seems like she is, but other times it's like she cant be bothered, and I think she's more worried at times when I'm actively looking, so maybe she's only worried at my worry.

Cats are more difficult to fathom than dogs. And everyone seems quite insistent that they do this - go off for a bit and then come back. But does that mean I shouldn't worry?

I have spent the afternoon piecing a quilt top out of 5 fabrics I bought from Stitch and Knit. I've no idea what they are, but they're blue and brown, with a little bit of green, yellow and cream. It should end up about 120cm square, and I'm thinking of quilting it on the diagonal. Not that I have any fabrics picked for a back.

I have a lot of bundles at the moment that I've only really sorted out a top for. I might be stockpiling them for a while.

New Bag...

So tonight, after wandering around town spending money all afternoon, I decided to make a bag. It's loosely based on this, but with all different sizes and pleats going in two directions, and the handles set in the seam and the sewing not very good. I'd show you a photo, but, while I have my camera, I can't find the SD card. And so I cant get the photos to the computer.

Another thing we cant seem to find - Babycat. I saw her around 10.30 this morning before I left for work, but noone's seen her since. Of course we used to lose her all the time, but that was when she was a tiny little wriggling thing, not a real cat. We've checked the road and there's nothing squished, so we figure she's gotten herself stuck somewhere, but since it was dark by the time I got home, there's only so much looking you can do.

Alternatively, since it is Thursday, she's probably down the street menacing old ladies with her teenybopper friends. But I too was wandering around town half the evening, and though I did see a few cats, none of them were Babycat.

I'll wait till midday tomorrow to start worrying. She's a big girl.

Another quilt top...

Today I looked through some of the fabrics on my shelf, and I realised I have a lot of yard-long pairs. Because I like fabric that's cheap, but not crappy, I buy a lot of end-of-season fabrics, and that usually means I only get the 1 or 2 of a range that are left. And even though they're gorgeous, they don't usually go with anything else in my stash.

Case in point - these 2 fabrics.

I like them a lot. They're from the same range that I made the last 2 experimental quilts, but a different colourway. And for some weird reason, it's hard to find fabrics in lemonlime, turquoise and babypoo brown. So it was pretty much those two on their own. I've got a stripe that sortof is okayish I suppose, like, it'll do for the border, but if I was to put it with these two in the piecing it would jarr, unless I added a lot of other fabrics, and I can't be bothered going to that much effort.

So, clearly, it was time for some maths. I knew I could get a 100cm by 120cm top from 2 yards, since that's roughly how much I use when I do the three-fabric tops. But with only 2 fabrics, it's either a checkerboard design, or squares in squares.

I went for squares in squares.

And in another act of weirdness, I went for strip piecing. When I got home I started a timer, and I actually properly timed how long it would take to make the quilt top. I did a three-colour one in 2 hours, but that was completely cut and organised before I got started. For this one I had got my fabrics, ruler and cutting mat out, and that was it. Fabrics were still folded, blade was still blunt, iron was still in the cupboard. It ended up taking a bit over 3 hours, but that included things like changing the cutter blade, ironing out all the folds before the cutting, as well as less pertinent things, like feeding the cats, feeding myself, and rescuing Babycat from the spaghetti strainer*

But after 3 hours, I have this...

Because the fabrics are so similar, there's not a huge amount of definition in the design. And while I've whinged about that in past quilts (the pink one in the same fabrics for instance) I like it in this one. Because it's only the two patterns, I can get away with calling it subtle. It's also quite unisex, though it'll be a struggle to keep it that way on the back. I have enough bits left to do 4 more squares, but I'm thinking that instead of attaching the second sides to the squares, I might just join them all together to make a long strip 15cm wide, and then I can put that through the middle of a solid for the back. As I said I have a stripe that sortof matches for the binding, since I really like a stripey binding, but it's colours are a bit more primary (a pastel blue, yellow and green) so it will have to be a narrow one, so that it doesn't conflict too much. I'm also thinking I wanna have a play at some point with the automatic hem roller foot for the Elna, but perhaps that's not the type of project to be trying these things out on.

Also today I went into Spotlight (to buy another ruler - I still can't find mine) and they had a heap of fabrics for $2 a metre. I only got 8 since Casey was waiting in the car, but I'll try and go back tomorrow for a proper look.

*to be fair, I think it was acting in self defence.

Gratuitous Cat Photo Post.

Is it just my cats that are completely incapable of sleeping in a way that you or I would perceive as normal?

There's a gap in there, in case you can't really see it. I've no idea how it could be comfortable, but hey, what would I know.

This seems similarly uncomfortable. Also not that this wasn't just her stretching - I have this photo from about 4 different angles (that make my room look even messier)

Babycat's favourite place to sleep however remains my laptop. Specifically the keyboard, but we will settle for a closed lid if that's all that's on offer.

Given that she's also quite happy to sit on it while awake too, I'd be guessing she's motivated by about 49% warmth and 49% attention seeking. The other 2% is that she actually wants to use the internets.

When did my adorable little Babycat turn into GlamazonTeenagerCat? She's probably on some cat-dating website looking for a boyfriend when I'm not around.

Thoughts on a blowfly...

What I think now: The first blowfly of the season! Hurrah! Byebye nasty weather! One month into spring and from now on it should just keep getting warmer and better! Yay Blowfly!

What I will think in two months time: AARGHJUSTDIEALREADYYABASTARDS.

What Babycat is thinking: buzzy thing... new buzzy thing... look it's a buzzy thing... wanna catch the buzzy thing... if I climb the curtains I can catch the buzzy thing... mum, look, a buzzy thing... look out buzzy thing, here I come... (leaps onto curtain, falls off. repeats)

Bazza...

Everybody, meet Bazza.

Mum: I think I'm gunna call it Barry.

Me: Bazza!

Mum: Barry.

Me: Bazza!

Mum: *shakes head*

Her sulfur-crested cockatoo, Eric, had to be put down about 6 months ago when he broke his leg. Bazza is a lorikeet, and will apparently end up with a blue head, orange chest and green back.

Unless Babycat eats him in the meantime. We'll try out best to avoid that.

While it would be a nice to tell you all that it's in the bag, it's not.

It's on the curtains.

But it hasn't been washed, and I'm hesitant to state any quilt as a success until it's been washed. That's why the rainbow quilt is underneath the repeat-washed retro and bluegreen quilts. It's not so bad when it's mine, but I wouldn't give someone an unwashed quilt, because washing is pretty much an inevitability and I wanna make sure it works. All the horror stories about things falling apart/hideously shrinking/colours running etc. while washing that I heard while working at Spotlight keep me up at night, usually prewashing my fabrics in the hope it doesn't happen to me.

Speaking of Spotlight, I decided not to go there, and since I was at the post office anyway (nothing for me though) I decided I may as well go to Lincraft instead. I had planned on just getting some black homespun but they had new bundles in there (still full price, unfortunately) but with some pretty new fabrics.

The bundles at Lincraft are just random fabric fat quarters all tied together, there's 8 in a bundle and the regular price is $15. Even though they're American-sized fats (and usually quite wonky ones at that) it's still a fairly reasonable price if you like all of the fabrics you get. As a result, I usually spend a half hour or so carefully rebuilding my perfect bundles, and, since I'm a nice person, making sure all of my switched bundles are nice and neat and tidy. Evreyone knows me there (I did work there for a bit) and they know I do it, but the manager is an Auntie, and that helps.

I got 2 each of 5 fabrics in a purple/pink/brown colour way, which all match and feel very nice. I got possibly my new favourite-estest fabric, which is fluro rainbow hearts on black (I wish I had one of those purple lights, it would look awesome) and a couple of yellows and a couple of greens. They've all been washed already since I needed to wash the black for the binding anyway.

I've been having a very distracted day, which is probably why it took me so long to get finished. Whereas Sunday and Monday were serious, concentrating ten-hour-days, today has been more of a work for 20 minutes, then break for an hour thing. I've stopped to shop, I've stopped to read, I've stopped to cook, watch TV, check facebook, and I also stopped when this happened.

I've been ironing out the binding, and now I'm making sure all the corners have mitered the right way, but there's a lump under my fabric...

So I stopped and cooked myself some cow. It seemed like as good a time as any, though of course the smell made her climb out. But she's cute. If a little vicious. Also, she tries to eat pins, which is very annoying.

So anyway, sleepytimes now, before the big wash tomorrow. I'm sure it should be fine, but the uneven quilted distances in the panel are worrying me.

But I'm a worrier. I shall stop for tonight and go to bed.

It'd be cute...

...if it wasn't so freaking annoying.

Approximately 12 hours ago I started with this pile. At this point I had string pieced them and chopped them back up.

I've no idea how many that is. Originally this quilt was going to be done onto an actual single bed quilt I bought at the store, but since the purple quilt, done with the same stuff, has been tucked away unfinished, I decided it would be better for everyone if I just used regular batting, and since my math defaults itself to 120x150cm batting size I went for that, so there was a fair few left over. Depending on how I'm feeling once the actual quilting has been done, I might do matching pillows.

Anyway, I just now got finished on the top, after stopping for tea and then staying stopped for Big Bang Theory, Offspring and Married Single Other. Damn the fact that there's a TV in the loungeroom but not in my bedroom.

I cant quite remember where I put the red sheet I bought to use as backing, and moreover I'm quite certain I didn't wash it. I think it's in the tubs, but I can check tomorrow.

I'm very much hoping that I can get the quilting done tomorrow, and it would be great if I could get that and the binding done, though I'm being realistic about it. I've managed to get 2 very productive days out of the last 3 (yesterday being a fail due to a sister's netball grand final and feeling quite ill) so it's probably too much to ask for that my family leave me alone for another day. But if I can get it finished in the next 2 days at least, then I can try cram as much cleaning into Wednesday and Thursday as I can before we leave for Rainbow on Friday. I think the key will be accepting that I need to actually just give all the stuff I'm not using/wearing to the Salvos instead of going "nah, keep that, I can sell that on eBay" because I wont. It will just sit around, taking up space, until my room gets this full again and the cycle repeats.

Should I go into work tomorrow and ask for another week off? It'll still be school holidays, so they'll have plenty of teenyboppers wanting hours... 

I'll decide tomorrow night.

Another one bites the dust...

One again, I don't appear to have achieved much today. I hand sewed the new stubby holder so that it's a nice neat tube now, but I still haven't got the top or the bottom sorted out yet. the bottom of the original was the bit I was least happy with, so it's gunna take some thinking before I make a real attempt. I'm fairly sure it will need to be handstitched, but I'm not sure what to what.

Yes, the other one is filled with kinder bars. I like them.

Because the first one was done around and around the top and bottom bits were already there. I'm fairly sure I'll have to machine the top binding to the inside and then do it by hand on the outside, and I'm still not sure about the bottom. I have seen open ended stubby holders but they work much better with plenty of stretch (they are usually made of wetsuit material) and even though this one fits perfectly, I would still be worried about the can falling out of the hole. I'm thinking a loose binding to cover the raw edges and also to give me something to sew the base too, and maybe a yoyo for actual base. Not that I know how to make yoyos.

I also got 4 bags of mixed stuff out into the shed, not that it's made the room look even slightly cleaner, and I'm considering getting some more tubs from woolies now that I have money again. I've also found the pattern book, but the scanner persists in being at the other end of the house, so I will persist in not scanning them. Sorry.

In spite of the cuteness of that picture, I'm feeling a bit glum. I'll be on eBay if anyone wants me, shopping my way back to happiness.

A Good Day... Except for the Lawnmowing...

Now that I've gone back to facebook, and finished there, I am back, for real this time. I really need to discourage Babycat from sitting on the keyboard, but at the moment it seems more important to stop her annoying her mother.

Speaking of:

I don't know that there's still any milk in there, though I'm assuming there is since she stayed on the boob a while, which was annoying, and not only because I was getting shit done. Janelle from work was telling me about a cat that's 18 months old now and still on the boob so I am a bit worried, but Babycat is not even 11 weeks yet, and she drinks from a bowl and eats real food, so I'm sure she'll get over it/cope fine if the well runs dry.

As you can kinda see, I made progress on the mini quilt. Actually, around mowing the lawn, washing my hair and the cats sitting on it as I tried to put it through the machine, I actually finished it.

Despite the shoddyness of the second photo, there is some consensus in my house (well, Casey and Becky) that the back is nicer than the front. I will agree to a certain extent that the back is less for the brain to try and appreciate, and that the first retro quilt taught me the value of a simplified design with a solid colour to tie it all together, but I'm not keen on the layout of the back. They were the 8 blocks I had left, I shuffled them about for at least half of The View (it was the one with Obama on, that they have aired at least 4 times now) but I never came to a balance I was satisfied with, with regards to the spacing between the designs and the positioning of the browns, which appear quite high contrast on the back.

Final size is 80cm by 106cm, which is too small really for me to use, and the cotton batting seems much stiffer than the bamboo I have gotten used to. But it hasn't been washed yet, and that might make a difference.

I did my machine's wavy line quilting which I'm so fond of, and it ended up being even tighter than the BlueGreen quilt, about three rows to two, at 7 rows per block and one on the seam. But on flat batting I feel the more quilting the better, since the batting doesn't push out on the piecing and hold the seams flat, and I worry that it will all fall apart if the seams havent been sewn over or at least near to.

I would have done an over the seams quilt were it not for the fact that I couldn't match up the panels at the back, and I thought it would look a bit daft on that side if the quilting was a centimetre or so off the seam on half the blocks, and following some random line on the others. I tried my best to get the vertical seams at least to match up, devoting an entire episode of The Mentalist to it, but they're still a little bit off. There's so many lines though and it's the best thing about the wavy stitch, that it doesn't really matter like a straight int the ditch does.

Anyway, next up should be either finishing the boat quilt cover or the purple quilt, which is under a pile of stuff at the moment, and also Mama Jan's quilt which is due in 3 weeks, as well as a bag for one of the girls at work, which I am going to have to remember how to do. I've bought some foam a bit thinner that what I used for mine, so it shouldn't be as hard, but I suspect it will still take me a bit to get back in the swing of it.

Or I could have a go at another mini quilt, I'm liking them; they're quicker and easier than big ones, and you can try out more exciting stuff for them. But I haven't got a cohesive bundle of fabrics I'm willing to use right now, so it might have to wait.

Also coming us is Christmas quilting night at Spotlight on Thursday, which I may or may not do something for - on the one hand, I do like to get involved, on the other, I really dislike the idea of making a quilt to use for less than a month per year. But I bought some nice Christmas paisleys last year, that were just not-Christmassy enough to catch my fancy, so I might whip up a little something with them tomorrow after work, if I can remember where I put them.

Sort-of-Normal Service Resumation (if that's even a word)

I didn't get to go shopping,the night was simultaneously good and bad, and I'm still (literally) a little bit blue.

If I was a good little craft blogger I would have come home and got straight into finishing the purple quilt, or redux-ing the selvage stubby holder, but I feel like seven types of shit, all stacked on top of one another, and with a couple more types sitting around the bottom because they slid off.

I did get myself enough selvages cut and trimmed to make 2 more stubby holders (with the lines going up and down instead of around) but then I was trying to put them in order and Babycat jumped on them, so I gave up.

Now I'm watching Psych DVD commentaries and trying to muster up the energy to either go have a shower (which would involve having to stand up up for 20 minutes) or clear all the stuff off my bed (which would involve having to lift/move/organise stuff, and, also, stand up)

I'm onto my last unwatched commentary (I've already watched the last one (first) because that commentary was the sole reason I bought the DVD) so once this episode finishes it would be a good time to get into other stuff, but... 

We'll see how I'm feeling in 30minutes I guess....

Let's be seeing how it goes...

Just discovered Blogger-In-Draft. It's a bit weird, but weirdness seems to be the theme of the day, what with Honeycat randomly deciding to go apeshit at Graham (the dog) because it's a bit cold out, and he was wearing a doggie jumper. At least we figure that's why. Maybe she just had enough of his whiny, more of a scaredy-cat than the actual cats attitude. 

So the main thing about this blogger in draft is that it has this little stats tab at the top. And that little stats tab tells you all sorts of interesting things about the people who read your blog, like what operating system they have (only 1 mac so far) how they got to your blog (one of them searched google for kaffe fassett - my only mention of him has been a diss... they must have been dissapointed...) where they are from (4 from China, one each from Latvia, South Africa and Israel) and all sorts of other random shit.

Thus far I've kinda made a point of not splashing this around much, which I suppose is reflected in the fact that I have 108 viewings (38 of these can be assumed to be me as 38 of the views were done with Firefox). This is all still just ramblings with very little in the way of useful content, unless you are Helen and would like to know how my quilts are going, or Simone and want moral support in your war on Louise, which you cant post openly about on Facebook because other people from work are on there (I'm with you sweetheart)

But, eventually, I'm gunna get around to scanning in my toy patterns, cleaning them up in the computer and writing a tutorial for them, so that maybe the world can find something useful here.

Not today though, as I now have to go to work for 9 1/2 hours.

Big freaking gah.

PS. noticing that this blogger in draft doesn't randomly change my font to whatever it feels like when I stop typing for a minute... if it can deflect Babycat keystrokes as well, I'm in love.

Achievement?

I cut the squares I did last night.

Turns out it was only 8 slices, and I could have done it in the credits of an episode, were it not for the fact that I need to be ready to pause it to read that bit at the end.

I finally got around to taking some photos of the new arrivals


That's 30 whole centimetres of fabric. I didnt include the nasty ones, which was about half of the random mixed bundle, but no matter. A couple of them were nice, and they bought down the average price, which is always the important thing. The bottom few are from eBay, for the ungrateful man's quilt.


Hearting the Soiree bundle, no longer in its proper order now that I've picked some to do something with. Maybe. The top 12, three designs in 4 colourways each, will probably be used to make the same design as what I'm gunna do for Helen's baby. Maybe.

Currently, it's being attacked by Babycat.

In other news, I'm currently experiencing the single worst cheese overdose of all time. Freaking time of the month food cravings. Maybe some fabric shopping would make me feel better.

Looking forward...

I've almost finished the quilting for the blue/green quilt, and, unusually, I'm already looking to the next one.

Thus far, I've pretty much just pushed myself to get to the end of whatever quilt I'm doing and then, once it's finished, taken a while to get stuck into the next one. The design part is the hardest part for me, because it's all most people see. Noone's going to notice that there's a point that doesn't line up, or that the waves on one row of quilting are longer than the ones next to them. They'll look at it and go "why did you decide on snot as a colour scheme?"

Because it's a quilt for me, and I fucking like it, okay?

This time however, with 12 lines of wavy quilting left to do before I get stuck into binding it, I'm starting to think about my next project.

There's 3 main options.

Mama Jan's quilt. Needs to be done eventually, and is all neatly cut and bagged ready to go. But it's going to be very dull piecing, and then we get to trying to fit the panel, and then there's quilting it, which will be a first in that I'm using an actual quilt as the wadding, which is waaay thicker than even the wool I've used in the past. and I still haven't worked out how I'm going to quilt the panel.

Helen's Baby's quilt. This is the one I'm doing with the make Life fabrics, which are all washed and sitting safely in a ziplock bag. I've got 12 fabrics, so it's gunna be smaller than what I've been doing lately, which is 15. And 12 might be too big. I might ask Helen on Saturday how big she thinks she want, whether a little thing would be more practical for a newborn or she'd rather something bigger for when it gets a bit bigger. So it's a hold on that one, even more so because I'm still waiting on the fabric I will use as either the backing or the binding, depending on how big it's gunna be. I've no idea how long it is till she has it either. Must ask that too.

Tickertape test quilt. I bought 5 metres of white flannelette at lincraft's half price thingie, and even though I need to use a couple for a warm underskirt for a ballgown, That leaves me with enough to make a mini tickertape quilt with the rest at double thickness. I think I'd like to make a special thing for the trip to Longernong, which is in about 2 weeks. I'm thinking I might piece some of my collection of 10cm squares together and cut them into a longhorn for the middle, and then tickertape around it, though I'm not sure if that's completely not in the spirit and I should tickertape the longhorns in 1 colour and the rest in another, so it's more subtle. This is my favourite option, as it's new and interesting, but that could change in a couple of days.

Still nothing in the mail today, and I'm starting to get a bit despondent, even though I know that there's 25 metres making its way to me in a big arse box, as well as a bundle of soiree, and another box with 10 meteres in it which, like I assumed, was all in one box, and which should be shipped fairly shortly as it was paid for this morning. It ended up coming to US$38, which is a bit cheaper than I recall it being (somewhere in the $50s I think) so that's good, but not good enough to warrant doing it as often as I would obviously have liked to. I think it comes out to around AU$6.90 per yard, which is good, but not magical. Oh well, it's probably for the best. Also on their way, though I'm not expecting them soon, are 2 pouches for the boat quilt, though I'm not sure that I can be arsed making it for him now. He's being a jerk about Babycat, and no amount of broken glasses apparently are going to change that.

Day off tomorrow and I'm planning on spending a goodly deal of it in town, away from home, trying not to spend too many moneys as the big tax cheque still isn't here. I need to send the camera back to the lady, hopefully pick up many goodies at the post office, spend some more time talking to Vodafone's computer before being randomly disconnected, and... something else... I cant really remember what.

Dunno.

And now it's attacking it's mother. Again...

The blue/green quilt top is all finished, and next up it's designing and piecing the back before I get to my big freak out about the quilting. I have decided, for no obvious reason, that I would like to free motion this one. I'm sure that I could talk myself out of it without too much effort, but I would need an alternative. I want:

-evenly spaced quilting
-no big gaps (aiming for not more than 2" apart)
-no/very few line crossovers

Stippling remains the obvious choice, but thus far, I have sucked. I am a regular person, (in that I like regularity, not that I am normal,) and I struggle with the forced aimlessness of a meandering line. Ive downloaded a whole heap of examples, and I'm considering printing them out and pinning them on, but it seems like an awfully large amount of work.

What I really should do is come up with some sort of practice piece that I could work on, but I struggle to develop skills on practice pieces. I tend to not bother trying to hard, because it doesn't matter anyway. The only way for me to learn how to do something is to actually do it, for real, with the expensive fabrics on the almost completed projects.

And, for obvious reasons, I don't want to do that. Practices so far have yielded many sharp corners and stitches of varying lengths, as my free motion foot seems quite light, almost as if it's a bit too high up after the nice firm pressure of the regular foot. I just feel much more confident when the fabric is being fed through for me, and that means my normal foot, and that means the gorgeous wave stitch. I could probably come up with some kind of big, nestled wave thing done in it, that might look nice. Maybe if I did say 6 of them in a grid across the whole thing, something like this...


That's 3 lengths of stitching, and the little wave stitch on my machine will make it look less structured than it is. The only problem will be the sheer amount of turning I will have to do.

Oh well. Baby steps.

In other news, I just spent $60 on mainly Odyssea fabrics on eBay, to do a quilt for my dad's new boat. Quilt Bribery - it's my way of getting to keep Babycat. Though I'm not sure why I want to, as it's taken fully fifteen minutes to type this last paragraph due to the vicious furball sitting on the keys and attacking my fingers.

Ungrateful little shit.

Hmmmm...

On my laptop, the touchscreen overrides the touchpad. This is handy when there's a cat sitting on my keyboard, as that seems to stop the touchpad from working. However, there is a problem.

Babycat's paws also work on the touchscreen.

I don't think Honeycat's did/do. That said, since she's so much bigger, she really needs to keep all four paws down to avoid toppling, whereas Babycat is still small enough to paw comfortably at the screen.

I've been casually looking for some kind of program that will stop my keyboard working, or lock it... like, put it to tablet settings while it's still open, so I can just use the touchscreen keyboard and not worry about what the cats are doing on the real one. But if Babycat is activating the screen controls as well that make this a lot less useful.

What I really need is cats that are less interested in sitting on my keyboard.

And while we're at it, it would be nice if they were less interested in my neatly cut fabric pieces, my sewing machine and its foot pedal.

The Story So Far...

It's been a busy few days, thus the lack of posting, but here's a brief catchup.

The future husband didn't come to Jess' party, but I spent the night on a Jelly Tots induced sugar high, so I had a blast.

Babycat is now sleeping IN my bed. Usually with her head on my pillow. Honeycat has reverted to sleeping exactly where I would like to put my knees.

The Blue/Green quilt has been designed, cut and arranged neatly so the first bit of string piecing is ready to be fed through the machine.

The camera from eBay still wont work, and the seller is being useless, telling me to go in to Bing Lee (not in South Australia, love) or David Jones (not in a small town in the middle of nowhere, love) because they sold them. 2 years ago. Instead, I have to wait for mum to get back on Friday so that she can go into camerahouse and get them to look at it, because I'm on record as wanting to firebomb their employees. And that could be awkward.

Finally, the Soiree bundle that I liked on eBay got put down to 10% off, and the dollar is back around 87c on Paypal, so I bought it. $102 all up, so $2.82 per f/q.

Still no sign of either fabric.com's massive delivery to me or the smaller one via shipito, but I'm in no hurry, as I'm back off to work now.

Once I detangle Babycat from the back of my shirt.

Cold, again...

Good day today, no work, 3 parcels at the post office, and a big to do crossed off my list.

Honeycat and Babycat had their first trip to the vet today. $114 later, and Babycat is a girl after all, Honeycat got an injection and a pill down her throat and it turns out that a 3-course of flea killer stuff is fifty freaking bucks...

But its okay cause I love them.

In other news the Make Life Bundle got here, and I picked out 12 of the 23 to make into a quilt that, owing to its genderneutralness (new word) may or may not be suitable for Helen's baby. Depending on how much I like it. Helen, being a fellow maker of stuff, will understand, and I've found that newborns don't really care where their warmth comes from, so long as they get it.


I've also started work on the blue green quilt, cause Casey said to not be in a hurry about Mama Jan's quilt. Possibly a bit of a foolhardy move, but it's on her shoulders, after having only in my wallet thus far.

I added 4 of the Make Life fabrics, because they seem like an okay fit, and that gives me 16 to work with, which is more than enough.

Still at the 21*cm squares stage, and I'm not sure where it's going to go from here; I'm kindof a bit over the stars now, especially when it comes to the annoying around and around quilting, but I'm considering doing the same sort of design with right angles/squares. Dunno yet.


The best bit about doing the 21cm squares is that you get a nice big pile of scrappies and selvages. Helen showed me her tickertape quilt today and it's muchly cute, if a bit small, and I'd quite like to try one, if I can do it without handsewing, or having to use one of my dwindling supply of battings. I'm thinking two layers of flannelet, possibly cut from a discounted sheet set, and I can use little squares of iron-on to hold them in place, and maybe just back and forth scribble sew over them. I'm not sure, but at least I know I wont have to buy any fabric for the little bits.


I literally have bags of these. Even after Helen went through them for hers, I probably enough to do a full size quilt top already.

Tragically, however, as it's freaking cold, I'm calling it a night. I didn't get home till it was dark and noone had lit the fire, so its 17°C in here, which, while compared to say, the north pole, is not that cold, is still cold enough to make my toes go numb, and pretty much prevent me from functioning. So, now that the washing and ironing and first bit of cutting is done, its ziplock bag time.


The bad part of the day (other than the big-arse vet bill), is than the camera I was bidding on the other night arrived today, and also appears to not be functioning. I've reset all the settings to factory state and checked the lens for dust and everything, but it's still fuzzy. Not just when it takes the photos either, but always; just looking through the viewfinder is fuzzy. I'm gunna have another go tomorrow, though I'm not holding up high hopes, and if I cant get any improvement, I'll email the lady and ask for a refund. The listing said it was working fine, so if she wont agree to a refund then I should be able to reclaim it through paypal.

Bit of a bummer, that, but $115 is a bit much to pay for a small, pointless lump of plastic. That's half of what I paid for my 27 yards from the slightly rude lady at fabric.com. All I asked was if there was a problem with their postage calculator, as it was overcharging me by $35 when I tried to order more than 4 1/2 yards of fabric (I've had ebay sellers fit me 8yards in a flat rate envelope) and I got this in reply...

"Please note that we are a growing company and process about a thousand orders each day. We are unable to pause the workflow of cutting fabrics and preparing orders for shipment to check to see what may or may not go into a priority envelope."

You don't need to check. They can fit 8. I'd settle for 7, that's what most sellers list as their official limit. Even I could write the code for a shipping calculator. I'm not sure what programming language they would be using, but it would go something like this, give or take a bit of formatting:

If [quilting weight fabric] is >7 yards
then
postage = $15.95

There. done. How fucking easy was that? I understand that some other types of fabric weigh more, thus the [quilting weight fabric] bit. They probably have some code that I don't know, that's why it's in brackets. But seriously, if they did that, I would buy a pouch a week. Maybe two.

Maybe I need to get one of those US mailing address forwarding things. Anyone know of a good one?

*this just seems to be the biggest an American fat quarter will cut into 4 of.