Weirdly, getting laryngitis the other week has improved my singing voice.

Almost inevitably, whenever I write up a long comment to an instagram picture, the net drops out while it's uploading and I end up having to re-type it. Fortunately, even though the net dropped out three times while I was trying to upload this photo, it eventually got there.

This jacket was actually made out of a 99c polar fleece blankie I got from the salvos. It’s a pale beige, scragly, badly sewn test jacket I made to work out where the zipper would sit. But instagram makes it look like it should be worn by a fucking rock star. Now I wanna go buy some gold lamé and make one like this one…

Since I want to make this jacket in some nicer (read: more expensive) fabrics than just polar fleeces, I'd also like for them to have zip closures. And while zips are easy in bags (since they're all on straight edges) on a jacket they're a bit tougher. Especially when that jacket hasn't actually been designed to have a zipper closure. Plus, since the faux-leather won't really be able to be pinned, I wanted to try sewing it without pinning. So I got a cheap polar fleece (quite thin polar fleece, admittedly) blanket from the Salvos because it wouldn't matter if it all turned crap, and had a go. It worked well for the most part, but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do a set-in sleeve without at least a little bit of pinning - I did it with 4 pins and was super-proud of myself.

I'll re-draft the front so that the zipper will go inside of a seam and since I'll be lining them the outer zip will go in a lot neater too.

Does anyone know where I can get some pale gold suiting weight stretch sateen? I wanna be a rock star.

Because it is already after 5am, and there are still tumblrs that need to be read...

Today there was sunshine. It was terribly strange, but then, I have barely talked for 11 days now, so my very existence has started to go a bit weird. I find myself regularly going and laying in odd places, staring at the light fittings or the bit where the door meets the roof, just because, as a person who is made up of words, and who has no words, life is weird. Also, did I mention it's 5.30am? Just as well I have no voice and got my shift replaced for tomorrow.

Back to the point, it was sunny today, and I went into work late (they'll let you be in charge with no voice, but not actually serve the customers) so I had time to go out and take some pretty pictures.

This quilt is so unlike all my other quilts that I almost love it the most, because it's so unashamed to let it's freak flag fly.

This is the holiday quilt, hand quilted by me, while I was high on the glue fumes from spray basting together, in a motel room in Adelaide, the layers of pre-pieced plaid, pink polar fleece (batting) and wool coating (backing). And I hand sewed on the binding too, which is actually woven polyester tape.

This is the Carried Away Miniquilt. Some point soon I want to re-do this in the solids I originally designed this to be in, and as a nine-patch.

The block itself is what I came up with for the GenQ block design competition, and since the magazine is out now, I think I can do my excited squeally they picked it!

This is the original colours. I only had enough to make this one block, which got turned into a cushion, which was promptly stolen by Casey, and then by Maddy. I also made a really hideous one, in a selection of other new DS fabrics, that I tentatively titled when bad things happen to good fabrics.

Naturally, one of the girls at worth thought it was kinda funky when I showed her the photo, so I've quilted it ready to eventually turn it into a cushion for her.

More pictures in place of actual crafting...

Another day, another night spent not really feeling like crafting. It may be the crotchet's fault, since I can do that while watching youtube and BBC news guilt free. You can't tell for looking at it, but I'm totally making something there...


Fortunately, earlier today I decided to get out and take a few more photos out at the woodshed. For some reason my camera was absolutely refusing to flash, so the ones in the actual shed all came out dark at the top. So I shifted out to the big bits of wood outside.

And discovered the fundamental flaw in making quilts that feature a lot of white. Curiously, the really white side (above - remember, this is all the one quilt) was fairly clean, which meant I could spread it out nicely...

..but this shot isn't so much "trying to be artistic" as it is "positioning it so the two big stains don't show."

I've re-washed it, so it's good again for now, and I chucked the green quiltlet in with it, to see how the poly batting washed up. Honestly? You can hardly tell the difference between washed and unwashed. It looks fine, but I like the way a cotton quilt suddenly becomes super massively crinkly when you take it out of the dryer.

Because I haven't done anything exciting tonight, either.

The Blue and Grey HST quilt, bound and washed, chilling out in our incredibly photogenic woodshed. I'm thinking I might photograph all the quilts I still have out here over the next few weeks.

Detail section of the back of the math quiltlet - I sewed the first night's work with white cotton, because the only black thread I had was poly and I didn't want to risk it melting, knowing how much ironing I had to do on it.

What I've been doing tonight: crocheting in my unique, cackhanded way. Clarification: I'm not a lefty, instead, I'm SOOO righty that I can't even have the thread wrapped around the fingers of my left hand, because it all gets tangled and stuck. I'm going to try make myself a beanie, when I get to the point of decreasing, I'll just skip a stitch occasionally.

I need a supersoaker.

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.

I think...

I quilt too much. I quilt like I shop. Impulsively, and with little thought regarding what I will do with them one I have them.

So I've finished over 40 quilts now. Taking out of that count the four at Helen's, two at Kelsey's, one of Maddy's, four on my bed, one on my wall and one in my swag, and one that's been sold to the lady from Flannies that she still hasn't picked up yet, and thats still 26 quilts that have no home or designated use. And I've started another one. Because clearly, I need another one. It's blue and green solids with a few spotty fabrics in there too. A boy quilt, for if should I find myself "needing" one.

Unfortunately, although there was allegedly some sunshine this morning, I slept through it so no pretty on-the-grass photos from me. I have some flat out on the kitchen floor photos though.

The last one had a solid back - the advantage of a quilt less than 110cm wide. I really love the backs done with the big random squares though. The blue one especially. It's fun piecing stuff randomly and hoping for the best, and it's even better when it works out.

My big problem now is that lately I have been getting around to the fabrics I had assigned to projects for myself. It's fine when it's only a technical experiment or a casual urge to work with some certain fabrics but Autumn Nutmeg was for me, the Mingle Star quilt, once the bindings get here, is for me, and I'm starting to worry that eventually I will end up as a terrible inverted version of princess and the pea, except instead of sleeping on a dozen mattresses I will be crushed under the weight of hundreds of quilts. And then you'll all have to hack my blogger account, and I haven't even written up a will regarding my stash yet.

I should have a think about doing that. And updating my completed quilts list. And cleaning my room, charging my camera(s - I bought a hot pink 10MP Fujifilm one today for $60), mending some clothes and backing up my computer.

There, all thought about. Not done, obviously, but I've thought about doing them, and decided to go to bed instead. I'm good at making decisions like that.

Stupid Bloody Tuesdays*

As I said earlier, it's been a big, long day.

Dad dragged me out of bed early to help Casey and Becky clean out the house gutters. Then they pissed off down to Nan's to see if these long lost relatives that have come for a visit are worth schmoozing with. Apparently they arent, but still. This meant I was home without any means of escape and Dad made me mow the lawn. I had been making good progress on the Nutmeg quilt top, not racing through it by any means, but cruising, and stopping to mow the lawn killed my flow.

Geoff the mechanic called at lunch time, and apparently what's happened is the engine has got hot (there were always problems with the temp gauge, reading fine for a little bit warm then after halfway to hot going back to cold) and one of the cylinder heads has warped from the heat, and that's letting in water. Car should be fixed by Friday, which is good news in that if it takes less than a week to fix, it shouldn't be too expensive. I don't think I'll keep it though, at least not for long. It still has 10 months rego left though, so I think I'll say that I'm gunna use it for another 3 or 4 months, so that I can get plenty saved to get a brand new car, and not a Rio like Dad is suggesting. There's a 2002 Civic in Gazzards for a bit under 10k, but I'd rather a new Swift, for 18ish.

When the weather cleared up I went to take some photos, and realised, they don't really work if you've had them folded in cute little bundles for a few weeks. So I ironed them, and by then the clouds had come back. I got the nutmeg quilt to the point of being 3 big strips to be joined together before the sun came back and I had another go. I took a heap hanging from the wall of the pergola, but even with most of the creases ironed out, they still have nasty shadows on them. As a result, most of the photos have been taken with the quilts lying on the freshly mown grass. It may as well have some use, right? Then I figured I may as well do photos for what's missing on the page of completed quilts, so I pegged out Maddy's, the BlueGreen and the big rainbow and took photos of them on the clothesline, since they were all crease free from being on the bed. The retro quilt was still in the washing machine though, so maybe tomorrow for that one.

Everyone else gets home about now from school and Nan's and just as I'm about to get back to the last 2 seams on the Nutmeg quilt, there was a massive crack and then the sounds of destruction...

It doesn't look that bad in this photo...

This was our storage shed.

Now under a tree. A really big tree. Probably the biggest on out block, before someone let Dad near a chainsaw on a Tuesday*

So we had to spend half the afternoon pulling most of it off and putting it on the pile (I don't have a photo of the pile, but if there's less wind tomorrow night we'll be burning it. It's very big, look for the glow...)

See those tubs in there? Those are mine. They're full of wool, and half done projects, and books, and bags, and fabrics. You cant see the other 4, that got crushed, or the garbage bags full of wool, a couple of which burst.

Hoo-freaking-rah.

Anyway, we stopped at this point, so there'd be something left to show the insurance man, but I have a nice graze up my arm from where a stick fought back (I threw it on the pile, and it bounced) and Casey got eaten by various things that made her neck and arms all blotchy. Good times.

Tomorrow though, we are going into town at lunchtime, Nevile is going to let me pick a car (I've already picked. I want a Swift) and I am going to drive it across the road to work, where I will stay till late, hiding from any manual labour that's taking place at home.


*Tuesdays. Although Australia Post says more things get delivered on a Tuesday than any other day, Tuesdays in our family are bad, since Dad starts his socialising/drinking week on a Wednesday. So Tuesday is the day when it's been the longest since he's had a drink, and he's usually grumpy, and, apparently, shouldn't be in possession of any powertools. Tuesdays in our house are best spent, well, at the post office, I suppose.

Completed Quilt list has been updated.

It's turned into quite a big day. I've taken some photos, updated my list of completed quilts, almost finished the Nutmeg quilt top, got good news about my car and chopped up some tree. Now I'm gunna go have a nice long shower, and see what floats to the top of my priority list for the night.

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.

Umm, how bout no..?

So I finally got an email from shipito last night saying that they had received my packages. All 3 of them. But then I went to the website and there were only 2. But there should only be one, and since they are both exactly the same size and weight, I'm thinking there is only 1.

What's more, they initially said it would cost $120 to send them, which is almost 10 times what it should be ($13.95 for a flat rate envelope)

If I lived in America, I'd set up a company especially for foreigners who wanted to buy fabric. I would fold it all neatly into seven yard bundles and put it in flat rate envelopes, saving everyone hundreds of dollars. And since I'm fairly sure I could do a bundle in about 10 minutes, I would only charge about $4 per package, as that would earn me over $20 an hour.

It's a good business opportunity for someone in the US. And I would give sooo much business to anyone who offered it.

In other news, I sent off an email to camera lady saying I would be returning it. So another big wait for the inbox, as well as the postbox.

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.

I really do prefer Buy-It-Now...

I'm watching Bones while I wait for a camera to end on eBay.

I don't really need one, as I've been firmly of the belief that 5mp is way more than necessary, especially considering that most of my photos are for the internet, and I shrink them before I upload them anyway. My Kodak does pretty much everything I need it to - It starts quickly, focuses/takes the photos quickly and the battery lasts ages, and they only cost about $6 each anyway, so they're cheaper than AAs. There's only one problem. The video saves itself in some weird-arse format, and none of my programs will edit it. And it's not like I'm just running crappy programs, I have the full adobe suite, as well as 3 different file converters (and a few crappy editors as well, just to fill out my hard-drive)

So, ages ago I did some research, and according to the internet, modern cameras take longer to take the photo than ones released say, 3 or 4 years ago (ie, when I bought my Kodak) The internet seemed to think that the Sony DSC-T20 is pretty alright, so I've been keeping an eye on eBay for a decent one. My budget is $120, cause that's the price of a semi-decent one at Target at the moment, and the one that ends soon is at $91 at the moment.

Wish me Luck.