Because adding a picture of your new fabric can perk up even the dullest of posts.

For the record, serblerghfnek isn't a real word, evidenced mainly by the fact that googling it only brings up yesterday's post. I'd like to say it was just me mashing random keys, but when I do that I always get something like neerjdfvjem and that's too many of the same letters. So I made a sound vocally that summed up how I was feeling and typed it out phonetically-ish.

Annoyingly, I'm still feeling somewhat serblerghfnekish. First day back at work, an excess of managers, a droppy-outy internet and a computer that is still being uncooperative. So, to stop this post from being a sea of glum random letters, here's the fabric I bought while I was in Adelaide.

Although the selection at Big W is an odd one (hell, it's odd that Big W even carries any fat quarters) it's usually pretty good quality fabric, and there's an occasional gem. Like a couple of Castle Peeps, and an adorable print of cotton spools that the internet tells me is a Robert Kaufman. And they were all only $2.85 each, but they are American sized, which is an annoyance.

These are from the various Spotlights I went to on Thursday and there's a few re-buys in there, both accidentally and because they were on special for the stash. A couple are intended for various things (the three bluey-aquas are to go into the bundle the last lot got added to) but others I just got cause I liked them.

Sometimes.

Most of the time, I'm kinda glad I didn't move to Adelaide and do fashion design. The fact that, six months or so after I was due to leave, I pretty much stopped sewing clothes and switched to quilts instead, kinda felt like validation. And even though I'll never really know, I think that, for all that I would have gained, I would have also probably missed out on great things like this blog, and all my amazing local friends, and getting to be a proper bogan.

If I had moved to Adelaide, I don't know that I would be able to sing along to that scene in Magic Mike where he dances to Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy. And that would be a pretty big loss.

Sometimes though, I wish I had. Not that my wardrobe isn't quite bitchin' enough, but it'd be nice to just whip up what I really really want off the top of my head, instead of waiting for the pattern to get here, and knowing that even though it's lovely, I'd like it to have one of those shoulder gussets. I really like them. I could be terribly edgy, hanging out in hip city bars. I'd probably have a girlfriend, because I've heard that all the boys you meet at the TAFE SA arts campus are gay, so most of the girls decide to be too. But I'm sure we'd be very hip, and edgy, and I like to think we would share a wardrobe, which we had worked together on. It's all a fun, entirely fictional alternative to my real life which is: tonight, I went to the gym, and then it was cold outside and my thighs cramped up and were hurting so I came home and got in the electric blanket.

On the other hand, things like this are apparently in season. And I sure as hell don't want to work in an industry that feels this way.

Naw, damn...

I've been in a bit of a quilting rut lately, and since even though Comic Con's over, the internet is still getting fuller every day with interesting new videos and articles, any attempts at having a play around at designing something new in Paint got repeatedly sidetracked by my "maybe I'll just check google's new video feed..." attitude.

So I broke out the graph paper and textas. After a couple of goes with nothing lining up I got the sizes of the rectangles sorted so that the edges of any potential quilt would be fairly level, and went to colour it in, and was doing the very bottom right hand corner...

And fucked up the colouring. On Paint I could just ctrl+z and then make the bottom corner rectangle pink, and then colour in the white square green, but in real life, I don't even have wite-out...

Also, to make it without doing T seams, you'd need to put a seam through the centre of the rectangles, and I don't want to do that (nor do I want to do T seams) so unfortunately, I can't actually make it either.

Still, it's kinda pretty.

Is there a word for wrinking your nose up at something?

Sometimes, you come up with a nice pattern, and you pick a nice bundle of fabric, and you sew it all together, and it looks like shit.

We were discussing at work how it would be expected that if you had two people working, twice as much work would get done, when actually, two people are going to be too busy having fun, resulting in half as much work being done. I don't know if that's how it is with what I'm trying at the moment, but so far, it's a psychadelic mess.

Still, I'm learning the tricky quiltmaths of a HST at the end of a rectangle. So I'm quilting for Science!

And sometimes, Science isn't pretty.

Boooooriiiing

I sit here tonight, moving 1s and 0s from one box to another. No wonder people think nerds are boring. Being a nerd IS boring.

A Zen bit of Angst.

In a strange sort of way, I feel incredibly zen about the Angst Bag. Maybe the clue is in the name - the fact that there was angst before I'd even designed it meant that by the time it came to make it* I was pretty chill about everything.

Not that there were any huge dramas - one of the cross stitch cottons ran out half way through a quilting line but I just magically joined the next bit up and kept going. I made the lining 5cm too big, so I just trimmed it down. I stabbed myself with a pin, but hey, that's what sewing's all about.

It's not perfect. It has it's faults. Some slightly messy lines, the stitching going completely mental when I just sewed on the tab at the end of the zipper.

Whatevs. It's nice. I like it. I think it's going to be liked. I can't wait to make myself a mini version in black with rainbow stiching.


*admittedly, it was about a 5 day turnaround, but I like my emotional rollercoasters like I like my real rolercoasters - fast.

Settling.

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

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

Meh.

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

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

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

Here we go again...

Because I am a sucker.

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

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

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

And relax...

Some days you achieve a lot, some days you don't. Sometimes this lack of achievement makes you cross, other days you're like, meh, whatever.

Today was the latter on both accounts. Well, work was a madhouse, what with the EFTPOS machines of half the country (apparently) being down and all the transactions taking twice as long and all the staff having nervous breakdowns and all the customers swearing at me, and maybe that's why I didn't do anything today. Because Casey told me that it had happened, so I bummed about in the afternoon knowing that later in the evening was going to be shit, then after it was over I was just worn out and couldn't be arsed.

Either way, today I sewed about 6 inches - I'm taking up a dress for a friend and wanted to make sure my machine could get a nice edge on the chiffon before I got a bit scissor-happy. I think it's going to be fine, but it's not needed till next Saturday, so I'm in no rush.

Post-market post cause dad ruined my early night.

Total amount sold - $19. One baby gym bag and one monster. Helen did slightly better, scoring a whopping $24 in sales, but I think she bought about $100 in stuff from other stallholders so that kinda cancels it out. I didn't buy anything at the market, but after it was finished I went to spotlight for some cushion inserts, and bought $20 of fabric too, but that was 3 metres, so its okay. And I spent twice that on KFC tonight, and I've still got no idea why I had to pay. I only et the potato and gravy.

This afternoon I bummed about on the couch till 5, went and picked up Maddy, et far less than $40 worth of KFC and decided it was time for bed. An hour later, my father decided it wasn't and that I needed to wake up and help do the dishes, because it's fine for him to sleep from 12 till 3 every afternoon, but going to bed at 7... oooh no. And now I'm awake, in bed, and my arm hurts cause I'm typing on the touchscreen keypad while lying down. Still, it's easier than using the real keyboard while lying down.

Sigh...

There is a very definite feeling of "I got out of bed for this?"

We have been here for over two hours now, and it's been fairly quiet the whole time. The last time we did this market there was a huge rush at 9 when it opened and then it was fairly quiet, but it's a bit nippy today and the blue lake fun run was on (though what's fun about running I'll never know) at the same time as the market was starting so I guess that kept people away.

I think my favourite thing so far has been impressing the lady in the next stall with my embarrassingly encyclopedic fabric identifying abilities and photos of my stash.

I wonder if I will sell anything at all.Good thing I have my phone to keep me occupied in the meantime.

Going nowhere fast...

Tonight, I cut 18 pieces of fabric 46x60cm, and interfaced them together into nine big double sided bits.

That might make it sound like tonight was another night of procrastination, but that took me two and a half hours. The ironing and the measuring and the cutting and the ironing and the measuring and the cutting and the ironing. I didn't even take anything to watch, cause I was doing it out in the kitchen while my new harddrive talks to my old harddrive and they get cross when you want to watch TV at the same time.

I guess the moral of the story is that attempts at mass* production usually leave you feeling a bit crap. All that work for a nice neat pile of really big rectangles. Whoopteyfreakingdoodah.

I've tried to pick some boy fabrics, or at least some gender neutral ones. There's a Riley Blake that I seem to recall getting last time I was in Adelaide, something with cute animals that I think came in a mixed remnants bundle from fabric.com, a Kaufman and a variety of Spotlight stuff.

Tomorrow I need to cut out the little bits on the sides and take the offcuts, which suddenly becomes a set of handy colour cards, into town and find some ribbons to match to be the handles.

And now I'm off to bed, to fall asleep to the dulcet tones of 3 little hardrives whirring furiously. I think they'll be at it for a while.

*the m key on my computer doesn't work sometimes, and it's a good thing I re-read all my posts before hitting publish, because otherwise you would have all been thinking I spent the night producing ass.

Indecisiveness.

One I'd assembled the bundle for my latest quilt, I was really happy with it. When it was out on the floor, I wasn't so sure anymore. But that could have been that it wasn't yet on point. It looked quite bland at right angles. 45ing it perked it up, but I was busy being glad that I could shuffle my corners into sides without having to unpick a heap of blocks and after 7 straight hours of quilting my sense of design had kinda turned to mush. It wasn't as briliant as the potential of the bundle had seemed, but it was nice.

Then yesterday I was looking at it hanging in front of the curtain and I really didn't like it. It was too bland, to pastel, a bit wishy washy and I'd decided I didn't like the darker stripe anymore.

Today I'm looking at it and I love it. Can't wait till next week when I'm on holidays, my legs are working again, I can piece it a backing, quilt it really densely and bind it in a nice bright green. Chuck it in the wash so it goes all crinkly and maybe hibernate under it for a week. Love it.

Does this happen to other people? Do you fall in and out of love with something every 45minutes or so? Or am I just hideously indecisive?

Gosh, I hope this doesn't happen if/when I have kids.

Take that...

Do you want to hear me rant and rave? I have another blog for that stuff, you'll find the link in the sidebar. I'm pretty much over it now, It's amazing the way some sad music can actually cheer you up. I don't know how it works either, but it may have something to do with the fact that the person in the next room doesn't like this type of music, and I have it at volume just audible to them but not so loud that they can justify getting up to tell me to turn it down. It's a bit petty, but that's what you get for dragging me to Adelaide for a weekend of partying and then not partying with me.

Casey thought I should break out my sewing kit and sew one arm or leg hole on their clothes up, but that would involve sneaking in to get an item of their clothing, and I'm on bed now.
Missy Higgins/Taylor Swift marathon it is then.

Nevermind...

Tonight I got an urge to do some dressmaking.

What a stupid mistake. I remember now why I switched to quilting. Nice, smooth, still, perfectly cut, non slippery cottons are sooo much nicer than horrible, hard to control satins.

No wonder I got bored after half an hour and started picking at my toenails. And then went on ebay and just bought myself another dress.

Achoo.

Today I went out to the shed to get some scrap fabrics to start work on some 12.5" blocks that the local Spotlight store wants customers to do for a charity quilt they have going on, and I came back with a nasty case of hayfever. And a few fabrics. Not enough for anything super spectacular, but it's a place to (re)start.

Never seem to find, what I'm looking for...

I'm feeling so impatient that I could have a jumpy uppy downy foot stomping balled fists tantrum right now.

Buuut... I have no idea what I'm impatient for. Whatever it is, I want it, and I want it right now.

Maybe it's for the webpage with the song lyrics I was going to post between lines of actual typing. That's taking bloody forever, but I don't think that's it.

I think it's that my life still hasn't picked up from after the new carpet. Just because there's bookshelves, doesn't mean they're attached to the wall, and just because I have lots and lots of fabric, doesn't mean it's not stuck out in the shed still. Just because I have planned stuff, doesn't mean I can get started on it. And it's driving me insane. I'm struggling to find time for sewing between work and two social lives and when I do find time, I think to myself "Do I want to go out to the shed and find the fabric I need?" I really don't, and I know I don't. It was hard to pack up, and I found myself regularly wishing for it to just be done already, but putting it all back is feeling like it might almost be an insurmountable task, like maybe all those times I took holidays with the intent to clean my room I was doing it the wrong way around, and I really need some holidays just to put my room back together. To put myself back together.

God, that sounds pretentious. Imagine though, how much worse it would have been with some 80s rock lyrics in there. Here I Go Again by Whitesnake. My "new" song of the moment. I'm really really loving it. Like, on constant repeat in the car, loving it.*  

"I don't know where I'm goin, but I sure know where I've been..."

"An' I've made up my mind, I ain't wasting no more time, but here I go again..."

And a bit where it transitions from soulful, clenching your fist power ballad to epic 80s rock by means of a nice little drum solo... It really is fast highway driving perfection.

(But a word of warning though, if you get a little too into the drum solo and start banging on your steering wheel, your horn will toot. If you do this in the driveway, even if everyone in the house is asleep, you will feel epically embarrassed.)


*I discreetly turn repeat off when someone else is in the car, lest they think me weird. But I know it's folder 4, track 28, so I can find it again.

Nothing. At all.

I just wasted two hours of my life trying to make a half decent looking image of holographic glitter. I am aware that I could have spent that time sewing, or reading or partaking in any number of more worthwhile pursuits, but I didn't.

If someone asks me if I did anything after work tonight, I shall tell them I went round to Meagan's, and then came home and did nothing at all.

Found it.

Tonight, for the first time in ages, I found myself wanting to get home to do some sewing. And then I got home, and found that my room was still torn to bits like I'd left it six hours before when I'd gone into work. Including 2 big tubs, a really old travel bag and a suitcase full of handmade toy monsters squarely in the way of my sewing machine.

Oh well. I found a lot of other things today too.

Lots and lots of socks. Literally dozens. That's the advantage to buying pretty much the same socks over and over, they all match one another, with very few odd socks remaining. All the socks that I found were black size 2-8 Bonds ankle socks with the padded soles. The look kinda like the one in my header, but in need of a wash.

Lots of zippers. Some individual ones, but quite a lot on rolls too. Over 20m of zipper all up.

Quite a few packs of blank CDs. Four USB sticks and two external harddrives. Five 3-pin-clover cables with Australian plugs. One with a US plug (I threw it out).

My Pandora bracelet with the blue beads on it. I had just assumed that one of my sisters had taken it.

The pattern for the ballgown that I threw out the instructions for yesterday. Thankfully, I am a smart cookie, I shall just figure it out.

Lots of hairties. Even more bobby pins. Half a dozen nailfiles. A box of pore strips.

A quilt cover that will make some really nice bags once it's chopped up.

Some blocks I made out of the blue charm squares Shay gave me when I visited her in Adelaide that I never got around to assembling into a second pillow*

Quite a lot of foreign coins.

Some carpet that hasn't seen the light of day in a couple of years, and will, sadly, be torn up in 5 days time and replaced.

Tomorrow I need to find myself another half a dozen tubs, and then by Thursday night I suspect I will find myself sleeping in an empty bedroom.

In the meantime, I need to find myself some hand sewing projects. Or I could set up the sewing machine out in the bar, maybe do a bit of quilting, drinking and listening to late 90s music out there.

*weird fact, I made the first pillow in yellow and now cuddle it more than I cuddle either Mo (the sheep) Alex (the monster) or Eleanor (the elephant). I figure this can only be a good thing, as it means I can remove my toys from the bed should a boy decide to spend the night in it, without depriving me of an inanimate object to cuddle as well as him. For an update on the boy situation - he's sick with tonsillitis, so nothing is happening. I find this as boring as you no doubt do.