OhMyGodMail!

So one of my best friends is getting married in about 5 weeks, and since she's a short arse, she decided that us bridesmaids could all wear flats while she wore heels. I'm cool with this, since heels at a wedding pretty much inevitably mean either strappy ones or pumps, and I try to stick to boots when it comes to heels. But looking around the mount and a few shopping days in Adelaide hadn't turned up anything, so I had a look on ebay and found these.

I'd ordered them about a week ago and today when there was two blue parcel cards in my post office box I just assumed that, because I hadn't made it to the post office on friday, they'd accidentally just put one in both days. But no. As well as a little pink box of shoes, there was also a big brown box.

With cookies!

And gold lame fabric! And a crocheted snowflake, but I forgot to take a photo and yeah, I'm blogging from bed. But it was white and waaaay more symmetrical than any of my misguided attempts last year.

And it had come all the way from Thea in California! There was a card in there saying that she had thought of the gold fabric for my rock star-looking jacket from ages ago, but I'm not sure that it has enough stretch for the elbows so I think I might make myself a badass new pub bag with it. I might even use some studs on it. And a fierce, chunky chain link strap.

It might take me a while to get to though, because it feels as if I'll be spending the next five weeks in the lead up to the wedding making ties. Because I'm working in the afternoons when the other bridesmaids could help out with making invites and table decorations and so on, and also because I'm the only one that can sew, I agreed to make the ties for the boys in the satin to match our dresses. It's taken some trial and error with patterns and interfacing and such, but I've got my patterns sorted and now I've just got to work through the hours and hours of handsewing that the damn things need*.

I may resume quilting in a procrastinatory rebellion.

*I only need to make 5 regular ties, two boys ties and a baby tie, but blergh, they're so boring.

/startsulk

I am a sucker. More to the point, I am a sick sucker. Last night I spent 8 hours at work in horrible pain every time I tried to swallow, only to come home, have a shower, mumble something about dragons at my mother and pass out on the floor in front of the fire with the towel still wrapped around my wet hair. Then today (I wasn't supposed to be working, but they appear to have fucked up my roster this week) I worked 6 hours, coughing and spluttering and feeling pretty miserable. Tomorrow, also when I'm not supposed to be working, I've been rostered 10-3, which contravenes both my don't-work-fridays and my don't-work-before-lunchtime rules.

And, even though I have over 200 hours of sick leave accumulated, I go to work, I suffer through it, I share my germs with customers and I devote at least 40% of my concentration to mentally telling myself not to throw up over and over again. Because whenever I try to call in sick they get all passive aggressive; "but we don't have anyone else, wah wah" on me. And meanwhile, the department manager randomly takes a day off a month out of sickleave to "help keep the budget down"

Oh, and the best part? If I quit, I lose all that sick leave. Nearly four grand worth.

/endsulk.

In actual good news, the first issue of GenQ magazine arrived today with my bonus 8 kickstarter bribe fat quarters. Especially loving the brown and pink zigzag one.

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.

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.

My first new fabric in ages.

Keeping in mind that I basically grabbed whatever caught my eye in the first 3 minutes, this is what I ended up with.

The two greens are to go in my pile that started with DS limes but now includes quite a few other green fabrics as well, and the orange is much the same, but, well, orange. The rainbow stripe and the jade and pink I bought because they're puuurdy, and the yellow because they had it locally and I bought a quarter thinking it was quite lovely, and then when I went looking for more suddenly it was nowhere to be found. But it's hard to find a nice yellow, so I got some more for stash.

The brown-y fabrics I bought because I'd love to make myself another Autumn Nutmeg quilt. It's remained one of my favourites since completion and I'd like to have a go with a bit of the spring colourway (that would be the greens and the blues) thrown in too - I still need to find myself a few more blue and green co-ords before I get going on it.

And sewing motivation. I'll be needing that too.

Sticking with my story

I'm finding it quite hard lately to conceptualise how prints will look in my designs once I've done them in solids.

And that, obviously, is why I had to buy all these - I don't know which four of them I'd like to use, but I want to be ready for the magical moment when I do.

Really

There's something almost brilliantly medative about shopping for fabric on etsy. The process of search and select, then looking through all the other items from the same seller to try get a good postage deal, and then repeating, over and over - it's almost like a warm bath for your brain.

It's not as much fun if you're super intent on something in particular, and have to try and work out who'll give you the best deal, but I'm just casually looking for brushed yarn dyed checks, and since it's mainly random Korean sellers, I'm picking solely based on what ones I like.

I ended up with this one... because I like it. I'll cut it very neatly into a couple of strips and make it into a nice long scarf - I've already got a couple that I made from the few brushed cotton checks that Spotlight have, but I really, really like this one.

First world rainbows?

It's been an odd day. After my bottle of bad rosé last night, I was awake before my hangover was when the grandparents came to visit before lunch, but it had caught up with me by 12.30, only to be severely quashed by some homemade chips and lots and lots of tomato sauce.

I went to Spotlight and bought myself a pile of 10cm cuts of drill; I like it better for quilts that get taken on holidays because it's tougher than quilting cotton. Also, at this moment in time, the colour range is better in drill than it is in Prima.

I went to see a friend for an hour or so, then I got started with my actual plans for the night: First world problems night.

I organised it with one of the girls from work earlier, when we decided that first world-ing your problems, as long as you did it with a suitable amount of self awareness, was the best way to realise your life is actually pretty good. I started about 7pm, posting them on the hour...

I feel like going to the gym, but there's too many people there in the early evening.

Two computers running next to one another, with two mice and two keyboards. I keep getting confused.

Massive pimple on my neck, so I look like I've been bitten by a redneck vampire with only one buck fang.

My DVD box set doesn't have enough commentaries. Sixteen episodes and only three commentaries :( all done in 2 hours...

I'd really really like some fairy bread, but I make it with the sprinkles that are like little sticks of candy, and all we have in the house are 100s and 1000s, and it's just not the same.

Just had a massive freak out that there was some kind of hulking monster just outside the back door, but it turned out to be my 9-year-old sister's 4 wheeler.

I can't type an é - I have to google the word Nestlé and copy and paste it off the end.

One pillow is not high enough, two pillows is too high.

I actually cheated and came up with a whole heap of them ahead of time, but in the end, I didn't use any of them, instead thinking to myself each hour what was annoying me most. And clearly, yeah, my life's pretty good.

It would be cooler though, if I could rock this hair. And if I could just put the actual picture here, instead of having to link it.

Me: a work in progress.

Hopefully my existential angst for the quarter is over - I'm feeling better today. It's probably a combination of things: catching up with a friend I haven't seen enough of lately, a new watch coming in the mail, getting my bags from the weekend back (including the flannelette bundle I bought at lincraft Rundle Mall)

Marveling at the wonders of cyclonic vacuums (Shay, they use centrifuges, and centrifuges are interesting) Finishing season 3 of Buffy, devoting a bit of time to laying backwards over one of the big balls at the gym (when your thoughts are every which way, hang upside down for a bit, and they'll pool in the top of your head)

And knowing that if I keep on being glum, then I've got no hope of ever being awesome enough to rock shoes like this.

Okay, I might never be. But there's no point in not having a go, right?

Favourite Things Everywhere

A couple of nights ago I paired together a four-patch block with a quarter-square-triangle block (is that its actual name?) and quite liked the results. And today before work I picked 4 colours on my Kona Card (Pear, Mango, Peacock and Taupe) and did some very basic preliminary maths, figuring that I could get a baby quilt from 50cm of each and a decent lap quilt from 75cm of each. And then, because it was Thursday late night shopping, I went to Spotlight in my meal break. And they had 50% off all their quilting fabric (till Sunday, apparently).

I'm putting favourite things in bold. It's 5am Friday now, and that seems Friday enough for me.

I only got 50cm each of the solids I picked, and the green is the only one that comes close to it's Kona counterpart. The orange is more melon-y, the blue more aqua-y and the grey - well, taupe is a light brown.

Back at work tonight, and I got some huge angst going on over my quilt math. How do you calculate how much bigger you need to make a square if you're going to make it into quarter square triangles and sew them back together? Is it two lots of your diagonal seam width (because if you did a half square triangle, and then did it again in the opposite direction, wouldn't it get the same amount smaller both times?) or is it only one (because each seam is measured one way, just like they are with the regular four patch?)

Turns out it's only once (yay knowledge!) but I only found that out by actually doing it, and having all my blocks be 1.8cm too big. But I took a pretty picture of my trimmings with Instagram.

Doesn't it look like delicious, rainbow linguine?

Because I got held up trimming, (and also with reliving the music of 1999 on youtube) I didn't get all my blocks sewn together, which is why in this photo, none of the points appear to match up. My batting should fit exactly to the top once it's all joined together, but at the moment, it needs 6cm of overlapping.

I'm calling it Every Which Way because even though they're not technically arrows, they kinda look like them. And once I see one of them as an arrow, I start seeing them all as arrows, pointing in every direction. I just don't know what good stuff they're telling me to pay attention to next.

Based upon the position of this on the floor in the lounge, the green is pointing to the kitchen, where today I ate some delicious chicken rice, the grey is pointing to the couch, where tonight after work I had garlic bread and watched the season final of New Girl, and the blue points to my bedroom, where I'm currently sitting on my bed eating some cadbury fingers.

Maddy (little sister) claims the white ones "changed her life" which is probably a bit superlative, but I will admit, they make my tongue very happy.

And there's a slew of things to keep the rest of me happy while my tongue's occupied, from books on my phone to clicky pens to nail clippers to funny, funny tumblrs.

For Science!

The worst thing about going to the post office right before work is that you then spend your entire shift wanting to go out to the car and open up your packages.


And unsurprisingly, new fabric doesn't so much inspire me to create, as it inspires me to sit about and fondle new fabrics.

Some cute little farm animals that will probably end up with Meagan's baby, whenever it decides to get here.

 

Some lime greens I'd bought to go with the bundle of lime green fabrics from the new DS line, but the spotty one is too bright, so it's just going into stash.

Pinks and Greys to go with a couple of other fabrics from the same line, and some grey to go into the blue and grey re-done quilt.

My favourite fabric - they had 3 yards left but it was a 1/2 yard cut and a 2 1/2 yard cut, but I don't care. The diagonal stripe for binding on the white-sashed-nine-patch that's still hanging on my curtain.

Some organic cottons I bought mainly because they were only $5p/y.

And if you'll remember, postage was $22, fabric.com seemingly having finally gotten their ridiculous overcharging sorted.

Look up the top.

The scientist in me now insists we buy more stuff, just to see if the low postage cost in relation to real-world figures was some kind of statistical outlier. Seriously guys, I'd be doing it for the science*.

*And I request all my fellow Aussies buy something from them too - the larger the sample size, the more accurate our findings will be. If husbands/children/credit card statements complain, tell them it's for science.

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 :/

First Finish of the Finishathon!

It's been a pretty good day. I got some good packages in the mail: vintage flannels and peeled cows from etsy, and a massive stack from Hancocks, which also included this:

After spending an hour or so cooing over it and making imaginary bundles in my head, I got to finally quilting the Green Pavement quilt. I wont lie, it was dull, slow and unfun. But 2.5 hours of quilting, 45 minutes of pinning, 30 minutes of handsewing the corners and 30 minutes machining the binding down and it's all done.

I did a foldover for this one, since the backing was not only on point, but I like it better than the front. I'd cut the wadding to an inch bigger around than the top was because I wanted a wide border, and just folded and pinned it to the width that covered the edge of the top. I was telling myself that I was being artistic and organic, but better adjectives probably would have been haphazard and lazy. Still, I really like it, especially from the back. The lack of an edge, both of the design and of the binding, is something I've decided I am a big fan of.

Hopefully I comes out of the washing machine still looking nice.

Saturday Night (do do do do do do do do)

What a crazy day. Enjoyable, but crazy.

Started off, I went into town to buy stuff. The $10 vouchers that Spotlight sends can be used once a day for the 4 days, and I like to get my money's worth. Today I bought a similar bundle to yesterdays, but in blues and greens instead of pinks and yellows and greens.

Again, about half of it is from stash. There's also a couple of cuts in here that are only 10cm, but because it's a random design, this is okay.

Work was especially fun for a Saturday night, for two reasons. Firstly, it's (now) April Fools Day, which means that I was free to leave clever traps for the co-workers who are working in the morning. I left a note on the service desk saying that a heap of people had called in sick, and the girl in the office left a similar one saying that the safe combo had been changed. We also left some hints as to how they could pass on the April fools joy - PA calls for staff members' number plates, food dye in the milk in the staff room, that sort of thing. Much fun.

Even funner, Kelsey had sorted out a scavenger hunt for her friends for tonight, and one of the things the groups had to do was come in and sing me a song. Naturally, hilarity ensued - Even though I had told the girls on checkout that tonight was going to get a bit weird, and let the duty manager and a couple of the nightfill guys what I was anticipating, we didn't tell all the nightfill people, nor the other customers. We were pretty quiet, till the singing broke out, and the walking-around-falling-down worried a few of the nightfill people at first, but it still made for one of the most enjoyable Saturday nights I've worked in a long time.

And then, after meeting up with them all to get a quick run down on which teams achieved what, I went to meet Casey and a few other friends for a few drinks and a firebucket.

Now I'm gunna put my clock back for the end of daylight savings (sad face) and snuggle up with my electric blanket.

Favourite Things 5am Saturday

And so, It's a quarter to 5 Saturday morning again. I really need to start going to bed earlier.

Oh well, tonight at least I didn't waste, because I made a backing for a forgotten quilt top.

It's very bright. I wasn't planning on doing something this bright, but it was bulk stash, and it doesn't matter as long as I'm finishing things and using up stash. Also, loving the warm fuzzy feeling of achievement. But that might just be indigestion. I'd forgotten too how much everyone liked the pink pavement quilt top.

Also, loving the $10 spotlight vouchers, especially the fact that you can use them 4 times over the 4 days. Today, I bought 10 fat quarters, already reduced to $2 each, so with the voucher it came to $1 each. Then, I doubled the size of the bundle with stash stuff.

I think I'll use this to make another of those random-rectangles-arranged-into-squares-done-up-in-a-basket-weave-type-design-and-set-on-point quilts. And maybe think up a better name for it.

Also this week I've been loving nuts and dried apricot, but when I say dried I mean really dried. Dried apricots on their own are nowhere near dry enough, and I have to come up with a way to make them as dry as the little bits of apricot in the mini snack boxes.

Kellogs mini-wheats are now only available in blackcurrant, but they're still quite delish too. Strawberry was better though.

Magnets of course, remain awesome. They always, always will.

But really, my absolute favourite thing this week (and last week too actually) would probably be bacon. Bacon is delicious, and quick, and easy, and I particularly like it in the middle of the night when I get home from work.

No, Sara.

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

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

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

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

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

Dammit, now I want to buy more.

Angst

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

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

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

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

Probably the middle one on the left.

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

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

Ow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Aww, pretty...

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

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

A half yard each of these Spirit fabrics.

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

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

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

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

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

Sunsets. It looks like sunsets.

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

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

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

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

 And once I'd taken myself a layout photo,

I remebered I had macro focus.

And a damn good one at that.

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

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

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


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