Well there you go...

Can I say that finally doing the binding for the pink pavement quilt this afternoon wiped me out? I have to assume that's what it was, since I spent the rest of the evening at Meagan's watching movies with her, before coming home, trying an experimental wallet (it didn't work) and cooking a whole lot of bacon.

It's a good thing I did the binding though, becasue even though I was sure she would pick the white one, she went with the pink one. Admittedly, she then went with the white one, and then the pick one again, and then the white one again before saying no, she was going with the pink one, and I wasn't to let her change her mind again, but still, I though she'd go the white one.

Quilting

The problem I think with quilting (the bit where you sew the three layers together) is that you can be at it for hours with nothing really to show. And you get sore shoulders.

This is the first time I've done wavy lines in both directions, and apart from a couple of little bunches at the seams (that should pretty much vanish once it's washed and crinkly) it's going okay. I don't think I pulled the back taught enough though, as it's a bit baggier than usual. Still, I did at at 4am, so I'm not entirely surpried - 3am is usually my stop-sewing time.

Hopefully the two-direction quilting will make it super crinkly. It's getting colder now, and since crinkly looks warmer (it doesn't matter whether or not it actually is) I'm thinking the crinky the better.

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.

Still haven't found what I'm looking for...

So I spent about an hour tonight ferreting through tubs in the shed. And because what I was actually looking for were my Buffy DVDs, what I found was quite a lot of the elastic I was looking for 3 days ago before I went and bought more, a big roll of size 3 zipper and a little container full of pulls, a very nice mechanical pencil, and a fabric which I think should make an quite nice back for the salmon coloured pavement quilt. Although this fabric is almost more of a peach* colour.

I confess, I still don't actually know what I'm gunna do with the back. I still haven't decided how I'm gunna quilt it - the lines are too far apart to quilt on the seams, but the design seems too clean to do it any other way. I've seen quite a few quilts just quilted in a big ol' spiral from the centre lately and I think I like the idea, but the wool batting is something I haven't used in a really long time, and when I did use it, it was with my machine out in the lounge where I had lots and lotst of space, and I could neatly roll the edges up and continue sewing my nice, straight, in-the ditch quilting lines. On the other hand, lots of dense quilting should give it more drape which is good, because the wool is stiffer than the cotton.

Honestly, the actual quilting bit of quilting makes me hate quilting.


*This backing fabric is one I bought the bolt of for $2 a metre from spotlight a couple of years ago; the selvedge says "Watercolour memories by fabri-quilt" and I have some in a blue-green colourway as well. The fabrics in the top are Fandango by Kate Spain (the big block and the floral tile), Boutique by Chez-Moi (the long blocks), something from the current range at spotlight (the little flowers), and two similar but different wavy stripes that, alas, didn't have any readable selvedge. Oh, and Prima Natural, which I've always liked better than White.

Fixed.

I have to admit something - there's a bit of a boo boo in the quilt I showed yesterday. It's not readily visible in the picture unless you're looking for it, but it's there.

See those two blocks in the bottom right corner? See how both the prints are going horizontal when in every other instance they're going vertical?

And see how now they're upright? Or, well, maybe you cant. It was a bit breezy today, and the quilt wouldn't sit still for it's photo. Here's the important bit.

I was going to leave them as they were. I had it half basted to the wool batting and everything (I miss the clingyness of cotton and bamboo) but I knew it would make me cross forever.

And once that was done I settled in for a hardcore sesh of lying on the grass in the backyard until it was time to go to work. And when I got home I drafted myself a pattern for some short shorts, spent about an hour searching for just a couple of metres of the seventeen billion metres of elastic I've purchased over the last 23 years, eventually found some less than stellar woven stuff in mum's old sewing cabinet, and used that. It's not like it needs to hold up that much fabric - they're very short shorts.

Salmon.

So today I got stuck in, even though I couldn't use the lounge room cause we were getting a new TV cabinet, and got my quilt top all finished. I'm calling it the Pink Pavement Quilt, although it's also been repeatedly referred to as "it's not pink, it's salmon..."

I got the one big piece of batting I had in the house and put it on the back of it for this photo (bamboo is very static-y) but the sad fact of the matter was that it was a 133cm wide piece of batting on the back of a 135cm quilt top. So I went into Spotlight, but they didn't have any cozy cotton, so I got wool cause there was a roll with 3 1/2 metres on it and it's 30% off if you finish the bolt at the moment. It's been 56 quilts since I used wool - my very first quilt was wool but I haven't used it since.

I had plenty of good intentions with regards to backing and quilting it tonight, but I ended up going into The G with the girls, and when we realised how crappy it was, we went on a midnight geocaching trip. Till 3am. As you do.

So yeah, not backed or quilted. Still, I'm loving it.

Quilting again.

I don't normally stop halfway through a quilt, but it's late, and I'm tired, so I'll make an exception.

It's way pinker than it looks - this is just a terrible photo taken at 3am in my kitchen with my phone.

I'm really liking how it's turning out though. It took me ages to get started, what with a trip into town, some time spent playing with our new vacuum sealer that arrived in the mail and much, much food consumption, and then when I did get started on the cutting, Casey came and demanded the kitchen. And if it took me a while to get going the first time... well, I'll put it this way - I watched the Graham Norton show and then a bit of Conan O'Brien and then a bit of Letterman too and then I watched Question Time for a bit, because the TV guide on the screen said QI was going to be on after it, but not at what time, and eventually I got sick of it and turned it off and started quilting.

It's coming together fairly quickly, mainly I think thanks to those nice big 43cm squares there. The 6cm cornerstones are a bit of a bitch though, and I cut eight too few white strips. It's okay, I had plenty more white, so they're cut ready for tomorrow.