Favourite Things Friday

Ah, Friday. Well, technically it's Saturday now, but whatever. I love Fridays. I love how I never have to work on Fridays. I love how I could sleep all day on Fridays, though to be honest after this week I'm kinda bored with the sleeping.

Things I'm not bored with - Spotlight bargains. Apologies to any international visitors and I really ought to point out that I don't work for them (any more) so this isn't advertising but cheap stuff is cheap stuff. And this week batting in particular is very, very cheap, so even though I bought 5 metres last week (when it was still cheap, but not as cheap as it is now) today I lay-by'd another 7 metres for $60 - about $8.55 a metre. And layby is great when you're stockpiling, cause they handle the storage for a couple of months. So, cheap 254cm wide cozy cotton = good.

After not touching my sewing machine for a whole week (I was busy with the sleeping) I decided tonight to clean it out. It was both fascinating and disgusting. I highly recommend it, especially if you have an old (47 years) machine like I do. The fact that people with only pencils could design it all and make it work as well as it does without even the use of a small pocket calculator is pretty amazing. And the fact that I pulled about a half a kilo of fuzz out of it was kinda ick. Also, there appears to be a small lake of oil in the bottom. But the only screwdriver I could find couldn't get me down to that bit, so I left it. Nonetheless, interesting engineering + satisfaction of a machine that's no longer making nasty groany noises = good.

And tonight I had a finish - after it was all clean I got to quilting the bike quilt I made a couple of weeks ago.

I did it with wavy lines that I did by moving the quilt back and forth instead of just letting the needle do it and I trimmed the batting beforehand so I could do it with a self binding. Even though the back is just calico, it looks bloody good with the quilt lines. I'm gunna do this style of quilting more often.

Unfortunately, the foot pedal on my machine decided to break with about 5 lines to go, but I have spares. The one I got was a) at the bottom of a sister's cupboard and b) an actual Elna one, which isn't as nice to use as my Frankenstein'd Singer one. But it's tough to get your dad to fix stuff for you at 1am. I'm still gunna blame the couple of slightly too-wide lines that I did last on the foot pedal. Also, it makes the entire machine sound different. I think. I may be tripping. But 1am resourcefulness to get a quilt finished = good.

And finally, my favourite thing this week. Two strips of peeled cow that I cut out and sewed together last Friday before I went to the pub, to make a cute little wrist cuff.

You can kinda see where I burnt my hand on the iron tonight too.

It's just a wide bit with a long skinny bit sewed in half at one end, and two little holes at the other end.

It's a bit wrinkly now cause I've worn it every day this week

Wrap it round, thread the two ends of skinny bit through the holes, then loop them round a few times and tie together.

I used to wear scarves and bits of fabric tied around my wrist all the time. I like the leather though - the edges don't need finishing. And cute accessories that can be made in 2 minutes with about 4cm of stitching back and forth to join the two bits together = good

Two days.

So last night, before my laptop decided that It really really didn't like it's graphics driver, I told myself that under no circumstances was I to do any dressmaking. Dressmaking is slow and messy and gets in the way of stuff I should be doing, like finishing stuff off for the market on sunday.

So I made a little box out of some yellow ribbon.

I put my pins in it. Then later I took them out and put them on their magnet, because that's where they live. But it seemed easier at the time to make a little ribbon box than get up and take the two steps over to where my pin magnet was on the floor. Tonight, it's full of little black beads.

And last night I also made a quilt top. When it was done I spent about 15 minutes staring at it lying on the floor and realising I'd done it all wrong and considering unpicking it, but then I couldn't be bothered. It's still nice the way it is. I just need to find something for the back. I'm gunna quilt it lots, just wavy lines. I think it wants to be crinkly.

I got a half dozen of the bags about 95% done last night too - I just needed to zigzag over the edge seams tonight. And even though I kinda want to, I didn't make a start on another skirt pattern tonight.

I just spent 45 minutes sorting through 10cm squares instead. I made 10 cute little bundles that I might piece into pillow covers. If I don't get distracted by something else in the meantime.