Dont let THIS, happen to YOU!

So 10 hours ago when I was standing in the Salvos my brain was all like, "hey, lets buy that brown silk hand beaded top with the draped back and the asymmetric hem. We can shorten the shoulder straps, take out the tag, make the drape be at the bust and straighten out the hem. It'll be fun. How long ago were asymmetric hems "in", anyway? God, that was a flash in the pan. Ohh, better hurry, we need to be at the school in 5 minutes."

45 minutes later Casey told brain that actually, I had a whole another hour before I needed to be at the school. And just a few minutes ago, my brain was like "oh, did I say fun? I meant to say "a horrible idea don't do it you stupid girl put it back just make a white top from that stretch crepe ohmygodyoustupididiotaargh!!!!" Actually, I'm pretty sure what I said. You must have misheard me."

So basically my brain is a lying scoundrel and I'm hemming a beaded silk gauze top by hand tonight.

In semi-related news, this is a friendly reminder not to sit on your bed with your legs underneath you while wearing skinny jeans, lest your legs fall off. That's a pretty important cautionary tale.

EDIT, 3.30am: I think the fact that left to their own devices, my hands are capable of beading over the shoulder join and hemming the bottom, almost makes up for the fact that my brain is a jerk.

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.

How I spend my nights

Juuuust throwing a tantrum at etsy at 4.30 in the morning because it keeps giving me cotton knits when I'm looking for woven rayon fabrics.

Because that's how I roll. (The tantrums at websites thing, not the constant need for more nice drapey rayon fabrics to make into lovely flowwy skirts now that the weather's starting to get a wee bit nicer. Okay, that too.)

... continued

As predicted, today was no-voice Monday. But getting up at 12 for a 1.30 start and finding the house empty meant I couldn't get anyone to call in sick for me and I couldn't do it myself either (obviously) so I just had to go on in. Since I went home sick on Friday the first thing everyone asked was if I was feeling better, to which my response was, (again, obviously) "..."

Actually, I said, "Yes, I do, thanks, but, um, well..." but what came out was "..." with some lip movement. Unfortunately they were a bit understaffed so I ended up hanging about till 5.30 anyway, mainly doing self serve (I can mouth "thanks a lot, see you later" with such conviction that people's brains insert the words) or smokeshop (people usually know how much their smokes are going to cost them) or supervising (though someone put on their help light and I went to help but they were still talking to their customer and I was trying and trying to get her ask her what was wrong and she was ignoring me and eventually another supervisor came up and helped her and I sulked away unnoticed) but we all agreed that I couldn't really supervise tonight because I couldn't talk to customers or answer the phone or make calls over the PA system, so really all I'd be doing is bumming about as all my employees amused themselves by saying "what?" at me over and over again. So instead, I came home, so my family could do exactly the same thing to me.

And I watched the first episode of Big Brother (and probably the only one, since I work nights and don't get to watch real* telly) and the new episode of True Blood (bye Molly and Hoyt... sad face) and spent a whole lot of time on etsy looking for the perfect fabric to make this top and being saddened by the fact that they've already got pretty much the perfect fabric. Gods of perfect plaids, why have you forsaken me?

Oh, and gods of voice, you too? At least the gods of finding a good car space still like me.

*Admittedly, Big Brother isn't reall telly anyway, but I mean stuff that our antenna picks up in real time, as opposed to stuff I download and watch

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.

Still yawning...

Well, it's midnight. I've had a pretty big day. I was up at 7 yet again, and, even though Meagan thinks she might be able to reset my body clock, I'm pretty sure that I'll sleep till 2 on monday afternoon and then I'll be back to normal.

Today was shopping for wedding dresses day. I mean, that was the whole point of us coming to Adelaide, and we had appointments and everything. But I found myself thinking how glad I was that I didn't do fashion design, because I may well have ended up working in a place just like those shops. And even though I've been lucky enough to get a nice bride, the fact is that the girls at those shops have to deal with a dozen every day, and some of the ones who were in there when we were seemed like right cows. I get that it's stressful and all, but you're devoting a day to trying on pretty dresses, in flattering lighting and with people whose job it is to make them look as good on you as they possibly can. Maybe you should try cracking a smile?

Anyway, we found two dresses she really liked, one at each store, and we ended up going back to try on the first one. I'm really glad we did, since I liked it a lot better, and once she'd put it back on again she did too. Also, the people at the second place were really rude, and the quality of some of the bridesmaids dresses looked a bit skiffy. I certainly wouldn't have paid $350 for them.

After we had that sorted we went to Marion Shopping centre for a bit, and it made me very very keen for next week, when I get to spend two whole days lone-wolfing it. It's been lovely spending time with Meagan, but I still don't feel super close to the other bridesmaids, who were all at school together. Don't get me wrong, they're all very nice, but I don't know them that well yet. Certainly not well enough to spend two hours wandering around a really big shopping centre with them, which is why I was really glad we split up for the second hour.

Tomorrow... well, I've no idea what we're doing tomorrow. Driving home at some point, one would think, but it's all a bit of a mystery.

A new kind of shopping

I can't remember entirely how, but tonight (and by tonight, I mean about 5 hours ago) I went to the Book Depository website. My goal, at some point, became to find a decent introductory book about wine. Sadly, I didn't. It was all how to make wine and 200 wines to drink before you die and such, when I wanted a book with a blurb something along the lines of A book about wine for people who don't really like the taste of it but would like to be wine drinkers because all the people on TV who drink wine look like they really enjoy it and frankly, it sounds cooler to have a glass of wine than a bottle of cider, so this book tells you an both a succinct and humourous manner which wine is both affordable and doesn't make you pull that "ergh" face."


That book it seems, simply doesn't exist. But I did come across Oz and James' Big Wine Adventure, which reminded me that I had the TV show. I'll be honest, halfway through season 1 (where they cruise through France) and I've still got no idea what I want to drink. All I know is, they look like they're having fun, getting drunk, and that makes me want to do it even more. I haven't even done a Coonawarra wine tour yet. I'm jealous.


But that's okay. At some point I strayed out of the wine section and into the humour, craft and trashy romance* sections, and now I appear to have almost two dozen books in my cart, and I'm torn between thinking to myself "but at $200 all up, that's less than a tenner per book, and that's damn cheap" and "Holy cow, $200, and it's free postage so you don't have to worry about combining savings, just cull it to about a quarter and buy the rest later" but I've no idea what I want now (well, in 7-14 days) and what I'll put off for a while.


Online book buying is just as hard as online fabric buying.


*Thanks to the Vaginal Fantasy webcasts, which have a name which sounds much more smutty than they actually are, I've finally been able to admit my fondness for trashy medieval and/or fantasy romance novels, and now the voices in my head have formed a bookclub with me, and we need more books.

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.

Favourite things (in bold)

Friday! It's a pretty good day, what with how I usually don't have to work and all, and today it was my last day off till next Saturday, and since I'm driving to Adelaide then, and back the next day, I'm not sure that it counts, so it kinda felt like today was going to be my last day off in forever.

But I got to go see this guy again.

And if I had to pick one actual favourite, it would probably be him. But I don't want my pseudo-nephew to grow up in a world where he can only have one favourite thing, so let's have more.

In honour of our hostess with the mostest, I'm going to go with some very mundane things;

The scroll button on my mouse. It is the unsung hero of all the input keys. While everyone's all rightclick/leftclick/spacebar/enter I'm just leisurely scrolling up and down. Using a mouse without one is horrible, and I feel that laptops would be greatly improved if they had one as well.

Those pop-up lids on drink bottles. You can open the drink with only one hand. And your mouth, obviously. But rarely am I laying on my other mouth. And they're less likely to spill all down the side of your face.

Little watchband adjuster tools. So much easier than trying to shove a pin into the little holes with a pair of pliers.

Chocolate Croissants. Croissants, with chocolate bits on top, and chocolate ganache inside. $2.40 from the bakery section at woolies.

Don's Salami. I don't know why it's so much better than Han's, but it is.

Getting your waxing done by a friend instead of a professional stranger, because the converstion is much better.

Having really long showers on days when it rains, because that's the whole point of having a rainwater tank.

CD burners. Remember when, to make a mix tape, you had to do it in real time? I do, but thankfully only barely.

Finding a fabric at lincraft that you've been looking fo the likes of on ebay for months.

Paying half price for it.

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.

O ooh Hungover. (ish)

Do other people spend a really long time online looking at fabric, finding a few things you like, looking at lots of sellers (between ebay, etsy and actual online fabric shops) trying to find one that has everything you want at a decent price, opening up dozens of tabs, on two computers, before realising that to get everything you need, you'd have to buy from 3 different people, who'll each charge you $17 postage, even though you only want a couple of packs of charm squares from each of them, and it's all too hard, so you just exit all of it?

Anyway, yes, today I was hungover. I stayed at a friend's, we walked back to our cars about lunchtime, and I was feeling pretty okay. I said goodbye, got into my car, and immediately, the hangover hit. That hardly seems fair now does it? I can only assume that my body was sucking it up in the unfamiliar settings, and then as soon as it felt safe and at home (because my car is my second home) if felt compelled to point out that it was just pretending. I came home, watched a documentary on the South Sydney Rabbitohs, because the remote was simply too far away, and moved to my bed when people complained that I was hogging the couch. Apart from getting up to eat dinner, I haven't really moved, just bolstered myself up with many, many pillows, and watched many, many action movies.

Unfortunately, tomorrow is the last day of April, so unless I get some binding done tomorrow night, the April Finishathon actually only got two UFOs F'd, since the Lattice quilt doesn't count. But those two were just quilt tops, which got full pieced backs, quilted and bound. I also finished piecing the top of the Sashed-9-Patch, and made a back for and got half the quilting done on the Falling Leaves quilt. So I guess I'm pretty happy with it.

Hey...

Good news for my fellow Australians on this most solemn of days: fabric.com have finally got their act together with regards to international shipping prices. It was the only place I could find any of this, my new favourite fabric,

that I baulk at paying $24 a metre for from Stitch and Knit. I bought half a metre, because it really is that nice, and fabric.com only had 3 yards left, so I can't be the only person who feels that way. In the past, they would only fit 4 1/2 yards into a flat rate ($16ish) envelope, and then it shot way up, into the $50-60 mark to get the 9 yards that fabric shack would send for $8.

Tonight I decided I would try for 5 yards, and that worked! $16.95 postage. So I tried 7 1/2. And that worked too! I upped it to 10 yards before stopping, and even though it went up a little ($22 postage) I typed "fabric.com coupon" into google and it came up with BRTH11A, which got me 15% off my $70 of fabric.

Granted, there wasn't one of their super specials on like last time I bought a massive box from them, but still, even with postage, that makes them all about $8 a yard.

And after that interlude, it's back to quilting. I want this one finished by the time everyone gets up at 4.30 so we can head down to the Pt Mac dawn service. That's one of the good things about staying up all night - not having to get up early in the morning.

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.

Segues

So today I asked Meagan what she thought about making another baby quilt. She didn't think I should, and I'm inclined to agree with, well, all of you. I don't feel that I'm being invited for the right reasons, so I'm going to do the dignified thing, and run away. She hasn't set a date yet, but she offered to organise it around my weekends off (suspicious much?) and I'm quite happy to run away on any of them.

Speaking of, I'm already planning to run away the weekend after easter. It's my soonest available chance, and 3 weeks before Meagan's due, so probably my latest for a while. If Shay wants to catch up, I am willing to share my zippy knowledge.

And while I'm on zippy knowledge, (I'm getting good at segueing) I bought some more peeled cows (actually, I believe one of them is a peeled sheep) on ebay and etsy, so I'm gunna get a go at making the angst bag as it originally arrived in my brain, complete with raw edged zip sewing. It's the one kind of zipper I've never done before, but I figure that the leather won't stretch in the same way as cotton does. so it should sit nice and straight, and be thick enough to not catch in the teeth if it is accidentally too far over. I spent most of last night on etsy actually, with the initial intent of looking for a good gender neutral fabric to use for the quilt I'm not even going to make any more, but it didn't take me long to start looking at rainbow vintage flannels and embossed leather.

Not all segues are good ones. Well, that's not fair - these were good, but also quite expensive.

Nothing, and Something.

Tonight I have done nothing, and, actually, not felt too bad about it. I went to Spotlight in my lunch break this afternoon and bought some stuff to make stubby holders.

But that was a whole eight dollars. If I'd spent a fortune on stuff especially to start it tonight, and then not started it, I would have been cross at myself. But since after leaving Spotlight I went to McDonalds and spent $8 on my actual lunch, it's okay.

Tonight though I did go a little bit shopping crazy - I found a website with some nice bag bits fairly cheap, and more importantly, fixed $3 postage worldwide, so I spent $40 on rectangle loops and sliders and a couple of swivel things and some magnet clasps that looked prettier than mine and were still cheaper than buying them individually, though not cheaper than buying the bulk packs of the slightly shoddy ones they have at lincraft.

Oh, and I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but I've finally ordered a Kona colour card! Hancocks sent me an email a few days ago saying they had them in, and that if I spent just $70 more they'd give me free postage.

And I love that kind of challenge. According to the email I got, it's on it's way.

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.