Me ow.

The distinct advantage that quilting has over dressmaking is that the photographs, and therefore the bloggage, are a whole lot easier. But, as ever, I'm busy being too obsessed with my wardrobe to quilt. And too crap at taking selfies to logically explain the last few days worth of sewing. Also, I just realised it's 5am, which would explain why I can't words.

...Anyway. I'm still very into Community, and Britta, with my spirit wardrobe, was wearing a denim jacket with grey fleece sleeves and a hood. I still had a denim jacket in my cupboard that had survived every round of salvo-ing purely for the reason that I felt it was important that I still owned at least one, even though I haven't worn it in at least two years, due to a strong fear of coming off too double-denim-y. And I'd rather die than come off double-denim-y. But last weekend I dyed a pair of my skinny jeans black, and that means I can wear a light blue denim at the top without looking at all matchy-matchy. So I chopped out the sleeves and drafted myself a hood design and the only grey heavyweight fleece they had at Spotlight was kinda weird fluffy on one side, slightly silky on the other and it was $13p/m but hey, I wanted a denim jacket with grey fitted sleeves and a hood and I wanted it by the next day. And I did it, and I had it, and it's bitchin, and it's nice to know that after two years of just chilling in the cupboard, it's going to go back into rotation.

As well as this, it's Halloween on Wednesday. Now, for the most part, I'm very opposed to having Halloween in Australia. Good on the Americans, it seems like a lot of fun, but when it's done in Australia it comes off as a Valentines-Day-esque grab for the consumer dollar. On the other hand, we don't get to do enough fancy dress, and Wednesdays are (sadly) not really drinking days (though admittedly, I drank this Wednesday) so the initial plan for a fancy dress drinking party got canned. But there was vague mention of Woolies going fancy dress for the day and I'm pushing for it. I want this. I want costumes at work day, to the point that I have drafted a onesie pattern to make for one of the girls at work in cow print. I want this to the point that I bought 5 metres of black cotton lawn from the $1 clearance rack at spotlight to bulk churn out some capes. I want this to the point that I've offered to make some animal ear headbands, because animal-ears are a traditional lazy-person's costume.

Hey look, teddy-bear ears. And my newly altered jacket. Twofer selfie! I'm actually still wearing these, four hours later. I think when I get up tomorrow I might put them on and pretend like they're not even there, just to see people's reactions. I think they are adorbs, and plan on mauling the faces off anyone who disagrees, just like a real bear in a badass re-purposed jacket would.

But, keeping with the theme of wanting more of Britta's wardrobe, my personal animal ears option is the "cool cats" from season 2.

My sunnies are a bit different and my leather jacket is out in the car, and also on this first version they're a bit too big, but I'm sure I can pop them on someone's head. I need another cool cat to be cool with me.

The handy thing about making these is that I'm sewing the ears onto the headbands by hand, and you can still watch TV while you're handsewing.

DVD commentaries, come at me.

I love coats.

Apart from the obvious stuff like having to do buttonholes and getting a nice corner on the tips of the collar, I think it's a lot more difficult to significantly alter a coat than make one from scratch.

It all started Saturday night on our very quick party trip to Adelaide. There was a boy, (as is so often the case) wearing a quite dapper coat. I love a good coat, so naturally I ended up doing dancefloor things with him. Turned out the coat wasn't his though, he'd just found it earlier in the evening, which meant getting it was a simple matter of giving him my number. Didn't even have to do anything inappropriate :)

Still, even though he said it was a bit too small for him, a men's medium is quite a bit too large for my size 8. So last night I chopped it up and tonight I made a start on putting it back together.

Taking down a shirt is fairly easy, even when they've annoyingly flatlocked the side seams, because it doesn't have a lining. This coat is fully lined but I've given up on keeping the lining perfect, because it's all gotten a bit... complicated. I've lowered the seam of the shoulder but raised the set of the top of the sleeve. I've taken in the underside of the sleeve and in the sides but the underarm was still too low so I've had to add in a bust dart to make the sleeve hole small enough. So the lining's way bigger than the shell, and the shape of the sleeve hole is terribly wonky and the lining doesn't match it. I'm just going to tack it all together and zigzag the crap out of the inside of the set-in sleeve.

But it's 5am so it won't be finished tonight, not that I need it in any real rush, but it's nice to know that I can do it. It's easier making one from scratch though, since you can make a muslin and test it all out.

Speaking of coats made from scratch, today I found some gold... something-or-other on the clearance rack at spotlight so I can make a rockstar coat to match what instagram came up with. And they have solid coloured rayons now! I didn't buy any because they weren't on sale and, well, I've had other sewing lined up, but I'm happy about it nonetheless.

I think I need better things to get excited about.

Weekend

Before having an arguably ridiculously big night last night, yesterday I went into Spotlight's Quilt Expo that they were having. I'd taken in a half dozen quilts for them to display, to help get out word that it was going on, and probably a quarter of the quilts they had there were mine. I got there pretty late because I was up till 8am having a spontaneous bedroom cleaning spree, and really, I don't need to be taught how to make a block. But they had all dress fabrics at 30% off, and I wanted to buy some pleather to do a dressier version of my jacket, but I didn't really want to pay $23 a metre. I'll have to try to do it without pinning it, but I figure the fabric won't stretch or shift as much as fleece does.

Today I spent being hungover and watching True Blood. Tonight I am having an early night.

Can I have fridayitis? Is that a thing?

Today I took a couple of quilts into Spotlight because they're having a big quilting day in a couple of weeks and wanted people to bring in quilts to display. I think they may be having a competition as well, but they asked if I would bring in a few to get them started, so other people would know to bring in theirs. I took the green pavement quilt and the bluegrey quilt for starters, since they're both fairly big and both made mainly from fabrics from Spotlight. I showed them a picture of Carried Away and they said they wanted me to bring it in even thought it's really small, but it's a bit busy being loved by me right now. But I might wash and take in Sunset and the first blue and green quilt too, since they're just hanging about.

While I was in there I bought some Arctic fleece, which must be the next one up from the Husky I had been using, since it's $1.50 more. If I'm honest, I like the Husky a lot better - it's thinner but it has nice drape and it's easier to pin and it looks less "fleecy" if that makes any sense: the only reason I got the arctic was that there was some decent colours other than black - Husky only had really bright colours or prints. Tonight I made a red jacket, but I did a frankly terrible job of the back, and I'm starting to get a scissor blister on my thumb, which is probably a sign I should get back to quilting. But I've got a bottle green jacket and a sort of stone/puce/really pale brown jacket to make first.

I may need a bandaid.

It's not much yet, but in maybe a jacket and a half it will be bad.

Pattern Progress

I think a big part of why I don't like to pay much for patterns is that before long I have completely mutated the pattern into something else. I'll start with the pattern, redraft every piece over the course of a version or two, and end up with something completely different from what I bought.

Today I decided that I'd have a go at making the jacket without a lining. Spotlight has put all their polar fleece down by half price so I got 4 metres of black husky at $3 a metre, and the pattern changing began. Step one - merge a couple of pieces. The front as back are both comprised of two bits, and since it's draping instead of fitted I decided to make the front all one piece. And since it's draping down, I decided I'd raise the front hemline and give it a bigger collar too, so it had more to drape, but not as far to drape it.

The polar fleece worked pretty well, I just sewed each seam twice, about 3mm apart, and then trimmed close to the second one. Did a really basic folded hem - these are just test runs for wearing on daggy days around the house, so they're far from prefect. But I did a decent job, since even though they're just tests, they still take a whole lot of time and effort, and I can still use them even in their imperfection.


The original design (and this changed one) had a seam for the collar on the front edge in the middle of the drape. I didn't love that, so on the next run I decided to make the front and the collar one piece, meaning that the side front piece had to return. I tried making the back one piece instead but ended up adding some darts once it was finished anyway. I like the drape of this one much better, but I also raised the back where the collar is, and I forgot to lower the shoulder to compensate. I've changed the pattern piece, and added the darts to the piece for the back, so I should have a perfect version tomorrow.

I envy those people who can re-cut their own work to get it to hang right, but I'm not one of those people. Still, for $12 I got two jackets and enough left over to make most of a third, plus, knowledge!

PS, if it is perfect, I'm gunna make about a dozen of them for myself. This polar fleece is comfy and super warm.

Another jacket, that I'm slightly less excited about.

Because I spent all day wearing my bitchin new jacket, Maddy decided she wanted one. The pattern was a misses sized one and I used the biggest for me so while I was at Spotlight getting some press studs I got some tracing paper and Mum picked an embroidered denim for the outside and a pale blue drill for the inside, and I came home and traced the smallest size. She thought the arms on mine were too narrow (they are a bit tight when you fully bend your elbows) so they got widened too, and after stopping for a couple of hours to watch The A-Team, I finished it off.

She tried the lining on for size before she went to bed and that fit okay, so hopefully she likes it when she gets up in the morning. I didn't put press studs on it (we can do that later when I know where she wants them) but I made her a belt with the leftover bit so she can tie it closed till then.

Blah Blah Basting

The problem with basting is that, much like being sick, it's boring and uninteresting and no-one cares.

Still, it's the first crafting I've done in ages, with the exception of the statistical anomaly that was the holiday quilt, and I figure it's a good place to start. Spotlight had 30% off today so I got myself some batting, and a 108cm wide quilt can handily be backed by a single width of quilt fabric. Of course, I have no idea how I'm going to quilt it, since it's a very odd design that really needs an all-over free motioning, but, um, I still can't do that. I even gave it another quick try today, and I've got the shapes down pat, and my stitches don't vary too much in length, but the tension on the back is still utterly utterly horrible, and I'm still too cheap or lazy or both to get it serviced. I might end up doing wavy lines in both directions à la the pavement quilts, since that looks like an all-over while actually being a side to side, but, baby steps.

And on the voice thing, it's baby steps on that too. I have some vowel sounds. This is progress. I'd probably make more progress if I didn't keep going in to work, but they keep guilt-tripping me. Tonight I did reversion - basically taking down all the old specials tickets so new ones can go up tomorrow. I answered any customer queries with obscure hand gestures and interpretative dance. I hope one of them was a mystery shopper, because I'd love to read their review of my silent service.

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.

It's so nice to be home, on my own bed with it's electric blanket, in my own bedroom where I'm not worried about the sound of my typing waking people who actually sleep at night, driving my own car, and having enough powerpoints for all my tech.

And, since I'm warm and happy and content, I may as well break out a couple of whinges.

Why do all the motels in Adelaide make you check out at 10 when nothing opens till 11 on a sunday? I think it should be like how maccas does breakfast till later on a sunday. In my world, motel checkouts would be at least a half hour later on sundays, maybe a full hour. It just makes sense.

Why on earth do people still listen to the radio? I mean, yes, it's a handy way to learn new songs, but if I'm honest, most of those new songs are shit. Even Call Me Maybe, which I adore, is admittedly, lyrically quite weak. And the jingles, oh, the jingles. My travel companions wanted to listen to the actual radio as we were going through the hills, and the stupid ads were so insipid and annoying that I wanted to pull the car over. I lost the will to live, let alone drive. If I'm gunna be stuck in a car for five hours, I want to be feeling pumped, having fun... not listening to a cheesy rhyme about shower screens. And the fizzy sound. kzzzzztch...Really science, it's 2012. Haven't you fixed that yet? I don't want to have to find a new station every 45 minutes, but the fuzz at the edges of range gives me a terrible headache.

Why does Spotlight have their sales on weekends when I've only got 10 minutes to shop? Why can't they have 30% off fabric next thursday and friday, when I can get to a whole lot of stores, instead of popping into one quickly and grabbing a half dozen random fabrics while everyone else looked at baby stuff? (I'll take photos tomorrow, they've pseudo-assimilated into the stash already, so I need to fish them back out)

Why do I get an overwhelming urge to quilt when I'm stuck in a car 300km from my machine, but as soon as I get home I'm like naaaah...

Nah Uh.

The great thing about quilting (the sewing through three layers thing) is that it's something you can just do. If you're designing and piecing, you need to get out the iron, and clear off your cutting mat, and find a rotary cutter and all that stuff. If you've got some quilting to be done, you baste and you get going.

Unfortunately, what you do need is batting. And I appear to be all out. It's been a while since I've done any actual quilting (as evidenced by all the un-quilted tops hanging from my curtains) and I had forgotten that I was pretty much out. And Spotlight is persisting in not having it on super amazing special.

So clearly, it's totally not my fault I just watched 7 DVD commentaries instead.

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.

Days of Somethingorother.

So today was apparently International Yarn day, but since Google didn't have a doodle for it, I'm not sure how serious it is. But Spotlight had yarn on special to celebrate, so I decided to go with it, and do something that had been worrying me for a while - crocheting an Escher-esque scarf with a twist so I could loop it twice.

As for why it was a worry - well, I was pretty sure that doing it would create a black hole that would swallow the earth. I'm not sure why I thought this, and thankfully it didn't happen (because that would be toats awkward) but I'd been holding off on trying it out for a little while because of it.

Frankly, I think I still prefer my super duper long brushed yarn dyed checks. And since yarn is in the name, I'm set.

After midnight I decided I'd quilt the top I made last night - it's pretty small, about 85x105cm, so it didn't take long. I haven't done a great job - the fabrics just didn't want to stretch taught over the batting, but I've already explained to Meagan that this is a using quilt, not a good one.

And I used a cheater fabric for the back - actually the top was pieced to match the cheater fabric, which Meagan picked way before having Thomas.

I've trimmed it down and cut my binding strips, but it's not actual finished. It's the international day of yarn, not miracles.

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.

Sometimes, the internet makes me cross.

I've never liked tumblr. Not only is it spelt dumb, but a lot of people who use it pretend like they're actual bloggers, when really, all they're doing is re-posting pictures they've found on other tumblrs, with occasional twitter-length posts about how they don't have girlfriends. Yes, there are some brilliant ones out there (if you can read textfromdog with a straight face, I will send you stash) but so much of it just an endlessly reposted waste of server space.

Nonetheless, tonight I got one, because, as I mentioned the other day, Instagram doesn't like Picasa, and since it makes me cross when other people spam up my facebook news feed with Instagram, I'd not only have to get a sword, but also fall on it, if I started doing it too. So it was a choice between Tumblr and Twitter, and since Twitter falls off the face of the internet after a fortnight, I went with the longer lasting of two evils.

And longer is right. It's taken me 45 minutes to get it set up and the first picture loaded. And all I wanted to do was show everybody a picture of my empty box of chocolate.

Gah. What a hassle. 45 minutes is almost half again on the time it took me to do tonight's project.

I suppose the proper name for it would be a pram quilt, or a car-seat quilt, but since they are both a bit dull, I'm going to call it a quiltlet. It's a bit under 50x75cm, so it's about a sixth the size of my usual quilts, and I just sewed around the edges and turned it right side out before quilting it, so no binding.

It's also got polyester batting, something I'd never used before. Spotlight had all their bags of precut poly batting for $3.99 last week, so I bought 3 queen sized ones, figuring I could use them for bags, or for cushion covers, or just let Maddy use them for her quilting endeavours. But I'd also used it under the lattice quilt, so I could take some photos without the darkness of the lino underneath, and so that I could roll it up without getting creases in the top, and the trimmings were the right width, so I went for it. I was only using random bits from the stash, and I told myself I wasn't going to spend more than 2 hours on it (all up, including cutting, it took an hour and 45 minutes) so I figured, even if I turned out horrible, it wouldn't be too much of a waste.

I haven't washed it yet but it seems okay - I suspect it will be a bit loftier than cotton, but I'm cool with that. It's a bit less clingy, obviously, but for something this sixe, I'm happy so far. The actual design of this one is very blah, but I might churn out some nicer ones for the facebook page.

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 :/

Now with 67% less angst...

Spotlight didn't have any white. I threw my politest tantrum (breathing in and out through my nose a couple of times so my nostrils flare like an angry rhino's) and went home to sulk for a bit before work.

I spent a while tonight trying to work out something I liked with the half metre of white I have left, and gave up. Then I felt bad about not doing anything, so I made a bag.

 Even though it looks similar in design to the Angst bag, the construction is totally different. I'd say it was easier, but really, that's probably just because of the quilting (or lack thereof). The zip is set differently too, it's higher up and you need to thread the pull after it's been sewn, whereas for the the Angst bag the two sides of the zip never get separated. I could have recessed it, but I didn't cut the setting strips for the zip wide enough. Nevermind.

I used 2 rectangle rings to make an adjustable strap too. It's about 1m long at full length, but the bag is pretty floppy (I used a layer of quilt batting instead of any actual interfacing) so it curves around and makes it feel longer. The bag itself is about 30x40cm, and about 8cm thick.

Helen wanted me to have a go at some bookbags for kids, and I think this would be pretty okay.

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.