Came home after an hour at Azza's party... The music was too loud, the sound quality not great and neither was the playlist choice, and with a few notable exceptions, the boys had bad hair and the girls were too big for dresses that were too small.
Got home to season 1 of Big Bang on DVD, watched the first disk (about 2 hours) but only managed to sew 3 of the six strips of the purple quilt. A bit lazy but a lot has been accomplished today, and it was silly to ever expect it to be pieced in a weekend.
Tomorrow I will be (hopefully) sewing at least 1 more strip before work, which mercifully is only a 4 hour shift, then I will drop the tickertape bits that I forgot to take in today off at Nanny's so that Kelsey can pick them up. Then, if all goes to plan (ie. dad leaves me alone) sewing the other 2, ironing them out, working out where the hell I'm up to and cutting the next lot. I bought more fabric than I needed of each, because I tend to underestimate the backs as well, And I'm not sure how I'll be piecing it yet. Or when, since it's back to doing closes after this weekend.
In the meantime, I need to put some new Psych onto DVD for Tegan, whose usual supplier is on holiday and is therefore behind 2 episodes, and do some sleeping.
Since it is 2am already, and I need to get up in time to do 20 minutes of sewing before work, this will have to begin soon.
After I've cleared off the bed.
Damn this outfit choosing mess...
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Post Crafternoon, Pre Whoring...
Had a big crafternoon at Helen's, made some decent progress on the purple test quilt (3/4 of the top cut and pinned, all of the rest of the fabric washed and ironed ready to go) and had 2 fast food meals for the day (usually only have one.) Showed off the retro and bluegreen quilts, and stunned people into indecision with my huge array of 10cm squares.
And now, instead of getting stuck in further while watching the Big Bang DVDs I bought with my massive tax cheque, I have to, according to Casey, go "whoring"
Azza from work's birthday party is on tonight. She doesn't mean real whoring, just going out and acting slutty while not actually being slutty at all. It's a Casey thing. I'm not feeling it, as once I have started on a quilt it's go go go, but she is being insistent.
Guess who's not getting the purple quilt?
And now, instead of getting stuck in further while watching the Big Bang DVDs I bought with my massive tax cheque, I have to, according to Casey, go "whoring"
Azza from work's birthday party is on tonight. She doesn't mean real whoring, just going out and acting slutty while not actually being slutty at all. It's a Casey thing. I'm not feeling it, as once I have started on a quilt it's go go go, but she is being insistent.
Guess who's not getting the purple quilt?
Wooooo! Tax Cheque!
Got the BlueGreen finished late last night, but worked all afternoon and haven't had a chance to wash it yet.
Discovered that doing a smokeshop close is an excellent opportunity to get your Quiltmath done - just get some of yesterday's reports form the recycle bin and do your sketches and calculations on the back of them - you pass the time, look vaguely like you're doing something important (keep it all in code, then say its shelf layouts) and don't have to do at at home, when you could be doing something more important. Not the quilt though, (which is a test using the cheap cotton quilt you bought at target as batting and are hoping works well, so you can go back and buy a lot of, because they are $10 cheaper and a lot bigger than the regular quilting batting) cause it turns out you needed 1.25m of each fabric, not .75m.
But its not so bad, because my tax cheque is here! Why doesn't firefox want me to spell cheque like that? Ah, Wikipedia says that Americans spell it "check." Silly Americans.
So, I will be off to spotlight in the morning to redeem my $20 discount for spending $80, buying .5m more of each of my 4 purples, as well as .8m of something for binding, 2m of something for main backing and .6m of 2 contrast backings for the piecing. As I'm making it out of $4/m clearance fabrics, that will be waaaay not enough to make the $80 total, (it comes out a bit over $20) but I can fill out the other $60 with stuff I don't really need, because my tax cheque is here! And it's really big! And even after I spend $500 on my car's rego which I have timed brilliantly to take advantage of my tax cheque) its still heaps!
In other news, I discovered that the Jelly tots sold in specialty stores in Australia are different to the ones in England, ie. they taste shit, and I'm hugely bummed about this fact, especially as my sister just bought me 5 bags. Basically the difference is they they are all artificially favoured, and even though I may have said that 25% fruit juice is way fruitier than I remember, at least it is fruity, whereas the bag I opened last night tasted like plastic. Also a bummer is that the seller I bought the last lot off of says that the combined postage discount is a mere 20p (about 35c) per 8 bags, which is a bit of a rip off, so I have emailed the other seller of jelly tots on eBay, who have no Australian postage costs listed, to see what they can do for me. I've asked for 36 bags.
And I've just remembered that I have an Aunt (Liz) holidaying in England right now. Sweeeeet.
Okay, she's been facebooked. I believe it's late afternoon over there, so here's hoping.
In the meantime, it's a craftalong at one of my other Aunt (Helen's) house tomorrow afternoon. I'll take the retro (which is in dire need of a wash) and the blue/green (I'll put them in together in the morning while I go shopping) as well as the make life bundle, and we can work out how big she wants her baby quilt.
Finally, as well as my nice big tax cheque, I got a 4 fat quarter bundle in the mail today, not much compared to what I'm waiting on, but at least it tided me over for the day and stopped me dashing down to spotlight before I'd done my math.
Discovered that doing a smokeshop close is an excellent opportunity to get your Quiltmath done - just get some of yesterday's reports form the recycle bin and do your sketches and calculations on the back of them - you pass the time, look vaguely like you're doing something important (keep it all in code, then say its shelf layouts) and don't have to do at at home, when you could be doing something more important. Not the quilt though, (which is a test using the cheap cotton quilt you bought at target as batting and are hoping works well, so you can go back and buy a lot of, because they are $10 cheaper and a lot bigger than the regular quilting batting) cause it turns out you needed 1.25m of each fabric, not .75m.
But its not so bad, because my tax cheque is here! Why doesn't firefox want me to spell cheque like that? Ah, Wikipedia says that Americans spell it "check." Silly Americans.
So, I will be off to spotlight in the morning to redeem my $20 discount for spending $80, buying .5m more of each of my 4 purples, as well as .8m of something for binding, 2m of something for main backing and .6m of 2 contrast backings for the piecing. As I'm making it out of $4/m clearance fabrics, that will be waaaay not enough to make the $80 total, (it comes out a bit over $20) but I can fill out the other $60 with stuff I don't really need, because my tax cheque is here! And it's really big! And even after I spend $500 on my car's rego which I have timed brilliantly to take advantage of my tax cheque) its still heaps!
In other news, I discovered that the Jelly tots sold in specialty stores in Australia are different to the ones in England, ie. they taste shit, and I'm hugely bummed about this fact, especially as my sister just bought me 5 bags. Basically the difference is they they are all artificially favoured, and even though I may have said that 25% fruit juice is way fruitier than I remember, at least it is fruity, whereas the bag I opened last night tasted like plastic. Also a bummer is that the seller I bought the last lot off of says that the combined postage discount is a mere 20p (about 35c) per 8 bags, which is a bit of a rip off, so I have emailed the other seller of jelly tots on eBay, who have no Australian postage costs listed, to see what they can do for me. I've asked for 36 bags.
And I've just remembered that I have an Aunt (Liz) holidaying in England right now. Sweeeeet.
Okay, she's been facebooked. I believe it's late afternoon over there, so here's hoping.
In the meantime, it's a craftalong at one of my other Aunt (Helen's) house tomorrow afternoon. I'll take the retro (which is in dire need of a wash) and the blue/green (I'll put them in together in the morning while I go shopping) as well as the make life bundle, and we can work out how big she wants her baby quilt.
Finally, as well as my nice big tax cheque, I got a 4 fat quarter bundle in the mail today, not much compared to what I'm waiting on, but at least it tided me over for the day and stopped me dashing down to spotlight before I'd done my math.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
FML.
Finished the quilting, and liking it very much. It's so much more ripple-y than the others, and that's totally what I wanted. It hasn't even been washed yet.
Even close up, where you can see than not every line has the same tautness, or wave length, and that some of the seams have been pulled off line a bit my the machine, I'm loving it. I wish they were all a bit baggy, instead of just some of them.
So I got it all trimmed and started pinning the binding to it...
Fuck my life.
Even close up, where you can see than not every line has the same tautness, or wave length, and that some of the seams have been pulled off line a bit my the machine, I'm loving it. I wish they were all a bit baggy, instead of just some of them.
So I got it all trimmed and started pinning the binding to it...
Fuck my life.
Looking forward...
I've almost finished the quilting for the blue/green quilt, and, unusually, I'm already looking to the next one.
Thus far, I've pretty much just pushed myself to get to the end of whatever quilt I'm doing and then, once it's finished, taken a while to get stuck into the next one. The design part is the hardest part for me, because it's all most people see. Noone's going to notice that there's a point that doesn't line up, or that the waves on one row of quilting are longer than the ones next to them. They'll look at it and go "why did you decide on snot as a colour scheme?"
Because it's a quilt for me, and I fucking like it, okay?
This time however, with 12 lines of wavy quilting left to do before I get stuck into binding it, I'm starting to think about my next project.
There's 3 main options.
Mama Jan's quilt. Needs to be done eventually, and is all neatly cut and bagged ready to go. But it's going to be very dull piecing, and then we get to trying to fit the panel, and then there's quilting it, which will be a first in that I'm using an actual quilt as the wadding, which is waaay thicker than even the wool I've used in the past. and I still haven't worked out how I'm going to quilt the panel.
Helen's Baby's quilt. This is the one I'm doing with the make Life fabrics, which are all washed and sitting safely in a ziplock bag. I've got 12 fabrics, so it's gunna be smaller than what I've been doing lately, which is 15. And 12 might be too big. I might ask Helen on Saturday how big she thinks she want, whether a little thing would be more practical for a newborn or she'd rather something bigger for when it gets a bit bigger. So it's a hold on that one, even more so because I'm still waiting on the fabric I will use as either the backing or the binding, depending on how big it's gunna be. I've no idea how long it is till she has it either. Must ask that too.
Tickertape test quilt. I bought 5 metres of white flannelette at lincraft's half price thingie, and even though I need to use a couple for a warm underskirt for a ballgown, That leaves me with enough to make a mini tickertape quilt with the rest at double thickness. I think I'd like to make a special thing for the trip to Longernong, which is in about 2 weeks. I'm thinking I might piece some of my collection of 10cm squares together and cut them into a longhorn for the middle, and then tickertape around it, though I'm not sure if that's completely not in the spirit and I should tickertape the longhorns in 1 colour and the rest in another, so it's more subtle. This is my favourite option, as it's new and interesting, but that could change in a couple of days.
Still nothing in the mail today, and I'm starting to get a bit despondent, even though I know that there's 25 metres making its way to me in a big arse box, as well as a bundle of soiree, and another box with 10 meteres in it which, like I assumed, was all in one box, and which should be shipped fairly shortly as it was paid for this morning. It ended up coming to US$38, which is a bit cheaper than I recall it being (somewhere in the $50s I think) so that's good, but not good enough to warrant doing it as often as I would obviously have liked to. I think it comes out to around AU$6.90 per yard, which is good, but not magical. Oh well, it's probably for the best. Also on their way, though I'm not expecting them soon, are 2 pouches for the boat quilt, though I'm not sure that I can be arsed making it for him now. He's being a jerk about Babycat, and no amount of broken glasses apparently are going to change that.
Day off tomorrow and I'm planning on spending a goodly deal of it in town, away from home, trying not to spend too many moneys as the big tax cheque still isn't here. I need to send the camera back to the lady, hopefully pick up many goodies at the post office, spend some more time talking to Vodafone's computer before being randomly disconnected, and... something else... I cant really remember what.
Dunno.
Thus far, I've pretty much just pushed myself to get to the end of whatever quilt I'm doing and then, once it's finished, taken a while to get stuck into the next one. The design part is the hardest part for me, because it's all most people see. Noone's going to notice that there's a point that doesn't line up, or that the waves on one row of quilting are longer than the ones next to them. They'll look at it and go "why did you decide on snot as a colour scheme?"
Because it's a quilt for me, and I fucking like it, okay?
This time however, with 12 lines of wavy quilting left to do before I get stuck into binding it, I'm starting to think about my next project.
There's 3 main options.
Mama Jan's quilt. Needs to be done eventually, and is all neatly cut and bagged ready to go. But it's going to be very dull piecing, and then we get to trying to fit the panel, and then there's quilting it, which will be a first in that I'm using an actual quilt as the wadding, which is waaay thicker than even the wool I've used in the past. and I still haven't worked out how I'm going to quilt the panel.
Helen's Baby's quilt. This is the one I'm doing with the make Life fabrics, which are all washed and sitting safely in a ziplock bag. I've got 12 fabrics, so it's gunna be smaller than what I've been doing lately, which is 15. And 12 might be too big. I might ask Helen on Saturday how big she thinks she want, whether a little thing would be more practical for a newborn or she'd rather something bigger for when it gets a bit bigger. So it's a hold on that one, even more so because I'm still waiting on the fabric I will use as either the backing or the binding, depending on how big it's gunna be. I've no idea how long it is till she has it either. Must ask that too.
Tickertape test quilt. I bought 5 metres of white flannelette at lincraft's half price thingie, and even though I need to use a couple for a warm underskirt for a ballgown, That leaves me with enough to make a mini tickertape quilt with the rest at double thickness. I think I'd like to make a special thing for the trip to Longernong, which is in about 2 weeks. I'm thinking I might piece some of my collection of 10cm squares together and cut them into a longhorn for the middle, and then tickertape around it, though I'm not sure if that's completely not in the spirit and I should tickertape the longhorns in 1 colour and the rest in another, so it's more subtle. This is my favourite option, as it's new and interesting, but that could change in a couple of days.
Still nothing in the mail today, and I'm starting to get a bit despondent, even though I know that there's 25 metres making its way to me in a big arse box, as well as a bundle of soiree, and another box with 10 meteres in it which, like I assumed, was all in one box, and which should be shipped fairly shortly as it was paid for this morning. It ended up coming to US$38, which is a bit cheaper than I recall it being (somewhere in the $50s I think) so that's good, but not good enough to warrant doing it as often as I would obviously have liked to. I think it comes out to around AU$6.90 per yard, which is good, but not magical. Oh well, it's probably for the best. Also on their way, though I'm not expecting them soon, are 2 pouches for the boat quilt, though I'm not sure that I can be arsed making it for him now. He's being a jerk about Babycat, and no amount of broken glasses apparently are going to change that.
Day off tomorrow and I'm planning on spending a goodly deal of it in town, away from home, trying not to spend too many moneys as the big tax cheque still isn't here. I need to send the camera back to the lady, hopefully pick up many goodies at the post office, spend some more time talking to Vodafone's computer before being randomly disconnected, and... something else... I cant really remember what.
Dunno.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Umm, how bout no..?
So I finally got an email from shipito last night saying that they had received my packages. All 3 of them. But then I went to the website and there were only 2. But there should only be one, and since they are both exactly the same size and weight, I'm thinking there is only 1.
What's more, they initially said it would cost $120 to send them, which is almost 10 times what it should be ($13.95 for a flat rate envelope)
If I lived in America, I'd set up a company especially for foreigners who wanted to buy fabric. I would fold it all neatly into seven yard bundles and put it in flat rate envelopes, saving everyone hundreds of dollars. And since I'm fairly sure I could do a bundle in about 10 minutes, I would only charge about $4 per package, as that would earn me over $20 an hour.
It's a good business opportunity for someone in the US. And I would give sooo much business to anyone who offered it.
In other news, I sent off an email to camera lady saying I would be returning it. So another big wait for the inbox, as well as the postbox.
What's more, they initially said it would cost $120 to send them, which is almost 10 times what it should be ($13.95 for a flat rate envelope)
If I lived in America, I'd set up a company especially for foreigners who wanted to buy fabric. I would fold it all neatly into seven yard bundles and put it in flat rate envelopes, saving everyone hundreds of dollars. And since I'm fairly sure I could do a bundle in about 10 minutes, I would only charge about $4 per package, as that would earn me over $20 an hour.
It's a good business opportunity for someone in the US. And I would give sooo much business to anyone who offered it.
In other news, I sent off an email to camera lady saying I would be returning it. So another big wait for the inbox, as well as the postbox.
Waste of a day, and a waste of money...
Today, probably bummed at the fact that there was nothing at the post office for me, I bought a new phone. It's a Nokia 6220 classic, it is 3G, it has a 5mp camera and, most importantly, GPS.
I'd been considering it as a replacement for the old dash for a while, because I cant seem to find anything better than the dash at a decent price, and the dash is starting to show its age. Not that I ever really use it, but it lives at the bottom of a very full handbag, and for some reason lately it has been refusing to send messages when it gets turned back on, which shouldn't matter as I never turn my phone off, but does matter as I often forget to charge it, and it goes flat because of this at least once a fortnight. The SMSes start working again after a few off and ons, but I know it's only a matter of time before it's done for good. So, planning ahead, with the 6220 a massive 40% off (that's about $80) I bought it.
It's locked to vodafone, but its only a $20 unlocking fee after 6 months, and I figure the dash can hold out that long as my actual phone. In the meantime, I'll put a super long expiry on the phone and use it as a GPS - since I already have a Nokia charger in my car for my sisters' phones it should work out well. And at $120, it was cheaper than the dash, and that's only 4 months of ownership (4 and a half if you include unlocking) by my rules of a dollar a day, before I can get a new one if I change my mind. Or Becky steals it.
I have price/usage rules for lots of things. Big ticket items (anything over $100, includes phones, cameras, laptops etc) cannot be replaced until it has been used for as many days as dollars it cost. Little things (clothes, jewellery) must be worn for as many hours as dollars spent. There's and amendment to this rule too - the hours can also include time spent altering. So, if I buy a shirt from the salvos for $3, I have to spend at least 3 hours trying to change it before I can give up and throw it out. As a result of these rules, I have about 20 pairs of jeans (at an average of $7 each I need only wear them for a day) and twice that many long sleeve shirts. Oddly though, I usually wear them the day after I get them, thus filling their commitment, and then put them in the cupboard and go back to rotating though my 3 favourites. But those 3 have evolved over the years, so it's not all bad.
What I really need to do is come up with some similar sort of rule in relation to buying fabrics. So far I have these rules - $3 for fat quarters. No more than $10 per yard after postage is added and spread through the purchase. If you're gunna pay more than $15 a metre, you better bloody love it, or bloody need it. But these rules don't really have any effect on sewing time, or completed project useage time, which as good, as I've not done much in the way of completed projects lately.
No sewing today after work as I cant seem to get up the motivation for the quilting. Actually, I cant get up the motivation to clear around the machine, as there seems to be a bit of a pile up.
Only fabric purchase of the day was another $60 of fabric for dad's boat quilt - there were 2 sellers who each had about half the fabrics I wanted - the first had them 20% off last week and the second 26% off this week, so now I've got all the fish from the Odyssea range, as well as 2 lots of shells and 1 lot of bubbles, and that's enough for the whole quilt (probably single but maybe double) and backing too (well, if I do double, maybe the piecing of the backing, and I'll get a $3 blue from spotlight).
Tomorrow I'm only doing a short shift at work so I ought to be home in time to achieve something, and as always, I'm hoping there will be a massive box of fabrics at the post office waiting to be bought home and looked through. If there is, I don't expect much in the way of actual work to get done.
Randomness for the day... all this playing with the new phone takes me back to the last time I was trying to get a new phone sorted, which was the $30 Virgin one I got for Maddy for her birthday. That was back in January, or possibly the first week of Febuary, and the weather was fucking gorgeous. I've said a few times how little I remember of last summer, since I pretty much blocked it out due to ShitGoingDown. But I remember that afternoon, sitting in my warm car in a t-shirt, talking to the nice indian man on the phone as the sun went down, and then I went to Fasta Pasta and gave it to Maddy.
I am sooo ready for it to be warm again. Sooo ready.
I'd been considering it as a replacement for the old dash for a while, because I cant seem to find anything better than the dash at a decent price, and the dash is starting to show its age. Not that I ever really use it, but it lives at the bottom of a very full handbag, and for some reason lately it has been refusing to send messages when it gets turned back on, which shouldn't matter as I never turn my phone off, but does matter as I often forget to charge it, and it goes flat because of this at least once a fortnight. The SMSes start working again after a few off and ons, but I know it's only a matter of time before it's done for good. So, planning ahead, with the 6220 a massive 40% off (that's about $80) I bought it.
It's locked to vodafone, but its only a $20 unlocking fee after 6 months, and I figure the dash can hold out that long as my actual phone. In the meantime, I'll put a super long expiry on the phone and use it as a GPS - since I already have a Nokia charger in my car for my sisters' phones it should work out well. And at $120, it was cheaper than the dash, and that's only 4 months of ownership (4 and a half if you include unlocking) by my rules of a dollar a day, before I can get a new one if I change my mind. Or Becky steals it.
I have price/usage rules for lots of things. Big ticket items (anything over $100, includes phones, cameras, laptops etc) cannot be replaced until it has been used for as many days as dollars it cost. Little things (clothes, jewellery) must be worn for as many hours as dollars spent. There's and amendment to this rule too - the hours can also include time spent altering. So, if I buy a shirt from the salvos for $3, I have to spend at least 3 hours trying to change it before I can give up and throw it out. As a result of these rules, I have about 20 pairs of jeans (at an average of $7 each I need only wear them for a day) and twice that many long sleeve shirts. Oddly though, I usually wear them the day after I get them, thus filling their commitment, and then put them in the cupboard and go back to rotating though my 3 favourites. But those 3 have evolved over the years, so it's not all bad.
What I really need to do is come up with some similar sort of rule in relation to buying fabrics. So far I have these rules - $3 for fat quarters. No more than $10 per yard after postage is added and spread through the purchase. If you're gunna pay more than $15 a metre, you better bloody love it, or bloody need it. But these rules don't really have any effect on sewing time, or completed project useage time, which as good, as I've not done much in the way of completed projects lately.
No sewing today after work as I cant seem to get up the motivation for the quilting. Actually, I cant get up the motivation to clear around the machine, as there seems to be a bit of a pile up.
Only fabric purchase of the day was another $60 of fabric for dad's boat quilt - there were 2 sellers who each had about half the fabrics I wanted - the first had them 20% off last week and the second 26% off this week, so now I've got all the fish from the Odyssea range, as well as 2 lots of shells and 1 lot of bubbles, and that's enough for the whole quilt (probably single but maybe double) and backing too (well, if I do double, maybe the piecing of the backing, and I'll get a $3 blue from spotlight).
Tomorrow I'm only doing a short shift at work so I ought to be home in time to achieve something, and as always, I'm hoping there will be a massive box of fabrics at the post office waiting to be bought home and looked through. If there is, I don't expect much in the way of actual work to get done.
Randomness for the day... all this playing with the new phone takes me back to the last time I was trying to get a new phone sorted, which was the $30 Virgin one I got for Maddy for her birthday. That was back in January, or possibly the first week of Febuary, and the weather was fucking gorgeous. I've said a few times how little I remember of last summer, since I pretty much blocked it out due to ShitGoingDown. But I remember that afternoon, sitting in my warm car in a t-shirt, talking to the nice indian man on the phone as the sun went down, and then I went to Fasta Pasta and gave it to Maddy.
I am sooo ready for it to be warm again. Sooo ready.
Monday, August 2, 2010
And a real post too...
I did some free motion tests. They didn't go well. If I had to pinpoint a reason, I would say the foot does not go down far enough to get a good hold, making my movements super jerky. If there was more loft, this wouldn't be a problem, but it is.
Also put the walking foot back on, and I'm not a huge fan of that either. I just don't see the point, when my pull feed method works fine for me, it's way less bulky and I don't strain a muscle lifting the foot up. But my second test makes me fairly sure I'm going to wavy line straight quilt the blue/green quilt. I did an around and around with the regular foot and it bunched up a bit at the tight corners, but on the top, not the bottom, which was annoying, as it would mean quilting upside down for a nice finish. So monodirectional it is, and real binding also.
But not tonight. Despite my day off, and lack of any real achievement (basted and tests done, when I was hoping to have at least started to quilt) I'm beat. I did get an entire book read today, as well as about 20 CDs copied for my father though, so it's been a big day mentally, if not physically.
Also put the walking foot back on, and I'm not a huge fan of that either. I just don't see the point, when my pull feed method works fine for me, it's way less bulky and I don't strain a muscle lifting the foot up. But my second test makes me fairly sure I'm going to wavy line straight quilt the blue/green quilt. I did an around and around with the regular foot and it bunched up a bit at the tight corners, but on the top, not the bottom, which was annoying, as it would mean quilting upside down for a nice finish. So monodirectional it is, and real binding also.
But not tonight. Despite my day off, and lack of any real achievement (basted and tests done, when I was hoping to have at least started to quilt) I'm beat. I did get an entire book read today, as well as about 20 CDs copied for my father though, so it's been a big day mentally, if not physically.
Oooh, craftbloggers quiz...
1. Why blog? How did you start?
This is my third blog, not including the beloved facespace. The first was here on blogspot, and was made in about 2003/2004ish, and has since been lost to the mists of the internet. The second was a livejournal, where I hung about being emo, and now use to spy on old enemies who, since I didn't use it for about a year before our falling out, have forgotton that I'm still on their "friends" list and can therefore read anything they post. Mainly, I wanted somewhere to host the toy patterns I had every intention of sharing with the internet. Admittedly, this has not yet come to fruition but I found my book of neat copies of the patterns (as opposed to the scungey notepad paper ones I use normally) so now I've just got to work my way up to scanning them in, which is quite a big job as the scanner is in the big lounge, where I hardly ever go.
2. Family taught/Self-taught/Trained?
Family (mainly 2 grandmas and Helen, my aunt) until I hit my teens, and from then, pretty much just making it up as I went along, with a little help from the internet. When I was in year 10 the craft class staged an uprising against their teacher and had me installed as her replacement, which was both a blessing and curse, as I had my fitness and leisure class at the time (we agreed that I would go for the 2 double (1 1/2hour) lessons a week and they could stick with their regular teacher for the 45 minute lesson, as that was when we did bookwork for f&l, and that got me out of the actual sports but maintained me a B- grade for the semester)
3. Workspace - studio or kitchen table?
The sewing machine is in the bedroom, but I have at least moved off my actual bed and now sit on a gray pouf that sat in my car boot for over a year, until I got dumped and my plans for it changed.
Ironing is done on the kitchen bench, and most of final design work is done on the lino, as is the basting. I do it in the middle of the night though, so as to not get in anyone's way.
4. Blog/Shop name, where does it come from?
As discussed in my opening post, I came up with it the night before I started this after I stepped on a pin and took one sock off to see how much I was bleeding. I then couldn't be bothered putting it back on, and spent the night wearing only one sock.
5. Favourite medium to work in?
Fabric. Always has been fabric. Very into quilting at the moment but I have always thought of myself as a "soft engineer" - bags are probably my favourite but I also love working out the structure of a perfect garment. The way something that is not only soft but also very 2 dimensional can be transformed in to something that's almost 4 dimensions - the fourth being practicality as well as the usual up, down, out - is probably my favourite part of being a crafter.
6. Ambitions/future directions/future projects/medium you'd like to try?
The website I copied this quiz from said "I like pottering around, I want someone to pay me to potter. I don't think that's too much to hope for." And I couldn't agree more. In my brain I would like to design fabric, but in the real world I'm a shit design drawer (person who draws, not something for putting cutlery in) I can only draw what I can see, not what I might like as a design on fabric, so that's never going to happen. I like the idea of doing this properly, being a craft blogger or writer, but I tend to get distracted and write instead about all the adorable stuff my cat has done today.
7. Are you neat and organised or, ahem, creatively messy?
Messy. And not even creatively so. I simply have way too much stuff, and not nearly enough space. I've learnt now how to not buy most of the stuff I don't need (overshoping was a massive problem for me as soon as I got an income) but the thing about crafting is that you simply don't know what you will need, so you buy it just in case. I've stopped buying yarns at least, since the cats chew through anything I try to knit. Still, my room is filled with some half dozen 55L tubs, and there would be twice that out in the sheds. Beads, yarn, fabrics, half done projects, notebooks, bags, toys, I have it all.
8. Favourite handmade, handcrafted item you own?
Bit of a toss up here. My handbag is my most used thing. As an achievement, to do the rainbow quilt as a first quilt, in 10 days, then to enter it into a competition and have it achieve moderate success, that's a freaking high achievement. The retro quilt is my favourite though, because to my eyes, it seems so "quilty". My laptop bag is a fully padded, fur lined, soft engineering triumph, though I never use it now because I never take my laptop anywhere (I used to take it to the ex's 3 times a week.) And the top that I wore to Jess' party last Saturday week, that's freaking awesome too.
9. Favourite food/recipe?
Cant really cook, though I will say that Inghams chicken strips need to be oven baked, whereas Golden Circle straight cut crunchy chips need to be deep fried. I also love coke, and lettuce, and strawberries (even though they give me a belly ache) and jelly tots, and milo on tea breaks, and fritz in the middle of the night.
10. Favourite colour?
Green. The green that the Huggies green fabric softener used to be, before they changed the formulation and it became mildly darker. You can also get it in the cheap embroidery thread at Spotlight, the one that isn't Anchor or DMC.
11. Star sign?
Aquarius, but not a horoscope reader.
12. Favourite place, landscape?
Anything I'm looking at at night through the windscreen of my car. Doing 100 on an empty highway, stereo blaring, the horizon beckoning... If I could write this from the drivers seat of my car, every word would be poetry. It's where I do my thinking, where my ideas come together. It is my only place that for the most part, is a place for only me. The thing I miss most about being single is not having someone who gets all your in jokes, or kissing, or hugging, or sex, or any of that. It's the excuse to go for a 20minute drive 3 nights a week.
13. Any tricks for juggling life/work/family with creative pursuits?
Get up around lunchtime. Interact with your family then, as well as with the shops and the post office. Work 3-11. When you get home, take an hour or so to have some food, relax on the internets for a bit. Then, you've got 4 solid crafting hours before you can go to bed for your 8 hours of sleep. NOTE: this only works if you are 22, and your parents work from home.
14. Favourite artists?
Blergh... Lila Tueler has designed 2 or my favourite ranges (Eden and Soire'e) does that count? Here's an alternative, I've never seen a Kaffe Fassett fabric I would buy. Even if it was in the $2 a metre clearance bin. I simply do not get everyone's obsession with his stuff. His patterns are way to busy for my liking, with too many clashing colours in too small an area, and his edges are not neat. This anti-Kaffe attitude seems to make me unique on the internet.
15. Favourite blog post/thing you've made/photo?
Blergh again... none really. Not till I get the flatbear patterns out on the internets.
16. Three words to describe you?
concentrated (not like orange juice, more like that I focus intently on whatever it is that I'm doing. I tend to scrunch up my forehead a lot)
off-kilter (if I say or do something odd, assume its an obscure reference to something you haven't seen and move on, otherwise there will be explanations. long, convoluted ones)
proficient (this might seem a bit up myself, but I seem to be lucky enough to be either good at most things or able to fake my way through them. The best tip I can offer is this - don't attempt something you will be no good at. This is why I play no sports, and am happy to chat inanely with customers while avoiding saying more than 2 words to management. There are some things I simply cannot do)
17. What do you like to do besides creating?
Facebooking.
Illegally downloading episodes of American and British TV shows as soon as they have finished airing, which is usually 6 months before they air in Australia.
Playing with the cats.
Country Karaoke at Flannies every second Saturday.
Reading.
Driving fast.
Shopping online.
Going to the post office.
Sleeping in.
this quiz was found at flowerpress.blogspot.com
This is my third blog, not including the beloved facespace. The first was here on blogspot, and was made in about 2003/2004ish, and has since been lost to the mists of the internet. The second was a livejournal, where I hung about being emo, and now use to spy on old enemies who, since I didn't use it for about a year before our falling out, have forgotton that I'm still on their "friends" list and can therefore read anything they post. Mainly, I wanted somewhere to host the toy patterns I had every intention of sharing with the internet. Admittedly, this has not yet come to fruition but I found my book of neat copies of the patterns (as opposed to the scungey notepad paper ones I use normally) so now I've just got to work my way up to scanning them in, which is quite a big job as the scanner is in the big lounge, where I hardly ever go.
2. Family taught/Self-taught/Trained?
Family (mainly 2 grandmas and Helen, my aunt) until I hit my teens, and from then, pretty much just making it up as I went along, with a little help from the internet. When I was in year 10 the craft class staged an uprising against their teacher and had me installed as her replacement, which was both a blessing and curse, as I had my fitness and leisure class at the time (we agreed that I would go for the 2 double (1 1/2hour) lessons a week and they could stick with their regular teacher for the 45 minute lesson, as that was when we did bookwork for f&l, and that got me out of the actual sports but maintained me a B- grade for the semester)
3. Workspace - studio or kitchen table?
The sewing machine is in the bedroom, but I have at least moved off my actual bed and now sit on a gray pouf that sat in my car boot for over a year, until I got dumped and my plans for it changed.
Ironing is done on the kitchen bench, and most of final design work is done on the lino, as is the basting. I do it in the middle of the night though, so as to not get in anyone's way.
4. Blog/Shop name, where does it come from?
As discussed in my opening post, I came up with it the night before I started this after I stepped on a pin and took one sock off to see how much I was bleeding. I then couldn't be bothered putting it back on, and spent the night wearing only one sock.
5. Favourite medium to work in?
Fabric. Always has been fabric. Very into quilting at the moment but I have always thought of myself as a "soft engineer" - bags are probably my favourite but I also love working out the structure of a perfect garment. The way something that is not only soft but also very 2 dimensional can be transformed in to something that's almost 4 dimensions - the fourth being practicality as well as the usual up, down, out - is probably my favourite part of being a crafter.
6. Ambitions/future directions/future projects/medium you'd like to try?
The website I copied this quiz from said "I like pottering around, I want someone to pay me to potter. I don't think that's too much to hope for." And I couldn't agree more. In my brain I would like to design fabric, but in the real world I'm a shit design drawer (person who draws, not something for putting cutlery in) I can only draw what I can see, not what I might like as a design on fabric, so that's never going to happen. I like the idea of doing this properly, being a craft blogger or writer, but I tend to get distracted and write instead about all the adorable stuff my cat has done today.
7. Are you neat and organised or, ahem, creatively messy?
Messy. And not even creatively so. I simply have way too much stuff, and not nearly enough space. I've learnt now how to not buy most of the stuff I don't need (overshoping was a massive problem for me as soon as I got an income) but the thing about crafting is that you simply don't know what you will need, so you buy it just in case. I've stopped buying yarns at least, since the cats chew through anything I try to knit. Still, my room is filled with some half dozen 55L tubs, and there would be twice that out in the sheds. Beads, yarn, fabrics, half done projects, notebooks, bags, toys, I have it all.
8. Favourite handmade, handcrafted item you own?
Bit of a toss up here. My handbag is my most used thing. As an achievement, to do the rainbow quilt as a first quilt, in 10 days, then to enter it into a competition and have it achieve moderate success, that's a freaking high achievement. The retro quilt is my favourite though, because to my eyes, it seems so "quilty". My laptop bag is a fully padded, fur lined, soft engineering triumph, though I never use it now because I never take my laptop anywhere (I used to take it to the ex's 3 times a week.) And the top that I wore to Jess' party last Saturday week, that's freaking awesome too.
9. Favourite food/recipe?
Cant really cook, though I will say that Inghams chicken strips need to be oven baked, whereas Golden Circle straight cut crunchy chips need to be deep fried. I also love coke, and lettuce, and strawberries (even though they give me a belly ache) and jelly tots, and milo on tea breaks, and fritz in the middle of the night.
10. Favourite colour?
Green. The green that the Huggies green fabric softener used to be, before they changed the formulation and it became mildly darker. You can also get it in the cheap embroidery thread at Spotlight, the one that isn't Anchor or DMC.
11. Star sign?
Aquarius, but not a horoscope reader.
12. Favourite place, landscape?
Anything I'm looking at at night through the windscreen of my car. Doing 100 on an empty highway, stereo blaring, the horizon beckoning... If I could write this from the drivers seat of my car, every word would be poetry. It's where I do my thinking, where my ideas come together. It is my only place that for the most part, is a place for only me. The thing I miss most about being single is not having someone who gets all your in jokes, or kissing, or hugging, or sex, or any of that. It's the excuse to go for a 20minute drive 3 nights a week.
13. Any tricks for juggling life/work/family with creative pursuits?
Get up around lunchtime. Interact with your family then, as well as with the shops and the post office. Work 3-11. When you get home, take an hour or so to have some food, relax on the internets for a bit. Then, you've got 4 solid crafting hours before you can go to bed for your 8 hours of sleep. NOTE: this only works if you are 22, and your parents work from home.
14. Favourite artists?
Blergh... Lila Tueler has designed 2 or my favourite ranges (Eden and Soire'e) does that count? Here's an alternative, I've never seen a Kaffe Fassett fabric I would buy. Even if it was in the $2 a metre clearance bin. I simply do not get everyone's obsession with his stuff. His patterns are way to busy for my liking, with too many clashing colours in too small an area, and his edges are not neat. This anti-Kaffe attitude seems to make me unique on the internet.
15. Favourite blog post/thing you've made/photo?
Blergh again... none really. Not till I get the flatbear patterns out on the internets.
16. Three words to describe you?
concentrated (not like orange juice, more like that I focus intently on whatever it is that I'm doing. I tend to scrunch up my forehead a lot)
off-kilter (if I say or do something odd, assume its an obscure reference to something you haven't seen and move on, otherwise there will be explanations. long, convoluted ones)
proficient (this might seem a bit up myself, but I seem to be lucky enough to be either good at most things or able to fake my way through them. The best tip I can offer is this - don't attempt something you will be no good at. This is why I play no sports, and am happy to chat inanely with customers while avoiding saying more than 2 words to management. There are some things I simply cannot do)
17. What do you like to do besides creating?
Facebooking.
Illegally downloading episodes of American and British TV shows as soon as they have finished airing, which is usually 6 months before they air in Australia.
Playing with the cats.
Country Karaoke at Flannies every second Saturday.
Reading.
Driving fast.
Shopping online.
Going to the post office.
Sleeping in.
this quiz was found at flowerpress.blogspot.com
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Time for bed... was 2 hours ago...
It's nearly 4 am and I have run out of pins, halfway through my basting. I'm sure I've got another magnet full of them somewhere, but I do believe it's time to call it a night.
I did a cute bit of piecing for the back - the fabric is a (mainly) green with a (little bit of) blue stripe which I've put going up and down. I did 3 little lines across about 20cm from the bottom about 5 cm high each, 2 cut horizontal strips of the blue section of the stripes on top and below a strip of the fabric I'm using for the binding, and then one column about 25cm wide with the lines going horizontal instead of vertical and 4 short strips of the binding fabric in it.
I took a picture, but the camera is on the other side of the room, and I'm half in bed.
I also downloaded the Fat Quarterly today, that online magazine thingie that varies in price every time, because even though I get the impression that it's Australian, it's sold in US dollars. Weird. But anyway, they were talking about beginning free motioning, and said pretty much exactly what I said last night - that you need to do it on an actual project otherwise you wont try and it'll look terrible and you'll give up. So, after I sleep, and get up, and find my pins, and finish basting, I'll be rolling the quilt back up again, and re-discovering my laptop sleeves. They were what I quilted before I quilted quilts, but I did them with wool wadding, and in straight lines. I still have some cuts of wool wadding, and even though it feels very different to the bamboo, (it's stiffer, and the bamboo has way more static cling) it's a good place to start.
I did a cute bit of piecing for the back - the fabric is a (mainly) green with a (little bit of) blue stripe which I've put going up and down. I did 3 little lines across about 20cm from the bottom about 5 cm high each, 2 cut horizontal strips of the blue section of the stripes on top and below a strip of the fabric I'm using for the binding, and then one column about 25cm wide with the lines going horizontal instead of vertical and 4 short strips of the binding fabric in it.
I took a picture, but the camera is on the other side of the room, and I'm half in bed.
I also downloaded the Fat Quarterly today, that online magazine thingie that varies in price every time, because even though I get the impression that it's Australian, it's sold in US dollars. Weird. But anyway, they were talking about beginning free motioning, and said pretty much exactly what I said last night - that you need to do it on an actual project otherwise you wont try and it'll look terrible and you'll give up. So, after I sleep, and get up, and find my pins, and finish basting, I'll be rolling the quilt back up again, and re-discovering my laptop sleeves. They were what I quilted before I quilted quilts, but I did them with wool wadding, and in straight lines. I still have some cuts of wool wadding, and even though it feels very different to the bamboo, (it's stiffer, and the bamboo has way more static cling) it's a good place to start.
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