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.

Something.

I was going to get straight into sewing, but it was the final episode of Castle tonight (only for the season, thankfully) and it was so good I had to watch it twice.

But I got a bit of sewing done, making a start on another quiltlet, or possibly just a large, technically incorrect, orphaned block.

I rotated that bottom four patch again because I didn't like the fabric with the dots connecting with itself on the bottom edge - it's the more prominent fabric in the real world, though on my computer screen it looks to be the floral. I guess what I'm wondering though, is is it still a mistake if you thought about and did it on purpose? It's not technically correct, as I said before, but that's only the case if it's meant to be a repeating block. It was, initially, and the fact that the HSTs repeat themselves gives the impression of it being a mistake, but I liked it better this way, and I'm sticking with it.

But I'd kinda like to do a whole quilt with it repeating properly, in solids, cause I think it'd look pretty damn cool. Even two colours.

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.

Why I have eaten a block of chocolate and done no sewing tonight at all.

My internet is running weird and it's driving me bonkers.

The Lattice Quilt - Cutting and Assembly Instructions

Having now done this quilt 3 times, I'm fairly confident that it's all sorted. The first one I was hacking up my fabric randomly, making it up as I went along, the second time was a bit better, and the third time it all came together flawlessly. The instructions for a quilt cut from yardage come to approximately 135cm, one made using a layer cake will be approximately 155cm, with a narrower border than shown.

If you are cutting all the fabrics yourself, first you will need 36 rectangles measuring 20x10cm (4x8") I cut these from 18 fabrics, and used the rest of the width of the fabric to cut a strip to make a scrappy binding, but it could be done with less fabrics - if you have twelve prints cut three of each, if you have nine, cut four from each.

From 1.8m (2 yards) of solid background fabric, first cut across the width of the fabric five strips 20cm (8") wide, then cut these strips into 25 squares, five across the width of the fabric.

Next, cut 2 strips 30cm (12") wide, then cut these into 6 squares, 3 across the width of the fabric. From the edges of the strips, cut six 10cm (4") squares.

From the remainder of the fabric, cut four squares of 16cm (6.5") and six more 10cm (4") squares.

Finally, cut your 30cm (12") squares and your 16cm (6.5") squares into HSTs.

If you are using layer cakes, you will need at least 18 squares of print (cut in half) and 34 squares of solid - 25 remain whole, six are cut in half into twelve HSTs and three are quartered into 5" squares.

Lay your prints out or up on your design wall to get a layout you like. I just put mine randomly.

Add the little squares in the corners.

Add the big squares in the gaps, as well as one at the outside of every print.

Sew the pieces together into diagonal rows and press the seams. There will be two pieces at either edge that wont be sewn yet.

Sew the rows into pairs with their neighbour of the same length. The centre row will remain on it's own. Press the seams

Attach a large HST to the ends of each row, with the right angle matching the edge of the printed fabric. There will be a slight overhang on the edge of the solid fabric. Trim this off after pressing. If you are using Layer Cakes, the opposite will happen - the triangle will not reach to the edge of the strip. The jagged edges left over by the original squares will be trimmed down after the top is completed.

Sew all your rows together and press the seams. If you are using Layer Cakes, trim the points from the edges - the squares in the corners should contain enough fabric to be trimmed to right angles at the same line as the low edges of the HSTs.

Sew the remaining four HSTs to the corners.

Tada! Very simple, Very quick quilt top.

I haven't yet made a back or quilted mine, but I'll update with some photos when I do.

Favourite things 5am Saturday

I had hoped to be able to get the tutorial for the Lattice quilt up tonight, but after I finished it, about an hour ago, I got a bit distracted by the all important staring-at-the-quilt-top-thinking step. It's still my favourite thing this week, but without a tutorial to go with it. Tomorrow night, hopefully.

I'm also loving Instagram, since it's hard to take nice photos of quilts at night in the kitchen. But I don't see why it can't just upload the pictures to Picasa - I know that one's owned by Facebook and the other by Google, but I think we should just all be friends.

I love it when I work out the maths well enough that there's very little wastage from my cutting. The pale blue of the background fabric started as a 1.8 metre (2 yards) cut, and that little pile was all the scrap leftover, including (mainly, in fact) selvedges and squaring up.

I love, partway through the pinning, realising, without intending to, exactly how much you would need to make this quilt using layer cakes. Answer - not much (34 neutral squares, 18 prints. The border would be narrower and the whole thing scaled up, obviously, but the only cutting would be the printed fabrics in half, 3 neutrals into quarters and 6 neutrals into HSTs, and then trimming it all square.)

I love a stripy binding.

I love now knowing how to crochet, even if, honestly, I don't find myself loving the crochet itself.

I love peppermint hedgehog logs, even if they make my arms hurt to roll them, and they look like poo.

I love the way the hands on my watch glow in the dark.

I love boiled potato with chicken salt. And a cold coke.

I love my electric blanket.

I love other stuff too, but I'm too tired to remember it.

Life lesson #576

If you eat about a bowl and a half of coconut while making peppermint rolls at about midnight, you'll still be awake at 6am, running back and forth to the loo.

Seriously, why do old people bother with prunes? Coconut tastes much nicer.

Slow stripes

I'm not sure why it took me so long to cut my fabric tonight. Maybe it was because you have to be more careful to align your stripes with your cutting. Maybe it's because I kept getting distracted by youtube videos. Maybe it's because I was simultaneously cutting the binding*

Probably the one about alignment, mainly, I think. Yes, definitely that one.

It all looks very pretty from the edge though.

*Stripey rainbow pieced binding, same fabrics as featured in the piecing of the top. It will be brilliant.

Working with what I've got.

It turns out, there's a lot of rainbow stripes in my stash - two thirds of this bundle were just sitting there waiting, and there were 6 more that got taken out and replaced for a variety of reasons.

I'm thinking of doing the Lattice quilt with rainbow stripes and a blue background, just because I'd like to see what it would look like. I'm also thinking of doing it with 4 repeating solids, on a very dark grey, but I'm very slowly writing up a list of solids that I need next time I do a fabric shack order, and frankly, it's not urgent. The light blue of the background is a Prima from Spotlight, and it's a near perfect match to Kona Aqua.

Oh, and if you thought yesterday's maths was hard to understand, this is how it was actually worked out - on the bottom of a cardboard jewellery box, 2 square inches, because I couldn't find any paper handy.

And no, I didn't get any binding done...

Everybody, feel free to ignore this post. It's just the math for the Lattice quilt, in a place where I won't lose it, and can access it from my phone.

To make smaller quilt (as per blue and green) Approx 145cm square.

In prints:
cut rectangles 20cm x 10cm. Total of 36 (18 prints cut 2, 12 prints cut 3, 9 prints cut 4)

From 2 yards (1.8m) of solid:
cut 25 squares 20cm x 20cm (5 across width of fabric)
cut 6 squares 30cm x 30cm (3 across width of fabric) then into 12 HST
cut 2 squares 16cm x 16cm, then into 4 HST
cut 12 squares 10cm x 10cm (from rest of previous strip, and offcuts of 30cm squares)

Sew diagonal rows of squares and rectangles in pairs, except for centre row, which stays on it's own. Add large HSTs to ends of paired rows. Join all rows into top. Add small HSTs to corners. Wallah.

Oh, and for future reference, to calculate the length of a side when all you know is the hypotenuse of a HST; √(c²÷2)