Sunday.

Today I simply could not focus. After helping Mum pack for a bit, since they're pissing off around the country for a few weeks, I put the fabrics for today's top in the washing machine. Then, while that was going, I decided I'd to a tiny quilt, well, not tiny tiny, but the size of my leftover bit of batting, which was around 65cm wide by about 1m. So I got all the scraps from quilts numbers 13 and 14 and laid them all out on the batting, but then I couldn't sew them because there was a really quite interesting documentary on the Melbourne Cup on TV and anyway, Casey was asleep on my bed. So I faffed about a bit more, and cooked myself some chips, and read the newspaper, and helped Mum and Dad re-cover a card table, and, eventually, (much later) A teeny tiny quilt top got made. Then I couldn't find any pins, so I basted it to the batting, and attached the back (from Soiree by Lila Tueller) with save a stitch iron on webbing tape. Just as an experiment.

Tonight, while doing more faffing about instead of doing this post, I quilted it, quite nicely I feel, in a wavy-stitch-pseudo-free-motion-thingie. It needs binding before I can wash it and see if the webbing has affected the final condition at all, but for now it looks nice.

Anyway, obviously, that wasn't my actual planned quilt top to make today. Around having fish and chips for tea, missing both Offspring and Bones but watching Juno yet again, only with ads this time, and cooking myself some chocolate cupcakes, I got this made.

 

Apologies for the crap photos but I couldn't be bothered sweeping the floor so I could take a nice overhead shot, and I didn't want the batting to get all dirty.

Helen's probably a bit excited since she bought the fabrics above for Bob's quilt, but for everyone who didn't know, That's Bob's quilt. Bob is the big brother of Esther, who missed out on a quilt when he was born since I wasn't actually quilting then, but here it is. Upside down, but I also couldn't be bothered turning it around, and this was the end with the couch to stand on.

I'm so hugely proud of the fact that the fish are all the same way up. I rock.

Some kind of backing will be pieced tomorrow so that I can get it properly basted, even if I don't get into the actual quilting for a bit. In case you were wondering, I have since found more pins.

Saturday.

The wonderful thing about quilting, and quilt blogging in particular, is the fact that we're all in it together. I'm really liking being a part of this online festival thing, because it's given me an excuse to look at stuff other people have done, without even having to sift through quilters with hugely different styles than mine. I click on a quilt I like, and it takes me to the maker. I can tell them I like it, just as they can tell me they like mine.

I'm so glad lots of people like my quilt. There seems to be much agreement that cheerfulness is a good thing in a quilt, and hey, everybody loves a rainbow.

Today's top of the day isn't quite a rainbow, but it's a cheerful little thing nonetheless. I was soooo not on the mood to do it today - I stalled and stalled till about 3.30, even though I had to start work at 5.30, and then, after a bit more blog reading, decided to suck it up and do something.

Someone had mentioned doing their line quilting by pretty much covering their top in strips of wide masking tape, and sewing down along the gaps. I'd always done a neat, regular top to do my quilting to, and then pieced a crazy back and aligned it diagonally, so the seams didn't have to line up. But if I used masking tape to get my lines, I could crazy piece a top instead.

I really like it in it's funky retro colour scheme, but it was kinda cheating, using a big bit in the middle like that. I got it done in an hour and a half before I had to go to work, so when I got home tonight I did it a back as well.

The bits on the back are a lot smaller, because I only had little bits left, and I had to add a few more fabrics to fill it out. I'm thinking a bright blue binding of some sort will complete my rainbow and bring it all together.

I'm gunna try to do a "big" quilt tomorrow - 120 by 150cm ish. I've no idea how big today's quilt was - it's however big the bit of batting I had was, and it'll get trimmed down even further because it's not actually all that square.

Friday

Just because I got all sentimental about the rainbow quilt earlier doesn't mean I didn't still do another simple baby top tonight.

It's nothing amazing, but boy coloured baby quilts are tough. You can either spend a fortune on some funky designer print, or do something perfectly lovely but a bit bland for $6. I think I want to quilt it in a really bold blue cotton, I'm even thinking of doing some tests to see if I can quilt it upside down and use an embroidery thread in my bobbin for some special accents. I think that might make it pop.

I actually had this one almost completed before work tonight, but after I got home I got distracted by the frankly excellent idea of an online quilt festival, and then I had to go pick up my drunk (well, to be fair, only actually tipsy, but still not okay to drive) sister, and then I realised I'd missed Offspring last week and I needed to catch up before Sunday, so again, super late (it's 3am here in South Australia) night.

And then we come to tomorrow, which it actually is already but I don't let that count untill I've woken up. My plans include making lots and lots of scrunchies, since I like scrunchies, but I don't have another top planned. Sunday's is, since I have the day off and can commit to the bigness that it is, but for tomorrow? I still have the pink and brown pile, but I'm a bit ambivalent after doing 3 stack and slash quilts in a row. I'd like to do something that's only the size of the bits of batting that I have left (about 75cm by 95cm) so I'll probably have to do some math.

I guess we'll all find out in 24 hours, wont we?

Bloggers Quilt Festival fall 2010 entry.

I had to think a bit about what I felt like entering into my first ever Bloggers Quilt Festival. Officially, my favourite quilt I've ever made is my Mingle Wonky Mini Quilt. But I looked through everyone else's, and my favourites were all spectral/rainbow ones. That make it a whole lot easier to pick one to showcase. This isn't the kind of thing I would normally do, but, if I'm honest, once upon a time, neither was quilting. I came to it via laptop sleeves, which I came at from laptop bags, and it's all a bit by accident that I'm now a quilter.

After putting in stupid huge amounts of effort to sew foam padded laptop bags with zips and pockets and handles and all sorts of fancy things, I realised that really, all you needed was a regular bag to put all your extra bits in and then a lightly padded sleeve for the laptop itself. I started sewing straight strips together to make the sleeves look pretty, but I didn't bother with super accurate cutting, or ironing the seams, or any fancy stuff like that. They were rarely more than 40 cm wide, so accuracy wasn't hugely important. But I was willing to admit, the straighter I cut, the smoother it was, and the nicer it looked.

So, one day, for no reason other than an excess of money, I bought a rotary cutter. One of the $10 ones from Spotlight, because I didn't take it seriously enough to get one of the expensive ones. All their cutting mats were in inches though, so I got an A4 sized one for $3 from Cheap as Chips. I set about cutting all my fat quarters into 10cm squares, that I could then reassemble into the outsides of laptop sleeves*.

The next Monday, I found out that Spotlight were having a quilt show/competition on Thursday. I decided, that since I had all these lovely 10cm squares cut up, I would make a quilt. Only a little one, since I only had 4 days, and I was new to this whole thing, but hey. A real quilt.

I had a top pieced by mid Wednesday, so I went in to get batting and backing. I got wool, since that's what I was using for the laptop sleeves, and I got full width, since I could cut the edge off for a few more sleeves. Then, I found out that actually, it was next Thursday.

Damn. 20+ hours of sewing in two days wasn't a necessary as I had thought. Mum said I should make it bigger, so I decided I'd fill out the whole batting. I had run out of some of my fabrics though, but I got some more, and chopped up old part-done projects as well. That's why there's some fabrics that are only at one end.

Technique-wise, it's a bit shoddy. The border/binding is just the backing folded round, so the in the ditch quilting, which sometimes is aside the ditch quilting, isn't set in at the ends, and I used a different colour cotton for the top and the bottom, so it shows through on the back occasionally. There's a lot of squares that now I think I should switch and, despite the fact that they're different kinds and qualities of fabrics, I didn't prewash them (because they were never intended for a quilt) so now I'm scared to get it dirty. It's on my bed, with other quilts on top of it, but in the morning before I make my bed, I can see all these little rainbow patches in the gaps between them.

When I move out of my parents house, into a place with walls big enough to hang a single bed quilt, I'll probably feature it on a wall, but for now, I like it like it is, a secret rainbow quilt just for me.

*I haven't made a laptop sleeve since.

Letters to people, places and things...

Dear Baybcat, it's been a week. Come home please. I miss you.

Dear the writers of White Collar, I'm sorry it took me so long to get around to season two, but my internets didn't get big till this week. That's not actually what I wanted to talk to you about; if you've killed off Mozzie I'm gunna come over there and beat you up.

Dear USA Network, fix your website. Streaming video should not use that much processing power. Also, there's a problem with your audio, but since the ads sound fine, I think it's shoddy sound recording, as opposed to the player's fault, for all that it has it's issues. Also, if you're gunna play adverts before EVERY video clip, get more than 3 of them.

Dear laptop power cable. Just stay in the damn hole.

Dear blog readers, I got the top finished. I also made two headbands for bandanna day tomorrow. But I only have one picture.

A headband is just a headband. Well, two headbands. Made especially to fit my head, but still giving me a bit of a headache. I'm not a headband girl, but I'm even less a bandanna girl. But it's bandanna day, so hey, it's only a short shift. I typed that initially as shit. I'm supervising, so it probably will be.

Dear universe, I promise I'll do the two tyred top in two very different prints one day. Maybe it's trying to separate the colourways in my brain that's giving me a headache.

Dear Headband, Sorry I blamed you. We'll see tomorrow night if I take it back.

So it'll be a "two tyred" top in two days this time...

I got a bit bored with the 6 fat quarters quilt tops and decided to be ambitious and do a two tyred one instead.

Unfortunately, I finished my 8 hour shift with a very nasty tummy ache, and then got distracted looking for Casey's Christmas present, and then got distracted looking at perfume websites. I know you wont know how it smells to you try it on yourself, but well, even then I wont know. At lease online it will tell me what it smells like, useful information that's rarely available in shops.

Back to the point - I'm not gunna get it finished. It's blocks, which have twice as much sewing as a 6fq top, so I'm feeling proud of the progress, but it's late, I am tired, and I have another long day tomorrow. This top can be shared over the two days, which prevents me from having to come up with another mystery top. I had 3 more tops planned for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, but nothing for tomorrow. So it's kinda a good thing.

Here it is now, anyway.

They're very rich colours, so it's probably not really kiddie, but I'm trying to get some more mature looking ones done too, more as examples than to sell.

Tomorrow though. I'm gunna feed my face for a bit, then go to bed.

Top a day #2

If I'm honest, the main reason for this top a day thing is that it's a bit depressing to just do a post that says "still no good news."

If I have a quilt top, even only a little one, that's something, right?

Once again, 6 fat quarters, and even better, these were from the $1 discontinued basket at Spotlight. So, whole quilt top - $6. And using $2p/m fabric for the backing and the binding, we come to a total cost (since 1 metre of $15p/m of batting fits 2 of these wide) of under $20.

The problem with the cheaper stuff is that it really does need prewashing. It washes up surprisingly soft - not smooth and silky like the expensive stuff, more like a worn down flannelette, but it does shrink a fair bit in the process.

I've got another dozen or two in the dryer now, as well as the backing and binding for this and the green one. I had kinda planned to get a head start on tomorrow's top, but then, I had also planned on doing the blue and brown one, and I'm not sure whether I still feel like doing that one, or whether I might do another two tyred one in some red and green fabrics I've had forever. That sounds christmassy, but it's not really, since they both have lots of flowers on them, and I have over a metre of each, so I might be able to do the whole quilt in just the two fabrics.

But I am working 8 hours tomorrow too, so we'll see how it goes.

A top a day...

Even though it's late, I got the first of my "top-a-day"s done.

It's such an unusual assortment of fabrics, and the placement is almost completely random. A couple of the greens look really brown in this picture, but they aren't.

Current size is around 95x100cm, but the pattern confuses your eye about the shape.

Didn't take very long, since the 2 sews per block were in the same direction, so it didn't need any trimming. 

This was made from 6 American fat quarters, and I'll need 1m of fabric for the back, and 35cm for the binding.

Tomorrow I'll be doing a green and purple top.

PS. I'm planning on trying to get one done each day for a week for a week.

PPS. Still no news on Babycat.

Piccies

I promised pictures. As ever, they're not brilliant, but the things in them are :)

Fabric is from the Amy Butler Ginseng range, and I think it might actually be home dec weight. It was $2.50 from fabric.com.

I love how crinkly it has turned out. I think it will do one with all the cuts the same as the square one up, 3 across from the bottom right. That seems to stand out as a nice angle to me.

I've started on the blue and green one.

The good and the... well, nothingness, really...

Still no sign of Babycat, but tomorrow is Monday, and I'll be calling all the vets and the pound, and hoping for the best.

Did at least get some good news today - BJ is fixed! Hurrah, and even more hurrah for the fact that it is only costing me $900 (last time it was about $1700) on the proviso that I buy something Japanese, soon, and never bring a Mondeo back again. Seems fair enough.

I've been using an Astra for the past few days, and well, it's certainly not "the one". It has very uncomfortable seats, and windows that you wind up by hand. It goes like stink though, which is nice, but if I'm spending twice as much, I want it to be twice as good. This is simply not. I should also point out that it goes like stink compared to BJ, who accelerated at a pace not dissimilar to continental drift.

After working all day I did some prewashing and ironing (I'm comfortable now with not prewashing the more expensive fabrics, but the cheaper stuff from Spotlight definitely gets prewashed.) After the success of yesterday's quilt I've remembered how much I missed the stack and slash quilting I used to do, so I've sorted out 4 bundles of 6 fat quarters each, and cut them into neat16ths (two bundles are 23x25cm, one is 22x25 and one is 23x24) ready to slash when I get to them. Two are boy colours (well, there's a blue and brown and a blue and green, in flower-free prints) because I'm worried that I don't have enough boy quilts.

I don't start work until 5.30 tomorrow night, which is good, and since I realised tonight that the icky feeling I've had all day is probably just indigestion, I doubt I'll be calling in sick like I had considered. Still, the late start means I should at least get one top done before work.

Also, I the weather is nice, I promise I'll take some photos.