A Little of This and a Little of That

It has been a grey old day. I even contemplated putting the heat on briefly this morning as there was a distinct chill in the air - but I refuse to do that in May so I kept my jacket on for a while after the school run. Rain dripped down most of the day and there was the odd rumble of thunder but, disappointingly, no proper storm. I love a good thunder and lightening storm.

So I did a little of this and a little of that. Gave some attention to the house. Not much but enough to convince me that I earned some sewing time. I finished doing my loopy loops on the Pips quilt. I quite like the effect they have but I don't think that this photo shows them off very well. There are too many shadows and it looks as if the quilt is all wrinkly and crinkly already.

I may try and get the binding cut tonight. Instead of doing the binding after I finished quilting the Pips I did a little more FMQ on my mini quilt. The birds are all done now - other than the fact that I just looked at the photo and realised that the two flying birds don't have the little curlicues on their heads - and I sewed the lines that I am going to put the music notes on.

The highlight of my day - so far. Making a swiss roll. Why? Because it is dead easy to make and with no one else home someone has to eat the off cuts. Me, me, me!

I have a bonus child here now so I had best sort out the pasta sauce and make some changes to the sewing dining room so they can actually sit at the table. Maybe get the fabric well away as an accident with bolognaise sauce would be too ugly to contemplate.

Susan

My Machine Has Been Swearing At Me!

On the premise that when you hear a *bleep* on television you know that a swear word has been covered up, I can only surmise that my sewing machine has spent the best part of the afternoon swearing at me. How rude! It has just been beep, after beep, after beep. We shall not discuss that my machine makes that sound when you are going too fast with the FMQ. That is completely besides the point.

To everyone who left a message yesterday, and to those who didn't, thank you for your kind thoughts. I am feeling a lot better for a day of rest. It is unusual for me to be so knocked sideways by somethings as normal as a cold and I do believe I am just about normal again - or as close to normal as I have ever been. But I appreciate your sentiments.

The hardest thing about yesterday, relaxing, was not the doing nothing. I got quite into that groove and think I could grow to like it. No, it was the staying off the computer as much as possible. Blogs, Facebook, all that thing - you don't realise how much of your day can be taken up with 'quick checks' until you deny yourself. Probably did me quite good to have the reality check!

Today it was back to normal. Even doing housework. (shhhh! Don't tell anyone!) And also back to my (very rude) sewing machine.

I was surprised to receive the backing fabric that I ordered from The States only last week. It landed on my doorstep yesterday. There was no longer an excuse to avoid pinning some of my quilt tops. To break myself in gently first I decided to do the Double Fat Jack. A search through my thread produced one that matched just about perfectly. The fact that I think it is hand quilting thread and may even be waxed was ignored. It worked a charm.

Don't you just love wooden spools? I have a thing for them!

I went with a very simple pattern for quilting the flag and stuck with straight lines and my walking foot. I also used this doohickey (don't bother telling me the correct name because I won't remember) for the first time -

Well, doesn't it just keep you on the right path. I wish I knew what I know now five years ago when I began quilting. (Maybe I should have read up a little more about it before I jumped in feet first!) Either way, Fat Jack is quilted, simply and sparingly and is headed towards becoming a pillow (when I buy some more fabric for the backing).

With the flag moved on to the next step I chose one of the Pips quilt tops to layer up. Then I was in pinning hell. Is there anyone out there who actually enjoys the process of joining the backing, to the wadding, to the quilt top? I mean really! But I did it because it is a necessary evil.

Then I set up my machine for FMQ - and that was when the swearing commenced! I have decided on a looping pattern for the quilting, thinking that it was sort of like the path a child on a scooter would take - or a puppy - always the indirect one. I am about a third of the way through the quilting. The bobbin just ran out. I took a deep breath, and thought now would be a good time to write my blog. I'll do some more tomorrow.

Susan

Treats of a Non-Fabric Nature

Today I am not doing anything. No cooking. No cleaning. No sewing. I will pick the girls up from school as I did take them so sort of shot myself in the foot there. I have decided that I am not recovering from this silly bug I caught fast enough so therefore I am going to very slothlike and just let my body rest.

It feels weird!

In aid of this quest I went shopping. I bought treats. Nutrition did not come into the equation anywhere. Dinner will involve opening packages and heating the contents in the oven. I may peal a carrot or two, and slice some cucumber to accompany it and ease my guilty mother conscience. That has yet to be decided.

For myself I have bought this -

- because I love cook books. I think they make good reading and I couldn't resist the cover on this one. It does not mean I am going to suddenly leap up and whip up a batch of macaroons. It does mean that I will read it and crave them and wish that they didn't cost about £2 each in the shops. Some day I will have to give you a glimpse of my cook book collection and you will see that I am a woman possessed.

In my quest to relax I bought two books of the non-challenging sort. Good, fun, easy reads that brighten a day and make you smile in the end. Girlie reads.

For tonight I have another treat. Of the non-alcoholic nature because I don't tend to have a drink when John is not here in case - well just in case some unknown thing happened and I had to drive the car in the middle of the night, etc. Paranoid thinking, I am sure, but since I didn't buy myself a nice wine I opted for a nice dessert instead.

As I was feeling good hearted and happy with the world once I made the decision that I was going to avoid all activity today I enjoyed my shop for things usually forbidden, and I topped off the shopping bag with a treat for the girls because I love them.

So, I am off to toast a bagel, read a book and - hopefully - fall asleep. I have set my alarm just in case that scenario happens. Wouldn't want the school ringing to find out where I am!!

Susan

How I Find Time To Sew

There has been an opinion expressed, occasionally, from friends that they don't know where I find the time to make things. I will give you an example of how easy it can be some days - like today for example.

First, have your alarm go off at 6am. Not by choice but because himself needed to get up and head off to southern regions and work. Lie there and quickly realise that you are not going to get back to sleep. Reach for the iPad and catch up with your blog reading before the day has really begun for all intents and purposes.

When you get out of bed open the curtains. Take in the blustery winds and copious amounts of clouds and quickly come to the decision that it would be in your best interests not to strip the beds and wash all the bedding today as it just might rain.

When you come downstairs, open the fridge and do a quick check. Leftover chicken - check. Leftover stuffing - check. Leftover sweetcorn - check. Consider dinner all but sorted.

You can see where I am going with this. The quick elimination of other tasks quickly opens a huge window of time that can be filled with sewing. And maybe even a nap. How good could a day get? So, shall I show you what I got up to in this recently created time?

Oh please!! You don't think it was as easy as all that, do you? Nah! John called soon after I returned from the school run/shops trip. He then proceeded to have me sign onto the company computer and talk me through Quick Books, invoice writing, finding the power lead to the scanner (Scanner? I didn't even know we had a scanner!), blah, blah, blah. That was the best part of an hour gone. I don't begrudge him the time as this was something that needed doing, but it was less sewing time.

To recover from that trauma I had to sit and have a drink (not alcoholic, silly), and a snack. Just got into the groove again and cut out the bondage bondaweb stuff to iron on to my applique pieces. The phone rang. Helen wasn't feeling too well and could I come and get her. Of course I could! No problem. Poor darling. I even sat and cuddled her through a recorded episode of Dr Who. It was well into the afternoon by then.

But I got my sticky, gluey stuff ironed onto the backs of the applique bits and then ironed the fence bits onto the quilt. Promptly stood back, had a look and kicked myself metaphorically as I was not pleased with exactly where I put the slats on the fence. One was too low and the other was wonky. I quickly found out that it is possible to peal those buggers off.

Attempt number two was slightly more pleasing. Next step was to FMQ (free motion quilt) my wood effect. I am very glad that wood grain does not run in a straight line because either does my FMQ.

I squared everything off and then added the borders and mitred the corners - another first for me. This whole mini quilt is just one big learning curve for me.

With just minutes left before having to go get Emily from school I whacked on those birds with minimal thought or planning. It seems to me that this gives me better results at times. When I think too much it all can go horribly wrong.

You may (or you may not) notice that the previously orange bird has morphed into a purple one instead. The orange just seemed to in  your face compared to his friends and it didn't work for me.

With Emily home from school I thought I would get more done but Emily announced she was going to do a disappearing nine patch mini quilt for a friend and dove head first into my fabric hoard. After my heart palpitations faded I assisted her in her choices. For assisted you should read I steered her away from my favourites and talked her into ones I had lots of or knew that I no longer had a great deal of need for. She is now taking over my sewing room (aka the dining room) and I don't stand a chance.

I managed a brief moment to have a go at sewing one of the birds and then I admitted defeat and retreated to my tiny office to talk to all of you instead.

Here is what the singing bird looks like. I am not sure if I got it just right but it is what it is.

Yes, she will get an eye - eventually.

And that is how I get things made in my days. You?

Susan

Having A Rethink

I have spent quite a lot of time on thinking about my mini quilt for the Brit Swap today. And eventually I came to the conclusion that I would not be able to go with the original design. I can't show the original design either as if my  mystery partner happened to look at my blog then she would know it was for her. Confusing but it really has to stay a secret.

So after cutting pieces of paper as templates, all that thinking, more templates and some crunching up of templates in a disgruntles manner, here is the bit that did work from the original design -

I cut the fabric and then played some more with ideas and decided that I would have to go with 'perv bird'. When I first posted the sketch of my potential quilt on the fickr page for the swap a number of my fellow swapees named the bird, who was actually part of my practice session for drawing birds on the edge of the paper, as Perv Bird because he looked like he was looking up the other bird's bottom and that was why the bird on the post was singing.

So we had the singing bird, perv bird and then I cut one more to bring a bit of balance to the right hand side of the quilt. Three birds, scooter girl and I am considering whether I want to have a gnome in the foreground as well. He is currently only roughly cut out and placed on the background to see how I feel about it all.

The applique bits are cut but nothing is attached. This is the way it currently looks. There is still potential for change. We shall see.

What do you think?

I had intended to take the girls to a fair that was in the village this weekend. But I am still not in tip top form, and more importantly, Helen seems to be suffering from the bug to a certain extent as well. She keeps falling asleep which is very unusual as this is the child who refused to nap from 15 months onwards. I am dead jealous of the sleep thing because I want to and am failing miserably. Maybe I can try for a nap if when they go back to school tomorrow.

Meanwhile I have a chicken roasting and the girls are pleased because I made sausage stuffing. I had better go get that all sorted then. Hope you had a good weekend.

Susan