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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Surprise: Wedding!

No, not mine. (I'm not married, but that's not the point.)

(I want to buy more of this fabric! Isn't it pretty?)



Two friends of mine, people I helped get together in the first place, are getting hitched on Sunday. They've been very lax about telling people - the woman who's the Best Man... just found out on Tuesday.

Anyway, I'm making them a quilt - in a hurry! I've decided to use one of the packets of pre-cut 10" squares I bought whilst on vacation in New Hampshire with some fabric I have in stash to make a half-square triangle quilt. I'm adding sashing, even though I don't want to, so it's a good, lap sized quilt without using the same fabrics twice in the triangles.



I liked these blues when I saw them in the store - it was a pack of 20 10" squares for $10!


I stacked the squares up, then marked down the center from corner to corner. What you're supposed to do next is sew 1/4" inch away from the marked line on both sides of it. What I inevitably do, every single time I do this is:


*facepalm* So, I unpicked that and found that whilst I'd been concentrating, someone had arrived to help.

I guess she was worried that my blocks might get cold. Or something.

I'm easy to entertain - I get a kick (every time) out of chain piecing into a circle.

Anyway, the blocks are all sewn and cut (and I really need to work on making my 1/4" seams a full quarter inch. I'm bad about that.) I did end up going to the local fabric store (on my bike!) and getting a dark leavy blue for the sashing and two prints that will amuse my friends (coffee beans and kitty foot prints) for the back.


I was very pleased that I managed to cycle home with the batting. It's six yards of 5oz polybatting.

Today I want to finish the top and see if I can get the quilting started. It's not even 9am. Surely I can get lots done today, right?

SongBird

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Working steadily


I've been doing lots of work, but not enough housework. (I can say that the dishwasher's missing a piece, which is true, but it's not a valid excuse as I know perfectly well how to wash dishes by hand.) There's soo much laundry to fold!

I have been working, slowly, on making nicer things for us to use in the house - napkins and placemats and coasters. I've only made the two but I finally have cork and cardboard to back them.



However, I finally have my first embroidery pattern set ready to go into my shop!! I'm so excited!


It's four cute little voodoo baby dolls, each sized perfectly to fit into a 4" hoop or to use as the center patch in a pillow. I really enjoyed every part of the process.


I have a couple of other sets of embroidery patterns in the works - the hardest part of this for me is writing them up afterwards.

***

Something I'm trying to do is bring ATC cards with me so that whenever I have a free minute, I can doodle. This sometimes ends up like this:


I'm not sure if it worked. What do you think?

SongBird

Monday, May 10, 2010


We had a nice, quiet weekend. Saturday Geordie had to go in to work, so I dragged my daughter out with me. We stopped off at a thrift store, then an art supply store (as opposed to a craft store - there's an interesting difference in what each one carries), and finally, a book store.

I got several nice tee shirts, two sweaters (a stripy angora one I'm wearing now and a pale blue cashmere one. Neither was over two bucks!) and a long black trench coat that fits me. This is amazing because I'm shorter than five feet tall. Really.

I also got some embroidery done, and I finished drawing two more pieces of art for embroidery patterns. Next up on the learning curve is figuring out how to make the patterns into PDF documents, so I can put them up in etsy.

On Sunday we spent several hours at a friends' house, where I ... sewed a giant curtain for her. The original plan had been for me to help her sew the curtains, but when I realized just how much she didn't know, I took over. It did make me realize how experienced I am in this area.

I ended up not having time (or a sewing needle) to sew the pleats into place, but at least there's something up in the window for now.

The tree up at the top is near the yarn store I teach in twice a week. A couple of years ago, when I still just had a terrible crush on Geordie, rather than getting to actually be his partner, I spent a happy couple of hours parked under that tree, chatting to him on the phone before going in to teach. I still get a little rush of joy when I see that it's flowering.

Aren't they pretty?



He's suggested putting rooting compound on the branch I cut off, so I can have one of the trees for my very own. I like that idea a lot!

What do you think?

SongBird

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Scrapbooking?


So, we went on a week long trip to New Hampshire at the beginning of April. I took lots of pictures, as I tend to do. I like the idea of scrapbooking, I always enjoy seeing other people's pages and art, I have lots of supplies for it (and for making cards and books and ...) but, somehow, I never get around to doing it myself.



I decided that I'm going to do it for this past trip, so I pulled out some 6x6 cardstock and printed out a bunch of pictures. Each page takes a while to do, and they're very much not finished (and I want to make more pages with other pictures from the trip), but mostly, I'm feeling frustrated. The pages don't look as good to me as the ones I see from other people. I don't know if it's because they're mine, so I'm more judgemental, or if it's just that they're not finished yet (and it shows)...






Also, I'm really not sure that this is my 'craft'. Merrie won't look at the book, when it's done, and Geordie hates to see pictures of himself, so he won't look either. That sort of means that there's no one to show the book to - other than here, online.


What do you think? Are they okay? What do they need? (Besides journalling - I haven't written the journalling yet.)

SongBird

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The View from My Bike

 Really, this is one of the strongest reasons for me to keep cycling.  I love being out there, with the wind on my face and this to look at.

SongBird