Dresden plates

You know how sometimes you think that something is just going to be Too Hard? And so you never do it? I had put double-fold binding with mitred corners in that category for years, until I sat down and did it, and it was incredibly easy. For some reason I had the same mental block about Dresden Plates so I did what any  normal quilter would do and bought a tool that had "easy" in the title. Or, in this case, "EZ". But I think the principle is the same.

It was genuinely easy, and lots of fun. Because there's a great round gap in the middle of the wedges, it is actually quite a forgiving block. If you don't mind ironing (steaming) any wobbles into submission, then it will sit flat no matter how randomly accurate my 1/4 inch seam is. I like that in a block.

I started with the border fabric and worked backwards to find the other colours - this is, again, a gender-neutral baby quilt. I machine-stitched the plates down so it should stand a fair bit of baby spit and subsequent washing.

It was the last day of term on Friday so we spent yesterday quietly - resting, and then burning things. I found this old brazier when we did the shed clear-out in January; it had been put away since the boys were born because toddlers and fire aren't so good together .... but fire and boys? Match made in heaven. Boom boom! Actually I don't let them near the matches, twigs and gum leaves are bad enough. We spent a happy hour toasting the last half loaf of bread and smothering it with butter and jam. Nothing like woodsmoke-flavoured toast! Although this one might have been a bit TOO burnt.

Garment sewing

I bought this stripey top for work a few weeks ago. I have trouble with work shirts; I like them to be not too tight, not too short, sleeves of a decent length, preferably not collars, not need ironing and enough of a pattern to distract from the bulges and wobbles underneath. It's not easy. So when this one was so good (looks better on the model but hey) I thought I would dip my toe back into garment sewing and try and make one. Just a few seams! Not much shaping? How hard can it be? I used this pattern, which promised easiness. And, in the main, lived up to that. I don't know if was two hours though.

I also used some pretty ghastly polyester print - it was cheap and I thought it would do for the first one - it's a nice colour but was a complete pain to sew. Slipping and sliding and not staying where it was put. Give me quilting cottons any time. But in the end it worked out fine, and the top looks as good as it's going to get on me ... I might make another one. This photo is a bit of shocker though! I wasn't really busting to have a pee, despite what it looks like. I think I was trying to slim my thighs. Oh dear.

This is on MY bed

I'm linking up with Bonnie's "What's on YOUR Bed" linky party - it's not pretty (it's certainly not tidy) but it's real! I can guarantee I have never shown this utility quilt before, it's crumb blocks, sashed in some dodgy green print, and squiggle machine quilted. It's big and warm and belongs on our bed ... And the cats love it (but they are very broad in their quilt tastes, in fact I don't think I've ever made a quilt they didn't like). They look a bit perturbed here because I pulled the quilt slightly straighter. Can you tell?

You know the dodgiest thing about this thrown-together masterpiece? The light-purple cornerstone fabric has some metallic highlights, which I knew when I made it, but it also has some GLOW IN THE DARK flecks. Who would have thought of that? The first night it was on the bed, there was just a ghostly hint of flourescence. I couldn't figure out what on earth it was.

This is the only quilt on my husband's side of the bed, because he is a warm blooded creature. I am, apparently, a reptile, and need a lot more quilts than that. I dragged Crossbow up from the cupboard last night because it got down to 1 degree, and I've had this pink and purple peculiar number on the bed for a few weeks now. I made it before I realised that quilting fabric is quite good for quilts, and you don't have to pay $30 a metre for it if you shop online, and I think that cream is a polyester poplin. And some strange hand quilting there.

It's been washed and dried a few times now. My bed is designed for comfort rather than style...

Mini-break

We decided to have a little mini-break over Easter - to the fine town of Wollongong, a couple of hours away from here, on the coast, south of Sydney. We'd never been before, which seemed enough of a reason to go! On the way down we did the Illawarra Fly, at my suggestion. I must have been ON DRUGS when I thought it would be a good idea because I am scared of heights ... like my fabulous idea to do the Kosciusko chairlift last November. What was I thinking?

Number two son and husband loved it. Number one son and I clung onto each other and inched our way around (and refused to go up the wobbly wobbly tower). It was incredibly scenic and very safe but there is something about walking on steel mesh 30 metres in the air that freaks me out.

We had hoped to do some swimming - Wollongong has lovely beaches - but the weather crapped out a bit on Saturday afternoon and it was windy and cold. We still did some walking, checked out the Science Museum and Planetarium (was excellent, can highly recommend), and visited the Eggstravaganza downtown on Saturday morning. Free petting zoo! Can't ask for more than that...

It's so nice to get away, even somewhere close and unexciting, in global terms. The boys are so easy to please - the highlight was the breakfast buffet each morning and an hour spent chucking rocks in the sea! And for me it's exactly a year since the first chemo, and anything is better than that.

Individually consuming

Remember the flying geese I made for the sixteen patch borders and never used? No, me neither, until I found them in one of my boxes-o-crap at the back of the cupboard. We seem to be having an explosion of fecundity at work with wall-to-wall pregnant bellies SO I decided to use the un-loved flying geese to make a wee baby quilt for one of the mums to be.

Gender-neutral, they are all either not finding out if they're having a boy or a girl, or not telling me. Still to be quilted but I did find some very cute little fishies to put on the back.

I have been following the Kate Spain threatening to sue Emily Cier for copyright breaches with an enormous amount of interest - since the beginning when Emily, quite politely I thought at the time, shared the problem of being threatened without naming the designer. My sympathies are firmly with Emily - I think Kate has lost the plot a bit. I also think that if the matter had been litigated, Kate would have lost. The picture she was objecting to was primarily of Emily's quilt, not Kate's fabric. The most sensible discussion by far is over at Leah's blog, where she is basically saying that even though both points of view are arguable, the potential lawsuit has done irreparable damage to people's confidence in using recognisable designer fabrics in their own cottage industries. And that is really bad.

Anyway, as I was slicing away on this baby quilt, I saw something I'd never seen before! This phrase on the selvedge.

With my lawyer's hat on, this drives me nuts. Firstly, what does it mean? What is individual consumption exactly? I'm not going to eat it. Secondly, I bought this fabric off the internet with a picture that didn't include the selvage. Can it genuinely be part of the condition on which I bought this product if I didn't know about it? Thirdly, how does a retailer or on-seller fit in? Making thousands of kits with this fabric, is that allowed? If I re-sell on e-bay and someone else uses it for non-individual consumption (whatever the hell that is) do I have any liability? I know that this clause can never be enforced, and that putting this on the selvedge does not actually add to the designer's copyright ... BUT there is so much drama around this that if I was wavering between two bits of fabric, I would avoid this one because of some vague fear that it might cause me trouble in the future. Isn't that silly?

Why so huge?

When I was sewing these 49 patch blocks I consciously thought "I'll only make 16, so the final quilt won't be too big, I'm sick of wrestling enormous quilts..." But I must have had a brain explosion because the final version is 80 inches a side which is NOT SMALL. The borders for each block won't have helped. Originally I was going to sash it quite narrowly but I couldn't find a fabric that looked any good - white was too boring, cream was even worse, dark looked odd and striped looked so busy it would make your eyeballs bleed.

And I do like to pile on the different patterns. Why use a couple of fabrics when you can use fifty? It looks quite cheerful and scrappy, but I do think I have got this "large scrap quilt" phase out of my system now. I need to buy batting, then some simple machine quilting is all it needs. I briefly thought about hand quilting but Far Too Many Seams.

The boys decided to make cushions the other day. In truth, they pick the fabric and I make the cushions, although they do the stuffing themselves. It's a wonderful way to use up all the little scraps of batting.

After I did them they said they were dog beds, we don't have a dog, so one of them improvised.

More colouring

Ages ago I did some doodling on paper and then on fabric. The fabric was drawn on with a permanent marker - I had a go at quilting them but it didn't look very good. This time, I did the doodling by quilting, then coloured it in with the pencils. Here is the small quilted piece.

And this is after colouring. It looks quite cute - in a cartoonish way - but I can't imagine doing anything much bigger than this. And the textile medium stains too. I foolishly assumed that it would dry clear, but no. So this was an interesting diversion, but it might be one of those techniques more suited to a neat-fingered perfectionist than an easily-distracted bodgy queen.