Something different today

Well, spring is fully here and summer is on its way, so I start thinking about pretty clothes to wear. Now I love shopping as much as the next person (if the next person INSANELY loves shopping and can do it all day and the next day and the day after that) but even I faltered during my recent search for a pretty swishy summer skirt. Too short, too flimsy, too long, too lairy. So I sewed one for myself, and it turned out fine.

I can't believe I used to make all my clothes. Every single damn thing except t-shirts. It made sense when I was an impoverished student I guess, and then living in PNG where there was no shopping (the horror!), but it seems so alien to me now. I have boxes of paper patterns that I can't bear to give away.

On the odd occasion though, it still comes in handy. Nearly warm enough for the peep toe shoes!!! And, of course, childbearing hips never go out of fashion.

The joys of the USPS priority box

Well, I have been introduced to a new wonder - the priority box which, apparently, can hold 30 yards of fabric! I didn't believe such fabulous things could exist, until one arrived. And with the current exchange rate this princely pile cost me about $185 Australian for 30 yards including shipping .... or about $450 less than it would have in the shops.


I love fabric, I love a bargain, and I LOVE getting things in the mail.

Mental with bias strips

I enjoyed making the bias strips for the baskets' handles - and used them again on a border for a yellow and blue medallion that I'm slowly picking away at. It looks good, so I thought - why not make a quilt just out of wavy lines and bias strips? And I did.

I used one of the "gangrene" dyed fabrics for the middle brown bit, and I think it does look terribly ugly. Turns out ugly colours can look really bad! Who would have thought it?

There are also only a limited number of shapes you can make with this size of bias strip. A gentle wave, a rainbow arc and that's just about it. I might explore further with these things ... or maybe not. Mind you, I do have half a scrap basket full of bias strips now, so perhaps I should persevere.

It's hand quilted in big stitch with two strands of embroidery floss to loosen it up a bit and give some obvious texture. And because it's quick to do, and I wasn't impressed enough with it to spend hours on little stitches.

Pink and purple distraction activity

So, when I'd finished the blue one, I didn't have anything to hand quilt ... so did this bright little liberated square-in-a-square. Fun to piece and fun to quilt! Pink and purple and orange all together.

I decided to do the quilting uniformly dense rather than a bit more randomly spaced, which is what I normally do. The even lines tend to blend into the background a bit more. I think I prefer varying the spacing of the quilting.

Liberated amish quilt together Part 2

I've joined up for the next challenge on Lazy Gal's Liberated Amish quilt together. I'm going to try and use the same source of inspiration, and the same colours, as for the Little Pink Pig quilt that I did for the first challenge.

The challenge is to try and take it a bit further; either more liberated, or more different, or something that you would not usually do. I'm going to try and make lots of those tiny little half square triangles, which I would normally avoid, and emphasise the diagonal lines in the source inspiration. We shall see!

Broderie perse

I've been pottering about on this broderie perse central medallion for a few weeks now. It's lots of fun to do, if a bit fiddly, but I've reached the stage now where I don't know whether to keep piling on the flowers or stop. Every time I add flowers they don't look right, so I take them off, which may mean that it's got enough going on already.

It's raw edge machine applique - not the fanciest option but suits me. I'm planning to pick up the red of the vase in all the subsequent borders, it will probably be quite over the top with lots of red and cream and the occasional bit of something else and lots of slightly wobbly borders. Yay! Some of the flowers seemed very unlikely when I cut them out but they work together OK, even the blue. It's not super co-ordinated, but I like that in a quilt!

And now it's bags

I had given up on the idea of making bags for the school fete - too much like hard work and not at all economical when you consider the cost of the materials vs the likely sale price. But then a friend at work gave me a bag (a large, stuffed full bag) of curtain samples ... and I've been making bags.

Not very good or very imaginative bags, but they should be able to flog them off at the fete? Maybe? It's much nicer making them from upholstery weight fabric too, than the earlier experiment with quilting cottons. The samples include a lot of nana-prints and brocades which I don't think I'll be able to use, but there was a lovely range of linen-style stripes. And every bag has a co-ordinating lining! Hilarious.

I think I've reached the end of my enthusiasm now, although I've hardly made a dint in the sample bag, but it was fun while it was lasted.