Work in progress Progressed.

Got a bit of a memory test for you!  Remember this?

I rescued it from its spot in the WIP tray where its been lurking for months and got my butt down to the Local Quilt Shop to get it basted the other week.  Here's a pic of it on the super big table they have, just to prove I did actually leave the house...

I had been a bit nervous about doing the basting in a shop - customers coming in, people nosing at it, what if they tried to talk to me? etc.  A lot of my lovely readers gave me quite the boot up the backside, figuratively speaking of course, and told me to just go and do it.  So, I did.  And, no, it wasn't so bad!  Well, fortunately the LQS lady had her 7 year old daughter in the shop with her, so I spent most of the morning chatting to her!  Yeah, conversation with a 7 yr old is a bit more my level... lol  

This week I got said quilt quilted.  Turns out my basting on a wonderfully large flat table is not any better than on a small bouncy mattress...  Oh I don't know what I did, or didn't do, but once I'd sat and happily done the horizontal "straight" lines I had a look and, well, it certainly wasn't going to stand up to getting vertical lines too.    However, rather than be discouraged by yet another basting turkey (geddit?!) I decided just to leave it at the horizontal lines and do a bit of hand quilting detailing.  Whaddya think?

This last pic maybe isn't the best, but it does show up a bit more of the hand quilting.  What is more, I loved the way the last of the evenings sun was streaming through the window (it showed up a bit late, but rather that than not at all).  It seemed too nice an opportunity to miss so I got Dorothy out again and took a photy of it too :-)  Hope you dont mind!

All this week as I've been sat on the sofa playing with my Perle cotton on Innocent Quilt, I've been wondering if there was anything I could or should do with Dorothy to maybe improve it a bit.  I've not come up with anything as yet.  But looking at it in the sunlight, seeing the quaint quilting showing up more, I'm not sure whether or not it needs anything else!  I am open to suggestions though if you think there's something missing from it...

I've not much news this week, its been a very quiet, but rather pleasant, week of hand sewing - me, Doris Day movies, cups of tea, and occasionally (when she could drag herself off the new bathroom floor - I've lost my little shadow to heated tiles) little Ellicat.  I've steered clear of the kitchen, except for tea and ready meals...  Not so tasty, but relatively disaster free.
So, with no stories to add this time I'll leave you with my hexie progress!

no dead bees, just a black and blue one...

Oooh there's a few things I can tell you now that I've been holding back on... It's my bee month!  I've been excited about this for so long, I guess I might be a bit over excited...  but hey, when you have the balance of a toddler, the napping needs of a toddler, the attention span of a toddler..well, lets just say I think I should be allowed to indulge myself in childish excitement every once in a while too eh?  I made up the bee packages as wee goodie bags...  I managed to reign myself in a bit and stopped myself adding a balloon and a sparkler...lol  Well, I just wanted my bee ladies to get a good laugh.

On to the fabrics...  Way way back in April I decided I wanted a black and blue colour scheme.  Lord knows why... but I did, and I'd been gathering the odd bit for a bundle since then.  Not easy when you only get fabric online!  I've ended up with a spare bundle of "blues" that are actually green... but that's another quilt..  I'm happy to say that only 2 fabrics were full price purchases, the rest were bargains!  Anyway...  I also wanted to have a go at dying fabric too, so I picked 3 black and white prints and 2 shades of dylon hand dye (one fabric was to go thru both!).  Numpty that I am I forgot to take before pics to show, but here are the results anyway

I have to say, some of it was decidedly patchy...  and I wasn't convinced that they looked like the colour on the packet either... but overall, I'm happy with them.  I got a couple of blue fingers, but nothing up the nose this time ;-)  I'm glad I tried something that was on my list of things to try this year!

So, this week I spent 3 days cutting up fabric... Yup, three days...  I was knackered by the end of it!  This time I do have a before pic.

I really struggled with what to send, and how much to send.  I've never done this before, and not having a particular block in mind I couldn't plan it that way!  I just couldn't make my mind up at all (can you tell?)  I spent days planning what cuts to make... in the end I went with all of them!

So, Monday-Wednesday cutting fabric, Thursday making and sending parcels.  Friday I washed down the walls in the kitchen and dining cupboard.  What?!  Yup.  Well, lets just say I kinda had to... fell asleep after I put the tatties on to boil and woke up to a veritable steam room(s) with rivers of grubby water running down the walls.  Hooray for washable paint...  
Good day on Saturday tho, got this top finished!

It's all sashed now, and has a black border round it too.  So far I've not spotted any remaining tea stains either, yay!  I'm much happier with it now.  Thank you so much for all the encouragement you gave me to stick with it!

                    XXX

Sweet F.A.

Hello.  My name is Sarah, and I am a Fabric Addict.
Seriously, I'm afraid I'm starting to see this could become a bit of a problem...

I don't really know when it started.  Some of my earliest memories are watching mum sewing, making me things.  I think my stash started when I was about 18.  Remnants and Grassmarket / Morningside charity shop bits 'n' pieces.  Just to make my room look pretty, you know.  Then a year or two later there was Prazers...  A beautiful district in Lisbon, where I had to go to pick up one of the kids I looked after, which just happened to contain a street with four or five large and fascinating fabric shops.  Which were pretty, and air conditioned.  There was so much fabric....

(havent quite figured the scanner out yet so this'll have to do for now)

(Yes, these are photos of fabric in a fabric shop... Yes that's a bit sad...  but it was the day before I was leaving and I already knew I'd miss sights like this dearly)

It was inevitable I was going to start buying some, I was in yet another room that needed brightening up ;-)  I was asked just what I planned on doing with it all...  I made a few cushion covers.  I was doing a distance learning Interior Design course, and visiting lots of fancy "home" shops at the time.  I think that's where the idea of a quilt came in...  Quilts were pricey.  Fabric was cheap.  I left Lisbon with my first two quilts (the second one never really got finished) and a whopping big suitcase of random bits fabric!

Of course I never did anything with it.  That suitcase sat under my bed gathering dust for years.  But the stash building and the idea of a quilt never left me.  Over the years I built up this.

Even now that I'm learning to quilt, it has sat untouched.  It was bought with a hexie quilt in mind.  It has also remained untouched because I've never stopped gathering bits of fabric...  And to be honest, as much as I still want this bundle to be a big cosy washed out comfy hexie quilt, the fabric just doesn't, well, it doesn't excite me.  I think I am addicted to fabric because fabric itself excites me.  I know, I sound like a right weirdo when I put like that...  but when I see a new print that really catches my eye, I do find it exciting.

I'm not much of an artist, I don't sketch or paint.  Fabric to me is little works of art, little chunks of a colour palette that even I can put together and make something pretty.  And that I think is the key.  Paints and pencils aren't necessarily pretty.  The colours might be nice, but it depends entirely on what you do with them.  Pretty fabric, luscious colours, are going to be pretty no matter how much I mess up what I'm doing.  Touch wood!  lol

So that is my confession - the history and the reasoning behind my fabric addiction, and why I love it.

So what's the deal with saying it might be a problem?  What's wrong is that I'm actually, and you've no idea how much this really pains me to admit, I'm actually running out of places to put it.  I'm quilting as fast as I can, but as it stands I've got one ready to quilt, two tops almost done, 4 patterns designed and fabric for them set aside.  I have at least 5 "bundles" I'm still messing about trying to make designs for.  I think it is fairly safe to say that I have enough to be getting on with.  I have a healthy stash.  And my little sewing cupboard is full...  
But I want more.
No, seriously, I really really want more.

I am trying to go a month not buying any fabric, unless it is genuinely for completing a specific project that really needs it.  The treat at the end will be spending the gift voucher I have.  I have to admit, I am struggling.  I am counting the days.
So, in an effort to stay away from online fabric shops I've cut up my first ever stash...

Its my first go at English Paper Piecing too.   I know I've still got half a dozen other things on the go, but really, when Lynne from Lilys Quilts said she was starting a Hexalong and I'm sat there with an 8yr old bundle for a hexie quilt...  I kind of had to didnt I?!  Starting to wonder if Lynne is actually a mind reader...

Should probably have stayed in bed...

I've been having one of those days...  It started with sleeping in.  Fairly normal there then..  Then there was passing out asleep during breakfast.  Usually I manage to get food down first, but no, not this morning.  Woke up choking on my toast. 

Then I had a go a dying some towels, trying out machine dye this time.  Managed to sneeze whilst emptying the packet of dye into the washing machine...  Wonder just how harmful dye is?  I snorted a nose full...  Well, it didn't kill me. Black snot isn't too attractive though!

I was hoping to have that unpicked quilt top sashed and done, but it hasn't quite gone like that...  In fact it's gone bad to worse!  First was the fact that even when I thought I felt perfectly awake I'd sit down and start it and be half asleep in a matter of minutes.  Every single time.  Yet when I picked up something else to play with I was fine.  It was kinda weird.  Then mum hit on the reason..  I cant get it done cos my brain keeps thinking that its done it already.  Might sound a bit odd to you, but makes sense to me.  I get like that when I have to repeat doing something, half my brain sort of switches off.  

So, day after day of trying to get it done, finally a breakthrough today!  I was doing so well, on the last stretch...  then I managed to knock a full, large mug of extra strong tea flying.  It is a small cupboard.  It was a large mug.  

Thank god 90% of my fabric is in plastic boxes with lids.  The remaining 10% including the quilt top and the backing fabric (my favourite print in the quilt top) all got covered in tea. 

So I've spent the last couple of hours wiping up and drying off tea, and soaking and "vanish"-ing fabric.  Oh and that wasn't the last of the fun tonight...  Sitting in my cupboard sponging tea off every visible (and not so visible) area in storms a very angry bee.  Followed, naturally, by a very excited Elliecat.  

Dumb bee just refused to be rescued so I'm afraid yet another one bit the dust.  I say "yet another one" as I've woken up to a dead bee at the foot of my bed every morning this week.  Elliecat apparently loves me...  What gets me is why in the name of the wee man are bees fighting their way thru the small open crack of window, thru the closed curtains, to die in my house?  I don't make it easy for them to get in, the house isn't full of enticing flowers....  I love bees!  I hate seeing bees die.  

Anyway, I came out of it with a few bruises, and Elliecat may or may not have been stung - she's certainly twitching her lips and pawing her mouth an awful lot.  So now I'm keeping a worried eye on her  in case she starts swelling up or something...

Speaking of bees, I can show you the two blocks I got done for July...  I did get something right this week!

I got the ideas from Susan Briscoes Japanese Taupe Quilt Blocks.  My lovely friend Mimi sent me that book and it's absolutely fantastic.  Hardly any triangles!  lol  I had to adapt them a bit as the book size is a fair bit smaller than what I needed, but I managed to come up with sizes to make a 12.5" block without losing the block design.  Quite pleased with how they turned out!
Oh, that reminds me.  Mimi has set up a shop!  The button is on my blog; over there, to the right, spot it?  Hope you'll stop by and visit :-)