Friday Night Sew In

I was full of good intentions last night for FNSI. I attempted my first ever zip repair and gave up after 10 minutes of struggling. I thought about making a public appeal to you all saying I would  gladly post the cargo  pants to anyone who wanted to fix them for me. Eventually I super glued the zip back in because posting someone pants sounded just plain weird.

I started with dinner...an Australian delicacy ...Vegemite on foccacia.

Thus fortified with Vitamin B and large amounts of salt  my night of fabulous sewing began!

First item on the agenda was the binding for Little P's quilt. Done in record time.

Then I ate some chips....checked the Internet ...and checked some blogs. I like to keep on top of what you're all up to at all times.


And then I  made 3 more carrots for the Easter Bunny.

Then I ate some chocolate..... and checked some blogs , and sent some email and read some email and surfed the Internet and ate some chicken.

And realised I had worked my way down to the trickiest bit on my list ...working out how to make 60 inches of backing fabric work for a 70 inch front. I ignored it last week and decided to ignore it again last night. I am so not good at maths. And the idea of making the centre circles for the Dresden's was utterly unappealing at 10pm last night so I mooted that idea too.

I ate some more chocolate and had a cup of tea. And got up from the computer again when it was time for bed.

To check out people who actually achieved greatness, pop on over to Handmade by Heidi  for a full FNSI report...



PS. In my own defence I achieved semi greatness today and it was still Friday somewhere in the world. More about that tomorrow.

Friday Night Sew In

Last night was FNSI  for February.  Hosted by Bobbi at Crafty Vegas Mom this is a fun monthly sewalong because it means I can legitimately tell my family to leave me alone for the night. I had big plans to sew the long languishing snowball quilt top. I even laid it all out on my bed yesterday afternoon so I didn't waste time on block placement when I could have been sewing.  If you're visiting from FNSI - welcome. My FNSI attempts are always full of drama.

The night did not start well. My planned 7 pm start was pushed back to 7.50pm. This would be because everyone else's arms at the Castle Pyjamas (Since I am now a Queen we live in a castle ) appear to be broken and they can't chuck meatballs in a frypan. Perhaps I should have written instructions as I was prepping the entire dinner earlier in the day to make it easier for them.

Miss P was here for the afternoon yesterday (after our uber fabulous op shopping afternoon ) which naturally stretched into dinner. At about the same time I was about to finally settle for FNSI she announced she wanted to alter the hem , neckline and ruffle on a dress. Heads up here : Miss P does not sew. That means she wanted me to alter the hem , neckline and ruffle on a dress.

Further information I'm chucking in for free - I don't sew or alter clothes. I can - I just choose not to. I didn't even bother to break this unfortunate piece of news to Miss P gently. Instead I sat with her working on binding my Lounging Around quilt while Miss P attempted to hem something for the first time in her life while I gave her verbal instructions on how to do it. I have to say she did a pretty decent job but balked at changing the neckline of the dress and making a new ruffle. She decided pretty quickly as I explained what she needed to do that the dress didn't need further embellishment.

So my achievements for last night included : Finishing the binding on Lounging Around and then scorching the label beyond redemption (fortunately before I put it on ). I've just made another one and will sew that on without the aid of heat bond when it dries.  

I started to sew the snowball rows together and decided after 28 blocks of 168 that I wasn't feeling the love and neither was my machine.  I moved on because I'm a mature adult (plus I had run out of swear words to say )

I switched to sewing the blocks together in rows for Little P's Alphabet Quilt and I got them all done. 

Emboldened by my apparent success  I  decided to give hand sewing a crack. After agonising over font and colours and unpicking some false starts  I finished this...

For my first ever hand stitching attempt I'm pretty happy with it .  And yes that's  Little P's real name for the first time ever on my blog. 

So all in all, it was a productive night even if I didn't get my snowballs finished. And perhaps today the snowballs and I will reach an understanding about who is the boss ....

Hope your Friday night was craftilicious and you didn't have any snowball-esque moments!

Check out what other crafty FNSI- ers have been up to here .

P.S. There is weirdness going on with my font today. Spooky! 

Friday Night Sew In

Last night was Friday Night Sew In hosted by Heidi and Bobbi. Thanks for hosting ladies. This is my third official sew in and I love the concept  for the sheer motivation factor.

Mr. P was instructed that between 7 pm and 11 pm, I was absolutely positively not to be disturbed unless the house was on fire. Not even if he had an arterial bleed. Sometimes those chats work and sometimes they don't. Last night was a winner. He helped by doing a run to the shop for snacks to keep me motivated. Mmmmmmmm Tim Tams and Salt and Vinegar Chips. How I love you so.

Between 7 and 9 pm, I squared all the blocks, laid them all out and had a look at whether I liked it or not. I didn't stress too much about layout  because random is good and I'm  lazy. Then I sewed all the blocks into vertical rows.

Then I had to stop for a break  to eat an entire bag of chips...because it's important to keep your strength up. And I fluffed around on the internet for an hour because I am very easily distracted and have the attention span of a goldfish.

Finally I remembered I was supposed to be sewing and broke out the iron to press seams, which is a job I hate. When I get rich and famous I'm going to hire someone to be my personal seam presser.

My iron is a piece of crap (that's not a swear word in Australia )  even though it cost about the same as the national debt of Guatemala.  A good iron is hard to find and usually breaks one day after the warranty expires. The iron I had before this one was completely rockin', aside from the little matter of it trying to electrocute me when it finally died in some bizarre murder/suicide bid.

Then all the vertical rows got pinned together

I pushed through the "I'm-really-tired-and-want-to-eat-all-the-Tim-Tams-and- play-on-the-internet-again" phase and by about 11.00pm the quilt top looked like this.

I gotta say I'm not feeling the love with this quilt top because it's not really my usual colour palette (which also explains why it's been a WIP/UFO since about March )  but that's OK because this isn't for me it's for someone else who will like muted. Now I have to fix the  1,321 mistakes I noticed while I was pressing it and add a couple of borders and piece the back. Or I could shove it in a box and ignore it until the next Sew In....

Hope your FNSI was productive and fun! I can't wait to see what other crafty people managed to get done. No sewing for me today. Those igloo blocks need some attention.

Friday Night Sew In

Thank you Kirsten for reminding me about Friday Night Sew In at 4.10pm Friday afternoon, because I'd completely forgotten. This week I would have lost my head if it wasn't screwed on.

I hopped on over to Handmade by Heidi and signed up in the nick of time.  Some creative focus and energy was just what I needed. I've been lacking in the creative department this week. Woefully.

My HST  blocks have been in a state of somewhat finished since March. Technically that made it a UFO because WIP's are projects you actually touch from time to time. A renewed interest in getting this monkey off my back means I reckon I can squeeze this one in as a finish for the end of the year if I try hard enough. I'm sorta kinda determined to make at least a few Christmas gifts this year.

Last night with the help of FNSI mojo  I managed to get ALL the blocks sewn together. That's right. All 50 of them.  I've decided to add two borders to this quilt instead so technically I'm done with the block making. Whooooooooooo Hooooooooooo!

Hop on over to Heidi's to see more creative genius.

P.S Still don't have hot water here. Although its warm enough to shower. Just.  We will be calling the electrician Monday. Arghhhhhh!

Saturday Allsorts

I signed up for my first ever Friday Night Sew in hosted by Handmade by Heidi  and it happened last night. Everyone in the Pyjamas household was briefed on the sew in rules ..ie I am unavailable between 7 pm and 11 pm unless someone dies  or requires serious  medical attention. If you disturb me you better make sure you have your running shoes on and the phone number for medical attention because you'll need it by the time I'm finished with you.  Everyone played the game -well mostly. I did wander out of my sewing room at one point and Little P and I played a game of chasey around the ottoman in the lounge and another game of "lets turn the floor lamp on and off for around 20 minutes" because that's heaps of fun. Have I mentioned in the last 5 minutes   how blessedly cute my grandson is? No ? Well he is. I love that he's learning he can influence his environment  and the people in it. That kid said Na- Na about a thousand times yesterday and pointed at bananas because he learned earlier in the day if you ask - you  will receive. Genius I tell you - that child is a genius and everything he does is one step closer towards the germination of an amazing human being.

Any-hoo. Focus. Sew In. I decided to start something new because I simply don't have enough on my plate at the moment.   For all my bitching about Christmas in July at work this week , I was inspired to start a Christmas quilt , mainly because I have approximately 187 yards of Christmas fabric in my stash and have never done a Christmas quilt before. Not being completely insane, (yet)  I decided to keep this one simple. I'm planning a second Christmas quilt this year that'll be more complicated but for now, I'm about a bee's whisker away from a complete meltdown. KISS (Keeping it simple stupid ) is the way to go.

So at 8 pm last night, I started with this pile of Robert Kaufman Sparkle All the Way Jelly Roll bits. Yes I was late to the sew in.  Have you ever noticed jelly rolls look sublime when they arrive but kind of look like spilled guts once they're unrolled?  They don't look nearly as pretty. They really are a case in point for clever marketing because if they slopped bits of random fabric strips in a baggie nobody would buy them.

And hey Presto by 11 pm last night I had this...lots of strips for a Christmas stacked coin quilt.

In other fabulously gossipy news this week, the delectable Jenni over at Baa Me Kniits had a giveaway recently for this lovely shawl and I won. Whooooooooo Hooooooooooo. I'm so going to parade this lovely at work and make everyone jealous. Thanks again Jenni. (and to her son who drew my name !)

Elizabeth over at Such a Sew and Sew  is having a giveaway  to celebrate her 200th post. You can win this abbey bag made by  Elizabeth  herself.  Don't you just love the fabric and cute little pin cushion?  Pop on over and have a gander about  how to enter and to congratulate her on the 200 posts thingy, which is actually a really big deal.

And I had a cook-a-thon this morning because it will be the last time I do one in my old kitchen since this time next week , it will no longer exist.  Plus we will need to eat while we are waiting for the new kitchen to go in, but we'll pretty much only have a microwave so I made enough spaghetti sauce for three meals, beef koftas for two meals, and enough curry for three meals. Then I made 7 dozen party sausage rolls for Little P's birthday party tomorrow. 

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm Rendang

Little P's sausage rolls

Yesterday , I primed the meat safe (again) and today Mr. P decided I wasn't painting fast enough or well enough or something and took over doing the top coat. (has anyone else ever noticed every picture of Mr. P is on an angle? )

I've decided you can all suffer through the kitchen re-do with me in real time from here on in. So much is starting to happen that I  want  to spread the misery as far as possible   to share it with you in infinite detail. This week I contacted 5 tilers, two of whom actually turned up to quote me for a 40 square metre tiling job. The kitchen installer contacted me today and came out to do his final measure and walk us through the process. He confirmed they would be arriving early next Friday morning  to take out the old kitchen (and they'll even remove the sink splashback tiles for us while they're doing it.) The plumber will be coming next Friday as well to start installing the new plumbing for the dishwasher and to cap our old tap connections and put the new ones in since we're moving the taps...whooooooooo hooooooooo, it's actually happening! That's progress.

Have a fabulous weekend. My Saturday night will be spent looking at what other particpants got up to for Friday Sew In and I'll be partying tomorrow with the one year old crowd and all of the Pyjama's family.