Food and a Finish

It was a lovely weekend. The weather has been glorious. I slept when I was tired, sewed to my hearts content, and spent time yesterday with three Dad's who are among the finest men I know(my Dad, my father in law, and my husband). 

We hosted Father's Day lunch and rather than making it an all out, full on affair like I usually do, I went with simple, classic, low stress food that I've cooked a million times so there was minimal chance of any disasters.

That is, with the exception of my gingerbread chocolate ganache tart with raspberry cream. It refused to set which made getting it out of the tart pan a real bitch. We just used a spoon because we're all class here at Maison Pyjamas. What it lacked for by not being an actual tart it made up for by being the most delicious sauce on a gingerbread base I've ever eaten. (F****** Gingerbread gets me every time - even when it's not a house) 

Mordecai decided that my strawberry pot is the perfect place to soak up some sun. Too bad there are plants in there trying to grow. 

and my Dad decided the lounge was the perfect place to watch the football elimination final. Richmond, what happened? I wanted you to win so badly mainly because I wanted Port Power to lose. 

This past week I finished the Joseph's Quilt of Many Colours Irish Chain Quilt, and on Saturday I popped around to my friend's place and gifted it to her. I really enjoyed making this quilt and I love the finished result. It came in at 65 " by 65" and I meandered and serpentine stitched my way across the top and borders to quilt it.  

I've got some time off work this week and I'm planning a serious sewing assault. Two donation quilts and a whole cloth baby quilt are on my list of goals. Let's see how long the mojo lasts!  

You win some - You lose some...

It was my brother in law's 40th birthday on Friday so I guess the question on everybody's lips is whether he liked the quilt I made for him.

You know- the one I've been blathering on about since about February? The one I vowed to finish in time for his birthday in July. The one I've been endlessly showing as I theoretically progress through to completion?  Yeah -ummm...that's still in bits. We copped out and gave him money in a card instead because apparently I cant finish anything when working to a deadline. Gotta say - Im not really arse kicking myself over it- I have come to dislike the putting together of that quilt intensely. Maybe it'll get finished and maybe not. I've never not finished a quilt before but the jury is still out on this one.

It hasn't all been doom and gloom and ignoring stuff on the quilting front . My Irish Chain quilt top is finished and I love how it looks. I have some cream embossed damask for the back that will pull everything together to give this an antique feel and best of all I'm sending it out to be quilted so in my head that means this one is almost done. I've even made the binding for it. My job is pretty much done! 

I waged an inner war with myself on Saturday over whether to unpick the 5 rows of the triangle quilt I'd already sewn because I wasn't really happy with the way they were sewing up into a top. I've learned that triangles cut on the bias stretch out of shape and by the time you sew stretched triangles into row you can end up with some very interesting results. (Curved quilt top anyone?) My inner perfectionist spoke louder than my slack arse personality and I spent Saturday unsewing and re-sewing and first time sewing and squaring all my triangles post sewing into little rows . (Does anyone else think this talk of squaring triangles sounds odd or am I just having a moment of silliness?) 

I got two rows sewn back together over the weekend and this is where I left the rest of it. I must confess looking at that pile waiting to be sewn into a recognisable quilt top makes me feel like I'm going to be mindlessly sewing triangles just about forever...

And to prove there's more than one way to skin a cat (ugh -I don't know why anyone would want to do that ) I finished this too. I saw this idea on Pinterest where someone had embroidered directly onto a paper map. I decided to go one better and print the map onto fabric and then embroider -but my hand stitches looked funky so I unpicked it and went the slacker way and used my machine. At this point I don't care that I sort of cheated ...its a finish. 

And in other creative type news ...I have 1 and a half of these left to do before I can start making them into a quilt top ...hallelujah!

Couldn't resist the lure of a new project ...started cutting scraps but since I haven't start actually sewing them it doesn't really count. This could be the one that finally tips me over the edge. 

Liar Liar ...Pants on Fire

Once  upon a time some smart arse geeks with nothing better to do invented the internet. Their ultimate purpose was to turn us all into zombies who sat on our butts surfing Pinterest , and randomly updating our Facebook statuses every 10 minutes because people who feel they are engaged in meaningful activity are less likely to engage in anarchy or crimes against the state.

I'm completely in love with the internet and my various electronic doodads so for me to announce that I was having a media free weekend was about as wild and crazy as I ever get. But we all know addicts are generally not all that truthful either and sadly it didn't take too long before I snuck into Hay Day and had a look at what was happening with my farm. Cow udders have nasty habit of exploding if you don't milk your cows when they need it. And I didn't want my crops to wither and die. I don't want to be accused of carrot cruelty.

I outed myself when I started pinning ...every man and his dog knew the jig was up when they saw my Pinterest activity popping up in my Facebook feed. For anyone who thinks we aren't being tracked and watched every time we go on the internet  - think again. And I wouldn't have needed to go on Facebook if everyone else lived boring lives and didn't post what they were doing - so really its all your fault. Whale Watching Nat? Really? Why can't you just be like the rest of us lazy slobs and spend the weekend in your pyjamas?

So how long did my computer free weekend really last? About 5 lousy hours.  I was like some sad addict who couldn't think of anything else but my next fix the internet. I'd kind of furtively dart in (like a Ninja) harvest my crops, check Facebook, pin a couple of things on Pinterest and get out again because if you're in and out silently it's like you were never really there. I'm so good at looking furtive I'm sure the CIA are going to be knocking on my door to recruit me any moment. 

Because I felt essentially pathetic, weak  and guilty  I did put in a decent effort over the weekend to move my UFO's along. As if somehow working hard on those projects would atone for my sin of being pathologically incapable of ignoring the internet. 

I appliqued some hexies (I'm getting so close to a finish there that I feel compelled to keep pushing on) and I worked on my very big pinwheel quilt which is also not on my list for a finish this month but I was busy avoiding doing the things that were.  

I worked on the Triangle quilt. So far 1/4 done. There is some very dodgy matching up of triangles in this top I can assure you but I'm going for overall effect here not perfection and so far I'm liking the result. 

The recycled shirt quilt top is coming along nicely. OK- perhaps nicely is stretching the truth a bit- there are a couple of huge stuff ups that I'm ignoring since it has to be finished in a mere 10 days. Mental note to self - when you work with recycled shirt fabric not all of it will be 100% cotton and there will be stretching along the way. This will require skill and patience to overcome. 

And the Irish chain quilt went from 3 finished blocks to all the blocks done and I've started to sew that together into an actual honest to goodness quilt top. 

So I suck at ignoring the internet but got an A+ for sewing effort. The big question is - will anything actually get finished in the next 15 days?