Contemplation

I had to take a reality check this week and pony up to the fact that my fussy cutting skills kind of suck. I started my Lucy Boston block prep in July and as I've started to put them together I've realised I'm not as thrilled with mine as I am with all the other ones I've seen around the Internet. The only thing I can put it down to is that I'm not "fussy" enough with my cutting. I'm also finding it really difficult to choose complementary fabrics for my block choices despite having two bins full of the stuff picked out. And I'm having a really hard time visualising what this might look like finished. (never a good sign!) My overriding inclination is to stuff Lucy in a plastic box, hope she doesn't suffocate and do something else as a sewing hand project until I unsuck at fussy cutting or change my mind about fabric choices. 

The Irish Chain Quilt is all quilted up and I'm on the last side of the binding, which as you can see is a vibrant green, which frames the pops of colour in the quilt beautifully. Not quite so sure it goes well with the apricot chenille I used to back the quilt with, but that's for snuggling under not showing off, so I'm not too broken hearted about it. I sense a finish on this quilt by the end of the week, which is just as well since it's officially Spring and if I don't get this to the recipient tout suite it may start to get too warm to use it. It's be nice if she could curl under it for a week or so before she has to pack it away until next autumn. Aussie Summers aren't conducive to snuggling under quilts by a long shot. 

And deja vu- I had a few 9 patches left over from the Big Irish Chain so I'm making a smaller version as a donation quilt for the Mary Potter Foundation.  It didn't take long to whip up a few more blocks and its coming along fairly quickly. 

It also gave me a chance to go through one of my scrap bins and cut everything into 2.5 inch strips which I'm planning to use to make another postage stamp quilt and the leftovers got chucked into the string bag so I can work on another string quilt later in the year ( although since it's September there isn't much "later" left really of 2014 is there?) I'm feeling pretty darn organised at the moment. 

Fabrics picked for a baby quilt that needs to be made. Simple whole cloth design that the mum to be can use as a reversible quilt depending on her mood or whether or not there's baby chuck on one side.  

In the "organised"  vein I finally got around to cleaning up my sewing room over the weekend. It was so much worse than these pictures show. I'd taken to jumping over  a mountain of stuff to get to the sewing machine which was the only semi clear part of the room. 

And I cleaned out my sewing machine and found enough fluff to pretty much stuff a pillow. I hesitate to show this picture because it probably constitutes sewing machine abuse. 

And from the weird but true files , I noticed what looked like stuffing on my loungeroom carpet last week and assumed one of the dogs had ripped open one of their stuffed toys but on closer inspection discovered that their dog blanket was shedding its guts. There were no popped seams and the whole quilt looked like this. This has never happened to me before and I'm at a loss to explain it ( although I'm betting a couple of possibilities ) 1....Bad batting 2) Mr. P washed it by banging it on rocks and then boiled it in the washing machine for good measure? Your thoughts, suggestions and ideas please?? It's as if the quilt wants to commit slow hari kari by internally shedding it's insides. 

Another planned project in the works is a sampler quilt. I've wanted to one for a long time and the Farmer's Wife Quilt I started ended up as two potholders. Amanda over at Seabreeze Quilts is offering a free monthly quiltalong sampler project that she has named the Chocolate Marshmallow Sampler and it's going to run over 6 months. Free instructions for the two blocks of the month will be on her blog from the 15th of each month starting this month. Pop on over a have a look at her post if you want to play along.

What's been going on at Maison Pyjamas

There hasn't been a lot of blogworthy news going on at Maison Pyjamas of late so I've been practicing silence. But mid last week, I had a day off and spent much of it in the sewing room, and then this past weekend I gave sewing another fair crack and all this activity finally resulted in something worth sharing.  

The poor neglected Irish Chain quilt hadn't been touched in about three weeks so it was time to get off my arse and move that forward. As of Sunday morning it was officially a flimsy and by Sunday afternoon I'd basted it and started the quilting. 

And I decided to help the Mary Potter Foundation by making a lap quilt for their quilt drive. This was so easy and quick to finish that I've decided to make another one in September for the cause. Mary Potter is looking for donation quilts of 48 x 48 inches for their palliative care patients so if you have some spare time and you're in Adelaide (or even Australia) please consider helping them out. 

We are in the thick of birthday season at Maison Pyjamas. Last night the family all got together to wish Nephew of Pyjamas and Fiancee of Nephew of Pyjamas Happy Birthday(s) 

Pssstttt- these two are also getting married in a couple of months which is beyond exciting for our family. 

I've been dabbling in the kitchen of late trying to perfect the art of home made spreadable butter. I decided spending 300 bucks a year on spreadable butter was way out of my price range and worked out I can make the same amount myself for about a third of the price. Attempt 1 was pretty much a disaster as full flavoured olive oil tastes like crap when you mix it with butter. Attempt number 2 was a bit anaemic looking but edible , although Mother Of Pyjamas commented that I should drop a few drops of yellow food colouring in it. I did that with attempt number three, slipped with the colouring and am now eating toast with fluro yellow butter every morning. It's still edible but looks radioactive. I'm pretty sure Attempt No 4 will be perfect. 

And finally, Super E came for a sleepover this weekend. At present he is the master of silly faces so it's hard to get a picture of him where he doesn't look like some kind of monster or mildly crazy. 

Nailed it ! 

Enjoy your week. 

Evolution of a Quilt

You may recall, a week ago I did a post about a rainbow of colour that I saw on my sewing room floor and the subsequent idea that popped into my brain for a new quilt. Seriously people - sometimes you just gotta go with the flow, and so last week that's what I did. 

How it looked on Sunday when inspiration struck 

On Monday I cut all those fabrics into strips.

Tuesday - More cutting of plain fabric and I started strip piecing 

Wednesday saw more strip piecing. At this point I was going a little strip piecing crazy.

Thursday -Cutting - lots of cutting

Friday-Had planned for this to be a bumper day but a run to Toys R Us, Spotlight and my parents for a visit, kind of put the kybosh on that. I got the 9 patches half done though before I ran out of mojo and took a nanna nap. 

Saturday - I finished sewing those 9 patches and heaved a sigh of relief because all the blocks were done. Counted them up and realised I'd actually miscounted and had 4 left to do. So I did them, then made the corner blocks and then pieced the border strips...

Sunday - pressing of 9 patches all done (one with a mistake which I have since unpicked and made right) so now I just have to find a space to lay them out and decide on a design. That seems all too hard at the moment ....my dogs have feet the size of dinner plates and at the moment they seem to be perpetually caked in mud . They also like tap dancing on my quilt layouts...

Stats for the week:

• I was a lean mean piecing machine. 
• My iron and I got jiggy with each other ( I think Mr. P suspects an affair!) 
• I sewed 610 x 2.5 inch squares together 
• I spent 10 hours sewing , cutting, and pressing ( when I was strip piecing it felt like a lot longer than 10 bloody hours let me tell you) 

I'm hoping for another productive week in between working and life however it's birthday season here at Maison Pyjamas - and we celebrated a HUGE one yesterday - Little P turned 5. In honour of this monumental event and since he isn't "little"anything anymore I've decided he deserves a new name for my blog. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to introduce the newly renamed-birthdayed-up  - Super E!

A Tale of Two Quilts

In my previous post I briefly lamented the fact that while I was in Vietnam there was buggerall chance of me buying clothes off the rack because I’m twice the size of your regular Vietnamese chick. A number of alternative possibilities were considered and discarded. I didn’t honestly need any more handbags and shoes (I cannot believe I just typed that out loud- and sincerely hope Mr. P doesn’t read this post) even if they were fabulous Prada knockoffs. None of my real life friends even know who Prada is so I’d have to fling it around leaving it conspicuously on tables and eventually tell the story about how it was Prada and that kind of defeats the point of having one.

Anyhoo. I had birthday money burning a hole in my pocket which I was determined to spend even if it killed me and I wanted a memento of my time in Vietnam and a pointy hat or Vietnam magnet just wasn't going to cut it ...

So I bought myself a quilt....

I got this from a wonderful craft and quilt shop in Saigon called Mekong Quilts. They sell all sorts of things on consignment that are made by women in a number of villages around Vietnam. The money goes back to the people who makes the goods , and the project generates employment and wages for a sustainable living situation for those living in poorer communities. Fabulous quilt + Great cause = win, win. 

The hand quilting on this is amazing and it's far more gorgeous than my cruddy photography shows. 

The back is a plain white and really shows up the gorgeous hand quilting. Honestly it was incredibly reasonably priced for a hand made quilt. I could quite easily have brought back more than one if I could have convinced Mr. P to be a pack horse. 

Moving right along...the second part of this post deals with an actual finish from moi. After working on the binding for my Irish chain quilt for what felt like forever , I finally finished it late last week. 

This one is a keeper...and i finally managed to some of those reds I collected for my Farmer's Wife quilt that never got anywhere near finished. 

Beautifully quilted by my quilting fairy . I'm thrilled with how it's come together in all it's antiquey loveliness. 

It's backed with a heavy damask I picked up on sale eons ago and I think the back is just as pretty as the front.  I think this is my favourite quilt of 2013.