Quilting in My Pyjamas

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Distractions

At some point during a period of intense crafty inspiration you get so many great ideas in your head that your brain simply cant keep them all in there and so you have to try and translate them into reality. Its like a law of the universe or something. I mention this only because I seem to be working happily on so many projects at the moment - somethings gotta give - but I 'll take it where I can get it.

I was inspired to start hand quilting a quilt. I got 12 inches in before I realised three stitches to an inch is pretty crap and I’ve since managed to convince myself that only an insane woman starts her first hand quilting project with a full sized quilt. I’m thinking a mini quilt is a good place to start my hand quilting experience. Naturally I'll have to make the mini first so I've moved on to other things. Goodness knows I have plenty of unfinished projects laying round begging to be finished things.

I finished quilting the Gelati quilt (thanks for the name Ms. Nerida ) by machine this past weekend. I think I made the right call because I’m really happy with how it’s turning out. This is going to be a lay around, drag on the floor , drop whatever you happen to be munching on at the time quilt for my house so it doesn't have to be fancy. I'm half way through finishing the binding so I'll show you the whole thing in all it's glory soon.

Last week I allowed myself to be distracted by Pinterest and all the pretty scarves there. There I was inspired to knit an infinity scarf because I was formerly inspired to make a gingham knitted blanket that I haven’t got right yarn for (and that is seriously going to take forever to make ) and I just wanted to knit something. Then I got distracted by the idea of buying a scarf on Ebay instead. My moral conscience kicked in when I realised that 4 dollar scarf I wanted to buy (with free shipping no less ) was made by someone in China working for 12 cents an hour . Eventually I went back and cast on my stitches for the infinity scarf and have managed to get this far. Assuming my interest doesn’t wane too much I could conceivably be wearing this before the end of winter.

Tazz and AusRose made faces like this at a recent sewing day when I mentioned I was going to machine appliqué my hexie flowers onto their backing blocks.

I took those looks to mean "Crap-est idea you've ever had " and so I have succumbed to peer pressure and wiser heads than my own and I’m hand appliquéing them onto the blocks. I've done 12 this past week and I'm not finding it as mind numbingly boring as I thought it would be. In fact -it's quite relaxing.

"Beep Beep" is finished, washed and crinkled so it looks well loved and is off to Master Jack this week. This kid lives in the tropics so I imagining this will be decorative rather than strictly functional.