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!

The Challenge

Yesterday was my monthly "Not the Farmers Wife " sewing group. I can't tell you how much I enjoy getting together with these girls. It's always a blast. Even if they do come up with cruel and unusual punishments (keep reading!) 

I was late, which is my usual MO on sewing days. I had a valid excuse because I was returning a lost dog to its owner before it got squished by traffic on the main road. Why is it a law of the universe that when you need your mobile phone its always dead? And by the way has anyone tried to find a public phone box lately? It took me ages. Finally the dog was restored to his rightful family and good deed done for the day I arrived at my destination.

We were missing a few groupies yesterday. For those of you that weren't present rest assured that I managed to talk enough in your absence so that you were barely missed (read: I totally monopolised the conversation for at least two hours bitching and whining) Thank you again Not the Farmers Wifers for listening to my tale of woe. 

Then we solved the mysteries of the universe and moved on to the conundrum of exactly how often I actually cook dinner.  The girls pretended to be horrified at my admission but I know they secretly wish they could work out how to eat takeaway or have someone else cook dinner 4 nights out of 7. In the end I was challenged to cook for 7 nights straight from scratch. I'm pretty sure that was Claire's idea because she looks like someone who enjoys a little kitchen torture.  I think Val was egging her on too. Challenge accepted. 

Denise(no blog) put on this spread of awesomeness for sweets. NTFW days may end up like kids birthday parties where we all subsequently try to out do each other in the dessert stakes. 

This is what I worked on yesterday. I had hoped to take the Beep Beep baby quilt to do the binding but alas the quilting isn't finished yet because Little P came for a visit on Thursday night and on Friday I was busy at the playground and duck feeding instead of sewing. 

My original idea was to make a full sized quilt out of red yoyos based on this picture which makes my heart sing every time I see it. Isn't it GORGEOUS?

Stupidly I've kept this photo and not the original source so if it's yours please let me know so I can give you proper credit via a link!

We all know a large sized quilt just isn't going to happen because I'd have to make about 430 yoyos to have a decent sized quilt. I don't have that kind of staying power or attention span and I'm fairly confident I'd still be making yoyos when they carted me off to the nursing home. A more realistic vision for my yoyo collection is that they'll become a mini quilt. 

The goal for today is to to finish the quilting on Beep Beep and get the binding on ready for hand sewing. I got overly ambitious with the back and now I'm pondering what to do with certain parts of the quilting so it doesn't impinge on my awesome design on the back. There's something to be said for thinking ahead when you get creative. Oh and I have to decide what I'm cooking for dinner tonight. And for the rest of the week .....I don't actually believe anyone cooks 7 nights out of 7- it sounds like some kind of urban myth.   

A Finish or Two

Naturally chocolate featured in the plan for this past weekend. Mr. P and I spent Thursday night and Friday with Miss P and Little P ...an Easter egg hunt yielded a bounty of goodness and one very excited little boy. 

We had breakfast with Mr. P's family on Friday and in the presence of very good company I finished Superheroes 1. Finally. 

Excuse the cruddy photo. Its so overcast here today and I couldn't take this outside because the rubbish men are lurking round emptying bins and I'm still in my pyjamas. Without a bra. Very unattractive.

And then Friday afternoon we headed up to the river and spent some time with my parents for the rest of the long weekend. There was some retail therapy and plenty of sewing.

I made three needle books 

Briar Rose got finished on Saturday and I'm doing the happy dance because I really like it a lot.  

and on Sunday I indulged in some more retail therapy. It seems I'm on a roll with buying variegated threads but these were a bargain I couldn't resist at 20% off.  

I started the baby quilt (the one I was supposed to have finished in March- nothing like leaving it till the last day of the month to make a start !). All the fabrics are cut for the front and back and the top is almost done.  

Speaking of March goals, I may have finished two quilts in March (again - go me- I was starting to think I may not finish ANY quilts in 2013) but I kinda bombed on my actual goals for March. Hopeless! The chair is still mocking me, and I didn't get the top for Superheroes 2 finished although I did get the back done and surely that counts for something. I finished only 2/10 recycled shirt quilt blocks and the baby quilt didn't get finished either. Frankly making lists sucks, or I suck at finishing the things on my lists ! 

April Goals (I don't know why I bother ...seriously!) 

1)Finish the baby quilt , top, back, quilting and binding.

2)Final 8 blocks of the recycled shirt quilt 

3)Put the top together for the recycled shirt quilt

4)Finish superheroes 2 (top, quilting and binding )

I'm all about ignoring the chair for another month. It's not going to happen in April so I'm not going to pretend it is. Re-upholstering that chair terrifies me. 

I hope everyone had a peaceful and happy Easter and isn't suffering from chocolate overload. 

Cutting ...of the Fabric Variety , not the Emo kind

I hit the mother load of cool T-shirts at the op shop on Saturday, after a very unsuccessful trip the previous weekend. The problem with not being a hoarder is that when I decide I want to make stuff out of recycled items (for example a T-shirt quilt-yes I really want to make one of those this year ) I usually don't have any of the very thing I need laying around. Coupled with the fact that Mr. P drops something on his front every single time he eats rendering every T-Shirt he owns in the "utterly disgusting" category by the time he has finished with it  and that means there is a distinct lack of old but useable T-shirts in this house. Mr. P also likes rude or weird sayings on his T-shirts and I cant see myself making a T-shirt quilt with sayings on them like "FBI- now give me all your drugs"  or "Man Whore ".

So I've spent a lot of yesterday cutting those shirts into useable shapes for the far off day when I have enough T-shirts to transform them into a whole quilt. Considering all the cutting I did it doesn't really seem to be that big a pile.  

And then because I'm a glutton for punishment , I went back to hacking up all the shirts I bought last week and started turning them into quilt blocks. 8 blocks done and only 41 to go. 

It wasnt all cutting fabric this weekend I actually finished something -my first finish for 2013 -and only 13 days into the year. Doing the virtual happy dance because I'm too lazy to get my bum off this chair. I wonder how long this motivated streak will last?

Take a plain bathrobe. 

Cut into your extensive chenille stash.

Appliqué like a crazy lady for a few hours. 

And you'll end up with a one of a kind robe.  Total cost : $8.00 bucks and items pilfered from your own stash.  It went home with Miss P . I really really wanted to keep it ....

I have to cram enough work into the next 5 days to feel entitled to have a couple of weeks off. I have  a plane trip coming up next Monday that's going to take me to a place where I'm probably going to be led astray. I'm looking at you Little Miss Sunshine. 

Mish Mash

With our departure drawing closer, I've been working long hours so I can go on holidays from work with a clear conscience. Not much else that's blogworthy has been going on here unless you count the batch of cakes I made that I forgot to put eggs in (they were like little rocks and tasted very strange) or the fact we've been living on takeaway for about a week. 

Mordecai is firmly ensconced back in usual life after his near death experience. My credit card is not so much dented as completely smashed into tiny pieces. But it's nice to have a happy (breathing)cat.

He is minus a lot of fur , and all the neighbourhood cats are taking the piss out of him. I told him to tell them this is the "half poodle" cut and it's very chic right now. 

While I'm bitching and moaning about how poverty stricken I am I'd like to show something I ordered before the cat decided to suck the life out of my credit card. I haven't bought shoes in weeks so I went on a bender.

There are actually two of each shoe but I was trying to be arty with my photography. I Love Billy is my absolute favourite brand of shoes and since I bought three pairs on sale for the price of one it would have almost been sacrilege not to buy them.

I've done a bit of sewing lately but it doesn't feel like a huge amount of progress is being made. I've pressed all the bits for this quilt that is making it's debut appearance on my blog. I stupidly announced to Little Miss Sunshine that I was  aiming to have this top together before we went away and once I have an idea out there I find it hard to change it so watch this space.

And I finally sucked it up and basted Flurry yesterday because it's been sitting here mocking me for about a year now. 

I was assisted by my helper , Little P who has obviously been watching me baste quilts for so long that he knows how it's done without instruction or prompting. And yes- he did it in his pyjamas. I'm so proud. 

The plan for today is to quilt that darn thing. I'm already plotting about how little quilting it really needs to remain stuck together! If you hear crying- that will be me. 

P.S. 9 sleeps!

Thank Goodness for Jesus Handles

I guess I should say I'm not dissing religion in my title. I don't know about anywhere else in the world but Jesus handles is a pretty common saying here in Australia and since we poke fun at just about anything I'm going with it. Also there is something a bit rude at the bottom of my post too. I figured if I was going to offend anyone with my religious reference I may as well go for a two-fer and upset people with mild porn while I was at it. 

There are milestones that we commonly share throughout life. Learning to walk , starting kindergarten, getting your pen license in Year 3. Starting high school, and having your first kiss. One of the major rites of passage in young  adult  life is getting your drivers licence. It means you can give public transport the bird. And it means your parents have another thing to worry about and that their petrol bill is going to increase by at least 100%. 

On Thursday Miss P got her learners permit. She didn't get it first go (or even the second) but  I was very proud that she persevered until she had achieved her goal. Sometimes it's easy to give up, but the things we want are really worth going for. No matter how long it takes. 

On Saturday I went out and bought L Plates and a crash helmet because today I took her for her first driving lesson. I also banned her from watching any Formula 1 racing for the last week in case she tried to emulate Mark Webber. 

She did a great job and I think doubling my dose of anti- anxiety medication prior to the lesson was a stroke of pure genius. And crushing some up and putting it in her morning coffee seemed to help her too.

With my whole "anything you really want is worth working for" speech ringing in my own ears I decided to brave making whoopie pies again this afternoon. And you know what ? I think I nailed it. Finally- whoopie pies that aren't the size of baseballs or that can be used as Chinese throwing stars. 

The week that saw me absent from Blog land also saw me finish all the blocks for the selvage quilt. 

And  a second pair of yellow pants that you need to wear shades to look at directly lest you be blinded so Little P could play at being Fireman Sam. 

One of the roadkill rescue ottomans got a makeover this weekend. 

 Stapler gun + cushion covers= gorgeousness 

Finally,  the reason most of you scrolled down to the bottom of this post as soon as I mentioned porn ...I was in Spotlight shopping yesterday and saw a totally new section. I waddled over there as fast as a middle aged woman can waddle but trust me it was a lot less exciting than the sign led me to believe. 

Enjoy your week!

P.S. In case you're wondering about the title ...here's an explanation of Jesus handles.