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. 

The Return of The 6 Million Dollar Cat

We had a mini emergency here at the tail end of the weekend  with His Royal Orangeness deciding to have another bout of kidney-itis. Naturally this happened at 10.30pm Sunday night which necessitated a trip to the 24 hour vet (think huge bills and the vet rubbing his hands in glee because he gets to go Bora Bora on my dime for a holiday this year).

All’s well that ends well. We got to it early this time so he just needed some medication to ensure he could take a leak and some more medication to reduce anxiety and stress and he was home by early Monday afternoon. 5 minutes after arrival back home he was doing this so I figure he must have felt a lot better. 

Naturally I had to take the afternoon off work to cat sit post discharge.This presented a perfectly legitimate opportunity to get some week day sewing  done.  And did I take this golden opportunity to sew my little heart out? No I didn’t – both the cat and I (appropriately) cat napped for three hours instead.

That meant that  I was padding around the house until 3 am that night . The cat did what cats do and slept the night away. I wonder what it would be like to sleep 20 hours out of every 24. At the moment he's drugged up to the eyeballs so that probably helps. 

Anyhoo-in the wee small hours I put the binding on Superheroes 1 and Briar Rose so I have plenty of hand sewing to do when the mood strikes.  

And in the spirit of putting myself out there I'm donating Briar Rose to the Royal Society for the Blind for a silent auction to raise money for training guide dogs. I'm equal parts terrified and thrilled. What if nobody bids? 

I finished the back for Superheros 2 and I really like the simplicity of it. I have plans to de-simplify it  somewhat by adding some appliqué and if I’m feeling REALLY brave maybe some trapunto.  Hey – you have to cram in the creative thoughts as they occur. Even if it is all in the same quilt.

And I found the perfect thread for quilting Superheroes 2 yesterday in my lunch break while I was shopping for heat bond for the applique. I love variegated thread. 

And on top of all of that I still have a baby quilt to make , and my goal list for March reminds me I shot my stupid big mouth off about having that finished by the end of March ...hmnnnnnnn. I sort of have a loose plan. We'll see how if that pans out. 

Happy Hump Day people. May Wednesday be kind to you all. 

Cramming

I had a rather drastic haircut on Saturday as well as a new colour (I was starting to look like Cruella de Vil or a skunk or both)  I decided to go all trendy at the suggestion of my 21 year old hairdresser and had an asymmetrical bob done which means one side of my hair is noticeably longer than the other.  I'm not sure yet whether I look hip and trendy or whether it looks like I did my own haircut with a knife and fork. 

As usual the weekend seemed to be over far too quickly. Often Sunday night appears and I think "What? almost Monday already?" like it's somehow a shock that Monday follows Sunday and that I didn't get half the things done that I'd planned. But this weekend was packed full of sewing and a couple of almost finishes in the quilting department. That's what I call a good weekend!

I put on my big girl panties and finished the quilting on Superheroes 1. I still don't think it's one of my best quilting efforts in terms of execution but the silver lining here is that it helped me decide what not to do for Superheroes 2. I'm pretty sure this is what a real spider web would look like if the spider had just dropped acid. 

I was doing the happy dance at the idea of being that close to a finish though and maybe if I wash the crap out of it all those cruddy bits I don't like will dissolve in the wash?

I'm half way through making the back for Superheroes 2 and having learned my lesson I'm keeping it simple. 

Little Miss Sunshine gave me the heads up a while back about a different method to basting a quilt and I gave that a crack this weekend. Instead of basting all three layers at once, I spray basted the front to the batting first and then spray basted the top two layers to the backing. Mind you I still pinned it to within an inch of it's life. Just to be sure.  I got great results using this method with my backing looking almost perfect when I pulled it off my basting table.

Some simple in the ditch stitching in the main body of the quilt 

And I did such an awesome job of matching the backing thread that you cant see I  did a single argyle pattern in the borders. I was originally going to use red top thread on the front in the borders but chickened out at the last minute. I'm kicking myself now because that would have looked fabulous. And I'm seriously happy with the quilting on this one. Now I just have to make the binding for both of these and spend some time hand sewing. I can sniff an imminent finish or two! It's about bloody time . I think I'm the only person in the entire quilting fraternity that hasn't had a 2013 finish!

And finally I've been the lucky recipient of some beautiful goodies the last week or so that I want to show off and say a big thank you for. 

At our sewing day last weekend Quiltygal gifted me these gorgeous babushka fabrics. Sewing friends are the best friends ever! Thank you Claire. 

And recently I've won not one , but two blog giveaways!

First up from the beautiful Elizabeth at Such a Sew and Sew I got this parcel of yumminess. I'll be sticking babushka stickers on everything I own from here on in. Too cute ! 

And from Terri at QuiltNcards  I got these awesome fabrics, some licorice (I've heard about Good and Plenty but never had any)  and since Terri is the official Queen of Paper Piecing she sent me this lovely example of her work. I was truly spoiled. 

Thank you so much ladies. Your generosity has brightened my days. 

It's off to work for me , although I'd much rather be tackling those binding jobs!