15 Minutes A Day -Weekly Report

This week's effort has been completely abysmal.  I'm blaming the finger but we all know the truth. Quilting Gremlins. Yes - that's right. They stole into my house and nicked my crafty mojo. I didn't do a crafty thing until Saturday. That's four whole days of uncraftiness. I'm kicking myself.

I spent this week second guessing myself 8 times on the Dresden centres and sashing fabric. I decided it absolutely needed some obscure Aunt Grace fabric that was in print 5 years ago but ultimately couldn't find anywhere. Trust me - I spent 8 hours online looking. I went from being convinced that blue was the way to go , back to my original dark pink, through auditioning greens and yellows , back to pink, back to blue and finally settled on a medium pink. If you hate it for crying out loud don't tell me because  I just ordered three more yards of it for sashing. I ended up making 5 Dresden centres and tracing and cutting another 11.  I'm just relieved I made some bloody progress.

Fabric shopping happened again this week. Can I help giving in to temptation when I see stuff on sale ? I went to buy some plain black and came home with 8 metres of that and another 12 + metres of these two for backing. It was on sale for 40 % off and then if I took the rest of the bolt they gave me a further  30% off . It would have been criminal not to buy it.

I also bought solids and plan on  making them into something spectacular at some point. I've never worked with plain solids before. I usually consider them the plainwrap bread of the quilting world. (kind of beneath my notice )  I have been completely inspired by new ideas this week. It's like creativity has taken over my brain.

And in news you already knew -The Chocolate Star Quiltlet (happy now Becks ?)  got finished.

And I started cutting something fabric for something else. It seems that no sooner have I taken something off my WIP list than I'm putting something else on it.

These are already starting to look like a quilt top...sort of... I'm sure you get the idea.

Come back next week for another thrilling installment where Shay finds her sewing mojo and gets a load of things done! Hopefully.

Meantime , pop on over to Kate's to check out other sewing legends.

Pyjama Party Sunday -Mother's Day

I've been present in Blogland this week but not really "here". If my comments have seemed a bit distracted or short I apologise. On my agenda in the last week has been falling asleep on the lounge most nights at 9.30pm. I'm not sure what's going on there . It's very un-Shay like. On the up side I'm getting a ton more  sleep than usual.

Ironically the one day of the year when I should feel cool about staying in my Pyjamas all day  was one of the few Sundays when I didn't. We headed off to my Mother In Laws for lunch and so I was out of my dag clothes by midday. It was quite a shock.

I took some hand sewing along and finished the binding for the Paper Pieced Chocolate Star baby quilt. quiltlet (sorry Becks )   Ta Da! Another finish.

I  started cutting fabric for my next quilt, which will be for one of my nephews. (Shhhhh -it's  a secret ) I'm actually quite excited about doing this one probably because it's a challenge to do a masculine quilt occasionally and not run off on a girly tangent.

Miss P  did a sleepover last night  and I woke to some very thoughtful Mother's Day goodies today . Thanks Miss P - you're my favourite child.

The rest of the day was lovely too. Pictured here are me, my sister in law , Miss P and my mother in law.

I got clearance from the medical fraternity yesterday to resume sewing and regular activities. Watch out! This week has been slow but I'm planning on making up for it this week. In other news , I have decided to do a time and motion study this week to see exactly what I do. I'm looking to squeeze some extra time out of my days. Stay tuned for the results!

To all the Mums/Moms -you rock . Tell your families I said so. Hope your day is  as special as each of you are. Check out what other Sunday Pyjama-ettes have been up to here. Little Miss Sunshine would love to see you there.

Favourite Things Friday

It's Favourite Things Friday again. Time to show off something that rocks your socks, floats your boat and makes you smile. Feel free to play along by writing your own post and linking up !

Much has been said on this blog at various times about my gardening prowess or lack thereof. I just can't seem to warm to the idea of planting things and consistently remembering to keep them alive. I'm not sure whether that's because we have such a large garden area and I simply don't know where to start or whether through bitter experience  I know I  just have naturally black thumbs.

This week I actually wore long sleeves every single day so I'm guessing that means autumn is officially here with winter due to arrive in a few short weeks. This  heralds the start of "I'm not venturing into the garden again until September " season so I was toddling round the garden this week (You may have noticed I use the term garden rather loosely ) for a last hurrah until Spring. During this jaunt , the thought occurred to me that I have kept various things alive quite successfully over the past year or so. This made me happy because I convinced myself that perhaps I'm not so much a crap gardener as a disinterested one. 

Pop this music on in the background and enjoy the things I'm managing to keep alive because these green things are my favourite things this week .

I love hydrangeas and managed to grow these from brown sticks of nothing. 

I have no idea what the things in the back of these tubs are but they used to belong to my grandmother. I think they're impossible to kill no matter how much you neglect them.

My agapanthas got nursed and coddled through  the heat of summer and I'm hoping they'll grow big and strong over winter.

My parsley and rosemary are getting bigger every day . They are now at the useable stage and I'm so encouraged by this success I'm off to buy some mint. Let's hope the cats leave it alone this time. My cats are obsessed with killing every mint plant I have ever bought.

I brought this lawn back from the brink of extinction after not being able to water it properly for about  4 years. I'm pretty darn proud of myself.

This thing  was about a foot high when I bought it.

I have a ton of lilies in buckets all over the place. One of these days I may just get around to planting them in the ground.

And for my next trick watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat  plant and keep these frangipani's alive through the frosts of winter!

I hope your Friday is full of favourites!

15 Minutes a Day Challenge

I've discovered there's nothing like almost slicing the top of your finger off to put a crimp in your crafting plans. There hasn't been a lot of sewing going on around here since that unfortunate incident  but I've had a lovely time dreaming about projects and planning. Sometimes it's nice to do that. 

My project for  the paper piecing quilt along is almost done. I haven't decided yet whether this is a wall hanging, new born baby quilt or table topper. Originally this project was going to be 4 full stars but after tracing the templates, cutting the fabric and piecing and sewing another 12 of these blocks to 3/4 finished I realised I had sewn the wrong fabric to piece number 3 on every single block.  Sometimes you have to know when to pack something away to try again another time. Having been introduced to paper piecing I'll definitely try it again at some point with a larger project (and this time I'll number my fabrics !)

The Dresden Blocks have come out of hiding as I contemplate how to attach circles to the centres with the least amount of pain. I keep reading that people do this before they put them on the backing blocks. The fabric I thought I'd use for the centres is not really "right" (far left ) and I set about auditioning and choosing a new fabric. I've decided on the blue because I think that's the most striking of these choices.

I finished another block for the Tis The Season Project. Yes ...those are blind mice. And ironically there are three of them.

The Australian dollar continues to do magical things which surely can't last forever so I felt justified  in indulging in a spot of shopping this past week. I bought backing for future quilts using Verna

 and Wild Thyme

And I treated myself to a fat 8th pack of  40 bits of Collections for a Cause - Faith fabric. I love this line more than anything I've bought since I went Meadowsweet mad about 15 months ago.

And this fabric is for the 'Tis The Season Blocks. And I went to an actual store to buy it!

 I'm on a shopping hiatus for a while now. No.... seriously.

Pop on over to Life in Pieces for the scoop on what other crafty peeps have been up to this week. Thanks for hosting Kate. Barring further unforeseen medical emergencies we'll see what I can come up with for next week!

Pyjama Party Sunday

 

Pop on over to Little Miss Sunshine's and join the party .

I survived Day 2 of Fingergate. Thank you for all your well wishes.  I was heartened to feel tingling in my pinky earlier today because I figured that meant healing until I started thinking a major infection probably tingles too. I don't know whats going on under that bandage and I was told not to take it off unless it got wet. They probably don't want me to freak out because my finger is going black. If they take it off tomorrow and my finger looks like a three year old carrot I'll be sure to take pictures to share. That would be an interesting blog post.

There has been plenty of time  for contemplation since I have been banned from doing anything. I don't really understand how sewing could possibly impede my recovery but my orders were to rest up for the weekend.

Frankly I think this no sewing nonsense is some kind of world wide conspiracy to stop me from being crafty.  Last weekend Patty banned sewing machines and this week the medical fraternity is denying me. Basically because I'm a smartarse I've now spent two weekends working my way around the rules. Last weekend I hand sewed.  This weekend it was tidying up the sewing room properly ....so I could actually find things in there. Last time I did that was in April of 2008. If I spent half as much time applying myself as vigorously to other areas of my life as I do to bending the rules I swear I'd be President of the United States.

It took me two solid days to go through every nook and cranny of the sewing room.   Welcome to Pigsty Central. And this was after I started.

So I sorted and bagged all my scraps by colour. I have heaps of scraps and there is some really hideous crap in there.

I put all my collections together. They look so pretty I don't want to use them.

I grouped my fat quarters and other fabric bits  by colour.

And I have so many vintage sheets to play with that I'll never need to buy another one. It would probably be manners to leave some for other people anyway.

I found some really pretty chenille squares I should probably use. I keep promising Miss P a new chenille quilt but I still haven't forgotten how much fun the last one was to quilt.

And now it's done and I can see the carpet ..and I wish I couldn't because it needs cleaning.

 Somebody amuse me  - I'm so bored.

I'm really hoping that stink I can smell is my feet and not my finger....

The Dangers of Cooking

This post is for all the people who think I should eat more vegetables....

Vegetables did this to me today . Yes that's right I was attacked by a turnip.

And a very sharp knife.....

My doctor says if I'm going to try  re-creating Assaggio chicken vegetable soup at home because I'm too cheap to pay the 15 bucks a bowl I should be cutting vegetables with a butter knife.

Don't panic. These are making me feel wonderful.

We'll see whether I'll get to keep the top of my finger on Monday or whether I'm forever doomed to have a weird angled pinkie.....

Favourite Things Friday

Welcome to Favourite Things Friday for another week.  

 

After our brief hiatus for Easter last week I was almost tempted to write an entire post about chocolate today but I resisted. Feel free to link up with a chocolate post though if you want to so I can live vicariously. At least your post wont double the size of my butt the way Easter eggs did this week.

I've had a week full of deep thoughts. I've been ruminating about things like how to maintain  a positive mental attitude, the beauty of autumn mornings and whether I really need one more Easter egg. The answer to the Easter egg question is always yes.  I'm taking suggestions for number one.

Red is my favourite colour and always makes me happy.  Red is fun and funky and screams "look at me". Red completely reflects my personality. There is no other colour that instantly peps me up like red does.

There's nothing like a red winter coat to chase the rainy dreary blues away. While everyone else is breaking out the browns and blacks, my red coat will be making it's first winter appearance shortly.

Mmmmmmm..cocktails.

Red Fabric makes my heart sing. I have yet to make a fully red quilt but one of these days I'm going to take that leap.

Can't you see me at a cocktail party wearing this? Right after I lose all that Easter egg weight.

Romance anyone?

A sunset like this one makes you realise how beautiful our world really is.

My new placemats . I hope they are a self fulfilling prophecy for every future meal.

My babushka has pride of place in the kitchen.  I love that she adds a pop of colour and fun.

We all know I love red shoes. Dorothy had the right idea.

And I own several of these in varying shades of red.

Red is such a happy colour and it's my favourite this week.  Now lets see some linking people because I can't wait to see your favourites. I'm suffering from linky/blog hopping withdrawal.