Another week older

So this week I have been sewing my Irish chain together. I have worked out that to sew the top together I have 121 metres of stitching to do. I have timed myself for the last 2 night and worked out that I stitch at about 1.75 metres an hour, so after putting numbers into a spreadsheet, i can see that it is going to take me 69.25 hours, and with an average of 2 hours a day stitching time I recon on 35 days and the top will be together. Then I can use the amazing wool batting.

Work is still tenuous; so holding breath on that front, though I have decided to take my stuff home slowly but surely so as I do not have to walk out with a box should my contract not be renewed. As they say in the theatre 'never let them see you bleed', well the same goes for large corporates.



With my current dear Jane obsession I am allowing to plan which colours i need and how much of each colour. I think my stash will be the source of most of these fabrics. My husband paled slightly when I mentioned to him that a dear Jane consists of 281 blocks and would it not be a hoot if it contained 282 different colours (one for the back ground). Though deciding what colours to use and their placement is a challenge as the original is soo old, and what would Jane have used if she had the option to chose from a myriad of colours.
It is a fun thing to think about.

Have a good one.

Friday once again

This morning I realised that we are well and truly on our way to winter. The temperatures in the afternoon are still reaching 32 degrees celcius (90 degrees fahrenheit) but this is not the tell tale sign, what I believe is is that the chickens that live in the area that woke up at 3:30 in the morning in December are barely able to wable a note at 6 oclock. As for all the birds in the garden they too are not making the normal happy sounds. At first I was worried that the silly chickens had a cold and had lost their voices as I was awake before them, but then the pathetic waking voices were heard. So soon we will see the leaves turning and the birds lining up on the telephone wires, whilst they train to fly north. It is always an impressive sight seeing them swirl and dive whilst training.

I plan to sew sew sew this weekend so I know it will be fun.

Have a good one

Thursday or Friday-eve

The week of ups and downs.

My wool batting arrived from the states and I was only charged 20% import duty. This was way cool on many levels as I did not know whether the batting would actually get to me and how much I would be charged by customs. Wool batting is very different from either cotton or bamboo which have a waddish fealing where as wool feel almost like  Polyester but with thinner strand and still scratchyish on the face. All the ladies that have written about it say that it quilts like a hot knife through butter, so I will have to wait and see. I am stitching furiously to get the Irish chain top finished. I have the whole thing in 122 blocks that now need to be stitched together do when I have sewn 122 metres of seam the top will be together.

The reason for me starting to stitch the Irish chain and giving up on the flower border for the swirl quilt is a very sad tale. I had finished the top border and had started on the one side when my stencil was thrown away. I say this with much sadness due to the fact that I had not packed the stencil away which is my normal practise but had just left it on top of the box that I use for my current project so that I can keep it all together. Then in comes cleaning and bye-bye goes my stencil. So much for enthusiastic tidying. Well none of the shops have any stencils so I am waiting for Hobby-x which is happening on the 3rd of March to see if I can find a replacement stencil. If I can't find one then I will either buy one from the states or set my hand at making 1.

I had a rethink about the back of the Irish chain and now I do not think that I will be using the pinwheels on the back as they may cause scratchiness. Well they have now gone into my box of almost made it onto a quilt blocks which Will one day be turned into cushions or something. 

With the quilting of my Irish chain in the wind my mind has been wondering about the next quilt I will be doing and although I still want to do a granny's garden and a postage quilt I have found the next quilt to excite my senses. this is the Dear Jane quilt. What a project. I do not know whether it is good to as so many have been done but the sheer extravagance of the pieces excites me. I will have to see how I feel in 2 or 3 months time when the Irish is quilted. I may just do a whole lot of prep work before hand such as printing the 225 patterns that are required and possibly sourcing the 225 different colours that I think I may want to use. Would that not be stunning, having each block use a different fabric, my stash quivers in anticipation.
The whole reason for the obsessing is the fact that I am trying to distract my mind from the work front. Soon I may have a whole lot more time to stitch. Watching people pack a box and leave makes me as a contractor not hold out much hope, and seeing as I would need to travel for 4 hours a day should i need to work in town, so the chances are that this would not work. I have a contract until the end of March so April fools day will show how things will be. It is interesting times that we are living through.

And finally, having thought I was hip and happening, but, I found out by doing a quiz this week that I am not. To be considered a Millenium person, you must rate your job highly, don't read news papers, but do have multiple tattoos and piercing. So yay on not being millennium. I have never thought of myself as being a follower of rules etc, so obviously if you live long enough eventually your version of rebel becomes the norm. At least I was not in my age bracket but the one above so I should be happy enough with that. So on the whole another week has gone by, I have stitched a bit and done a whole lot of other things a bit, which is a good thing. As they say keep on truckin...

Have a good one.

Wednesday - half way there to the weekend

So far this week our gate motor was struck by lightening and now needs to be replaced. This is cool, but, the funny thing is that security has to be added to the motor as people are now stealing gate motors.

 I can remember when I was growing up the gates we either open or closed and a human had to achieve either of these states.

Now that the new motor is in all I can say is that the last motor was very tired. The new motor opens the gate with great gusto and just a little bit of swagger. I think there are roids involved somehow.

Though looking at the new motor with is flashy bling, it almost has a Dalek esqe look about it. Hopefully it is not programmed to destroy vehicle when they drive through.

Back to the good olde days.

 I also remember when crisps came in paperish packets and these too came in two flavours... stale and fresh. I think that live has taken major strides in all the years that I have lived and people who say different have probably forgotten the reality of their childhoods and not just the pretty memories that they have retained. It is the same about your school years, what a sad life you have if your school years were the happiest years of your life. I think life gets better and better the more you live as you can understand that things just happen and that is it. The other thing about now that is better is the tech; the wonder of all the the toys could not have been imagined by me. I would have platzed by butt off if I had been presented with all the amazing tech that is now available.

Have a good one.

Friday - more musing - things that are nice

Okay so the previous post was about all the things that bugged me this week, well here is the list of things that I loved about this week. The list is in no specific order.
1. The obvious, my family and the fact that we all like each other.
2. Summer rain storms
3. Quilts to snuggle under
4. Quilts to sew on. and speciality YLI thread that does not get into horrid knots.
5. A job to go to, even though I may whine about it.
6. A husbands butt to snuggle up to in the middle of the night.
7. A teenager that will still hand out hugs and kisses.
8, An eldest daughter that will phone me even though she is on holiday.
9 Yummy food to fill my tummy especially the fresh brown bread sarmies for work.
10.The traffic in the morning being of the acceptable range and not the oh dang I want to practice road rage, and I want to practice it right now.

see eazy peazy I could get to 10 things that I loved about this week.

Have a good one

Q2 - swirl quilt revisited

I finished my swirl quilt. in August of 2010 and thought I was very clever by not quilting it too much.

This proved to be stupid as it lacked texture so when I had done all the blocks for the irish chain quilt about 2 weeks ago, I got the quilt down and started quilting again. Previously I had just quilted one out of every 3 diamonds that made up the hexagon that made up the square, by doing this I quilted a nice swirl pattern that followed the colours, WHat I have done now is go through every diamond and am currently adding flowers and leaves to the border. The border was supposed to represent a wall around a garden and the swirl was nature...I know pretencious.. I think I have covered all the diamonds and I am now busy with the border.

Have a good one

February

So February has arrived as it will once January has gone bye bye. I was told that the wool batting that I ordered from the States may take 4 months to get here. That is the problem with living in deepest darkest africa. The other problem is once it is here, will it get to me or be "lost" at customs or the post office.

This is horrid news as I need the batting to continue with my Irish chain.

oh well

Here is todays cute picture:

Have a good one