Sunday 30 June 2013

Sunday and tidying has occured

I have spent most of today organising my fabric. I have come to the conclusion that for now I have sufficient fabric to make many more quilts. I have receive fabric as presents from each member of my family for the past few birthdays and Christmas'.

I started making quilts on the 1st of January 2009 and my Dear Jane quilt will be the 10th quilt that I have made. So with this slow rate of production, I feel that I probably have sufficient fabric to keep me going for at least another 5 years or another 10 quilts. I don't know if anyone else ever feels overwhelmed by how easily a sewing room can get messed up?

I have had a sewing room for 3 years. The only way I achieved this was due to my eldest daughter moving out. She was already 26, and holding an honours degree so it was not as if I threw her out, without first preparing her for the world. She lives 1 km away so I still see her often.

Before having this space; I had given up my craft room to make space for my youngest child who is 14 years younger than her sister. All of my supplies and sewing machines were stored wherever there was space available. The whole house was happy for me to move the art and fabric supplies into a single room.




The photos show various pictures of the sewing room. As you can see from the space shown I definitely could never fit in a long-arm quilting machine. It is just as well that I enjoy doing my quilting by hand. Hope everyone had an amazing Sunday.






Have a good one.

Saturday 29 June 2013

Rows 7 done - middle more than half way

With the completion of row 7, the middle of Dear Jane is more than half way there. The photo is a bit weird as the quilt was blowing in the wind. 

I went to a fabric store today and the strangest thing happened; I only bought a thimble that I had gone to the store for. I think this is due to the fact that I have to take my sewing room in hand and organise all of my fabrics. The other thing is that I have not really settled on what I will be doing when I have finished stitching my Dear Jane. I am sure the next time that I am in a retail situation with fabric being available I will succumb to temptation  as I normally do.

Have a good one 

Saturday 22 June 2013

Dear Jane - 6 rows together

So another week and another row attached to the Dear Jane. Now I have 6 rows and I am now working on the middle row.What a long and arduous task it is to attach the sashing.

The thing is it is not just a quick stitch of fabric to fabric, what it is actually is a quality control exercise.

I have had to realign some of the squares on new paper so as to get the squares nicely in place. I then stitch on the white fabric and depending on where the block is going to ( the edge or the middle) I cut out a new piece of paper according to the stripes I need.  This then ensures that all of the blocks are the same size.

The kitty decided to come outside whilst we were taking the picture of the quilt.


Have a good one.

Friday 21 June 2013

Happy Winter Soltice

Today is our Winter Solstice. The official time for it is June 21 2013 at 5.04 AM UTC
Just think, summer is on its way back to us! I used to quite uptight about the fact that the winter solstice was the beginning of winter. After a few years of thinking about it I realize that my logic was flawed as the cold normally really sets in, in the middle of May and by August the blossoms start showing on the peach trees in the garden. So even though it was fun being all huffity and academically correct that Winter solstice is referred to as the start of winter, I have now joined the popular opinion that the first of May is the start of winter and that June 21st is the middle of winter. It could all be down to the fact that I am getting older and find the winter a whole lot less fun.
 I do live in a place where we have the most temperate climate in the world. The summers occasionally peak at 32 Degrees and winter we sometimes get down to zero. Brrrr.

I like the winter solstice as it was on this day that I met my husband. I had heard about him from people I worked with as to the fact that I reminded them of him. Eventually a dinner was organized as I think they wanted the two of us to have a pig headed argument about something. (We are both opinionated and not afraid to have those opinions heard) What actually happened is that we agreed with each other on most topics and only go to war on silly things. We got married 3 month later on spring equinox. We have now known each other for 17 winter solstices. Due to us having met on a solstice and getting married on an equinox, I have felt empathy toward the quarters that define our relationship with the sun.

A happy summer solstice to all the people living in the northern hemisphere and sorry but we want to hog the sun again.


Have a good one!

Sunday 16 June 2013

Happy Father's Day

Happy father's day to my dear husband and Happy father's day to all the men that are dedicated to their children.

I was looking for pictures to make this post sparkle and I was very amused at all of the symbolism that is associated with being a father.
To be a father in the world of symbols you would need to smoke a pipe whilst sailing a huge yacht, just after winning a race in a sports car that you got to on a train that you drove whilst wearing gingham and an overall.

It is the same as the strange expectations that are out there in romantic book and movie land, of what makes a good husband. I think it would be horrid to actually live with the men portrayed. Let's not even go into what makes the fantasy wife.

So I would like to state that to me a hero is a man that knows the importance of family. A hero is a man who will go out earn a living. A hero is a man that will put up with the stress of a corporate job and not get sucked into the falsehood that surround it. A hero is a man that will be faithful and caring. So to my husband, I would like to say that you are my Hero and thanks for being a great Dad!

Have a good one!

Saturday 15 June 2013

Schlocks made

The family has had a group project and we all got together to make schlocks. These are fleecy socks to run around the house in. We had one or two technical problems (if you don't cut fleece in the correct direction it doesn't stretch) which cause us to have to remake half of the batch again. The full effort took us 3 hours to make 5 pairs.

Dear Jane's progress was a bit slow this week what with having to go fetch a replacement for our smart TV that went funny. The poor thing was only 9 months old and decided to have a wonky picture  and smoke coming out of its back. It was still under guarantee but the trouble with living in a third world country is that you have to be quite firm on getting your first world habits satisfied. In the end we got a new set that had the same specs as the one that blew up. This however took up stitching time. The other thing is that is currently pretty chilly here and we always seem to hibernate during the coldest part of winter. We can't complain seeing as we only normally have about 8 weeks of chilliness.

Now Jane has 5 rows.


This weekend is a three day one which will be grand.
Hope everyone has a great weekend.
I have added some chick fabric in a homage to the fact that the original Jane was made on a farm.


Have a good one!

Saturday 8 June 2013

Dear Jane - this week's progress

A week later and a little more progress has been made. Here are various photos. I like the ones with the sun shining through.


 Stain glass effect or a way to see all the nips made in the fabric to get the curvy bits in place.
These colours are so pretty, especially the blue and the yellow.

Hope everyone has a stunning weekend!

Saturday 1 June 2013

Oh so soon and now it is June

Happy start of June. Everything here is full of static as winter is our dry season. It can drive you nuts what with clothing and hair defying gravity and doing its own thing. One of our cats has long hair and the poor thing runs around having a constant bad hair day. It is also nippy so she sneaks into bed at night and often this action is accompanied by sparks as static is discharged. The mornings are coldish but soon warn to a pleasant temperature where no jerseys are required, but then again the 22nd is either the start or middle of winter. I think I will be going with middle as by august normally the first blossoms are on the trees.

I really do like June as so much that is good in my life happened in June. I met my husband in June and my eldest daughter was born in June so basically June for me is the creation of family month. It is an interesting point in life when the family you are born into is replaced by family that is yours due to the life you have created or been blessed with. It is an interesting social experiment this thing called family, firstly you find someone who gets you so theoretically shares your values and your general view of life and then you bring up children who will go out into the world showing off your values and how you see the world. The more interesting part I think is when these children are old enough to start changing the world view that you imparted on them with one of their own and start the cycle again.

There is also the down side of June and that is the sniffles that keep attacking the family. We are all taking our vitamins like crazy and as yet it has just been small skirmishes and nobody has taken to bed. The other thing is the mess that is in the garden with all of the leaves that keep tumbling down.
It does not matter how often they are swept up, within and hour or two the ground is once again covered in leaves. Let us not even get onto the topic of the swimming pool.

The swimming pool is situated in the back corner of our garden and the neighbours have beautiful trees around the perimeter of their stand, unfortunately in autumn, all the leaves from these 25 foot trees all fall into the swimming pool.

It is not a nice sight. It almost looks like frogs have taken possession of that bit of the garden. We still have a few flowers and birds in the garden.

The hardee dahs are still in our garden.

The youngest is doing mid-year exams, so that is always a bit of a stress especially seeing as she is a teenager and all the distracting electronic devices need to be kept out of her bedroom so that at least a little studying will take place. Having gone through bringing up a teenager already, the one thing that I did not want in the youngest bedroom until she was at varsity was a computer. She has her PC in the study with mine and my husbands. This is so that we can have social time when playing on the computer. This has been excellent in drawing her out of her space and into general conversation areas. The school, however, was able to go against this by issuing all of the children tablets on which they can view their textbooks as well as do internet interactive study in class. This means that my child has a computer in her room. As this is for school I have to let her use it there. I do make sure that it is in the study charging whilst she is studying. The same go for the two Nintendo devices that she plays with..she isn't spoilt rotten, one is mine and the other is hers. Well these too need to be plugged into the study. Oh the modern day problems that modern day families face.
My stitching together of my Dear Jane is going slowly but surely. I did a bit of a system check and found the logic of how I was assembling the dear was all wrong.  As the sashing is supposed to be used to even up the blocks, the way that I was going was going to lead to a whole colour stripe having nothing to equalise the sizing of it. This could have potentially messed up the flow as one of the colours would have pulled wrong. I still have my four corners, but now I have started to do it row by row. I have done the top two and it is fun to see the rainbow start showing. It really is taking a while but then again it is probably due to me hand stitching all of the pieces.

I really do have a bit of a problem and that is deciding what to use as a backing for my Dear Jane. If you have made one, what did you use? The other problem is deciding on what colour binding to use, and whether I should just buy pre-made binding or make it myself. These are silly inconsequential matters but it does give me something to think about.

I only have 1 month left on my contract at work. I have been told that I will get a renewal but as yet I don't know for how long. People who own the company want all of the IT work to go to India, but sometimes knowledge of systems are completely lacking which I like as it keeps me employed. I did mention that taking the jobs out of country was despicable and was answered that the holding company was more interested in the global work force... I think that means wherever they can exploit people the most. Oh such cynicism.

The hairdresser that my husband and I have been going to for the last 16 years has decided to go and live in Scotland. This is so very sad as she is a lovely person and we will miss her. It is a strange thing living in a country where everyone that you know seems to be going away. Well I wish her luck as it is never easy to transplant your family into a new country, but I am sure she will be okay.

Well happy June to everyone. Those in the northern hemisphere, keep posting pictures of the spring flowers as they are beautiful and lovely to see and those in the southern hemisphere, enjoy winter as this too will pass and then it will be our turn to see the spring flowers appearing.

Have a good one. 

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