Stash dilemma

I have just had a week of stash dilemma. I have been tempted to go to a quilt show, but, the only reason that I want to go to it, is to buy more fabric. I know that I am getting about 22 yards of fabric for my birthday in two weeks time( I know this as I sat next to my husband and organised the purchase).
What other fabric do I need to add to my stash? This is the dilemma.

The good quilt angel points out that I truly have more fabric than I will probably need for the next 10 years. The good angel also knows that I always ask for fabric for any of the present giving occasions. The good quilt angel also points out that storage of all of this fabric is starting to be a problem. The silly cow also mentioned that if I add any more fabric to some of my tubs, they are going to explode and cause grievous bodily harm. What a horrid thought adding just 1 small fat quarter and your whole sewing area explode.

The bad angel. Yes I did find one that looks like he has a vacuum cleaner as a mouth. This is due to him wanting more and more fabric. Who can ever have enough? Ah the pretty colours... I believe that it is this little bugger that always points out that the current quilt that you are busy with would be complete only by adding a fabric that you don't currently have in your stash. The reality is that the fabric is already in your stash. It is just hiding.

The bad angel has just pointed out that I don't have big flowers to cut down to smaller shapes and make flowers for my granny's garden. Bad angel. The bad angel also spotted this Gecko on Facebook. I really need this shade of green.

Does anybody else have this internal battle? 

I have an amazing fabric collection with hardly any boring colours in it. 

Have an amazing Weekend.

Update: Went to the show. Saw the quilts. Very pretty. So disappointed with the fabric producers. This is what I walked away with.

 See I did not actually buy any more fabric.

Saturday morning...

This morning I dashed off and took my child for 2nd language lessons. The language she is learning is not used by a very large audience. Listening to people in the office, it may be a good idea for her to learn to speak Hindi.

Though due to the number of people speaking Hindi, I have been working from home.
I need to have quiet to concentrate. Luckily I can connect to work from home. I have managed to accomplish much by sitting quietly by myself.

So, Saturday morning, sitting in the car, covering paper with fabric, I had time to ponder. Normally when I sew, I watch television. This entertains me and keeps the mind quiet. Today's thoughts about the corners of my Granny's garden quilt. My concept of putting barns in these corners may be silly.

If the Barns are barn size, then exactly how big are the flowers. The largest flower in the world grows to a metre in diameter (Rafflesia arnoldii). It even looks like a hexi flower. Now if we say that these are the flowers in a granny's garden, this has two things to worry about.
These flowers smell like rotting flesh, yuck to have that association.  Secondly how big could the barn be. Even a toy barn would be too big. Possibly a lego barn would be the way to go. 

So no I don't think of flowers in my quilt are a metre wide. I always think of them as dahlias. This brings me back to the border. I wanted to have sheep and ducks running around the border. How big would they be logically be. I now have to rethink what I will be doing around the blooms. Either a rethink or stop being logical.

Have an amazing day.

Irish chain

Have you ever made an Irish chain? I made one and it was an interesting exercise. The inner blocks were fun to quilt and the only thing I feel I did incorrectly was have a border on both the top and the bottom. This caused chaos when trying to match up the two.

It really was not as dramatic as I would have liked. It has all the colours but it does not hurt the eyeballs. I prefer quilts to cause a little pain when you look at them. I think there is too much white for it to get to critical mass .

This is the border that I was talking about. It is most elegant but really a silly thing to attempt. It looks good on the bed, but only for the when the quilt is folded back, just before climbing into bed.

I used wool batting for this quilt. What a glorious substance to hand quilt through. It is really easy to stitch, unfortunately it does not have that much strength so it seems to stretch when you pull the quilt up. Often the sound of threads snapping can be heard. The wool is also gloriously warm. This is definitely a winter quilt.

Here is the links to some of the makings of it.

Hope you make one at some point.

Have an amazing day

Advice not to follow

We have come a long way.&nbsp

I find it quite sweet way of thinking. The second half of the advice, but this time is has to do with husbands.

This is the advice of what should be done in preparation of him coming home....

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favourite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.

Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.

Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.

Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.

Be happy to see him

Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.

Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.

Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.

Your goal: To try and make sure your home is a place of peace, order, and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.
Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.

Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

A good wife always knows her place.

Distractions

Playing on Facebook this morning I came across two really amusing pictures.

Hopefully you have watched Lord of the rings, otherwise the first picture is just silly.

I often pull this face when trying to thread the tiny quilting needles.

The second picture is just funny. I am quite bored with the paper covering, hence the many trips to see if there is anything fun on facebook.

Once more into the breach...


Have an amazing day.

Be cooler than the Amish

I love the quilts that the Amish make. Their colour choice is amazing and the quilting that they do is awesome. Due to appreciating their quilts, I have read everything that I can find about them.

  

I was shocked to find that they do their piecing by machine. They reject cars, but create art using mechanical aides. 

All I can say is not cool. Having said not cool, I have found a few items that are pretty cool.  

I love the way the duck is really into his surfing. 

So back to sewing. I actually hand piece due to the Zen like quality of creating stuff by hand.

There is a serious down side to creating quilts by hand and that is the amount of time that it takes to create them.

The other thing is that before you can sew anything you first have to cover paper with fabric.
Here is the tub, full of fabric covered papers and then 2 and a half weeks later all I have left in the tub are the centres for the rest of the flowers.

I have been covering paper again and will need to spend a few more days at this fun part of the process. Clever Amish, I see their wisdom. No matter which way you do it, quilting is fun.

This is an add on. Today I found this picture which I think says it all.

Have an amazing day.

Orange or yellow?

These are today's contributions to the flower pile. I have never been too sure as to whether this tone fits fully into yellow or actually is yellow.  When I was trying to post this to my Granny's garden tab, it did not want to go peacefully onto the page. 

Does it also drive you crazy when you are just trying to put a picture on a page and it seems to be suddenly possessed?The only cure is to go  to the HTML tab and poke around to make it all better.

I always find that HTML can do my head in with all of it's starts and ends. It is not even neat code that this page produces so there are no nice indentations to follow which brackets belong to which items. 

Well here are some nice yellow or orange inspiration pictures.
They are such warm colours.

I like the lemonny shade of this one. It seems to be rather old fashioned. It is pretty.

and lastly, here are some more delightful daisy-like flowers that also seem to have the problem of not knowing whether they are yellow or orange.


Have an amazing day

Barns for the corner

For the border of my granny garden quilt I am going to do appliqué leaves with farm-like scenes peaking through. The current thing that I am trying to find are barns. My idea is to swamp my mind with all the images that I think will translate well into a corner of a quilt.

 Once I have a maximum input, hopefully I will be able to either put together the best ideas, or choose one that I can work with.

I find this is a good way of problem solving. Try not think about the problem too deeply. In fact if possible distract yourself. When you brain has had time to do all of the required connections it will present you with an answer. You can then pat yourself on the back for being so original in you solution and not having worried about the answer. 

This works about 80% of the time. The other 20% will result in you forgetting that an answer was needed and great stress will ensue when you realised you have let something vital slip. 

Please tell me which bar you like the best. 

 I do think the barn needs to be red.

I also think that my barn will need to have a quilty thing on either the wall or above the door.

 This is a nice shape.

I like the curvy fields.

 I think that the barn needs to be nice and big.

Maybe a silo will be fun to add.   I like the starkness of this one.

 This painting is awesome, but, I don't know if I could do it justice.

 Hope you enjoyed the barns. If you get to see the actual things,  remind yourself that you are lucky to be able to see such amazing structures.

Have an amazing day.

Inspiration green

This week we have had a visit from some strange green birds. I thought I would do an inspiration page in green.

Here are the birds

  Most strange. This is the first time I have seen them at the feeding station. They are green parakeets.

They inspired an inspiration page.

Have an amazing Day.