Wordless Week

I've been back at work, and NOT in the sewing room for what seems like a very long time!

And no sewing generally means no blogging, unless one of the girls has been up to something . . . Yep!  Niki this time!

Her 'friends' (I shall be having words)  bought her a bungee jump for her birthday!  Why would they do that????  She hadn't planned to tell me when it would happen, to save me from worrying, but when she said "On Saturday I'm . . . oh no, I'm not telling you that", I kind of guessed!

It didn't help that I was away for the weekend - but the girls friends I was with distracted me with chat, shopping, chat, alcohol and more chat, so I coped!  Thanks Lainey, Lise and Mal!

So photographic evidence of Niki's jump

Or I can email you video evidence if you'd rather!

Here is my distraction shopping, all packed up ready to come home with me

Other things we did on our girly weekend: played Lego

(added a brick or two to the model of Durham Cathedral)

And afternoon tea in the sunshine

Thursday's Thank Yous!

I recently showed a photo of Lisa at the North Point of Australia. She travelled there in one of these 4x4s:

it was well equipped for the outback with a winch and a couple of spare tyres, and built for off-roading, and with a driver who had planned well for all eventualities. However, he decided he wasn't coming back straight away, so she headed south in the *other* 4x4 - with a car and driver that was none of the above! She described the red 4x4 as suitable only for carrying shopping up a bit of a steep hill, driven as bought from a car salesman, with no outback consideration or modifications worth speaking of.

What was even more scary was that he seemed to have no idea of him limitations or that of his vehicle. He wanted to revisit sites when previously the other car had had to winch him out of problems, and Lisa watched him use 10 litres ( 17 pints?) to wash up - obviously water wasn't a valuable asset at all! The red car gained some sort of notoriety on the point. So when they stopped for supplies and Lisa asked a lady if she knew of anywhere Lisa could stay if she left the car, the lady made a few phone calls and saved Lisa from the "moronic tw*t"

So thank you to that lovely lady, and thank you to the incredibly kind people at the Moreton Telegraph Station who took her in and gave her bed and board in exchange for a few hours work a day for six days

They also arranged for her to continue her journey back to Cairns on the mail plane:

Over amazing views, so thank you to the pilots!
(Great Barrier Reef)

(Moreton station and airfield)

(Bush fire)

Another bunch of thanks is to Jackie and Amo who emailed me regularly with reassuring words to keep me this side of sanity while I waited for Lisa to return to civilisation, and Wifi!

(I think Lisa's recovered from the scare - she dived at the Great Barrier Reef today!)

And then today I got an email from Fiona telling me that my link on the HoHoHo be-ready-for-Christmas project was the winner of a gift voucher from the Village Haberdashery, so thank you to Fiona, and to Annie at VH too!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to spend some money!!!! I have long lusted over a Kona colour card, so I think I'll treat myself! I can then match fabrics to some of these zips that just happened to arrive in the post a few days ago!

Thank you for reading this!!!!

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Me Me Me Monday

Monday 31st August. Fortunately a bank holiday, unfortunately the last day of my holidays! But I spent it wisely! I sewed for me!

A while ago I won a bag pattern: the Everyday Tote Bag. Jackie and I made one and then one each in February, and two more in July.

My July version went to a friend as a birthday pressie and I wanted to tweak a few things in a new version for me.

I wanted wider, two internal zip pockets, the right length straps, a secret slip pocket, a key clip and slightly more subdued colours.

So that's what I did! The blue and cream version is the new one

The main internal slip pockets are designed for my wallet and my card wallet, and there are two zip pickets for car park tickets etc, intentionally different colours so I *might* not have to check both to find anything,

The secret slip pocket is in the lining, and is the full depth of the bag: it's ideal to sling my phone it - no one can surreptitiously take it but I can easily find it.

I like my straps to be long enough I can hold them in my hand and swing my elbow through - so I can put it on my shoulder with the one hand, so I've done that, and I've filled it with all my necessary essentials

My keys are on the ribbon - not my house and car keys, but my work keys: they are accessible but not weighing down my personal key ring.

I used all "home dec" weight fabric so it's quite sturdy, especially as I used interfacing too, but I like bags that stand open for me to throw things into, and there is plenty of room for all my cr@p and shopping too.

A well spent final day of freedom!

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Wool On Sundays

My friend Janine blogs at Rainbow Hare and is a keen knitter and crochet-er, and runs a linkie every Sunday.

I very rarely link up as I don't (can't) knit, but I can crochet one stitch if someone can cast on for me. A while ago the lovely Carolyn at church started me off for some fingerless gloves. She felt I was ready to progress to a new stitch, but I ended up with this, so clearly I wasn't ready!

 

She very patiently started me off again, and I now have this:

 

It needs to be much longer and then I need to do the same again for the other hand, but these will be perfect to driving to school in the autumn / winter when the car is cold and I'm waiting for it to heat up!

(Do you like my ergonomic crochet hook - made with two packs of Sugru - I love that stuff!)

 

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Bottle Bag

I try and drink plenty of water, but I like it REALLY cold.  I generally freeze half a bottle overnight and then top up when I'm drinking so all the liquid is ice cold.

The down side is the condensation it leaves everywhere, so I had half a plan to make a container out of towelling, then I stumbled across this post.  Susie made a patchwork bottle bag that I thought would work fine with a sacrificed towel as the lining.  I wasn't overly fussed about cutting 40 squares of fabric so I joined two width-of-fabric strips and turned them into a chequerboard arrangement the right size and shape

I used the patchwork as a pattern piece to cut the lining and finally figured out the spiral joining method (the two pins need to be touching)

The lining was a bit bulky, but its exactly what I want, and will absorb all the condensation so I am delighted with my battle bag.  I think it will also insulate it so it stays cold for longer - I hope so.  I added one strap and also two rings so I can attach a shoulder strap if I'm going for a walk

Friday Finishes

It's been rubbish weather most of this week: torrential rain and cold enough I've needed my slippers!! In that sort of weather all I've wanted to do is curl up with a quilt and watch TV.

But I'm also aware that my school holiday is rapidly coming to an end, and I'd like to get my UFO list down a bit before next week, so instead of curling up under a finished quilt I've been under an unfinished quilt, finished the binding on . . .

This one: Five a Day

 

And this one: Tessellated Red and Cream Stars

 

And this one: Jilly's Garden Gate

 

There are, of course, plenty more UFOs, but these are now finished, yippee!

 

 

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La Passacaglia and Polly

My La Passacaglia EPP block has been progressing: I took the very brave step to add some fussy print fabric into the solids.  I'm really pleased with the way it is progressing

A few days ago Polly, a friend of Niki's, came over.

Polly had mentioned she had a load of t-shirts that she wanted to make a t-shirt quilt with, could I help?

We started with a pile of t-shirts, and a couple of metres of fusible interfacing.

We reckoned the maximum square we could get from the t-shirts was 12.5", so cut the interfacing to 14" squares and ironed it to the inside of each t-shirt: after a few false starts and a bit of fusible fused to the iron rather than a t-shirt, we then set to cutting.  Polly was new to using a rotary cutter or a 12.5" square ruler, but got the hang of it pretty quickly, so soon we had a good sized pile of t-shirt squares

We then did a bit of speed dating until she was happy with the layout, and she then learnt the easiest way to make a quilt: Stitch the squares into five columns, arrange column #3 in the centre of a fleece blanket, pin #2 to its left, pinning through #3 AND the fleece, then stitch along the pinned line.  Press #2 open, spray baste in place, and then pin #1 in place and repeat until all done: 4 lines of stitching has assembled the quilt, and has adequately quilted it.

A further two lines to baste down the two outer edges and within seven hours she has gone from a pile of t-shirts to a quilt (OK, "coverlet") she can sleep under until we get time to cover the binding lesson

The pic of Niki and Polly is from a few years ago, but its a lovely pic of them both, and that t-shirt is included in this quilt (left hand side, just above Polly 14)

And here is an up to date pic of Lisa: The sign says "You are standing at the Northernmost point of the Australian Continent"  She got there!  Now sadly she is heading back south, further away again :-(

Terrific Traffic

I was loading up my Blogger page to create a post when I noticed a spike in my views

I then noticed a new 'traffic source' of www.freequiltpatterns, so I investigated.

I know some people have had problems with their blog posts being re posted as someone else's work, but surely that couldn't account for extra visits to *my* blog.  But if you go to the Free Quilt Patterns website and scroll down a bit you see this

And the links all link back to my blog - imagine me doing a happy dance! I am, as the kids say, "well chuffed"!

Linking at Last

I keep meaning to link up with Fiona's "New to Me" and her "Ho Ho Ho and on we Sew", and I'm finally remembering to do so!

I have blogged about this before, but here is my Ho Ho Ho offering:

 

Hand dyed / marbled fabric sewn into zippy pouches for friends for Christmas

And for "New To Me" I'm offering these, some already posted, some new

Peg bags made for a friend: the opening is under the bone

La Passacaglia

Tool store / pin cushions

And binding caddy and hexie caddy

Slogging and Sewing

I'm slogging through the pre-school uniforms: 45 down, no idea how many to do, but plenty still in the box!  Also a delivery of four dressing gowns, and two PE kits, and a few school jumpers - not sure I'll have time to go back to work in September!!!

The pre-school embroidery is fairly routine, and I can generally hear a change in the sound if its going to play up, so I've been taking the risk of multitasking

I've made myself a thinner version of this credit card wallet (original instructions here)

The museum added a cover for a Guest Book to their order, so I did the embroidery, and then covered a ring binder

The plan is that they can reuse the ring binder - I can just make them a new cover each time

I made some more sweet 16 blocks - thanks Wren for most of these fabrics!

 

And I spent a bit of time on the computer - I received these lovely photos of Samuel and his I-spy quilt (and mum and dad looking very happy parents!)