Computer is Fixed

Thank goodness my computer is fixed at last. It has been very sick for some time, getting slower and slower and doing the big freeze and occasionally giving me the Blue Screen of Death. My response? Do nothing and just use the ipad instead. I love my ipad - best thing ever invented, but for the 2% of things you can't do on it, life becomes very difficult.

I've posted the last two posts from it, but the fiddling with photos was very difficult. For that reason alone I'm happy to have the ancient laptop back. I've become very used to auto punctuation and capital letters though... I'm also a bit dissapointed because while it was at the computer man's place I had big dreams that maybe it was dead; it isn't young you know. I have frequent flyer points that I'm planning to cash in and I have enough to buy a Mac Air; so slim and sleek, light and beautiful, logical and reliable. I had it all picked out. I was quite sad when the old one was fixed, but with my job on shaky ground at the moment I should be saving the points for more useful things. Oh well, we can dream.



Here is the photo of the little quilt from Quiltmania that prompted the English Paper Piecing from my previous post. Nice isn't it?



I've also been experimenting with my Sizzix BigShot. I bought it before Christmas when it was on sale, but I haven't really used it until now. I really don't like the cutting part of a quilt. I find that I cut just enough to do some sewing, then cut a bit more and so on, even not moving on with things because I don't want to do more cutting. I've looked at these machines in magazines for a while, but after doing some research decided to buy one. In Australia it's easier to buy the Accuquilt gear, but as you can use some of the Accuquilt dies on the Sizzix I went in that direction. The Sizzix distributers here are all Scrapbookers, but I have found 2 or 3 online stores that carry some of the quilting dies. I have talked to my local store and they are happy to order whatever I want for quilting with their next order though, so that's good to know.



Anyway, I have been cutting these half square triangles from an Accuquilt die, and it's amazing how easy it is! I bought a new pair of cutting plates (extra long which will be required if I buy a long Sizzix die in the future) and put some extra sheets of paper under the die to make it thicker. I also put one sheet of paper on top of the fabric (I use the junk mail that would normally go in the bin), and have worked out that I can cut 7 layers of fabric at once. If you arrange the fabric right sides together as you want to sew it this saves time later.



There's very little waste and the rabbit ears are already cut off. The red fabric looks very fluoro in this photo - not its true colour at all. There are some things to look out for when choosing which Accuquilt die to buy as not all will fit in the BigShot machine, so if anyone's interested I will post more complete details.

Australia Day

It's Australia Day today - our national day. In Brisbane where I live there were plenty of celebrations planned, but there has been so much rain over the last few days that most of them have been cancelled. The rain has been so heavy that there has been flash flooding and releases from the big dams to prevent a repeat of the major floods of this time last year, which were due to overflow of the dam up river from the city.

This is my street yesterday. As a result most of the dirt is now at the bottom of the hill.



Anyway, it has stopped briefly, so I was able to take a quick photo in the semi-gloom of this little piece of hand sewing I've been doing. It's paper pieced which is a technique I really enjoy. The inspiration is from a little quilt in Quiltmania the 2011 Autumn edition; the issue has so many beautiful quilts in it that I want to make most of them. Lucy from Quilting With the Past has a quilt on the cover. I'll try to take a photograph of the little quilt when the sun comes out.



Chloe and I have been curled up together on the couch watching the cricket, trying not to go outside, and trying not to eat too much! I bought a Sizzix Bigshot before Christmas on special, and have been researching die. I now have a hexagon and a half square triangle, so I've been looking at the half square triangle quilts on Flickr, being inspired. I've been doodling triangles for days...