Boating with Chloe

As I live on a small island in Moreton Bay the water is an everyday part of life. To go to work, or to go anywhere you have to go on the waterbus, you can see the water from the house, and I find myself thinking and talking about the weather like my Grandfather who was a (sugar) cane farmer. A few years ago we were in a terrible situation in Australia with drought, permanent water restrictions, lifetime habits of leaving the tap running while cleaning your teeth, hosing off the driveway and watering the lawn gone forever.



Fast forward to the last 2 years where everything has changed. We are now in a La Nina weather event, and as a result it doesn't seem to have stopped raining since. Gone are the days when you could go sailing on every day off, and putting the dinghy in whenever you felt like it are over. Unless you don't mind being wet all the time that is. The wretched grass never stops growing, so that has to be mown between showers (when you could have been walking the dog), and generally speaking I'm a bit grumpy that I don't get to go boating as often as I like. What's the point of living by the sea if you can't get out there?



A week or two ago Chloe and I managed to get the dinghy in for half a day. It was a bit overcast, but still warm enough for a swim, so we took off down between the islands and stopped on the sand. Chloe turns out to be a natural in the boat - I'm wondering if she'd been boating with previous owners as she had a few homes before she came to live with me. Yes, skeletons in the closet...  She sits beside me on the seat and off we go.



She is a beagle so generally speaking she can't be trusted off the lead, but with my heart in my mouth I've let her off when we're on the sand and she's come back, so far. She has a lovely time and in this photo ran like a mad thing up the side of the island in the sand, then roared back down with her eyes closed. The sand is very fine and falls out from underneath trees and their entire root systems.



It's nice to get out of the house and onto the water, and as you can see, Chloe knows how to have a good time!

The Original

This is the original photo of the quilt that I'm making. I have this photo in my photo album but I have no idea where it came from. There is a secondary design in the half-square triangles if you look closely, but I've decided not to go with it.

I have included a few blue and cheddar triangles for a bit of a break from the red. Clare likes the cream with the blue on it, but I have to admit I've been leaning toward the dark brown the whole time.



I'm even thinking of making a smallish quilt so that I can finish it (fancy that) and try some utility quilting by hand with perle cotton. This will be new for me so a smaller project might be the best plan.

Triangles

I've actually been doing some sewing. I seem to have a 'thing' about the sewing room at the moment, so I brought the sewing machine downstairs and put it on the end of the kitchen table and did some mindless chain piecing while watching the cricket.



As I have no pattern to go by, just a photograph which is on the ipad, I'm not sure how many blocks I'll need, but I guess I'll work it out as I go along. I had a look in the stash and found these 3 big pieces of fabric, so gave them an audition for the plain blocks in between the triangles. The original quilt has dark brown which is what I'm most likely going to use, but I thought I'd try the others.



This particular dark brown fabric I bought from ebay some years ago as a large piece for backings. I used it on the back of the couch quilt which has been washed many times, and when I hang it out I always hang it back to the sun to protect the front. The back has faded terribly, so I don't know if I should use it, but this quilt won't be getting the wear. One or two of the red and cream fabrics are a bit on the thin side as I sort of started it as an experiment and have used up some fabrics I wanted to get rid of. Don't know, will think about it.

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...

It's a New Year

Yes, it's a new year and I'm going to try and sew more this year, and blog as well. I haven't blogged since 2010 which is pretty bad, and I have to say that I haven't done a great deal of sewing since then either. But the thing is that I still think about quilting, I read quilting magazines and books, read the occasional blog, look at fabric and fabric sites online; all of which makes me feel like I've been quilting. Then when I'm forced to confront the reality ie no blog entry since Oct 2010 and no actual quilt progress, I'm always a little surprised.



Some things have happened in 14 months, not least of which was having to have my gorgeous old beagle Simon put to sleep. I have had him for over 14 years and he was always a gentle soft dog, so it was sad to see him deteriorate and I adjusted my life to look after him for as long as I could, but in the end he needed medical care that his body couldn't take. Now it's just me and Chloe, and we're doing fine. She's quite independent and seems happy being an only dog - this is a recent photo of her. She somehow seems to be looking at me in a slightly disapproving way as if to say, well, now what? Is it dinner time, walk time, sleep time, bone time? Let's get on with it!



I recently bought some fabric for the border of the double pink 4 patch that has been waiting a few years to be finished, and I've also had a little buy up at a local shop that was having a closing down sale. I normally don't go there as it is a store that does a lot of country style stitcheries and pretty quilts, but I had 15 mins to wait before a dentist appt so thought I'd calm myself by touching some fabric. It turned out that they were closing that day, and everything was heavily discounted, making the fabric still more expensive than it can be bought for on the Internet, but not too bad. The thing that drew me in was the red reproduction fabric which I had decided to buy online only the day before, so I bought what they had left which was on two bolts. I also found some Kaffes and spots, and a lovely book on the history of Dutch Quilts that was half price.



Otherwise the cloud of my ever worsening eyesight has been hanging over my head this last year or two. It seems that it is quite normal for "someone of my age", but I can't seem to get with the programme and accept it. I had new glasses again in October, but I can't handsew with them, so I have to go back and get some stronger ones again. I have always had excellent eyesight, so I'm feeling a bit shocked at how quickly they've deteriorated. I can't even read the labels in the supermarket anymore, let alone the tiny writing on ampoules at work! It's like I'm working through the stages of grief, but I really have to get over it.

If I pop up on anyone's radar I look forward to rejoining blogland and catching up with you again.

RIP Bloglines

What a shock to my system to read that Bloglines is finishing up - what to do?  I have about 250 blog feeds on Bloglines and I've had to change in a hurry.  I haven't been doing much blog reading lately so I haven't had the chance to read what others have been doing so I've gone to Google Reader.  I'm still trying to find my way around it, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.  What is it they say about not liking change?



Apart from that things are still a bit slumpy here (have I just made a new word?), but I've been forcing myself to do some hand sewing on the sashiko inspired blocks - I don't know that you could really call some of it sashiko.



I sit and watch tv at night and sew around patterns on the fabric or up and down in lines, or zig here and zag there and it's quite good fun just going where you feel like it.  I think though that I'm putting so many stitches in that it will never be finished.  I think I need to spread out a bit so I get some more blocks done or else it will end up as a cushion!  This is only number 3, and it isn't finished, but I do enjoy doing it.  I know you've seen it all before so it isn't very exciting.



In other news, there really isn't any.  My parents returned safely from their overseas jaunt, we are having El Nino or El Nina (the one that brings lots of rain) for a change , and the dams are full for the first time in 8 years.  2 - 3 years ago we were facing running out of drinking water.  The house smells like a wet dog, and the neighbours are crashing and banging next door on some sort of deck extension which is disturbing my sleep.  But as you can see they are all luxury problems, so nothing to complain about.

All I need now is for my sewing mojo to return in full and all will be well.

A Lot of Nothing

I haven't posted for ages and I can't really think what I've been doing.  Lots of nothing things really.  Dealing with things like not getting paid (thanks to my employer the State Government who couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery), not going sailing due to the weather, which seems to take up a lot of time planning and thinking, and not visiting my parents each week as they have gone overseas.  It took ages teaching Dad how to text, set the alarm in his mobile phone, access webmail, put the country code in front of his numbers in his phone book so he could text, and find things for Mum on the computer.  I have to tell you that this took ages due to the ridiculous set up of his phone, not his ability to learn! I'm also in charge of house and mail checking, plant watering etc.  They are 76 and 82 yo - good for them.  I woke up to a text from Dad this morning sent from Paris in the middle of my night, and they are doing ok.



I've been looking at clocks for the house for ages and not been able to make up my mind.  I was sure I wanted a silver rim around the outside and a white face, and poo-pooed this one when I saw it the other day.  Then within 10 mins was back in the shop looking at it.  I bought it knowing I could take it back and I still haven't decided, but I think it will probably stay.  It's 60cm across (24 inches), so it makes a statement, but the room is big and the windows are big.  The microwave is going to go from this spot.  It is really old (1988 I think) and has been the best microwave in that it has never missed a beat.  But it's BIG.  Far too big, but the wretched thing still works so it's hard to get rid of it. Maybe I could donate it to the RSPCA for heating up things in the Vet surgery and buy a new little one that I could put in the pantry out of sight? Thinking about it, but then seeing as I didn't get paid and now my credit card has been blocked due to a "suspicious transaction", I had better not spend any money at the moment.



The other thing I did do was put up the stainless steel shelf, rail and knife magnet that I have been planning to do for 5 years. I haven't done it as I knew that I wouldn't be able to find studs behind the plasterboard where I'd need them, and I didn't know which screw thingys to use. A quick look at YouTube, a visit to the hardware store, and there you have it. Amazing what you can do when you decide to do it. That YouTube is incredible. It continues to amaze me that people all over the world (but mostly in the US it seems) spend their valuable time making little videos of themselves doing things like screwing things into walls just to show you which screw thingys to use. Who knew?



As for sewing, I am relieved to find that I have a photo to add here, but I've hardly touched it for weeks.  The handsewing is about the only thing I've done in ages.  I have had a bit of a clean-up in the sewing room though, which is pretty big for me.



Otherwise not much else to say.  I've been spending a lot of time thinking about not eating too much, but I don't seem to have lost any weight, and when in the library the other day I tried to enthuse myself by looking at the quilting books but found myself staring at The Oxford Companion to World War 2 which isn't my cup of tea at all, so I don't know.  The one thing I do know is that the mojo will come back, it always does!

(I haven't even published this post yet and I have 27 links to it on the preview. How can that be?)

Le Tour

All normal activities (apart from work unfortunately) have ceased for viewing of Le Tour de France.  A little hand sewing is being done, but not a lot.  We get 4 hours of TV each night between 22.00 and 02.00, so I have been recording it and trying to watch it between shifts and on days off.

Go Andy!

Sashiko block 2

It's very cold here today. Well when I say cold remember that this is the sub-tropics and everything here is designed for keeping cool. No carpet, no curtains (only a few blinds but they're upstairs) and a nice high house to catch the breeze through big expanses of glass. The ugg boots are on and the dog has his coat on.



I have been sewing a bit on my sashiko while sitting in front of the TV watching recorded shows. I've started a second block, and I'm a bit more organised when it comes to the edges. I've zigzagged, and I'm not going to sew too close to the edges so it will all go together a bit easier.



The flowers and leaves I've sewn over are already on the fabric as a faint outline, so I've just used them as a guide. I'm getting quite into this hand stitching - nice mindless stuff.

Sashiko

I've been doing a bit of sashiko, sort of 'rough' sashiko in bigger stitches. Inspiration has come from a few places as I've been looking at heaps of sites and blogs with old Japanese textiles lately. These pages however are the ones I go back to regularly.







I just started without thinking it through, but I think what I'll do is make a Quilt-as-you-go type quilt with the squares just sewn together and the back just roughly sewn down. I'm using fabric from the extensive Japanese stash which I accumulated while making my Japanese Quilt.

I'm amazed at how much I'm enjoying hand sewing these days. When I first started making quilts there was no way I'd sew by hand - too slow, too boring! Now I really enjoy it, who'd have thought? I'm off to the Mainland today so I'll stock up on some more sashiko thread if I can get any. I might have to buy online to get what I want.

There has been plenty of TV watching lately, and with Le Tour (de France) only a few weeks away there will be plenty of time for hand sewing.

Do You Believe It?

Laura's Christmas quilt is finally finished - better (6 months) late then never, right?  The weather is cooling down so at least she'll be able to put in on the bed straight away and get under it.



I used a different batting this time that's cotton but thicker than I usually use, so it will be nice and warm.  It also makes the quilting a bit more obvious.  It was a bit hard to get a decent photo as of course it clouded over and started to spit just as I put the quilt out on the deck.  I tried it over the railing but these quick pics were the best I could do.  It hasn't been washed yet and due to the hasty draping over the chair it looks a bit 'bubbly' between some of the random quilting lines, but it looks much better when lying flat.



She is addicted to pink so she can turn it over if she likes.  The 'handover' is tomorrow night.

New Neighbours

The house next door finally arrived yesterday providing free entertainment to half the island. These photos are taken from my neighbour's deck across the road. As you can see it isn't finished, but the worst of it is done. It looks a lot better now that it's put together, and will be much nicer when it's all finished off.


13.00hrs


15.00hrs


Time to panic


16.30 hrs


17.00hrs



From my window today (yes it's raining again).

Half a House

Have been busy working this last few weeks and busy finishing off Laura's quilt. I'm half way through sewing in the 100s of threads, then just have to do the binding.  Nearly finished!

The weather here has finally turned towards autumn, cool at night and occasionally overcast and cool during the day. But lots of the days have been beautiful - so nice to see the sun.





I took these photos of half a house on the way home from work the other morning.  As I drove past the barge terminal I saw this big truck (and some "men at work")  waiting to get on the barge.  The next morning the other half was there but I was racing to catch the Waterbus so no time for photos.  This is pretty much what the house next door will look like I think.  It's meant to be coming on Friday night so I'll probably miss most of the fun.  It will be funny to come home from work to find a house where 10 hrs before there was nothing much. 

The sun shines again.  I just had to step over Chloe who is working on her tan.  She'll get so hot that she's panting, but she won't move.



I've had a lovely gift of some Chocolate and Pink repro fabric in the mail this week from Bonnie.  So generous when all I did was direct her to a pattern.  For someone who says she doesn't know her repro fabrics she made a pretty good choice I think.  Thanks Bonnie!  Looking forward to seeing your progress on the bird quilt, even though you did drop the pattern in the bath (?!)



I've also been thinking about how to hang these 3 Flying Seagulls.  I've had them for a while now and was all ready to hang them one day when Mum came over to hold the ladder, but we couldn't decide which way to hang them.  I always thought that the 3 Flying Ducks your Grandma had on the wall of the kitchen were arranged with the biggest on the left, then the middle one and the small one flying away into the distance.  The small one is smaller because it's further away.  Mum thought they should go with the big one on the right with the others following behind like the ducklings following the mother duck.



So I did a bit of research and couldn't really find anything that said one way or the other, so I'm just going to hang them the way I thought, as above.  I traced around them onto newspaper the other day and put them up with a bit of tape on the back, pushed up there with a stick, to get a feel for where they should go.  It was a good idea as I think they need to be a bit further apart and the middle one is a bit high.  I'll get them up there sooner or later when someone else is in the house so I don't fall off and break something. We had a patient at work this weekend who thought he could fly after having a few too many drinks and jumped off the roof of the house.  He has bilateral broken heels and will have to have an operation and lots of time off his feet.  I asked him if he had his Superman cape on - no.  What an idiot.



Not much in the way of sewing, but I did manage to sort out my needle problem.  I was going to put the machine in for a service but it will take 4 weeks!  I'll never get the Christmas presents finished if I do that!  There is a little bit of a chill in the air the last few days, so the pressure's on to finish Laura's quilt.  I have done some crochet on the hexagon medallions, but the bamboo and cotton is so poorly 'twisted' that it has become very frustrating to work with.  As a result there will only be a few more done then made into a cushion cover.