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a community service announcement

In his early retirement, my grandfather was a skilled woodworker. He made beautifully crafted furniture and toys and was meticulous in his attention to detail and quality. I've thought of him this week, and tried to channel the attention-to-detail gene that must be somewhere in my makeup thanks to him, as I UNPICK 6 ROWS OF THE BLASTED TRIANGLE QUILT. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have started sewing something new, especially something requiring a measure of prescision, with a 3 month old in the house. Reading the instructions may have also helped. Ahem.

I'm sewing this in fits and starts - about 15 minutes snatched here and there while Henry sleeps and Audrey is otherwise occupied, or in the evenings when I'm tired (clearly a little too tired - I can't believe it took me 6 rows to realise my stuff up!) So, in case you're about to embark on this quilt, remember to piece the triangles all staggered-like... like this (scroll to Figure 3), so your lovely points don't end up buried in the seam allowance. Damn!














Despite this I'm still quilt obsessed. I've been making quilts in my head - many more will be made this way than I could ever hope to make in reality. This is todays quilt - inspired by a walk around our drippy, autumn neighborhood.

(ps - does this look funny in your browser? Typepad have changed some of their uploading software and it's making everything look odd. Anyone else having these problems?)

on my desk: obsessed!

I had many plans for this year. When Henry was born, I made a list. Without the pressure of having to work (for a little while, anyway) and when he slept/Audrey was at kinder I would learn to drive, exercise to lose all that baby weight (ahem, from both babies), sort though the 9000+ photos in our iphoto and get some prints done... that kind of thing.

Instead, what am I doing during the hour or so I get to myself each day? Making quilts. The patchwork bug has bitten me hard. There is so much I have to learn about quilt construction and mixing colours and patterns. It's addictive. So, while waiting for the backing fabric for Audrey's quilt to arrive, I've started cutting out the next one. This time using the Flock of Triangles pattern from Denyse Schmidt Quilts. This one's for Henry, based around the sweet Japanese train print I bought with him in mind (from Superbuzzy) when we found out we were having a boy. So that's what's on my desk today - a new quilt. It's making its way slowly onto the floor as I slice up triangles and move them about. So much fun, that other stuff might have to wait just a little bit longer.

Isadora

This is Isadora, the first of the big headed mice that have been loitering unfinished on my desk for months. She's made from charcoal wool flannel, is about 13 inches tall and has button jointed arms (I'm still on a button joint kick from the giraffes last year). Her and her two mice siblings will be part of my next shop update, with some other toys yet to be made. It's been nice to have a break from toymaking since Henry's birth, I think I was feeling a bit stale & uninspired (late pregnancy in the height of summer will do that). I'm loving getting back into it. I'm keen, I tell you. Keen!

Hope everyone has had a lovely mother's day, especially if you are a mum. Hope you were spolit rotten or at least given the gift of sleep. Or chocolate. Or even better - both.

the dolls of the house are scoring this week

With Audrey sick there's been a lot of sitting around the house this week. It's doing my head in a little, to be honest. I think we all need a change of scenery. It's been a good week for finishing a couple of rogue projects, though.

This doll quilt was started over 3 months ago before Henry was born. Audrey chose the frog fabric and I worked from there.

I asked if she wouldn't mind wrapping her doll (this one not a Sarah, but Peaches) and holding it up for me to take a photo of her, doll and quilt. She wrapped it, but wasn't really into the photo idea. On the up side, Peaches looked rather nice all cozied up, after being dumped and abandoned in preference for a Charlie & Lola dvd. Cést la vie, Peaches!

on my desk: the other one

Toward the end of our renovation frenzy & room switcheroo last year, I finally got my own work room. One thing I'd really looked forward to was buying a new desk so I could separate my craft stuff from computer. It's not the best photo, but I love this little corner and I'm sure the keyboard will live a whole lot longer now it's not subjected to fabric fluff every day. There's a little inspiration wire above it with some favourite images by Ana and Camilla, Audrey's art, and a favourite piece of Liberty print (the one with the little houses, can't find a picture online).

On this desk today? Um, Audrey - still home sick from kindy. Miscellaneous stationery, framed photos of Aud as a baby and of my brother, a stack of white Ribba (sensing a pattern here?!) frames waiting for me to get photos printed. That pinkish blob in the middle is a doll quilt I'm binding in quiet moments. Underneath it are a stack of delicious magazines my Mum has loaned me - it's Matt's birthday in a few weeks and we're having 40+ people over for breakfast (faaark!) For this I need all the help/cooking inspiration I can muster.

More desks here.

cabin fever

Inventive title for a post about a log cabin quilt, huh? I can't do much better at the moment, I was awake for 4 hours straight last night tending to/worrying about Audrey and her nasty case of bronchitis.

Last week when searching through a cupboard for some flannel for a bib for a friend's new baby (which I forgot to photograph, bad blogger) I found this log cabin quilt that I'd intended to make for Audrey, from - searching archives - wow, two years ago! Two blocks had been sewn and a further two laid out. And strips cut. Lots of them. Clearly I enjoyed the rotary cutter as much then as I do now.

I finished piecing the crosses quilt on the weekend - just waiting for the backing to arrive now - and thought it might be nice to actually finish a quilting project. This ended up being the perfect size for a doll's quilt. I'm not crazy about the colours, they're all a bit pastel, which I guess is why I went cold on it in the first place. I did the binding with some of the leftover strips so I didn't feel quilte so wasteful. The cutting is wonky. As is the quilting (probably not a good idea to mix quilting with sleep deprivation, but I had a desperate need to finish something today while looking after my sick girl). But as a whole I'm kinda fond of it.

Auds likes it (it went straight to the duktig). Sarah (about 80% of her dolls are called Sarah) seems to, too.