Itchy

I haven't sewn anything yet this year. Well, unless you count buttons. I had to sew on a button. But nothing creative yet. I have to make some curtains for a friend this evening. Her little girls don't have curtains in their new bedrooms yet, so that's fairly important, but not terribly creative. I am feeling an itch to make something small and pretty. A little stitchery perhaps. It's too hot to sew big things. I might do some cutting up later, too.

I am making a scrap quilt, in small stages, as the mood takes me. It doesn't matter how long it takes, really, it's the sort of quilt that will never be out of fashion or favour. That's the beauty of scrap quilts, especially reasonably plain ones, with a small repeating pattern. This one is very repetitive, pattern wise. It's just squares by the bucket load. Just getting rid of a few old prints and scraps and things. I love it, it's looking gorgeous. Hmm, now that I've said all that, I feel like getting it out and doing some! Funny how that happens... But first those curtains.

By the way, how do you like my new look blog? Feel free to leave a comment so I know how you feel.

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Juggling Life

Oh dear, just ditto the last post will you... what a busy lead up to Christmas. I decided to make all my Christmas presents this year (this year, last year? well 2008 anyway), as we are budgeting fiercely. That was interesting, as there are so many boys in my extended family - teenage boys at that! What can you possibly make (in a hurry) for a teenage boy who works and has his own money and can buy himself anything, anyway? And I had nine to do that for...

So I came up with a great idea, which you can copy sometime if you like. I made them all a set of juggling balls - although, maybe sacks is a better description, since they aren't circular in any way - out of the offcuts of my son's denim jeans. He's into cutting all his jeans into shorts at the moment, so I had a variety of denims to work with. You cut out a rectangle 3 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches for each "ball", and with right sides together, fold it into a square shape.

Sew down one side and across the bottom, trim seam, turn and fill with those little bead stuffing thingys, or if you can't get to the shops for them, try rice or lentils. But you can't wash the balls if they have rice or lentils in them... Anyway, fill to just a nice feel, you don't want them underfilled and pathetic looking, or overfilled and tight. Turn the top seam down and stitch the opening closed. Now, you don't stitch it so it's a square. You take the side seam over so that it goes to the middle back. This gives you a triangle-y shape all around which is excellent for throwing and catching. (You can find juggling instructions on the internet.)

I am still having computer troubles. Which is why I've hardly been here for months. My tech team (my husband) is currently loading up a new computer for me, with all my files etc. It's taking him a long time to get it all sorted and he keeps sighing. Oops. Hopefully it will all be done and finished with soon and I will be fully operational again.

In the meantime, I get his laptop while he's busy elsewhere, and I am fully immersed in real life in between.

I hope you have a fabulous New Year, full of happiness, good health, good times with friends and family and financial blessings. Oh, and have a productive and satisfying year, too. I wish you well.

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Away Days and Plans

I'm not going to even apologise or try to explain the leave of absence I've had. Life, eh? Time just gets away. I haven't done much stitching - hardly did any of those magazine projects, I just couldn't get to them. That's just the way it is sometimes and if you let it get to you, it would make you miserable, so to heck with that. I've decided to stop feeling overwhelmed and guilty and just get on with life! Yay to me. Now let's just hope I can stick with that thought...

I am back now though, thanks to a little business short course I did today and last week, just two mornings, and with so much zip and zing I feel ready to go out there and DO something again. Wow, how great is that? I like this feeling, and it's been absent for too long.

So I'm back. And I have plans. Watch this space...

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Appliances and Fabric Scraps

I've just been commissioned for magazine projects for the rest of the year. Woohoo! I'm going to be so busy stitching I won't have time for anything else, practically.

I do hope my computer behaves. She's been under the weather and even had a stay in hospital for more than a week. Back in action again now though. I hope even more that my sewing machine stays healthy - better get her checked over too...

I love the idea of being totally green and self sufficient, but I'm just not that person, unfortunately. I love the few appliances I have and don't want to go from low energy bulbs to candles (except for the odd romantic evening, of course). I want to have my kettle and my dishwasher, my sewing machine, DVD player and computer available all the time. Mind you, that's about all the appliances I have. I'm not a gadget collector.

I worry about green house gases and the plastic swirl in the ocean and all that. I try not to overconsume and I recycle to the nth degree, but I shudder at the thought of going electricity free. I once bought a treadle sewing machine so that if the worst happened, I could still sew. Unfortunately, it didn't go and I couldn't get it fixed, so I sold the top to a collector and kept the legs for a verandah table. Nice idea though.

I am currently going through all my fabrics (boxes and boxes of it!) and deciding what I really want out of it all. Some I've had for a long time and used in this and that project. Time for a freshening up of the whole thing. So I am sending some to charity and cutting up other bits for a scrap patchwork quilt and my cupboard looks great already.

I can't abide waste, so it feels good to me to be able to pass some things on and use even small scraps that I love. That's my criteria for keeping things, by the way. Do I love it? If I'm iffy, it's going. Yay, finally I feel a bit ruthless. It feels good. Usually I'm a keeper and hoarder of even other people's scraps. But there is a new light in my eye and it's a leaner, cleaner light. Wonder where it will take me?

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The Good Oil

Do you do the right thing by your machine? Do you clean and defluff it and oil it regularly? I do and I can't understand it when I hear somebody say that they don't. Its just beyond my comprehension that somebody could have a machine of any kind - a car, a computer, a fridge, a sewing machine - and not give it due attention.

This morning I opened up my old faithful friend Elna, defluffed her, oiled her in all the right places, checked her over, wiped her down and gave her a new needle. Its the least I can do before I ask her to work like a slave for me - which she will willingly do for hours and hours without a murmur of complaint. I scratch her back, she scratches mine. (Oh, I wish she actually could, then it really would be a perfect match!)

My Elna is about 40 years old now and still running like a machine in it's prime. Well, OK, we've had the odd visit to the doctor, but really, there's life in the old girl yet. I sometimes want a new machine - one that can do a quilter's blanket stitch, for instance and save me hours of hand work (but then again, I do love hand work). But I can't bear the thought of losing my Elna.

And will a new machine, no matter how good, run as well and for as long? Sure it may be prettier. Elna has had a scrape or two along the way. She looks fine on my desk, but truely tragic at the machine shop when I take her in for a service. But we girls over the age of 35 know that its what is inside us that counts, not the face that we present to the world.

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Wasting Time

I've been naughty this morning. Oops. Wasting time instead of getting stuck in. But nobody else is in the house and it's so deliciously quiet. I just wanted some thinking time. Well, OK, I only spent a few minutes thinking, then I made some soup for lunch and then I came online and started playing in cyber space. It's been fun, but now I must go and start stitching - that posting deadline will be upon me otherwise. So, just a quick post to remind myself that it's OK to waste time on Sunday mornings and I can still find time to stitch, too.

Today I'm stitching the embroidered centres for my log cabin blocks for that lap quilt I'm making for Country Threads. I have to post it tomorrow, so had better get it started - oh the thrill of the deadline, lol! :-) Should really have started it straight after my last blog post...

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Designing and Publishing

I have been busy designing today. I've tweaked and fiddled and I'm finally happy with it all. I've designed a quilt for a magazine project - just a little one, a lap quilt for Christmas. Around here, you don't need a quilt at Christmastime, but it's nice to decorate the back of the sofa with one, so a small one is perfect. This one has a mixture of simple embroidery and patchwork, for a change.

It has to be get to the magazine editor by the end of the month. Well, that gives me about 3 days...4 at a pinch. Oh, OK, I can post it Express on Monday, which gives me the weekend. And no, it's not too early to be thinking Christmas. Its only half a year away, and look how fast the first half of this year has gone!

I finally have the Bunny Slippers back from the publisher, so I thought you'd like a peek before my daughter claims them and loves them to death... The pattern for these slippers will be available on Rainy Days Designs later this year.

In the meantime, there are several new patterns available now! At last, we have put up some of the new range available - feels like it's been a long time coming. And there'll be more soon. Lots more - we've been busy publishing and getting things organised. Yay!

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Stitching Like Crazy

I've been stitching like crazy trying to get a few projects finished. They're late - naughty me. How do people who work outside the home ever get anything done? My life takes me all day to get through and there is always so much left undone at the end of the day - or am I just doing too much? Aren't we all though?

Oh, the projects. One is a wall hanging for Patchwork and Stitching, one is a table runner for Handmade and one is a lap quilt for Country Threads. Now do you believe that I'm busy? ;-)

The wall hanging has already been posted. I really enjoyed that one in the end, although it was hard to get into. Kept putting it down and finding something else to fiddle with. I changed it about 20 times, too. However, it was all worth it, because it looked great. I did it in soft feminine colours, which suited the style. It had a little daisy wreath and a word and some patchwork. I think it will be published in about October.

I'm just about to cut out the table runner. It's in country colours, warm rich tones, and is patchwork. No doubt it will take longer than I think it will and I'll be up all hours, but I don't mind, I love doing patchwork and I'm looking forward to starting it. I love the feeling of anticipation just before the start of a project. I've put the fabrics on the table ready for cutting, the machine is threaded up and the coffee is on. All set. Then the moment of the first cut. It always makes me happy. Four or five hours later I may be feeling slightly less enthusiastic, but by the end it will be back and I will be glad I started.

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Scrap Quilts

I have to admit to having too much fabric. It's a bit of a serious problem I have, I think... not quite obsession yeeeettttt...but the cupboard can't fit any more and I have a large box beside it. And a basket. And a few other little stashes.

I need to make a few new scrap quilts, I think. I haven't made one for a while, so it must be time. I had a really nice idea for one, actually, that would use up lots of little bits and pieces. It's not exactly a new idea, but I haven't done one before, so it would be a fun new adventure for me. The idea is to just make up lots of different blocks that I like, whatever size, just because I want to try that block, and add some applique and embroidery ones for good measure and put them all together randomly with lots of squares and strips around them.

See, you've heard it before, haven't you? But this will be my one, with my own twist, and with some favourite old fabrics too. They're still beautiful, just not fresh any more. Gosh, there are some lovely new fabrics out there, but I refuse to get any more until I do something substantial with some of the ones I have.

My absolute favourite quilt is one I made years ago now, with thousands of one inch squares (cut 1 1/2 inch). The kids know that if there's a house fire, they have to pick it up on the way out the door. It is a real, true scrap quilt, made with tiny scraps from other projects, and there are memories in it, just like scrap quilts of old.

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Bunny Slippers

My bunny slippers have been published at last. They're in Australian Handmade Magazine and they look nearly as good on the page as they do in real life - of course, you can't feel how soft they are on the page.

I had no idea how to make a pair of slippers when I started, I just knew I wanted to do it. The idea was there in my head and had to come out, which is often the case. So basically, I just got on with it, following the prompts and thoughts that came up and checking out my own well loved and worn fluffy numbers.

It didn't all run smoothly - there were a couple of strange prototypes that didn't go far, but it didn't take long to get into the swing and get just the right shape. I made a pair to fit my own daughter, sure that as soon as the magazine was finished with them, they would be claimed by her. Then I made a smaller pair to fit the next size down, thanks to the little girl next door's feet. It seemed only fair - what if someone had two children to make for?

I love the challenges of designing and getting it right. It can be challenging sometimes, and sometimes it all just runs smoothly as if I've done it all before. Sometimes the thing looks excellent on paper but is difficult to make work in fabric, sometimes it's the other way around, and it doesn't come to life until it is in fabric. It's all fascinating.

I'll post a photo of the bunny slippers as soon as I can.

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Website Wanderings

The table runner is coming along nicely. I've used a gorgeous pink rosey fabric with a pink spot, a green print and a cream print. I should have finished it today but I was a bit naughty and spent half the day on the computer. You know how you can go to one website and find a link to another one and end up, an hour (or two) later, on a subject so different you couldn't work out the six degrees of separation if you tried!

I love that about the web though. You can find out so much cool stuff and meet so many amazing people through their web pages or blogs or forums. It can be such a great community.

I am definitely going to finish quilting the table runner tonight though, right after I watch Indiana Jones with my daughter and niece. They're up for some high adventure after a couple of rainy days indoors in the school holidays!

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Table Talk

I'm working on a patchwork table runner at the moment. It has three blocks along the length and although it's fairly simple, it's nice. I haven't done a table runner for a while. I like table runners. I like the whole "dressing up a table", even on ordinary days, idea. It makes such a difference to make that small simple effort and have a small vase of flowers or even leaves if the garden isn't being very helpful, and other bits and pieces (like this weeks favourite stone or piece of bark) sitting on the table on the runner.

We always sit at the table for our meals. Not always together, mind you. I don't do communal breakfast. We all get up at different times here, so we eat as and when, but even if we did all get up together, I like a solitary breakfast. But dinner time is usually all of us around the table, and although we don't talk or have as much fun as TV families seem to do, it's reasonably companionable and our children have learnt about manners and life and questions are answered and stories shared.

Once upon a time, tablecloths were the norm. Now though, life is less covered up all around, and maybe the table runner is the bikini of tablewear! It's good though, and you can change it to suit different moods in a flash. And of course, it's easy to make another one to brighten up the day, a quick, achieveable project to showcase a new technique or an old one or some luscious new fabric.

If you need inspiration, you will find a few patterns on my website, go be inspired!

Find appliqué patterns and more, at Rainy Days Designs

Rainy Inspirations

It's raining today. We haven't had any for a few months, so it's very nice to see everything getting wet. Very wet. Including the washing I forgot to take in yesterday, unfortunately. Still, that's easy to fix, it just takes time.

Now that we've had some rain, I think I might have to go out and get stuck into the garden. It's suddenly become very obvious that I haven't done any weeding for a while.

I love being in the garden, once I start. It's getting started that's the challenge. Once I am out there, I love being in amongst the flowers. I don't have many, but it always amazes me just how much detail there is in a bloom of any description, whether it's a weed or a wanted plant. Some of the weeds, in fact, have gorgeous flowers, in miniature.

It always inspires me to design something. Maybe that's why I had a dry spell a while back - no gardening, no natural inspiration kicking in. Well, there's a thought... "Honey, I have to spend the afternoon in the garden, can you just do dinner?" I like it!

Find appliqué patterns and more, at Rainy Days Designs