What's on my shelf

I'm woefully late with this - I've been debating taking the time to do it all weekend, but the essays are looming large. Still am, so here I am blogging instead! Yay procrastination! You know I'll be regretting this stolen hour when it's 2am and I'm totting up marks.

This little meme called 'My Place & Yours'is from Pip over at Meet Me At Mike's. This week's theme is what's on the shelf.

I've spent the whole weekend sitting at my desk marking essays - when I'm not being pestered by a small spotty child that is. On the windowsill is a small stone and I've been watching the light change across it as I struggle with misused semi-colons and free-form grammar. Its roundness contrasts so perfectly with the straight white lines of the windowsill.

My first quilt!

I finally finished Baby Amy's quilt, it's been washed and is now drying. I still need to put a name and date on it but thought I'd share some pre-wash photos I took between rain showers yesterday. It's photo-less at the moment because Amy's mum Jess reads this blog and she hasn't told me yet whether she wants it to be a surprise when it arrives or not! So you'll need to click through to the photos on Flickr for the time being. Hah, she couldn't resist looking so here are the photos:



The quilt is based on the Pink Bliss pattern from Amy Butler, but after assembling my scraps and buying a few more (sorry Jess, I know I said I wouldn't but I had to!) the blocks were looking awfully busy and jumbly. I was in despair because I still had vertical strips to add in and it was going to be horrible. Then Mat suggested putting white strips instead, and then to put strips around the outside too. I think it totally saved it - instead of being heinous it's not bad. I'm still not thrilled with my fabric choices but on the whole I quite like it which is probably not too bad for a first effort!

When the time came to get fabric for the back I had an awful time:



Because there was such an assortment of colours and patterns on the front and no single unifying theme, nothing really matched nicely. I ended up with an Amy Butler dot fabric and a zigzag fabric for the binding. In the end the zigzag was too much and I went looking for a green. The quilt shop I went to had virtually no solids (!!) so I was faced with a green with small circles on it, or a very long drive from virtually one end of Auckland to the other to the next shop - I went with the green. It's ok, but not perfect.

The one thing I really AM pleased with is the strip across the back:



I've often admired these on other quilts but thought they were just a neat design feature - until I got my backing fabric and realised I'd have to put a join in it, so might as well make it an interesting one! This time I was able to select fabrics that I felt really 'went' with each other - including the little Loobylu embroidery I did with this in mind.

Hazel's desperate for me to make her a quilt and I will start seriously considering it after Christmas I think. This has been a good learning experience in terms of finding out what I like in a quilt and what I don't like, how I like colours to match and so on. It always bugs me how conventional my colour choices are when I'm left to my own devices, or how hard I find it to judge what looks good and what doesn't. I think I'd rather let a professional do it for me to be honest (for the moment anyways), so I'm watching all the reports out of the Quilt Market that are on blogs at the moment, evaluating the new fabric lines and so on. Of course Hazel would LOVE a very pink quilt, but I saw a lovely quilt made from Art Gallery fabrics at the quilt fabric that has much more muted tones that I loved. I guess it's a toss-up between a quilt she'll love now but may not suit an older girl, and a quilt that will last a life-time but might not have such a rapturous reception now. I suppose the former option is probably the best but that Art Gallery quilt was gorgeous!

Interruption of service

chicken pox tummy, originally uploaded by Ansis68.

I've already had a couple days away from here, but what with essay marking and chicken pox I'm going to give myself a few more days off blogging. Promise to be back in a couple days with photos and whatever else I do here.

Sometimes I wonder if I need to define what that is exactly but since I haven't been able to yet I guess I'll just go with whatever it is and hope it presents some cohesion in the minds of readers! I'm not sure there's much in my mind at the moment...

Lunchbox notes

I bought the latest Parasol Craft Magazine a couple days ago and the various Kawaii files that come with it are really fun. I haven't read all the interviews yet, but I've got lots of ideas for all the neat images and I love the glass marble magnet tutorial, such a great idea! Anyways, the first thing I've done is use some of the images straight, like the hedgehogs, and pulled a few others out of to-do lists and tags, and made up some little notes to put into Hazel's lunchbox for créche.



I started putting in little notes on yellow post-its a couple weeks ago after seeing a few examples online and she loves them. Demands them! This took me by surprise a little, I don't think I'd expected her to like them. But the ones online didn't really suit a non-reader and my notes are comprised of little pictures of us, or the cat or whatever I can make look reasonable given my dodgy drawing skills! So I thought putting in some cute little images would spice them up and cute is a universal language that you don't need to be able to read to understand! I did them in Word just using the table function, but it's a royal PITA to put images into it so if I do it again I might try Illustrator instead. With any luck these will last until the Xmas break and I can take a bit of time to come up with some more ideas.

Felt love

Have you seen this video for Kata Golda's new book Hand-stitched Felt? So awesome and the book looks equally so! If you follow the link above you can enter for a free copy. It's definitely on my Xmas wish list now, if I don't break down and buy it before!



Heather Ross gives the book the big thumbs up too, check out her review (which is where I came across the video).

Speaking of craft books, I ordered the Twinkle Sews book from Amazon, but since it has to come from the States there won't be a review for awhile, estimated delivery isn't for at least 3 weeks!

Just one word

I'm meant to be marking essays on the development of bipedalism, language or tool-use so this little meme snaffled from Petalplum fits the blogging bill nicely:

Copy and change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It’s quite tricky to use only one-word answers.

1. Where is your cell / mobile phone? Bag

2. Your hair? longer

3. Your mother? warmth

4. Your father? smart

5. Your favourite food? potatoes

6. Your dream last night? vivid

7. Your favourite drink? water

8. Your dream/goal? happy

9. What room are you in? spare_room

10. Your hobby? sewing

11. Your fear? failure

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? university

13. Where were you last night? kitchen

14. Something that you aren’t? tidy

15. Muffins? yes

16. Wish list item? fabric

17. Where did you grow up? Edmonton

18. Last thing you did? essays

19. What are you wearing? jeans

20. Your TV? Fringe

21. Your pet? furry

22. Friends? yay

23. Your life? good

24. Your mood? bioanthropological

25. Missing someone? family

26. Vehicle? Golf

27. Something you’re not wearing? makeup

28. Your favorite store? Anthropologie

29. Your favorite color? red

30. When was the last time you laughed? morning

31. Last time you cried? month

32. Your best friend? Jess/Sarah

33. One place that I go to over and over? bed

34. One person who emails me regularly? Shelly

35. Favorite place to eat? table

Snow in October?

Well as close as I'm ever going to get here in Auckland anyways :)