Brown Hexagons

I mentioned awhile back that I'd done a 'block you don't like in a colour you don't like' challenge for my Monday night modern quilt group. I decided to do hexagons because I really haven't felt the love for them at all, popular as they are; and I chose brown because although I don't mind it as a colour, I really don't like it in quilts. Brown hexagons. Blech. This is what I ended up with



Although it wasn't explicitly stated, I think part of the reason we chose this challenge was to see if we could come to like something we might be prejudiced against for whatever reason. Now, I'm not entirely sure why I don't like hexagons much to be honest, I just don't. Someone suggested they might be too geometric, or precise and I think that's probably it in some deep subconscious way.

Brown, well I don't like brown in textiles much because I grew up in the 70s. Add some orange to that and you've got every childhood trauma right there. So of course I had to add in some orange. It didn't matter that it was Heather Ross orange either, because oh my I do not like this colour combination! Mat suggested after it was too late that green would have been a good background, and then I thought perhaps a paleish blue might have been good too, but it was too late and I'd already done all the quilting so wasn't going to change it. But I think perhaps it would soften the starkness of the brown against the white. I really need to stop using so much white as backgrounds.

So what do I like? Well I really like how I put the hexagons on (barring a few layout issues I can see now) with the negative space. And I really like how I quilted it.



Basically I quilted on the hexagon shapes first, then appliqued the hexagons on. I left parts of the top unquilted, so both the quilting and the actual hexagons have a lot of empty spaces. In fact, I could happily take off the hexagons and just have the quilting! I also really enjoyed making the hexagons, it was satisfying and good for keeping hands busy while watching tv.

Verdict: I still don't like brown much, but I think it's possible that, used judiciously, I could come around the hexagons. Just not brown ones.

Wonky stars

I sincerely hope you haven't been keeping track of my little list of 'to-dos' over in the side bar there because if you have you'll notice that I'm sadly off-track already! One of the things that derailed me from the construction of my Lisette Portfolio tunic (which is actually going ok but I need to do a few alterations and that's booooring!) is the need to whip up a few wonky star blocks for the Auckland Modern Quilt Guild raffle quilt. I've never done them before, and from all people were saying they're a lot of fun, so I finally got stuck into one last night instead of trying to put bust darts into the tunic - bit of a no-brainer really, fun vs. no fun.

This is my first!



It's not perfect, but I still like it. The colours are nice and bright and it's just neat all-round. You can see the top and bottom strips don't line up at the middle and I think that may be because the solid pink has some polyester in it and shrunk a little. Polycotton blends are the bane of my life - why do I even have any in the house?! I would also prefer the little star to sit a bit further away from the big one, but Hazel thinks they're a mummy and a baby star so now of course I'm very fond of them cuddling like that. In fact, she was so taken with this this morning that she would like to make wonky stars when she gets home from school. I was all about starting her on doll's clothes but hey, why not wonky stars! I'll tell you why not after we attempt them and if she I live to tell the tale ;) The block is about 9 1/4". I'm planning on doing a couple more to play around with the technique, probably a more medium star and a smaller star more widely spaced, and maybe three little stars together.

P.S. I did a post on fabric trends over at the AMQG, pop over and have a look if you're intereted!

Sultana Cake

The traditional birthday cake in my family is sultana cake. My grandmother made it for my Dad, and then Mum took over and it was the birthday cake of my childhood and I still make it for myself. It was a family cake though, for parties there was usually a chocolate cake I think! It will be heading into its fourth generation, as Hazel has discovered that she loves it (thank goodness!). I hope the smell of it baking will bring happy birthday memories back to her in years to come, as it does for me every year.

It's a lovely, light cake with a delicious hint of almonds. I'm not sure how common sultanas are in the States, but Wikipedia tells me they are also called Thompson's Seedless raisins if that will help you locate them. They're smaller and more delicate than regular raisins, although you could use them in a pinch.

I use my wooden cake box to cook it in, and can't recommend them enough - totally eliminates the need for all the lining of the tin to ensure the cake cooks slowly and evenly. In the last few years I've been using bread flour which is reputed to hold up the fruit better in these kinds of cakes, and as you can see it does a pretty good job - there is nothing worse than a layer of fruit at the bottom of the cake! You just have to be extra careful not to overmix the batter. When cooked just right the top is slightly crunchy and crumbly and the middle is soft, dense and moist. It's definitely better to under-cook it than over - test with a knife at the one hour mark. When the cake is done it will come out buttery, but with no streaks of batter. Put foil over the top if it's getting too brown.

Sultana Cake

3 cups of sultanas                            2 1/2 cups flour

1 cup butter                                     1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs                                              1 tsp almond essence

1 3/4 cups sugar

1. Cover the sultanas water and simmer for approx. 8 minutes until soft.
2. Pour off the water and add the butter.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients
4. Beat the eggs until frothy, add the sugar, and beat until thick and creamy.
5. Add the sultanas and butter, then the sifted flour, baking powder, and almond essence and fold together gently.
6. Line a square baking tin with several layers of baking paper or newspaper, then with tin foil. Pour the batter into the tin.
7.  Bake in a 180C (350F) oven for about 1 1/2 hours.

I've lost my sewing mojo

I sort of let the KCWC posts slide on by, because other than the repurposed skirt, it was kind of a disappointment and it has dented my confidence! Well not in any serious way but it sort of sucked the joy out of clothes for the moment. It went like this - the Sunki tunic was too small so I went on to the next item which was a gauzy tunic from the Japanese book I got in Sydney. Very simple, with a drawstring waist and little ruffly cap sleeves. I did NOT make the mistake of just forging ahead based on measurements alone and the tissue fitting looked good.

I got this far

and then decided I should do a quick try-on just to make sure it was going to fit. I couldn't actually tell you if it fits or not because it wouldn't go over her head. Now I will admit that she is something like 100th percentile for head circumference (both her parents are serious fat-heads too) but I've never, ever had that problem before! There was no way I was going to undo this neck binding though

because it was an utter bitch to get on - gauze on the bias has a mind of its own - so what to do? At the momentI think the best solution is to make a opening at the back of the neck with a facing so I don't lose too much width. But I can't quite face it right now and feel a bit sulky.

Ok, so what next? Winter pyjamas! I got out the trusty Oliver + S Bedtime Story pyjama pattern and made up the pants using that pattern and cut up a couple of tshirts Mat hadn't liked to make the top. I even found some pink poodle iron-ons at Spotlight. Success?



No. "The sleeves are too looooonggg... and the pants feel funny...and they're too longggg...and the poodles are coming off and how come you didn't put the roses on instead like you said?" They aren't too long, it's just that she insists on pushing the front right down under her tummy and there are limits to how much I can compensate for that! You can see I already tried. I guess I'll just have to wait until it gets cold enough that she will swallow all these ridiculous protestations and wear them!

Anyways, I've given up on the ungrateful little so-and-so for the time being and I'm going to try and regain some mojo sewing up a Lisette Portfolio tunic for me. However, given my track record I have misgivings and doubts and fears that run something along these lines

• Tunics on full-busted women can look like muumuus. I am full-busted
• It may make me look pregnant. I am not, but my tummy isn't exactly flat at the moment
• It will be too big - all the reviews say it has too much ease
• It will be too small - I tissue-fitted it last night and it seemed like it will be only just big enough.
• I can't make a muslin because I don't have almost 3m of anything other than the fabric I wanted for it in my stash.
• I should line it so it sits over leggings nicely but I can't be bothered.
• It will look awful but I'll wear it in public anyways because I can't bear to waste the effort and fabric.
• I will look crap in any photos I take of myself in it to put up here.

I'll let you know how it all goes!

It's my birthday...

...and instead of crying I had to have a laugh when my brother, bless him, posted this gem circa 1984-5 on Facebook. I had no idea I was that stylish! Ok, so the younger amongst you will be laughing heartily, but my contemporaries will recognise that I was very very cool. And if you're really young and thinking that 80s fashion is great - gaze in wonder that is the architecture of my hair.



 And yes, I liked Duran Duran and Flock of Seagulls :)

Group challenges

Well hello there! I didn't mean to take a break but somehow I did. I blame it on a slightly dismal end to KCWC (more on that later) and getting stuck in to painting the kitchen. But along with that I was slowly working away on a couple of challenges we set ourselves at our last modern quilt group meeting at The Little Craft Store (highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't been, 7-9pm first Monday of the month at the shop in Pt. Chev). The first one was to make a 'mug rug' in solids (what's wrong with saying coaster, does it have to have a ridiculous name just to make it sound less nana or something?), up to an A4 size. The second, which I'll blog when I've finished the binding, was to do a block you didn't particularly like in colours you don't particularly like. What do you think mine was?

I've been wanting to try half-square triangles for awhile now, so I thought I'd give those a go, but of course this being my first time I had to do them quite small. Not that they're really difficult or anything but I like to make things hard on myself and burn my fingers with the iron while pressing them. I wanted to do a gradation from one colour to another and I had this idea in my head. I didn't have quite the right solids but they weren't too bad. The yellow is a bit out of place, but I didn't have an inbetween orange and yellow colour. They grade from a medium red (they all look much darker in this photo) to a peachy pink, to salmon, to orange and then to lightish yellow.




After I laid them all out I wasn't that thrilled with the sheer regularity of it all, it was too...clinical or sterile or something. I tried rotating a few squares around and in a way I liked it better but in the end I just left the one to break things up a bit. This is what my plan looks like next to the result



I made a mistake colouring in in one strip, which still shows as faint pink. After awhile I began to wish that I'd done something like that instead of just using white, maybe having a very pale set of colours grading from one to another instead of the white. But I didn't have fabrics like that, and I wasn't actually going to do it all over again! Verdict: Ok, but I think I like things that are slightly less bitsy and repetitive. I do like solids though.

I had a few squares left over so I made a coaster.




That's right - I called it a coaster. Am I kicked out of crafty blogging now?

KCWC Day 3

Big sigh. All that work and the great fabric and the Sunki tunic only fits if she stands completely straight and still.  I re-checked the measurements and she should just be within the 6/7 size range, but obviously this fits slim and more towards the lower end of the range of measurements. The sleeves are also a bit short. So. Dress goes next door to Abbie, who fits it, and I try again. This time I will also raise the bottom of the arm scythe as it's too low and causes the dress to lift when the arms are lifted. Boo-hoo. I'm pretty gutted about this, but serves me right for not tissue-fitting eh?

Luckily I also made up a skirt from an old shirt of mine, so the day wasn't completely wasted!

It was so simple to do I almost hesitate to consider it 'sewing'! The shirt was a tunic-style one with a seam that ran around just under the bust, so I cut off the bottom half, folded over the top and put in some elastic. I didn't even have to hem it!

I'm pleased she really likes it because the fabric is lovely, and buttery soft from age. I was kind of sad to give up on the shirt but to be honest it made me look pregnant and I had stopped wearing it almost a year ago. My stomach is a long way from its pre-baby flatness, but I don't need to make it look any larger than it is!