Catching up....

A long awaited holiday day off spent catching up with dear friends from interstate in town for the school holidays.

A gorgeous winter's day, chatting, laughing, eating and an afternoon walk and tram ride around the neighbourhood. Happy days!

On the Q.A.Y.G. bandwagon....

I know I said I wasn't going to start anything new....but surely reducing scraps is completing a process rather than starting afresh? Well that's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

'Quilt as you go' has taken quilting blogland by storm, seen here and here and with a great tutorial here. The concept first appeared in Suzuko Koseki's Patchwork Style, which is a book I've owned for some time but was never brave enough to try but now there's no stopping me....except more scraps!

I cut my batting to 13" square and have trimmed them down to 12 1/2". I've also used a layer of bleached calico on the bottom to keep the fluff out of my machine. And because I had a plethora of shorter strips I've also made some 7"-8" versions that I will trim down to 6 1/2" to piece with the larger blocks. The prccess takes a while but the logic is that you don't have to heavily quilt the finished product - just a few rows of stitching in the ditch to hold the backing onto these blocks. In a night and a day I managed 5 large and 2 small blocks.

It will take quite a few more blocks to create something worthwhile so I'll shelve these....make some more quilts....have more scraps....and make some more Q.A.Y.G's. Simple!

Doin' a Nigella....

The only cakes I seem to make these days are birthday cakes or cupcakes so I really stepped out my comfort zone in order to make a 'proper cake' for a recent afternoon tea. I chose Nigella's Chocolate Guinness Cake, from the 'Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame' section of her Feast cookbook.
Instead of Guinness, I subsituted our local brew....Adelaide's own Coopers Stout. I'll attempt to describe the process as Ms Lawson would.

The buttery, beery, chocolatey brew.

Fresh out of the oven. The majestic black stouty cake. Iced with creamy cream cheese icing to resemble the frothy head of a classic pint.Extremely rich.....but force yourself! Yum!

Maybe it's not so bad.....

I've dug out a flimsie which according to my little book of quilt notes, was started in June 2009. It's based on Crazy Mom's Flea Market Fancy Quilt. I recall at the time feeling really disappointed with the outcome, particularly the mass of the same density of colour and limited contrast. I folded it up and put it in the cupboard. But I'm on a bit of a 'you can't start anything new (again) if you don't finish off a UFO' drive.

This quilt top is a lot bigger than I remember. I must have been braver a year ago!

Looking at it lying on the floor a year later....it's actually not that bad. Maybe it was the afternoon winter sun pouring through the window that pepped up the colours from how I'd remembered them. Or maybe it was reminiscing about the lovely Amy Butler fabrics that I loved so much when I first started quilting and the few fat quarters that I purchased on our road trip to Melbourne a year ago....maybe I just take better photos! Whatever it was that caused me to fold it up and push it to the back of the cupboard didn't seem so bad this time. So this quilt top is out. It has a back. It's basted and it's ready to get quilted sometime soon. Stay tuned....hopefully not another year away!

S.I.L. Quilt

I've finished the over-sized half square triangle quilt for my sister in law's forthcoming birthday.

This quilt is bigger than I'm used to lately (69" x 69"/175cm x 175cm) so I decided to straight stitch along the seams and on the diagonal. In some ways I regret that choice. It often mucks up for me when the lines meet and try as I did to really stretch out the fabric during the basting process, it still managed to do it in a couple of places. But on the up side....the rest are perfect. There are also large areas not quilted so I'm hoping it holds together OK.

The back is a pink and very pale yellow polka dot on pink. I didn't quite have enough to get the whole back so there's a little plain pink panel at the bottom. I'll use that as label space.

The binding is a fine stripe created out of tiny dots and pinks up many of the colours used - brown, pink, blue and green.I'm in two minds about pre-washing. I managed to get a spot of grease from the machine on a red patch. Spot cleaning might look obvious but pre-washing makes quilts look used. Dunno?

I'm sounding like I'm not that enamoured with the quilt and that's probably true. I love the fabric and I still like the pattern but if I made another, I'd do it differently. I'm sure S.I.L. will appreciate it.

Speaking of appreciation. Clare took me to a newly renovated pub in our neighbourhood - Benjamins on Franklin. I managed to sneek back for lunch on Friday. Check out the ceiling of the restaurant!

This wave of glass is completely made of upturned cut glass salad and trifle bowls! How gorgeous is that!

I'll take average any day.....

L's school conducts a Junior School Cross Country event each year in the last week of second term.

I'm not a runner and think that forcing little legs to run long distances is cruel. I heard yesterday that the sports master uses the event to identify talent and select the candidates for the inter-school cross country events. All that aside, L's a little like me. He's not sporty and his dispraxia makes physical activity and interaction between his body and the world difficult. Now in grade 3 he was about to have his 4th go at this event. Each year the distance gets longer and this year his class was supposed to run 2km. 2KM!!! 8 and 9 year olds....you can't be serious! That's torture! Mr C, L's class teacher started to lobby that once round the two ovals was good enough (that's 1km). Luckily the under 10's who ran beforehand took so long to complete their 2km circuit that Mr B relented.

L wasn't keen. He'd already asked me to talk to Mr C. We both told him to just have a go, do your best and have fun. He told me I wasn't allowed to call out or cheer. Last year Joe did and L stopped in his tracks with embarrassment and finished by walking last over the line with one of the teachers. So with lips sealed, I held my breath.
It was the same start as last year. Last one off the start line.

I couldn't look. I chatted with the mums on the side-lines as we lost sight of the group and it started to split up clearly separating the runners from the non.

4 minutes and 48 seconds later the first runner crossed the line. Followed by the next one and the next one. I cheered for every boy crossing the line and wondered how painful this finish was going to be for L. Then I looked up. Who was that....running up in the red house top? It couldn't be.....it.....it was L! I let out a 'come on L!' by mistake. The look of determination on his face was magnificent. The teacher handing the position cards said she thought he had more in him! I thought I was going to cry. My little boy was 13th out of 26. Perfectly average.And as he sat down with the group of other 'finishers' in his class, you couldn't wipe the smile and sense of achievement off his face. You can't ask for more than that now can you? Well done L!

All's well....

My strip quilt disaster has turned out OK given the circumstances leading up to its completion.

I finished the quilting on Monday and noticed that one of the ends was a bit 'rounded'. This was more than likely due to cutting this strip out of some left-overs and cutting it down the selvedge side and not cross wise, so it had a bit of 'stretch' in it. But because I was straight line quilting, I couldn't trim it straight. So I decided to just bind and see how it worked out....figuring that wear and washing would hopefully make it all settle.

The quilt is bound in an aqua stripe that has tiny little dots in it. (I can't remember it's name unfortunately having cut off the selvedge for my collection.) It suits the Paula Prass fabrics perfectly.

Because of my earlier trimming panic I had used my blue washable fabric marker to mark sides and much of this remained. So after binding I did something I don't normally do. Wash and dry the quilt. I know quilters in the US are keen on this to give the quilt instant softness and crinkliness but I'm a bit of a 'keep it pristine for as long as possible' sort of person. But the blue ink had to go so the dryer won. The fabric has faded slightly and it may have shrunk a little but the quilt is certainly softer and very crinkly, particularly with the straight line quilting.

The back features a panel of coins from the left overs set in Kona White and Kona Coal.
Overall. I'm pretty happy that it turned out OK. I still love the fabrics, the quilting is lovely and it's not as wonky down the seams as I feared. Phew!