Fabrication

I read on a blog I just followed, that there is a Fabric Tuesday group! I may have to join in on that one, because my rate of fabric aquisition is putting my rate of actual sewing to shame! ... and I don;t mean a kind of gentle embarrassment I mean a deep red flush and the feeling that there's nowhere big enough to swallow you up!

This is not only an emotional issue, it also has practical consequences! Firstly my cute little picnic basket is only so-big, and before long I can see a point where the lid ain't going to close! Secondly, not really being able to see what's what, means I have to work on some kind of organisational system! ... and anyone who nows me knows that I'm great at organising things in spreadshheets, but in ractice you're much more likely to find something in a nice neat pile on the floor!! ... so the more fabrrics I get the less likely I am to be able to remember what colors and patterns are on each, nor where in the pile they actually are or what will compliment them!

But it was sew night at Irondequoit Quilt Club last night and I did get through a dozen squares, which isn't a bad rate of hand stitching for a couple of hours work. :) .. it's a block for a charity quilt and I suspect I'm lagging way behind other block makers! I'm also horribly unaware of exactly how to construct my block ... I'm just pairing up squares at the moment, but should I be sewing 3 together in a line so that I can then do 3 x 3 squares to a block? This whole block system is new to me and I don't really know wat I'm aiming for!! any suggestions would be super helpful! :)

Meanwhile, a woman who sleeps in a cupboard asked me, and a few others have wondered similar things, about how easy it is to learn to recognize people when you can't see them (or in my case can't see enough detail to recognize their faces ... I just see a general outline, even as close as over the table) ... so here's is a little insight into why I'm liable to walk past you in the street unless you shout out and say "hi, it's Ms So--and-Sew from quilt club" ... or unless you wave a piece of cake in my general direction, in which case I'll stop on a dime or a sixpence, depending in which country this is happening!

Anyway, enough of the rambling, here's what I said ... and then you can get back to your cups of tea, your cakes and biscuits, and even a bit of weekend quilting, if you're not heading out to buy more fabric ....

As with everything there are some
blind people who are really good and quick at learning new voices. It
took me about 6 months at work until I really started recognising most
of the people (obviously the ones in my little team I learn more
quickly) ... the biggest challenge really is recalling which name goes
with which voice - once you begin to identify the voice you've
forgotten the name it originally came with! ... it's very helpful if
people say " hi, it's ..." rather than just hello, because often I
just end up saying hi back without really knowing who I'm talking to!
If they stop for a conversation I can ask the name but if they're just
walking past I really have no idea!

I think people who have been blind from birth are often much better at
remember all kinds of things, I guess simply because that's what you
have to do. For somebody who has been sighted most of their life, it
can take a while to train your memory to work in that way!

Thanks for taking an interest! :) :) :)

Will the Quilter in Red With the Fluffy White Beard Please Stand Up

So on Monday I went to the Irondequoit Quilt Club Christmas pot luck meeting, armed with a large bowl of pasta salad with sundried tomatoes (purchased not made I'm ashamed to say), and the Free Motion Machine Quilting book by Mr Quilt for the Secret Santa game.

Let me start by saying I still haven't started to be able to put voices to names, so I don't really have any idea who is who at QC meetings! ... I guess this is the blog entry that reveals to them that I can't see a jot! (unless they've noticed the white stick ... haha, yeah, I guess there's not much doubt about that!)

Let me also say that next year I'll be aware that the $10 value suggestion for Secret Santa gifts is pretty much followed ... my book was a $25 value, even though it was 50% off, it still seemed a bit extravagant compared to most other items! However I certainly don't feel hard done by because I picked up a lovely selection of random gifts from a few people who shall remain nameless (see above) and I was very happy with what I came home with in exchange for my book!

I'll describe everything first and then give you a photo of the collection. First up I was given a fat quarter. It is a dark background with widely spaced pairs of lines, a bit like narrow railway tracks. I'm told it's a red fabric with gold lines. I'm sure it will complement either one of the black / white fabrics that Thearica from Pigtales and Quilts sent me in a giveaway, or with one of the fabrics in the photo from my recent sale shopping session (see Cyber Shopaholic recently) ... then I was given a bag of home hand-dipped pretzls (which I can confirm on tonight's tasting are yummy!) and a jar of peppermints and chocolates, and finally a lovely lovely handmade snowflake... I can't remember what technique was used to make it, but it's very pretty and I believe took a couple of hours to make each one... I'll be hanging it on the tree when I finish writing this!

Finally the Secret Santa game! All the presents were spread across 5 different tables and we had to stand at the table our gift was on ( or which we were told it was on and kindly directed to!). Then we counted around the table so we each had a number. Number 1 opened a present, then number 2 opened a present and decided if they wanted to keep it or exchange with number 1... this continued aroundthe table with each subsequent person deciding whether to keep or swap with a previous gift. The only rule that once a gift had been swapped twice it couldn't be swapped again. In reality this proved quite complicated to grasp so most people kep what they opened! I got a little box containing a reel of thread, a needle threader (was of a type I haven't tried before) and a pack of needles ... now if the threader proves to be one I can operate, that might be very handy! and a few more needles and thread will never go to waste!!

So here is the photo ... a pile of fabrics recently purchased and a collection of lovely Christmas gifts sitting on top. If I ever found out who made the pretzels I may have to hold them hostage for a few more bags!! ... right, now I'm off for a soak in the bath before bed, night night!

Cyber Shopaholic

Ok, I couldn't resist ... Poppy Seed Fabrics, who I've been following since I think it was a tutorial they did on Madam Sam's Sew We Quilt blog ... well, they announced a 24-hour sale for Cyber Monday. So, all items were 25% off ... and I do love a bargain, and they had some lovely fabrics!

So I now have an etsy account and a bundle of fabric winging its way to me! It's kind of an early Christmas present! ... I found a total of $27 in fabric, saved a wonderful $7 (almost) on the order ... which nearly covered the $9 postage! ... but all in all I think I've got a good deal, even if the postage costs are always the downside of mail ordering!

So here's what I bought... fingers crossed the thumbnails will work even if I've snapped the last sale yards of an item! ... we shall see!

I picked these 2 Robert Kaufman greys. I've always fancied that line of fabrics (they sound nice quality) At $3 each for half a yard of each, you can't really go wrong - $5.50 for a yard of Robert Kaufman after discount!

As for what I'll use them for, well I have no idea, but I thought they might come in handy! (when I die my epitaph will read "I knew this hole in the ground would come in handy one day ... now where's that pillow I was hanging on to?")






Then there was this in the sale section... Tanya Whelan Dolce Bamboo Garden in PINK, 1 YarD for $7. I thought it looked really nice (I could see the pattern on it, even if I can't really tell the colors any more).



Another sale item... Tina Givens-Opal Owl, TRELLIS IN CHOCOLATE, 1 yard total for $7.75 ... though I'm not quite sure what the total means - there were about 4 different thumbnails on the item page, so it might be I get owls, or it might be I get Japanese style huts, or maybe something else entirely! They all seemed nice though so I thought it well worth the price (about $6 after discount).



And finally, another sale item! (I do like a sale!!) ... Poppy Seed Fabric have quite a lot of Japanese fabrics, and I'm after a few which might work together. This one is little GEISHA DOLLS japanese import , 1 yard for $7 ($5.25 after discount)



So there you have it, a productive Monday's shopping!Hopefully I can put these, plus my recent prize threads, and maybe a pattern or two out of my growing library of (3) quilting books! And don't forget, you can never have too many bits of fabric!!! (or cups of tea!)

Frilly Edges

This morning we ventured out into the frilly edges of Hurricane Irene! Apart from a bit of gusty wind there's not much sign of the stormy weather here yet, though I imagine we'll see some rain later today... nothing like the poor folk along the coast have seen.

But venture out at 9am we did, so I could get some more fabric! Well I must get the borders done if I'm going to get my quilt finished for the male quilters competition entry deadline on Sept 26!

I found a nice tan Kona cotton for $6/yd, so I got 3/4 yd of that, which should be enough to cut 4 or 5 inch strips, either straight (along the width of the fabric) or bias (diagonal up the fabric)... the online calculator says 2/3 yd is enough for 4" wide strips, but I'd really like to use 5" strips since I'm making up for the backing of my quilt being 43" and the top being about 48"... so, I'm intending to center the backing so there's 2.5" of quilt top over hanging it, so the border will stretch the 2.5" to where the quilt top ends, plus about an inch to go up the side of the backing / batting / quilt top, and maybe an inch to give a little border to the top...

all that mathematics seems to work in my head, but we shall see in practice! I'll be doing a dry run measurement with some fabric scraps first!

I also got a can of adhesive spray for attaching all the quilt layers together ready for pinning and then sewing. I got a heat one, that you apply, position the layers, let dry and then iron to fuse. At $16 per can it's not cheap, but a 40% coupon helped bring the price down to under $10! I'll report back on how well it works!

In other news, here's some pics from the beginnings of quilt 2! ... it will be made up of rectangular blocks each with a white strip border on 2 sides, so that's what I'm hand stitching together at the moment. There's quite a few of these (about 30) so I may get to experimenting with the sewing machine before long! :)

It's a rainy day theme and so far I've got 5 or the 8 patterned fabrics that the pattern calls for. Today I picked up the polka dots and rubber duckies ones!

Bargains Bargains Bargains!

Lookie at what I got!! I saw a good value Brother sewing machine for $110 online and have been looking to see if I could see one in-store... this got some odd looks as I asked in Home Depot, the D.I.Y. shop, only to find out it's only available online for them.

I was keen to get it before friday when my mum heads back to the UK so I could pick her brains on using it.. and procastinating proved fruitful when Walmart had a $200 Brother machine on clearance for $150!

So here it is, a Brother SQ 9000 (the SQ stands for 'sewing and quilting' so it's perfect for what I want!)



It has a large table, which means it can support larger fabrics like quilts, and has about 80 built-in stitches and half a dozen automatic buttonholes, so should be pretty versatile :)

It also transpired that Walmart had other items on sale, and I picked up a fabric cutter (looks like a pizza cutter, see the photo below) and a plastic mat so I don't chop into the dining table! ... these cutters are a bit deadly so if you see me waving at you without any fingers you'll know what I've done!

And why did I need the fabric cutters? because I got lots and lots of fabric! hehee! there's a store that is unfortunately closing down, so everything was half price or less. their fat quarters were $1 each, so I came home with a dozen fat quarters, and some larger panels and a couple of free quilting magazines! OK, so we spent $25 on fabric, but I think there's almost enough for 2 quilts in there! :)

I'm pretty pragmatic about having not much eyesight, but I do miss being able to browse. I'm grateful for having people who can describe things to me, but I still miss that visual inspiration that comes from the look of a fabric or a book or a record sleeve... maybe manufacturers could employ a person whose sole job is to write poetic descriptions of products and as i-phones and the like can read barcodes and tell you what an item is, it could read the extra info and give you a delicious description of what the item looks like! ... well, it's a nice thought!

My First Fat Quarter

There's a lovely quilting shop in Decatur, Intown Quilters it's called. There are lots of gorgeous fabrics to peruse, and I was able to get a cheap fat quarter of one I'd seen with little owls on it! There were several colour choices, but I picked blue to go with the predominant theme of my current quilt. Here's a photo... so it's going to be 6x6 inch squares when get loose with the cutter on it, but for now I cropped the photo into a circle, just for a bit of geometric change :)

They also had a fabric with aligators on it, which I want too, but I figured it wouldn't fit in with this quilt's fabrics so I'm leaving the snappy little fellow for the next one!