Full time work. How do you fit it in?

I'm now 2 weeks into the new job and still adjusting to this working 40 hours a week thing. It's a big difference to what I was doing in my last job where I was contracted to 32 hours over 4 days but was lucky if I worked 20 recently.

I feel like I've not done any sewing for ages and I just wander past the room and stare at my sewing machine wishing I could be using it.

I bought my bike that I'll use to cycle to work if

a) the weather ever improves. I'm insanely jealous of those of you who get nice warm summers with that funny yellow thing in the sky. Sadly this whole concept appears to be lost on the weather we are having in the North east of England.

Shiny new bike. Not the most expensive ever but it does the job

b)I actually plucked up the courage to go cycle my bike! I haven't owned a bike for well over 10 years and it was very obvious to the guy in the shop when I bought it that this was the case. I need to go out and practise but I have no one to go with which I think is what is putting me off. That and my sister panicking at the concept of me cycling anywhere because I haven't got a helmet yet.

Amazingly we ended up picking the bike up in my fiesta and we managed to fit in in 1 piece. I was impressed and my dad was rather astounded! It's amazing what you can fit in a Fiesta.

Can you fit a bike in a fiesta? Yes you can!

I mentioned in my last blog (I think?) that it was a friend's birthday last weekend and we were meant to be heading to her's for a nice girly catch up. Sadly this didn't happen because she ended up back in hospital due to this mystery illness that the doctors are baffled by. So far she's lost 2 stone since Christmas and she is not someone who needs to loose any weight! I wish mine would go that fast. They've done lots of tests and have ruled things out but she's still a medical mystery... So on Saturday I went for a trip to visit her in hospital instead and took some cupcakes that my sister had made.

Butter beer cupcakes based on harry Potter ones. they tasted fab!

Quilting wise I've not got much done. I spent ages with my ill fiend working on a layout for the wedding quilt (this was the weekend before she was in hospital). It looks good and we spend ages balancing colours and different values and scales of prints. I got home and 2 days later looked at next to my computer and it's dawned don me we have the layout wrong. We should actually have 2 rows on 1 side of it not just 1. I think it'll work if I just shuffle the row over but I'm now going to have to take over our floor again to see. Oops

See that single row on the right? Should be 2 rows there now 1. Oops

I did a bit more fabric shopping (Pay day and sales = bad) This rather fab (and upside down. I'm sorry I have no idea how to make it right) how to build a fire fabric is going to be cut in 2. I'm keeping half and giving the other half to a friend for her birthday. She'll love it.

Upside down how to make a campfire fabric

The other ones are just rather fab fabric prints. Apparently my dad was home when these arrived and just groaned at the idea of more fabric arriving. Id best not spot anything else pretty this month!

Prettiness

More prettiness

I did manage to sneak in making that cathedral window pin cushion that I've been talking about making for ages but that's about it.

now do I want to put pins in this or just admire it?

In the next few weeks I'm expecting a quilt to quilt for a friend. She's making it for her friend's wedding and has asked me to quilt in on my machine because it's bigger and I have a walking foot which makes straight line quilting so much easier. In return I'm getting fabric. Oops

So that leads me to the question in the title. How on earth do you all fit in sewing around working and having a life? I feel like I get home at 5.30-6pm and by the time I've cooked and eaten I have no time left for much else. Any tips?

Planning and sun

I'm linking this blog post to the Let's get acquainted link up by Beth at Plum and June. Hey a girl could always use a few more visitors! So anyone who is joining me from there feel free to look around and tell me how you guys have great looking blogs. I just can't seem to get it right.

Well it was my last week at my old job this week and I now have a week off before starting my new job on a Friday. What an odd day to start work!

Everyone was sad to see me go but we all went out for drinks after work on Thursday so that was fun. Not so much for the people who were in work at 5am the next day I suspect since we hit the pub at 12 after work and spent the afternoon in the beer garden. I left at 9pm after we'd relocated to a different pub and back inside. I'll miss the people but I'll not miss the place. Hopefully we'll keep in touch.

After leaving work you'd think that would leave me with a week I could sew until my heart was content - you'd be wrong. Apparently my life is busier when I'm not at work then when I'm there. This isn't helped by British summer time finally putting in an appearance.

On Saturday (yesterday) enjoying my first Saturday off for a while I dragged my sister out for a walk. She took her Camera and I took my GPS (hey, I'm not passing up a geocaching opportunity!). The sun was lovely although there was a rather nasty cold wind.

First up was a walk around a lake to do a spot of geocaching and for my sister to take pictures of flowers and stalk damsel flies.

Sister taking pictures

Jack Sparrow? They had a film costume exhibition on.

QE2 lake - looks lovely doesn't it?

After that it was a trip to some local woods for a wander around. Sis wanted to see the wild flower meadow. I wanted to do the geocaches. A match made in heaven.

We both wanted Ice cream!

Bluebell woods

And that is all the excitement of this past week I'm afraid. I have bought a bike but I don't get that until Thursday and even then I suspect I'll have to spend some time learning to ride a bike again if my demos at the shop were anything to go by. I'll pop a picture up when I get it next week. In the mean time I have to go shopping for bike locks, and bags for it, and a helmet etc...

So onto the planning mentioned in the title. I want to make a quilt this week like this one

Film in the Fridge - Rectangle Squared

I love the colour grey so it seems like a good choice of background but which colours to use with it? (this is Kona mid grey in the background because it looks slightly odd in these pictures)

My plan had originally been for a green and grey quilt but I'm just not certain

I LOVE the bright colours and randomness of this selection but I worry it's slightly too purple?

The batik collection. It would certainly make for a bright and random coloured quilt  but I'm just not certain. Most of these batiks came from the US when a friend visited.

I think these all have good points but I just don't know which to choose. It looks like a nice quilt to make and I'd love something bright I can snuggle under after a hard day at work. I have no quilts for myself after all.

I'm off now to sort out a birthday pressie for a friend. Gotta get that done soon as her birthday is creeping up. It's getting harder and harder and we try and out personalise each other. She got me a mug last year with pictures on of us, I made her a jewellery roll (the first thing I'd made that wasn't a quilt from a pattern!), this year she got me a photo frame with pictures of us so I need to work on something epic! She's just got out of hospital too so I best go find a get well soon card.

Speaking of cards - it's my dad's birthday tomorrow and I haven't got him a card of present yet. Oops. Told you I was busy!

1st May! Where has the year gone?

How is it May already? Where has the year gone? Will summer ever arrive?

I'm joining up with the small blog meet that Lily's quilts hosts because I'd love to think someone is actually reading my blog and I'm not talking to myself (which I'm fairly certain I am at the minute). hopefully with a few followers I'll remember to post more often on here although I've been good recently.

April has been a productive month for me, I finally finished quilting my friend's star quilt and I finished the tiny cathedral windows blocks I'd been working on. I made a bag out of a kit I bought from hobbycraft (you can never have too many bags!) And in the middle of all of that I managed to have 2 birthdays and a wedding anniversary happen!

I've yet to bind the star quilt, hopefully this weekend I can get that done. I'm also thinking of making a pincushion that's a cathedral window. I've found a blog with instructions so we'll see how that goes. Probably rather ambitious for the 1 day I have off. The joys of working in retail eh?

I've started work on a quilt for a friend's wedding and I have help from someone to make it although before last Sunday she'd never used a sewing machine before so we are having fun with me teaching her to sew.

Inspired by the Great British sewing bee I've started making a dress. Well, actually, I've traced and cut out a pattern to make a fake dress to get a practice run. I daren't make the real thing because I'm currently trying to do the Insanity workouts and hope to shift quite a few inches so I'll look good when I wear my dress I'll make :)

Oh, and yet again I gained some fabric... The tube map on and the apron one were a birthday present from my sister and the others were all acquisitions in the hobbycraft fabric sale. Amy Butler fabric at half price is too good to pass up and I'll find something to do with the rest.

Oh I've also spent most of this week being attacked by spiders. I've pulled one live one out my hair (dunno how that got in there at work), had one drop infront of my face when eating breakfast at work and had one fun at me in our house. I'm beginning to feel there is a spider conspiracy against me. I thought they were meant to go outside when the weather got warmer not appear near me?

Oh well. Hopefully I'll be posting next time with either a finished pincushion or a quilt that's finally been bound!

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Back again and inspired by great British sewing bee

Well yet again I'm back. I'm awful at this blogging thing. I suspect this is because I only have 1 follower and so I doubt that anyone actually reads these! Although who knows. Maybe if I posted more I would get more followers?

Well onto a catch up of what I've been doing.

Remember those hexagons I was hoping to turn into a tablemat for Christmas? Here they are all finished.

Yay! I do like them and I think they work well with the linen.

That starry quilt I was making for my friend? That's been free motion quilted too. I finally plucked up the courage to do it and managed to do the whole thing in a day. It isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination but for a 1st attempt it's OK  It looks really good from afar. The quilt just needs binding now and I've cheated and bought some binding to do that.

Since my last post I've also gained more fabric (oops) including some very funky tube map fabric that I got for my birthday, rather a lot of Amy butler fabric that was on sale in hobby craft for £6 a meter (silly to pass up that chance) and some home dec fabric from ikea to make a bag. I would to to make Amy butler's weekend bag but I suspect that's a little beyond my skill level so I'm going to limit myself to something from the bag making bible instead.

I've also for some reason agreed to make a quilt for my friends wedding which is in October. Plenty of time right? The theme for the wedding is a vintage tea party and so I've had to buy a lot of fabric to match this theme. I had nothing in my funky stash that would work. It's a basic quilt with lots of squares for people to sign and we ate hoping to transfer some photos on too. I've put my friend who is one of the bridesmaids in charge of gaining photos. It's all a secret from the bride and groom so I'm having to be very careful what I say on Facebook.

my newly gained fabric. lots of flowers

I'm not alone in making this quilt though. I have help! The friend who is a bridesmaid is helping me make it. She's never used a sewing machine before which is just a tiny problem so last weekend I spent a Sunday afternoon letting her loose sewing straight lines and we got a few blocks made. She loved her time using the sewing machine and is really looking forward to our next sewing get together in a few weeks.

7 of 66...

And then we get to the great British sewing bee TV show. For those who don't know what it is... If you've ever seen great British bake off its the same thing but sewing. Lol. Basically a group of very talented people complete challenges to make items every week with people being knocked out every week until the finale. I have no idea how they are making those things in that time. I mean seriously I takes me months to make anything. Never mind making an evening dress of a tailored jacket in 8 hours from start to finish! Utter madness.
I was given the book for my birthday last week and I also magically at the same time managed to gain a dress pattern from as magazine. It's a sign I tell you! I've always quite liked slightly vintage dresses (not so much the flowers. Kath kidston flowers make me cry so you can imagine how I'm feeling about that wedding quilt) and with my recent (and hopefully continuing weight loss) I've decided now is the time to try and make a dress! You never know. Summer may appear yet. I'm also aware that making a dress may be a stupid and expensive thing to so when I'm still loosing weight and planning on starting the insanity workout DVDs so I've opted to just have a trial run and see how it goes since its the first item of clothing I will ever of made and will be only the 2nd zip I've put in (everyone has to start somewhere right).
The fabric has been ordered, the invisible zippers and zipper foot for my sewing machine have been ordered, the book will give me hints, and the pattern gives me basic instructions. How wrong can it go? I'm hoping to blog the lot so you (dear reader who has done very well to get this far) can see. If I can make a dress anyone can.

The pattern. Can I do it?

Coincidently the woman who won the sewing bee had never made a quilt before. At least I've done that even if I've never worn anything I've made! lol. Hopefully next time I post I'll have started making that dress. Or have more of the quilt made... I'm rather excited about the dress option tbh...

Productive week!

Well my week off work was rather productive as far as sewing goes! Pity that the weather was awful so i didn't get a change to go out for a wander in Northumberland somewhere and go geocaching but I did manage to get all this sewing done - a lot for me!

The first thing I work on was this cute bag that came with Patch! by Cath Kidston that I got at Christmas. Making it revealed to me that I have NO patience whatsoever for paper piecing things. i hated having to cut out fabric with scissors and then loads of paper templates then having to baste it all and then sew it together. What a faff! I much prefer using my Dresden ruler I have which cuts half these steps out and means I can rotary cut it all. Another leader from our Guide unit also had the book and made her bag about the same time as me on her new cheap sewing machine. We both had hours of fun making the puff for the middle. She managed to make her's too small and I made mine too big and as you can see had to pop an extra bit of fabric in the middle because the fabric supplied only had the print on 1 side. Oh well...

I also made myself chuckle as I sewed all the seams inside and I blindly followed the book which said to do a zig zag stitch on the seam to make it stronger. just as I turned the bag the right way around I realised not only do I have a hemming foot with my sewing machine (doh!) but it also has a pre set stitch for it! (double doh!). I'll have to remember that for my next project which is the bag fro the Make! book that I was given for my birthday by a friend.

My bag

Project number 2 was the starry quilt (yes, the one I started earlier this year that is a birthday pressie for someone who's birthday was in feb). I FINALLY got all the stars made and spent a good hour with my twin sister working out the best layout so we didn't have groups of colours or collections of the same type of star together. I guess a lot could be said for planning and not being spontaneous but where's the fun in that! My sister is  huge fan of the grey/pink/yellow star that's in the middle column 2nd down. She's requested a whole quilt of it (not demanding at all!). I on the other hand am a fan of the purple and green one in the top left corner and the green and grey one in the bottom centre. I love the idea of making a quilt with a grey background and using bright colours to really add some 'wow' to it.

As much as I love this quilt and will be proud of it when I've finished I still would have preferred it on a black background but the recipient wanted it on a creamy one. I think black would of looked fab. This quilt is all pinned now and just needs to be quilted which leads me to project number 3...

Starry Quilt - top all pieced!

Project 3 - learn to fmq on my new(ish...) sewing machine so i can quilt this quilt with stars - it seems only right for it. I sat myself down one afternoon with a couple of large quilt sandwiches and just sat playing with the tension and everything to try and get it right. It would appear that changing the stitch length to 0 has a huge impact and once I managed to get the tension right for a straight line (I have to loosen the bobbin tension every time I put a new bobbin in because my sewing machine hates me lol) I was whizzing around and actually getting rather good results fro my first attempt. The tension was perfect even around corners although my stitch length was a tad dodgy in places - all in all i think I could get the hang of it easily because it just seemed like such a natural thing to do. I bought a couple of star templates and some air vanishing pens to mark the quilt so hopefully if i get a chance this weekend I may get the quilt done. I'm so excited!

As for my other project of the week - Herman - he worked OK but not brilliantly. I blame it on the instructions I was given being in American (I have no idea what a cup is when baking - obv in real life it's what holds my tea). This time around I used a recipe that had English measurements and he looks a lot happier. I'm due to cook him this weekend so we'll see how he goes!

hopefully next time I write I'll have a quilt that just needs binding (or is finished!)

Herman the house guest

On Friday last week I gained a new friend who wanted to go home with me. His name? Herman. And he's not a real person - he's a German friendship cake yeasty mix that's doing the rounds.
Luckily for me he's not that demanding and as he was already rather old when I got him I've only had to stir him so far and don't need to feed him until tomorrow when I also have to split him up! In theory I give 2 portions of him to friends, keep 1 for myself and eat the other. I think my dad and I are going to have big arguments about what we add to him but I may struggle to give him away so we may make a few cakes!

The best news this week though is that I have a week off work so I'm intending on relaxing and finishing that star quilt I started for my friend (yes, I am a bad person who hasn't finished it yet)

I have managed to do some sewing today and I made a bag that came with a book I got. In making this bag I have discovered that I have no patience for paper templates and basting things then hand seeing. Yawn. What a faff. I like rotary cutting and making a nice fast quilt.

Birthday

It's been a rather odd month - especially these past few weeks. We heard on Easter Sunday that my dad's mum had a stroke and was in hospital down south. Dad spent the week worrying before receiving a phone call from his brother and deciding to drive all the way to the hospital (about 5 hours drive!) to see her. On the Tuesday my dad found out he was diabetic (My sister and I are refusing to move all the sugary goodness from the house. How mean are we?) and then on the Wed I found out that my other gran who lives nearby is having problems with her blood pressure and was onto her 3rd trip to the doctor/nurse in a week on Friday to get a heart monitor. I'm fairly certain my family are falling to bits.

Despite all this we've also managed to squash in 2 Ranger meetings this week (my big Aqua Guides - the 14-26yr olds) where we had a wii and movie night and then yesterday went geocaching in a local country park. We had the full age range of 15-22 there and despite what some people say about there being such differences in age range and life experience they really do all get on so well and encourage each other. At one point we discovered we were following other geocachers around and we started running and missing caches out to leave message for each other. So much fun. Unfortunately it's me who now has to sit here and log the lot on the website.

In other news, it's my birthday today and my sister very kindly decided to buy me some fabric as a pressie! It's a rather random selection because after her sitting next to me and looking through fabric on-line we very quickly discovered that although we are identical twins we have completely opposite ideas about what is pretty fabric.

In the end I sent her away with a website and told her to add stuff she liked (or thought I would like) to the shopping basket then i was called through to whittle it down to an acceptable price. lol. I picked a selection of fabrics - some in colours that I don't have many of in my stash (look no purple or light pink!) and some fabrics that I just loved. Who shouldn't have fabric with owls?!?!? I do love the expressions on the faces of the foxes on the walk in the woods fabric.

The pretty birthday fabric!

Of course that's not the only fabric I've gained... I wish people would stop pointing out sales to me. I finally gave in and bought myself a selection of fabric from the innocent crush range which I fell in love with when I saw This quilt. I'm not totally certain what I'll do with it. I want to do a quilt with the pattern I originally saw it used in but can't use the same colours.

Innocent Crush

The other fabric I bought purely based on the fact I liked the colours (as usual). Again, I have no project in mind for it but I love it all the same. it's from the Camelot Range by Jason Yenter. The colours are just so bright and vibrant and I even discovered I already had some of his fabric from my post xmas buying spree! Now I just need to think of a way to use it.

Camelot fabric

I have promised myself I won't start any new projects though until I get this star quilt finished for my friend. I'm ashamed to say very little has been done on it since last time I posted pictures. I think I need a week off work to get it done.