August already!

It's August already! I can't believe it. So I'm joining up with Lily's quilts fresh sewing day and small blog meet up. I could do with a few more friends out in sewing land and I love looking at all the amazing things you all make.

July seems to have flown over and I'm not totally certain that I got much done. I suspect that this is down to the new job and me getting used to the whole 9-5 thing after working odd shifts in my last job. I even seemed to have missed the nice weather we've had in the UK because by the time I get out of work and home our garden is just at the wrong angle for sun.

The 1 thing I've made myself - a pincushion of summersville fabric.

An awful photo that gives an idea of what the wedding quilt I'm working on looks like. The big gap is for pictures I'm waiting for. There is a lot of white fabric sashing too that isn't on this photo.

But onto this month and I'm away for a couple of weekends so I thought I'd best get started on something I can do when I'm away. I've decided to make a hexagon charm quilt and I've cut out 170 1" hexagons and bought some mini charm packs to get me started.

I also happened upon the perfect box in our local supermarket to keep everything all organised and neat.

Here it is all opened up. The top holds my finished hexagons and the bottom 2 compartments are ideal sized to hold my fabric, pins, hexagons, scissors and thread.

...and here is a better look at the fabric that's in there. I have some noteworthy and some random ones I found on eBay. Ideally I'd have every hexagon in different fabric but I don't think I'll manage that easily so I'm ticking to mini charm packs at the minute.

I've also been naughty and bought some fabric this month. I fully blame my sister for pointing out this fabric and it's amazing autumn looks in the shop.

I couldn't resist buying the full set of these enchanted forest fabrics when I spotted them. They are just so pretty and the small animals on them are adorable.

And these were some random ones I bought at the same time. Well, you can't have too many random fabrics right?

Just a better picture of the texture of the blue fabric.

And that leads me onto the main quilt in my life at the minute. The giant green quilt. It wasn't made by me - it was made by a friend but I'm quilting this beast for her. It's just a little over king size! Luckily she wants straight line quilting in the ditch because I have no idea how I'd do anything else with it.

At the minute I have it basted (after re-arranging all the furniture in my living room) and have managed to get the lines done from top to bottom. It needs to be done by the end of this week before I go away because the wedding it is for is next week and she needs to bind it. Nothing like a tight deadline!

Once this quilt is done I can focus my attention back onto the quilt I making for my friend wedding. I best get a move on with that as it's in October and another 2 friends have just got engaged this week! I hope they don't all want quilts.

I hope this month doesn't fly over like last month and I get to enjoy it a bit more. I hope you had a more relaxing July than I did.

Memories lost and made

It's been a busy and sad week for me this week. I think I'll start with the busy and try to pretend that the sad doesn't exist until the end.

At work I've now had mock certification week and I passed that. I'm currently in the middle of certification week. This is after 2 weeks of classroom training and 1 week of practical training. Who knew that working in a call centre required quite so much learning and faffing around? The air con isn't brilliant and the UK has chosen this time to have the nicest weather we've seen for years! Typically I'm stuck inside sweating and staring longingly out the window. I'm making the most of this by sitting on the grass outside at lunch time to enjoy my lunch.

The bag. grey and owls!

Unfortunately for me now that we are out of our training room and onto the call floor we aren't allowed our bags with us and as we don't have a locker yet we are expected to just put our stuff on top of the lockers. Obviously I'm not too happy leaving my expensive Kipling bag there with mu car keys, my purse and my phone. There isn't too much I can do about the car keys and phone but I've switched purses so I only being a small amount of money to work and I went out today and bought a new bag to use.

I think it's rather distinctive and cool :) Even better, it's oilcloth so when our normal weather returns it'll also be waterproof.

One of the Guide leaders, my friend Viki, has been making a quilt for her friend's wedding this summer. She finally finished the quilt top and has passed it onto me to be quilted. This quilt is a monster!

Before I made her remove some squares it measured a massive 123x132 inches! It's now a slightly more reasonable 111x101 inches. I still will struggle to get it laid out to get it basted.

giant quilt enjoying the sun in my garden

Certain things about this quilt will irritate me too when I'm quilting it. Mostly that the fabric isn't all going the right way. It's a pet hate I'm afraid. She's done a very good job for her first quilt but just seeing the wonky fabric makes me want to cry...

wonky turtles and rabbits :(

But because I'd gained this giant quilt a little bit of retail therapy was needed. Well I had to buy some batting didn't I? So I also bought myself a bag pattern...

The weekender bag

... and a tiny square of green fabric with baking/kitchen prints that was on offer.

Green fabric and it's pink friend

But I didn't realise when I ordered that how much white thread I had left and just how many pins I'd need to baste this monster! So a trip to Hobbycraft was needed. As any Brits know that's a dangerous place for crafty people to go. I think I did very well leaving with what I did! I bought the thread and some pink and white fabric that was just adorable... and a scrap book.

It's actually called a smash book and it comes with a pen that has a 'glue' stick at the other end. I say 'glue' because it's quite possibly the least sticky substance I've come across.

My pink stash book

At this point I should explain my sad news that I mentioned earlier. Last weekend my external hard drive died and I now can't access it. It contained all the things from my old computers, my iTunes library and even more importantly than that (although loosing my music is irritating) it also contained the pictures that I have left of my mum from when she was alive. I'm absolutely gutted I don't have them backed up somewhere. I'm just hoping that some of the memory cards I have hanging around my room have some pictures on.

This set me off on in a mood of wondering what if.... what if my computer dies again... what if something happens to me? will people have anything to remember me by? .. What if I get old and forget things? How will I remember what I've done.

So when I saw this book I thought what a good idea it was and bought one. I'm working my way through putting bits and bobs I've collected in there as a nice place to keep my memories together. No more relying on the computer for me!

The first page is dedicated to my mum. I found a couple of photos and I'm hoping to find another one to fill the gap. I've put some tickets in for events I've been too, mementoes and autograph books from Guide camps I attended, things from when I was at university and pictures of animals I've owned/looked after and I'm still going. I'll have this book full soon!

In other sad news Guides is done for summer now. We had a BBQ at the beach and our 2 oldest girls gained their Baden Powell awards and have now left our Guide unit. On the opposite end one of our new Guides made her promise! She's the last one to make that version of the promise as the new version takes effect from September.

I guess life is like that... just have to keep moving on. Or in my case at the minute just keep staring at the monster quilt and hope it quilts itself!

Hope you've all had better weeks than I have.

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!

Progress, fabric and a dilemma

Another week and another lot of pictures. I'm very impressed at just how much I am fitting in around work at the minute. I've got my sewing mojo back. I have an urge to make a really pretty quilt of some sort and I suspect this is because of all the fabulous quilts popping up in blog land this week due to a blog quilt festival.

Progress

What isn't pictured here is the Sorbetto top I made (again another practise one) but I've ordered some fabric to make a proper one. It was so easy and took me under an hour to make! my justification is that I'm between sizes. I think I'll go with the larger one though due to my large chest.

Next up is the paper piecing sew along I was on about. Here are my first 3 blocks! Can you tell what they are? Can you tell what the smaller one is? It's actually a tea cup and another practise on that will probably turn into a mug rug. the contrast is greater in real life when my phone hasn't decided to put the flash on.

I like paper piecing it's a great way to get cool looking blocks but I had nothing but trouble with the cupcake and the lemonade. The lemonade is actually back to front.I cut my charm square for the lemonade the wrong way because I forgot to turn it upside down so I had to do the whole thing with the printed side of the paper upside down which made sewing fun! the cupcake was all good apart from I just couldn't seem to work out what angle to sew that top strip of icing. What a nightmare that was. Hopefully week 2 will go well.

Then we get to the wedding quilt I'm making. I'm got about 30 squares made today (not all pictured) by being sneaky and using the quilting tactic of chain piecing and not pinning everything which is what my friend was doing last time she helped. Hopefully I'll get a few more done this week then it's back to cutting strips of fabric. I need about 70 of these things!

Fabric

Yes, you remember I said I went on a fabric buying spree to cheer myself up? Here is the result. Lots of pretty fabric! This 1st lot is from ebay. Just a selection of novelty prints. It includes some funky owls, some dinosaurs and start wars fabric?!?! This is the only package my sister has seen arrive in the house and as far as she is concerned I won it. Sneaky me!

Fabric number 2 I bought from Fabric rehab which had a lovely selection of pretty fabric. It was a struggle to not buy more. I have some nice blenders (continuing my collecting of grey fabric!), some very mini hedgehogs and owls and some pretty purple and orange owls. oh and some penguins. obviously! There was a charm back of Summersville spring too but that's already been chopped up for the paper piecing.

Dilemma

In the best way I have a dilemma  It's just me being stupid in fact. I've had thoughts for a while (well years infact) of studying to become an occupational therapist (yes I can hear you all asking what one of them is. Google it because it's a hard one to explain properly. Essentially it's someone who works with people who have health problems or are old to enable them to carry on living a normal life. Make sense? No? Google.)

I have a thing at my local university on Thursday called 'So you want to be an occupational therapist' It's a day to find out about the course and the job and meet current students. And it's only open to mature students. i resent being called a mature student at 28 but I guess compared to the 18 year old I am. How sad. I don't feel like a mature student. Anyway my dilemma is what to wear. Normally to a uni open day when I was younger I'd turn up in jeans and a nice top but I feel like as this is a professional course and it's for mature students I should look smarter? What to wear isn't helped by our weather at the minute either. Parts of my local city were flooded yesterday and roads had to be closed.

I guess we'll all find out next week what I do. Although any suggestions are welcome.

Oh and due to the bad weather There is still no good picture of the starry quilt. It's a bank holiday in the UK next weekend so I'm not holding out much hope for sun any time soon.

Till next time!

A finish at last!

That's right. I've finally managed to finish the starry quilt! Unfortunately the weather here in Newcastle has been rather rubbish so I haven't managed to get a decent photo of it but I promise I will once/if the sun ever comes out again.

The finished quilt yay!

Finishing the quilt should of been as easy as just sewing a bit of binding on but I don't know if it was the tiredness of not having a day off work since the previous Sunday or what but I managed to make it harder than it should of been. 

It all started when I was changing back to my cream thread and I lost a tiny little screw from my bobbin. Oops. It took me about 10 minutes to find it because it is so tiny and it fell on very thick carpet.

Just to give an idea of size. look how tiny it is compared to the pin head!

Next up was the shop bought binding. I thought this would save me time but it took me forever to get the pieces joined and for the folds that were already in it to line up. Grr. 

Finally I did it although I suspect my technique of sewing the full lot on with a sewing machine could use a little practise.

My 1st attempt at free motion quilting a quilt. If you squint you may even spot some stars that look like stars and not just pointy lines.

I have also had a try at paper piecing this week in preparation of hopefully joining the sew along that Ellison lane quilts are hosting!

Flying Geese. Not bad for a first attempt. Excuse the random fabric and that I've not squared it off.

On the clothing front not much has happened. I've downloaded the pattern for a sorbetto top from Colette patterns so I may make a fake one of them this week. I love that it is American sizing because I can take 2 size of my UK size. Always a confidence booster.

My friend with a bit of dress making experience also got to see me modelling my unfinished dress mock up and has concluded that when I put the facing in it the neck should be fine although apparently I could do with more darts in the bust. She offered to attack me with pins but I politely declined.

Oh and because I've had such an awful week at work with them cutting my hours with no warning I splashed out on some fabric. It's yet to arrive but there will be pictures when it does. (Well I need something for this sew along!!)

..and finally...
This week when browsing around all the new blogs I follow (sorry - I can't remember where I found it) I came across a wonderful tool - Palette Builder 2.0. It goes without saying that I played around and some quilts may appear in these colour ways at some point! I'm a huge fan of the one with the daffodils.

Until next time when I will hopefully have fabric and decent quilt photos!
Thanks for reading