Bits and Bobs #2 - Basting, Quilt Books and Attempting to Shop

This past week was pure madness - work was crazy busy, I had a mini-cold, it was the last week of school holidays and the weather was wild! It was seriously exhausting, but we still managed to have a good time - these were some of the highlights:

• A trip to the library - where we scored novels for Zoe, a stack of picture books, a bunch of graphic novels, a 500 piece puzzle, a few magazines and a couple of books on sewing and quilting. Gotta love the library.
• Having my hair cut and dyed - bye bye premature greys!
• Lunching at the McDonalds I used to work at when I was 15 - almost 19 years ago! It hit me that most of the people that are now working there were not even born when I was there. I'm sooooo old, maybe those greys aren't that premature!
• A trip to the local park - where I was bombarded with screaming children *shudders*.
• Going to the Sewing, Stitching and Hand Craft Show, which in all honesty was pretty much a disappointment - I just didn't see anything that really jumped out at me, but also I had the girls with me and they refuse to let me actually look at anything properly. Le sigh.
• Visiting the paediatric dentist for Zoe's teeth - she has developmental dental defects and is going to need a bunch of work done - 3 fillings, 3 fissure seals and 2 metal crowns. On the up-side she is excited about the chocolate scented happy gas that she is going to have with her treatments. It's the small things.
• A dinner/play date - complete with homemade pizzas, jelly cups and games of Uno. Nobody even threw the deck across the room - I was impressed.
• The girls having a sleepover at Bay's (grandma's) house - thus enabling me to stay late at work, then work from home, and then get into work early the next morning. Awesome-sauce. 
• Spending a huge day in the city with the little ladies - tram rides, a visit to my office - so they could see where I work, lunch at the art gallery, book shopping, bakery break and toy shopping. This then led to general grumpiness in the household from exhaustion.

I just have to put this out there, I can not - can not - choose fabric at a store when the girls are with me! We were in a fabric store twice this week, and while I was trying to choose my fabrics they were both running around like crazy people and continually asking if I was done yet - like every 5 seconds! Arrghh!! Both times I walked out with nothing - I guess at this stage I have to wait until I am child free (which is hardly ever) or order online. The joys of single parenting ;).

In the creativity department I have kept pretty busy this week. I did a huge section of my house cross-stitch and then realised I had made a pretty major stuff up! I am too grumpy about it to even look at it right now - but at some point I will have to undo everything that I did in my last session. Very frustrating! So cross stitch has been a big fat failure this week, but I have made a lot of progress on my hexagon basting for the mega quilt. I am powering through (thanks Gilmore Girls) and will hopefully start piecing again soon.

I also got a few new books in the mail this week (mmmm I love that new book smell) - Quilts from the House of Tula Pink by Tula Pink, 100 Modern Quilt Blocks by Tula Pink and Sew to Swap by Chrissie Grace. I am promising myself that this week I will start my quilted table runner so that I can actually start attempting some of these beautiful patterns in these books. So much to do - so little time!

Reading: Quilts from the House of Tula Pink by Tula Pink

Listening: Crafty Planner podcast - I won't know what to do with myself once I have caught up on these!

Watching: Gilmore Girls (up to season 3 now), Orange is the New Black (season 3) and The Walking Dead (season 6)

Eating: Badly! I have been feeling super unorganised - so dinners have been very haphazard and work lunches were scarce.


Til next time!

Bits and Bobs #1 - English paper piecing, cross stitch and podcasts

Welcome to Bits and Bobs - my new weekly blog post about all of the random things that are happening in the world of The Red Deer. I have been biting my nails thinking about what I want this blog to be - making myself a nervous wreck, and then last night I had a brain wave! I said to myself "Alicia, how about you just chill out and go with the flow for once?" - and that is exactly what I am going to do! I have no grand plan at this stage - I'm just going to use this platform to share what I am doing and what is happening in my life, and hopefully make some online friends who have similar interests to me. And thus I have decided that a weekly bits and bobs post is a great way to ease me in. I'm just going to keep it casual and keep a record of what is important to me week-to-week.


So first of all I have been working on "the mega quilt" - I finished all of my hexagons that were already basted, and now I am back to basting up the next batch. Basting is definitely not my favourite part of the process, and I sometimes freak out about how many hexagons there are on this quilt (2,936 to be exact). I have completed 13 out of 57 rows of the quilt - so 670 hexagons down so 2,266 to go! Yep, it is going to be quite a few more years before this one is finished.


The other project that I am part way through is the Old Metal Roof House cross stitch. I'm planning to have this framed and then gift it to my mum for Christmas this year. I still quite enjoy cross stitching - I find it quite soothing and I love the beautiful embroidery thread. I think after I finish this pattern though I would like to start creating my own patterns and try something a little bit different. I tried to start playing around with ideas on the bus into work, but it turns out that motion sickness and cross stitch pattern design don't go well together.


So on the bus I can't draw or design or read, but I can listen to podcasts! I've been doing that every day and loving it! That is one great thing about public transport - it gives you the chance to do absolutely nothing and just sit back (or stand up) and listen to some wonderfully inspirational people. At the moment I am going through all of the Crafty Planner episodes - and I just can't get enough, I've also listened to all of the Craft-ish episodes and soon I will need to find another source to feed the addiction.


I've also decided to start another project - because you can never have enough projects on the go. I want to start machine piecing - so I am going to make a simple table runner to get me started. I chose to just keep it simple for this project - it is going to be simple squares using the blue/aqua solids and the yellow flower pattern, the backing will be the aqua with gold and the binding will be the black and white print. I am nervous about getting started, but I am building myself up to it - any moment now....

Just got to get my machine up and running - I kinda broke the needle last time I used it, and then I should really get started. Once I have that tiny project done I have a whole list of things that I would like to try. However, I need to remember to take it one step at a time. Baby steps Alicia, baby steps.

Reading: Quilting Basics - A step-by-step course for first-time quilters by Michael Caputo

Listening: Crafty Planner podcast, Craft-ish podcast and Michael Jackson (always Michael Jackson)

Watching: Gilmore Girls (season 1 and start of season 2) and Orange is the New Black (season 3)

Eating: Homemade banana cake with lemon icing mmmmmm


Til next time!

The mega huge quilt

So I may be officially insane. I have started a new project - a massive quilt for my bed that will be done using the English paper piecing technique. The really insane part? Each hexagon has a side length of 1", and that my friends means that I will be sewing up 2,936 hexagons for this quilt. Yep I am crazy.


I have chosen the colours based on the painting "Incarnation" by one of my favourite artists - Mark Ryden. If you enjoy a bit of pop surrealism and you haven't seen Mark Ryden's work then you really need to check it out - he is completely amazing.

Isn't it beautiful? Maybe this is where Lady Gaga got her inspiration for her meat dress from?


If you haven't heard from me in a while it may be because I have drowned in hexagons - please send help.