Strange Places My Cat Sits: on the rag rug

Actually, Podae does not sit in many strange places.

He is a very proper pussin. Very well-mannered. He sits on the sofa, or the chair, or the bed, or the rug.

He does not choose wild and crazy spots like the sink, as do some other pussins I could name.

So I feel he's missing out on his share of the limelight in this series. Henceforth, I shall include the odd random photo of Podder being his lovely normal self.

Or not ......

More vintage cushions

Ah, there's something about a tea-towel that warms the cockles of my heart.

Vintage or otherwise, I love Australiana tea-towels. Wherever I go, I pick one or two up. My One True Love knows that any trip to anywhere has to include a visit to the local purveyor of tea towels. I can happily spend hours fossicking through great piles of tat if there is even the mere promise of a tea towel at the end of it. In this matter my patience knows no bounds.

I have quite a lot of them now as a consequence, but in my view you can never have enough. They're kind of like orange shoes in that respect.

I can't bear to actually use them as tea towels, of course. I make them into cushions, or peg bags, or other kitschy pieces. I'll have quite a stash at my next market stall, at the Abbotsford Convent on the third Saturday in March, including these two here.

I need to start selling them, you see, in order to make room for more!

Kapow!

I am not ordinarily a car fan.

But LOOK at this car! Look how ORANGE it is! This is my new favourite car EVER.

I photographed it in the carpark at my local gym, just as the sun was hitting it in exactly the right way. It's so vibrant it just seems to burst with colour. Wow. This is not a car you can (or would want to) hide.

No one accidentally chooses an orange car, or decides it's just "okay". It's a very deliberate selection. 

We all know that Tangerine Tango is the Pantone colour of the year for 2012. As orange is my favourite colour, I've been wearing this shade for many, many years now .... and at last, it is on-trend. Even in car paint. (What is the technical term for car paint?)

It just goes to show that if you put a stake in the ground early enough, and wait long enough, fashion will catch up with you. Eventually.

Of course next year there'll be a different colour of the year (I'm betting it will be some kind of minty turquoise-y colour) and I will be out of fashion again. And this time I will be excruciatingly out of fashion too, as orange will be so last year, as opposed to just my own quirky eccentricity. 

Did you know I have four pairs of orange shoes? And three more that have bits of orange incorporated in them? My One True Love thinks that is enough, but I stand in defiant physical proof of the fact that there can Never Be Enough Orange Shoes.

Anyway, back to this car. Apparently it's a Ford Focus - and did you know the Focus will be coming to Australia in an electric version in 2014? I think I might start saving ...... as long as I can still get it in this colour. 

Soooo 2012.

The Kaffe Fassett quilt - finished!

 At last, the Kaffe Fassett quilt is finished, and I LOVE IT. It's a fine piece of work, if I do say so myself.

I think it's the best quilt I've ever made - all the seams match up, the colours are spectacular, the flannel backing is particularly soft and lovely,and of course there's that invisibly hand-stitched binding to top it all off.

So I'm glad it's going to the Amateur Actress. She came to pick it up yesterday and we took these photographs. I especially love the one of her reclining, considering it was actually 34 degrees outside in the burny sun, and she put up with me fussily arranging and re-arranging a super-warm flannel-backed quilt over the top of her bump and making here stay there while I took a range of photographs from ever-so-slightly different angles.

She's a good egg, that Amateur Actress.

1. Baby quilt for the Amateur Actress
2. Baby quilt for Beck
3. Baby quilt for the Headmistress
4. Cup of tea and a lie down after three baby quilts in quick succession
5. Complete the massive postage stamp quilt I started early last year. I was doing fine until I realised I'd accidentally doubled the recipe and was now making the quilt twice as big as it needed to be. King-size. In three-inch squares. That's a lot of seams. It's been stuffed into the back of a drawer (a big drawer) for months now, because I get a cold shiver every time I even think about going back to it.
6. Curlicue Crush quilt as posted on a few days ago
7. Complete a patchwork screen using the antique wooden frame that's shoved into a corner of the sewing room and has been unused for years. In the hope of selling it at a market later in the year.
8. Start the Autumn Daze quilt from Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance book
9. Bit of a breakdown as I realise doing all those quilts is probably impossible, and why do I always set my sights on unattainable goals and is this a major character flaw and do I set myself up for failure this way and why can't I just live more in the now without having to constantly achieve, achieve, achieve; ...valium now please.
10. Finish those grey wool pants I cut out in the middle of winter last year ... sigh ....
11. Put up shelves in my sewing room so that my wondrous and ever-growing collection of lovely new and vintage tins can be displayed to its best advantage so that I can actually see and enjoy them. Right now they are piled on top of each other in a heap on the sewing table.
12. Make a curtain for the sewing room window. It's been naked-of-curtain for more than 18 months now and I can't stand another winter without one.
13. Organise myself for a destash sale. Gulp.
14. Get Etsy sorted out. With current stock. Take some damn pictures, Flickettysplits!
15. Start blogging again. Oh, I've done that one! Tick that box. 

Crafty Goals List: baby quilt for Beck - tick that box!

1. Baby quilt for the Amateur Actress
2. Baby quilt for Beck
3. Baby quilt for the Headmistress
4. Cup of tea and a lie down after three baby quilts in quick succession
5. Complete the massive postage stamp quilt I started early last year. I was doing fine until I realised I'd accidentally doubled the recipe and was now making the quilt twice as big as it needed to be. King-size. In three-inch squares. That's a lot of seams. It's been stuffed into the back of a drawer (a big drawer) for months now, because I get a cold shiver every time I even think about going back to it.
6. Curlicue Crush quilt as posted on a few days ago
7. Complete a patchwork screen using the antique wooden frame that's shoved into a corner of the sewing room and has been unused for years. In the hope of selling it at a market later in the year.
8. Start the Autumn Daze quilt from Kaffe Fassett's Quilt Romance book - picture at the top of this post.
9. Bit of a breakdown as I realise doing all those quilts is probably impossible, and why do I always set my sights on unattainable goals and is this a major character flaw and do I set myself up for failure this way and why can't I just live more in the now without having to constantly achieve, achieve, achieve; ...valium now please.
10. Finish those grey wool pants I cut out in the middle of winter last year ... sigh ....
11. Put up shelves in my sewing room so that my wondrous and ever-growing collection of lovely new and vintage tins can be displayed to its best advantage so that I can actually see and enjoy them. Right now they are piled on top of each other in a heap on the sewing table.
12. Make a curtain for the sewing room window. It's been naked-of-curtain for more than 18 months now and I can't stand another winter without one.
13. Organise myself for a destash sale. Gulp.
14. Get Etsy sorted out. With current stock. Take some damn pictures, Flickettysplits!
15. Start blogging again. Oh, I've done that one! Tick that box. Only fourteen to go .....

Blister In The Thumb

Over the weekend I incurred a devastating, debilitating sewing injury.

Oh I know, sewing is supposed to be a non-contact sport. Done inside, with cups of tea and biscuits. But people, it is DANGEROUS. There are SHARP things involved. Rotary cutters. Needles. Scissors. I tell you, I'm surprised that the emergency rooms haven't filled with people who've done themselves a mischief in this current resergence of craft.

So what's this incapacitating damage I have incurred? You can't see it in a photo, but I have a laaaaarge blister in my thumb.

Right in the middle of the tip.  Right in the exact spot where you use your thumb to push the needle through three layers of fabric when you are hand-sewing the binding to a quilt. In exactly that spot.

This is my own fault, of course. This is what you get when you spend virtually all weekend hand-sewing binding to not just one, but two baby quilts.

The good news is that I have now finished the quilt for the Amateur Actress (photos to come). Hooray! It looks absolutely beautiful and may be my best quilt ever.

And the binding is now virtually completed on the baby quilt for my crafternoon friend The Design Diva as well.

This is what happens when you spend practically the entire weekend inside, on the sofa, doing needlework because your One True Love is off cycling up and down mountains in the country. You get a lot done.

The bad news is that I now cannot stand to pick up a needle again for quite some time.

This is something of an issue, to be honest, because I'd quite *like* to pick up a needle again as I have about 15 centimetres left on the second quilt and I am itching to get it done. I was so tired last night that I just threw it down and went to bed when I couldn't keep my eyes open any more.

This was a bad move, people, a bad move. I was obviously in some sort of focused zen-like state yesterday, concentrating so hard on doing nice neat little stitches and getting through the metres, because I felt no pain at all. Obviously my poor thumb was completely numb from exhaustion.

But today? Well, today when I picked up the needle, thinking I would just do a little bit before heading off to work .... well, then I knew ALL ABOUT MY THUMB, let me assure you.

The truth is evident: I need to rest my silly thumb. The poor thing needs convalescence time.

But .... just fifteen centimetres to go! Fifteen!! ........gah.

Strange Places My Cat Sits: on top of the suitcase, on top of the wardrobe

A double entry this time, with honours to both Grimth and the Fathead.

They both like to climb into high places, and this effort on top of the wardrobe in my sewing room has to take the cake.

Apologies for the poor iPhone photos! (and yes, the room really is that colour.....)