I can start!

The main fabric I needed for my round robin centre has arrived (along with a few others) So while Eleanor is having a nap, I'll try and cut a few more of the 372 pieces.

This will soon have little holes all over it:

As will a lot of these; fabrics from which I'll select the palette, and the carefully sorted templates:

My little helper with my new pins; I'd better keep them away from her!My little helper with some of the new stash:And Emma, here's some you might be interested in:

Ellie's quilt

Well, actually it's meant to be for Ruby, but Ellie handpicked a lot of the fabric, and I'm not sure she'll be able to relinquish it when it arrives! Anyway, Ellie, here it is. One of the blocks up close, and all 24 laid out in position.

But it's going to stay like this for a while. The backing for Leia's quilt has arrived, and now I've done most of the piecing, it's easier to move this off the sewing table to sandwich and quilt what I have ready and waiting.

The rest of this week's mail

It's still coming! I've had several more deliveries this week, enabling me to get to work on most of my projects. Unfortunately what I ordered for the round robin hasn't arrived, and I'm worried I won't meet the first deadline; how embarrassing! I'll have to sew really fast, as I'll have about a week to turn nearly 400 (small and mostly fussy-cut) pieces into a quilt centre.

While I was photographing these, I had an assistant who wanted his material photographing as well:

Monday's mail

Here's what postie delivered this morning:

Some for me, some FQs for the birthday swap, some for my commissions, some for my raffle quilt, and some snazzy Quilters' Socks (not sure why they're quilty, but I couldn't resist!):

And, recognise some of these, Ellie ?

A little mail

Thursday - no fabric mail, but while getting Adds' Birthday FQ, I picked up these:

Friday's mail (for the quilt Kelly commissioned for Eva; from Moda's A Little Romance range)

(Helen - She saw these in the quilt you made and loved the colours!)

7 months

Eleanor is 7 months old today.

She has a distinct hate of taking a bottle, and we have had no success with it so far. She just screams and refuses to even try sucking. I hate wasting precious EBM, so today I got some formula. She's happy enough to have a bottle with water (but doesn't suck, just chews on the teat and drinks what trickles into her mouth) so this evening while she was happy, I made 60mls of formula, and gave the bottle to her to play with.

As you can see, she was quite happy to play with it. But not much went down her throat. Plenty soaked into the quilt and her clothes, and it dripped over her face. She kept going back for more, but would only chew.

Even watching James have his didn't help (although we thought it rather cute!). I'll persist doing this once or twice a day for a while. I don't mind if the formula gets wasted. The intention is to get her to have something from a bottle properly. Then when she starts at child care in a month, hopefully she'll drink the EBM happily. Otherwise we're stuck!

She gets herself anywhere she likes by commando-crawling and rolling, and we often see her rocking on her hands and knees - real crawling isn't far off! Her greatest delight is being held upside down, grinning and laughing in our faces. And she loves James' rough play (mostly!).

Serious stash-building

Although most of this is destined for commissioned quilts, there is some for me on the way. I am keeping the postman busy, with plenty more to come.

Monday's mail:

Tuesday's mail:

Wednesday's mail:

Stash update when the last lot arrives.

And Ellie, here is what your quilt looks like for now:

James loves discovering parcels in the letter box. And as well as these, there have been letters for him the last 2 days. He did some lovely paintings on Friday, then folded them, put them in envelopes, decorated them with stickers, and put them in the post box for Gran, Nanny and Pop, and Elaine and Andrew. And now he has some thankyou letters!

The last one, which is on his wall (he was losing interest by this point!):

Quilt top complete!

Being fussier than ever over my accuracy when cutting, piecing and trimming paid off big-time. When it got to sewing the strips together, all the seams abutted beautifully, which was very rewarding.

I then had to race out and get some piping cord so I could complete the borders this weekend. I hadn't tried this before, but it wasn't too hard. The worst parts were my machine oddly skipping a lot of stitches with the needle to the far right, and getting the tension right on 3 layers of fabric, when one wasn't quilters' cotton. The corners ended up being relatively easy. Because the outer border is a stripe I needed to mitre the corners. Not my favourite task, although I am getting faster and neater at it. But it conveniently meant no fussing over the piping around corners. Even better, I managed to get the stripes to match at ALL four corners.

The quilt top is now pressed and folded neatly, waiting for the backing to arrive in my big order from eQuilter.

I'll take my machine in for a service on Tuesday morning - and hope they're quick with it. I can't be without it tomorrow, as it's child care day for James, which means I can sew while Eleanor sleeps!

Speaking of Eleanor, she has been commando-crawling for a couple of weeks, and now gets up on hands and knees. She can keep herself happy for ages on the floor now with a few toys and me sitting nearby pinning quilt blocks. I'll do more of an update next week when she hits 7 months.

Books and Quilts

I've had a busy week. I have transformed Leia's quilt from over 600 pieces first into 30 blocks (plus the feature squares and setting triangles):

and now into 12 stips:This weekend should see the strips joined and borders added. I've decided to try a peeper border, which could be interesting. I have to get some cord to fill the peeper, as I don't just want a little flap of fabric, but don't know quite how I'll manage it until I get to it.

Six of my seven new quilting books arrived yesterday and today. I expect the last one tomorrow. I have read most fo the novel and browsed a few of the others so far.

I also picked up a long-coveted floral rotary cutter. I was sick of swapping from new to old blades to cut foundation papers and template plastic, so now I have my ergonomic cutter with new blades, and will keep this one with an old blade for non-fabric cutting.

The postman won't get a rest though, because I've just ordered over 40m (Yes, that is right. 4-0 metres!) of fabric from 5 shops for several commissioned quilts, a raffle quilt, and a few irresistables for my stash. (Well, they were from America, I may as well fill the envelope and make the most of the postage costs!) The sad news is that I managed to resist a few Classic Pooh prints, and a new commission has requested them, so I'll just have to go back and order some!

I have also started using my lovely quilting Journal for my notes. It's so nice to have everything in one place. So far it is nice and neat, but I am sure that won't last, with jotted lists, quick sketches and more!

Counting

Counting what? Everything!

I have inherited a peculiar trait from my mother where we count anything and everything to pass the time. Steps while walking, weeds pulled, pegs going onto and off the washing line, clothes being folded... and quilt seams sewn. I like to know how far through something I am, or to have some measure of what I have achieved. I am very goal-oriented - which maybe explains why I like hand-sewing the binding the binding onto quilts so much - another one finished!

But back to the seams... I calculate how many pieces there will be in a quilt (down to strips joined for binding and borders) and as I sew, I subtract each lot of seams. Each seam sewn means one less piece. Leia's quilt has a total of exactly 630 pieces, and is currently in 343 pieces.

I wonder if this strange tendency influenced my job? I work at the Australian Bureau of Statistics when I'm not a SAHM!

Anyone else???

Oh, and while I'm counting. Metres of fabric = 672.

Not enough on my plate?

Tonight after a lovely meal with lovely ladies, I made my offer to make a quilt to raffle for the Goddesses. Jen, who runs the group (and is my brother-in-law's mother-in-law (!) ) swooped on my idea, so I have a new project. I warned them it would just be a wall-hanging and not to expect it any time soon, so I don't have to worry about it just yet. We agreed subtle colours would be best, so I'm going to work with a palette I haven't used for a while.

Despite being up into the wee hours again last night, I didn't quite finish cutting the pieces for the blocks in Leia's quilt this morning, when I fussy-cut the centres of the Ohio-Star blocks. I didn't have much time today, even with James being at childcare. I joined 2 piles of 112 red and cream triangles into 112 large triangles and have started pressing them. That's it!

Tonight's aim is to turn those into 56 Squares ready for trimming, then tidy the house before we have visitors tomorrow. My sister-in-law is bringing my neice who's nearly 1, and we're going to try taking some photos of her with the backdrop and perspex set-up. Simon's cousin's wife (!) is also bringing her boy who is just 1, and a girl of the same age she often babysits.

Busy busy busy!

At New Year, I only had a handful of projects on the go or coning up. Suddenly I have so many I have rearranged my lists to the right! I find myself with 4 commissions, a group project, a few of my own creative ideas, and another budding idea which I'll discuss with my fellow Goddesses on Thursday night before mentioning.

The Goddesses (in Training) are a group of wonderful women who get together to enjoy food and company, and do a lot of work for a handful of local women's (and associate children's) charities. I confess to being a less active participant - those with adult children (and less of a quilting addiction) seem to have more time for it!

I have the go-ahead from Leia, and am off to Hettie's Patch tomorrow to find some red-on-white (mostly white) fabrics for Ruby's quilt, so the machine is about to get a good thrashing again. It might be time for a service, new needles and a new rotary blade first!

I'm due to return to work part time in early March - I had a call about that today. Eeek! I really need to, but 1) I love being home with James and Eleanor, 2) I have no idea what I'll be doing or if I'll like it and 3) WHEN will I do all my quilts?

Ah, yes. Between midnight and 2am as usual!

The beginnings of a new design:

More photos

This morning I set up again, and took James out for some photos while Eleanor had a sleep. It is much harder with one who can run off! I got a lot less photos, we had several breaks to run around the garden naked (so I had to keep cleaning his grotty feet!) and Bec (the rabbit), Panda and Teddy featured in about half. Here are my favourites:

Showing off

I took some photos of Eleanor today, and have to show them off. Armed with a new tripod (thanks to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law for Christmas) and perspex with a polar-fleece backdrop (thanks to some tips from EB) and a cute litte model, here is my first attempt. Joy is going to help me with photoshop sometime, and I'm looking forward to working on them. (and, no, I don't know why the text is underlined, and can't fix it easily!)

Pouting - her new 'trick'!:

Some quilty progress

After much anticipation, I have found the time to make some trial blocks for the quilt Leia commissioned late last year. I have sent her photos before I make more, but here is a peek at the 2 blocks laid out with the other fabrics to give an idea of my design: The fabrics on the left are an approximation of the borders and binding, and the blocks are 8" finished.

And a quick stash update - 666m! Next purchase is a selection of quilty books at bargain prices from The Book Depository thanks to Joy's tip!

I have a long list of quilts for this year (and that's with only 1 cot quilt; I'm sure more will be called-for!) ranging from arty ideas (such as my migraine quilt, based on the visual disturbance I get before a migraine and a view of Adelaide at night from the hills, which I'm anticipating will use swarovski crystal beads, black, and some hand-dyes, and explore some new techniques) to some quilting traditions, and wanting to improve my free-motion quilting and curved-piecing.

Six months already!

How on earth did six months come and go so quickly?

Eleanor is still relatively petite, yet manages to be growing quickly at the same time. She rolls all over the place and is starting commando-crawling. Everything goes in her mouth, although no teeth have appeared just yet. After her initial hate of solids, she now scoffs her fruit and vegetables like a champion, and makes a nice mess with rusks. She chuckles when we kiss her cheeks and tummy, and gives gorgeous little squeals of delight. Her latest trick is pouting (when both smiling and crying) so much that her nose scrunches up. She is delightful!