This evening's blog post is bought to you by necessity. I am being held captive to the 10 min blog promise. However, as I have simply no brain cells left (yes, sleep deprivation strikes again!) then I will simply ramble on about nothing until the 10 mins are up.

Anyway this evening I celebrated the 50th birthday of a very dear but not always so near friend of mine that I have known since the dreaded teen years. In fact, I think that she's probably one of the few friends I have since high school. And it was a lovely night. Such a lovely way to end what has been a very trying week. Well, month.  Just what I needed given how deflated I'm feeling of late.

So this blog post is not overly interesting reading, and has taken me a surprisingly long time to write. And I still don't quite know how to end. But I have at least managed to do my time.

So last night Pingu issued me a challenge. I am to write for 10 minutes a day. On anything. In the absence of inspiration he's got a random idea generator spreadsheet for me. The truth is that will probably be as effective as any ideas that I might come up with on my own!

Anyway, in true Car style I said "challenge accepted". Well actually I think I mumbled something that equated to "thazzzz a good ideaaaa" because I was seriously sleep deprived when this challenge was issued. Had Pingu challenged me to bungee jump I may even have accepted that at that stage. I was seriously sleepy! Fortunately it was not quite such a life threatening challenge, but one that I may live to regret nevertheless. Because it does mean that I will have to actually produce SOMETHING every day. Which is difficult because usually my brain's response to the question "Well Catherine, what shall you write about today?" is "___________ .. where's the pizza?".

However, I am a person who is true to my word, and if I can't be true to my word I at least pretend to be for the first few days. Therefore, here is my first 10 minutes of writing! Nothing spectacular at all. Just 10 minutes worth of words.

Now, if only I knew how to write an ending!

New years resolutions

This year I made only one new years resolution - that was to finish more projects than I begin. I have a number of nearly finished projects to work my way through but of course kick started the year with a new project... oops. 

But that's ok because I DID finish it!  I made the parents a small stained glass quilt. I was quite happy with it in the end, but don't look too closely at it.  

The fun part was tracing the design and putting colours together.

The not so fun part was putting all the bias binding around edges to give the stained glass effect.  I think it was at about this stage I started calling the frog some really bad names. Poor frog.

However, as I said - I was quite happy with the end result despite the flaws. And more importantly it is FINISHED! Huzzah!

I'm looking forward to more quilting this year. Though maybe when it cools off a bit as my sewing room is a just bleah at the moment.

Paper piecing

On Sunday afternoon, after posting bunny pics and feeling quite proud of myself, I had two choices. I could work OR I could work through the Carol Doak paper piecing tutorial and attempt to make my first unsupervised* square.

I opted for the latter.

I have to say, I'm SERIOUSLY impressed with how easy (well by easy I mean there were only about three moments where I burst into swearing fits) this was. Though I think that perhaps the bits in the middle needed to be a neutral pattern and clearly have some work to do in terms of learning to work with colours. But overall I was very happy with how it turned out. I almost (by almost, I mean a fleeting thought that was very quickly disregarded with a resounding inner voice that said "Are you completely insane!!!!") thought I would do a whole bundle of these and turn it into a full quilt. However, I'm sticking with the cushion option for now. Dark green borders and backing yet to be done.

* by unsupervised, I mean my Mother (capital M..currently grey nomading.. not impressed!)

Bunny

Just a quick post to show the finished bunny, She's so cute, I'm not sure I want to hand her over!

Art of Quilting Blocks

Well today was Art of Quilting day.  I finished Blocks 2 and 3.  Despite cutting out ever so carefully I've somehow managed to wind up with short bits! It's tricky, because they really don't give you much material to play with. Too bad if you cut it out incorrectly. Anyway, with a bit of luck it will all work out when I add the borders.

I then did blocks 1 - 3 in pink for the upcoming birth of the grand-godchild (if there is such a thing!). The mother to be loves pink, so pink it is. I'm using some fat squares that I got from Lincraft, as it is just easier for me at this stage. And I had those birthday vouchers to pay for it!  I was much happier with how these turned out. Practice practice practice....

While I'm waiting for week 4 I think I'll work on the paper piecing cushions that I cut out when Mum was giving me lessons. Too bad she's not here to help! ....yes, I'm looking at you mother ;-)

Now back to knitting the bunny which is just about finished. I wish weekends were longer!

July / August

July and August thus far have been a bit of a blur. But on the craft front these are a couple of the things I've been working on.

There's the little pink baby babettte. I've set out a grid in excel to make it easier to fit the pieces together. Still working on it but it isn't taking that long.  And I've been colour coding the Krista - that's for Steph if I ever get it finished! Not far now but work seems to have taken over so projects are verrryyyyyyy slow going!
And of course my next project for which wool is sitting in waiting in the cupboard!

Then there's the dreaded thesis! Can you make sense out of this????? Unfortunately I'm not sure I can either, but it made sense when I drew it all up. Hrrmmm............maybe I need some butcher paper! And more coloured pens!

 

My favourite, though,  is the bunny. Sorry, she's topless! But you get the overall idea. I got the pattern from Mary Jane's Tearoom - excellent Etsy seller if you're keen! The pattern, however, called for a pompom tail which I wasn't keen on since this will be with a small child. So I just crocheted a ball for the tail. Seems to work ok.

 The challenge for me was the fair isle. I have to get around that for Pingu's dude jumper, and I think I'm getting better at it. I did the one hand, but holding over two fingers technique. I've tried the two handed technique but honestly cannot knit Continental style to save my life. My left hand just cannot coordinate, which is odd given how much I crochet. Or is it because I crochet so much? Anyway, I'm reasonably happy with how this turned out. Won't take me long to finish the jumper, then a small flower for her head and she's done!