Return from the Wild, Wild West

Welcome, Chullora, West Roxbury, San Francisco... just a quick question (and no pressure here, none at all, norsireebob)... if you're popping in to read, why aren't you signing up to follow, hmm?  Is it because you don't want anybody to know you were here, or to recognise your mugshot on the side?  Why do you think my photo looks like a frog, hmmmm?  Just wondering.  No, really!


Anyway, we're back, Gentle Readers, I have a little tan to show off, and a lot of spots.  Just before we went away, I was attacked (actually, that's too gentle a word.  It was more like they were stalking me & then they pounced...) by hordes of biting midgees, or midges, depending on which hemisphere you're in) - I have more than 50 bites all over my arms & legs, and for the first few days of the holidays, I was a red, itchy mess.  Then I was a red, pink and not so itchy mess, as my lovely Ma took pity on my state and slathered me with calamine lotion (praise the inventors!), and got some Polaramine down my throat.   Now all I have to do is resist the urge to scratch the healing bites so I don't end up with spotty scars.  It's hard being tarred with whatever it is they like - I was out with My Best Friend, the Kidlets and Mr Golightly, and I was the only one bitten.  Ho hum.


We had a lovely relaxing Christmas staying with the Very Lovely Hendersons, who were kind enough to take four almost complete strangers into their house, feed us, wash for us, cook and clean for us and not let us do anything at all, except provide the services of the resident Chef, who did what he does so well, which is effortlessly produce beautiful food.  Turkey, ham, pork, steak, crayfish, prawns... in addition to vegetables, salad, and sweets/puddings/desserts galore.  I think I've put on three kilos this week.  Easy.  I'm going to eat nothing but fruit for the next week, just to see if I can get rid of the spare tyre I've reacquired.  


So, what did we see?  Here's some piccies, but I will write more later, as the 3-hour time gap has finally caught up with me, it's 9.00pm by Perth time & so I need to go to bed.  I'm still itchy, you know.

Reminds me of...

After a fire

Mr Golightly appears to have lost something.  His mind, perhaps?

Ciao!

Slice and dice

This is a gift for somebody, but I'm not telling who it is until a bit closer to the day.  Also, I don't want to reveal the type of gift, because that would just completely give it away. 


This is the second First Quilt I have made, I'm still working on the Sydney Pies quilt, but it's sooooo boring sewing round all those circles and I promised myself a little light entertainment after the tree adventure (being delivered today, any suggestions on pricing would be welcome, MGF Kaz had very firm ideas and I must admit she was probably right, there was a fair amount of manual labour involved in sewing on all those beads, buttons and bells... not to mention the stuffing!)... so this is where I'm at:

I love these colours, they're feminine without being too girly, young enough for a small-ish person without being childlike, and fresh enough to stand a few seasons worth of fabric in & out of fashion-ness (you know what I mean, some fabrics on the market are instantly date-able by their very design, and so become outdated very quickly).  


I note here, Gentle Readers, that we are having a parenthetical and hypen kind of day, today.  If your brain isn't coping too well with the grammatical strictures, come back later. It isn't going away.


Anyway, after much anguish about ways to ensure nothing was repeated (failed) and nothing was next to the same pattern in a different colourway (failed), I threw the whole lot in the air and just put them together as they fell.  Kind of like divining using chicken entrails, but a whole lot less messy.


The progress:

The pattern calls for the quilt top to be 'slashed' (and just to clarify for some of our readers from other lands, I know that "going for a slash" has a whole 'nother meaning, but here we're talking about cutting out chunks of fabric), then you resew it together with the sashing (blue strips) in exactly the same positions it was in before.  I thought that was a bit boring, so I took the opportunity to fiddle with the pieces, and moved some of them around to make it a bit more interesting.  


Then, when it's all back together, you do the slashing thing again, except on the vertical, but in exactly the same places (2 1/2" either side of seams 1, 3 & 5, working from the left).  This is what it looks like now:

A big pile of strips.  I was going to rotate some of the colours again, but I've discovered that 2 1/2" can be bigger on one side than on the other, probably due to the fact that I was trying to cut it out on Mr Golightly's Über-precious Jarrah kitchen bench, the largest surface in the house (apart from the floor), and having to keep moving it to do so (plus I was cheating & doing it by eye, rather than using my ruler, and my eye is not as accurate as I had hoped.  Unsurprisingly.) - I'm pretty sure the recipient won't have her ruler out checking.


So, I think it will probably stay as it is, but with the additional vertical sashing.  I think it's going to be quite nice.  Now all I have to is work out how to assemble it.  See, this is where I need my mother, to help out - she's made a zillion patchwork quilts over the years & can probably do this in her sleep, but the downside is, she definitely will have her ruler out.  Ouch.  I can feel it on my knuckles now.

Ciao!