Bags and spiders.

A short post before I start ferrying playdate children home and cooking a quality tea for a little bit of husband spoiling this evening!

Answering a few questions : there are 4 ways in which you can have a plastic coated bag-

1. Purchase the fabric pre-coated, as I did in yesterday's bag. It was Moda's faded memories and available in my LQS.

A bit pricey but it came in these next colourways as well and they are the bag stash waiting for the right moment. I posted a pic of the big blue one I made my sister for a beach bag at Christmas so go back there for a search if you would like to see it.

2. Make the bag in normal fabric sewn with clear thin table cloth plastic like in this demo photo. This was my first try and I wouldn't let you look too close. Very fiddly and difficult to turn. You also can't iron the fabric so difficult to get a clean look. I moved onto the pre-plastic coated after this!!

3. You can buy iron on plastic here that bonds to the fabric. Probably not a bad idea but worked out at least as expensive as the pre-coated and I felt it left more scope for me to muck it up!

4. You can send fabric to plastic coating factories here and get it done for you. I know this as I chatted to an apron selling lady at a field day and that's where she got hers.

The plastic coated fabric is also brilliant for toiletry purses and aprons. I'll show you some of the purses another day when I can borrow one back or make another. Last picture is the toiletry laundry bag I made with the zip section of my floral skirt. I don't like to see things like pre-done zips go to waste.

The quilt is coming along nicely; mainly drank coffee, ate Lindt chocolate and worked on my Lone Star at quilters last night so you will have to wait a little longer for an update.

What is a spider? I didn't think it was just an Aussie thing but maybe I am wrong. A spider is a drink made of (usually) red lemonade (soda?) with a big scoop of ice-cream in it and it reacts and froths up the glass. It's usually in an ice-cream sundae type glass and my kids think it is wonderful as they are not allowed "bubbly drink" at home.

Have a great weekend, I am, as my beloved Australian Rules Football season has started AND I get cricket as well!!

A Mixed bag.Thanks for all the ideas on the pink floral skirt quilt, I'll work on that tonight.
Just a little peek at what the "book shelf" (read-floor) next to my bed looks like. There are bookshelves all over the house but these are the ones I need close in case I need to read one of them in particular when I go to bed. Heavy reading for when I am not exhausted and light reading for when I am. I have to read something before I go to bed or I can't sleep- read even a page and I go straight to sleep.
The Time traveller's wife is such a fascinating concept that it has me right in, it is in my bag!

Speaking of my bag, here it is. It is plastic coated Moda, a great theory, tricky to work with but I am pleased with the end result. You have to make these with a leather needle, use a bigger stitch and try not to make mistakes as resewing cuts the fabric.

This is where some of my cut in half HST's have ended up. A completely different idea to those I showed you before, but I am short on Christmas quilts and this spoke Christmas to me so it is in progress. Well worth the mad cutting spree!

Joys today:

Took DD for a haircut and followed it up with devonshire tea and spiders for both kids at our favourite antiques and tearooms, that was great but when we were leaving an older couple congratulated me on my outstandingly behaved children who had beautiful manners and were obviously well bought up!! What a win!!

Have a good day, Tracey

Midnight fabric play.
I have had a good night's sleep and recov red from all night cricket game#1 so I am ready to focus and show you what I made that night.

I took this great skirt that was an op shop find and decided to have a play.

The resulting photos are largely self-explanatory.
- added in a cute hot pink polka dot from the stash and some white sheridan sheeting off-cuts to make 9 patches. (9x4 inch patches) At this stage I was planning on making bags!

-Decided I liked the look of it and to see what happened if I treated it as if I was doing the quick form of creating HST's. So I cut out a piece of the hot pink polka, (that was almost the same size-I trimmed it later!) drew the sewing lines on, sewed and then cut it into 2 new blocks.

Here is what 4 of the resulting blocks looks like. I'm not exactly sure which way I prefer so give me some feedback because I'm going to make more blocks and make it up at quilters tomorrow night.

It felt very odd working in the middle of the night, when I started to get tired I made 6 foot of strudel- that kept me busy and awake.

Kids started Easter holidays today so a fortnight of sleep-ins and stolen sewing minutes are in the pipeline. Have a good day, Tracey

Many different jobs.
I have been very slack lately and have let my big milestone hits go virtually un-noticed.
Well, I only have a minute to post today as when you only get 2 hours sleep watching cricket (that then gets rained on and the next innings gets postponed until tonight) you might just have fallen asleep reading your library copy of the Time traveller's wife in the afternoon and now not have done your jobs!!-Time traveller's wife sounding just as good as I hoped...thanks reviewers!

So, here is a slightly different post as I haven't unloaded pics:

Occupations (well, some are just plain jobs!)
I have had these jobs:-(Approx. in order)
1. babysitter (don't we all)
2. Animal Nursery steward
3. Delicatessen sales assistant. (Where I found my exotic tastes)
4. Shearing shed hand. (I can really throw a fleece)
5. Relief milker (Not by hand!!)
6. Swimming teacher
7. Waitress
8. Nanny (for 18 months live-in, that teaches you how to be a good guest!)
9. 3 year old kinder teacher
10. After-School care co-ordinator
11. Integration Aide for children with Special needs.
12. Prep through Grade 6 teacher
13. Mother-that's the least pay but the nicest staff!

Note: Yes, the idea with the peg noticeboard was my own. I may have seen square in the square blocks before though!
Joy:DD at School AGAIN!

A successful addition in the never ceasing quest for improved organisation.

This little treasure achieved all of it's aims.-

1.It had to be practical, holding all the important lists and notes.

2.It had to fit this spot (above the kettle where I would always look in the mornings.)

3.It had to be pretty and fun to make.

It has been positioned in it's locale since DD went to School and is usually fairly well full of information, I cleared it and just left this lovely couple on it as a demo for you.

the pegs are sewn on and not hard to replace in the unlikely eventuality of coming apart.

I stuck it on with double sided sticky tape so it is there for the duration!

Oh, and don't mention the chook decorations...because my dh does all the time!!

Happy quilting, Tracey

Joy for the day: DD did half a day at School yesterday and has headed off for a full day today!!!And my calf man rang me, a dozen little calves will be ready for me to pick up and mother on Sunday-I'm sure you will see many photos of those cuties!

I'm going to be a Maverick......
I wonder which one I'll be, Tom Cruise's Maverick out of Top Gun or Bret Maverick, the poker hustler......wait, what's that I hear.....oh, it's a quilt maverick! Well that hopefully wont be too hard for this "don't read a pattern- just see what happens" quilter!
I always wanted to join but was a little afraid it would be like trying to be in the in crowd at School and I might face rejection!! That's a little bit of a sensitive issue with me as you can see from the fact I don't list my favourite reads in my sidebar , I don't like others to have hurt feelings because they aren't on my list!
Happy Quilting and thanks to Bonnie for the OK! Tracey

Post Script: I was also in the mood for a change of scene on my blog, what do you think-I'm trialling it so see how I feel. (I was hoping it would give me back the 'post title' section!

Post #2 for the day is a time management problem-and it's huge!
You see Australia is playing in the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies, a completely different timezone!
I have been trying to go to bed earlier and get more sleep but this hurdle has been put in my path. I was able to go to bed with my radio headphones on last night (hub didn't notice!) and get regular updates. But now the Super 8's are on it will be telecast-for the next month!
Granted I would mainly only watch the Aussie games but they go all night. I am wondering how many day activities I can get done at night so I can justify a nana nap in the afternoon!
I wish the computer was in the TV room, at least I could read blogs!
I envisage a lot of ironing, doing the paperwork for the fete, hand stitching.... and snoring on the couch!
GO AUSSIES!

A bit of play
So pleased that I am not the only one who makes those mistakes (Note to self: buy 5 unpickers and have them strategically placed as fixing that rip is harder than it looks!)

Only had half an hour to spare in the sewing room and, as the ripped string top has been placed in the "Thanks for calling-I'll get back to you" basket (as against the "too hard" basket)- I thought I would just find stuff that annoyed me and cut it up!

Hence the coming photos.....

I found a few HST's that just didn't fit when I made my big HST stash quilt....they were ugly, not necessarily full of ugly fabric but joined up to be not quite right in colour.

Now, I am about to describe something that was a new idea to me, as I don't follow patterns and only look at magazines, etc for ideas. So all of you out there who are probably about to say that you always do it this way will just have to cope!

Look what happened when I decided to cut my HST's in half. (I was in too much of a hurry to iron...)
.........And then played around with the resulting units


......to achieve a far more interesting array of blocks than when they were just HST's

...like these.....and this.

I think I may actually sew a few of them together, when I decide which way I like them, and then I will know where they are for next time I am in a mad cut stuff up mood!

A Lesson

OOps!! Hate unpicking so I thought I could just rip this binding off that wasn't sitting properly...unfortunately that wasn't the only part that ripped!

It teaches me a lesson that I should have learnt already, "Cutting corners will add time!"

Have a good day, Tracey

More tractor quilts.

An oldie, but a very much loved goodie here. This is my boy's tractor quilt, made a few years ago now (like 4). It has a couple of socks strategically placed to cover his name so if you are wondering about the blue bit then that is the answer.

It has a black background because John Deere green tractors and red Case headers are not that easy to tie together.

I'm rather proud of the pieced tractor even in the cold harsh light of 4 more years experience. It is amazing what some graph paper, great fabric and the will to get a good end result can achieve.

All of the fabrics are farm and tractor based and were acquired at Field days or by a lot of searching. I have had several queries about the Case fabric in the last post (hence I have pulled this off my boy's bed) and while that was picked up locally a fortnight ago, these fabrics have long disappeared.

Had a full day on the High Jump and as the timekeeper at the kids School sports yesterday. Organized parent teams for the potato race and out House won for the second year in a row. I did an impressive slide in ...that I am paying for today but don't tell my kids or hub!

Time to get organized for School Council after more helping at School today.Maybe tomorrow will see some sewing done!

Happy quilting,- and thanks for all the lovely stay at home Mum encouragements! Tracey