Another scrap quilt.

It's been freezing weather this weekend, so I got to finishing up this simple quilt, which I made up with yet more scraps from my stash and some cotton sheeting.  I was spurred by a near accident I nearly had in my car a couple of weeks ago - it was lucky I was my on my own, because I think I must have sworn more in the three minutes following the incident than I have in my entire life up to that point.  I'm certain my kids' ears would have dropped right off had they been in the car with me.  Why are there so many idiots driving?  My Lord!  Anyway, without going into detail, the thing that goes through my head (cursing aside) is not, "Gosh, I have to make sure my will is up to date", nor "What is that moron car's registration number?".  It's "I have to go home right now and make a quilt, so my kids have something to remember me by."  How dumb is that?

This is a bigger and comfier effort than my last quilt; I splurged and bought some proper cotton batting so it's soft and floppy and scrumfy.  The top went together really quickly - as you can see there's absolutely nothing complicated about it, no edges to line up or anything.  It's backed with sheeting, quilted in straight lines and the binding around the edge is made from a cotton laundry sack.

I know it's no masterpiece, not by a long shot.  I'm sure it has at least a hundred things wrong with it.  But despite it's imperfections, I love how it turned out, all worn-looking and scrappy. 

 And I'm also secretly pleased that the kids are already fighting over it.  It looks like another one will be on the to-do list and through the sewing machine very soon.  But, hopefully, next time, the inspiration won't nearly kill me.

Because weeding is boring.

I'm supposed to be sorting out my garden this afternoon, but I got really bored.  So I brought a whole bunch of stuff inside and made pictures instead.  Weeds will wait.

I'm beginning to think I have a sort of attention deficit disorder, as these days everything I undertake becomes an art project or a photo opportunity.  I am also starting to realise what a pain in the ass neck I am to live with, because nothing ever gets finished around here. 

Oh, deer.

Seeing squares.

I had a heap of colourful yarns that I needed to get rid of, and there are only so many things that one can decorate with pom poms, so I started crocheting these flowery-type granny squares.  At first, I was just going to make a three-by-three square cushion, but that seemed a bit miserable.  So I decided to make a larger four-by-four square cushion.  After crocheting sixteen squares, I looked at my pile of yarn scraps and decided I would make a few more, just so I could see which colours I liked the best and then mix and match my resulting pile of square to get the perfect colour combination for my cushion.  But I liked them all.

So, I thought, I will sew them together to cover a pillow.  But as pretty as a granny square pillow sham would look, I wouldn't use it - I'm quite tactile defensive, especially when it comes to my face (having a facial at the beauty spa is my worst nightmare)- and the thought of all that fuzzy wooly stuff so close to my eyes and face and neck makes my skin literally crawl.  So, I decided that I would make a cot sized blanket instead.

By this stage, I had used up most of my scrap and was actually buying more brightly coloured yarn to make more squares.  And as I was crocheting all my newly purchased yarn into squares, I thought to myself, "I don't have a baby.  I'm not planning on having a baby.  And I don't know anyone else who is having a baby.  If I make this cot quilt, which is now costing me money, it won't get used!"

At this point, I was getting rather cross with myself.  "I will have spent all this money to make something that I cannot even use!!!  Why did I start making these stupid squares?!"  I actually got irritated to the point that I stuffed some of the squares up quite royally, and had to unravel them and re-do them.  I couldn't throw them away - Lord, no!!   I am at a point of no return now because of all the money and time I've invested in these silly little squares.  I am obsessed with doing this, and finishing it.

 

I'm quite sure they call them granny square quilts, or rugs, or afghans, or whatever the word de jour is, because by the time you make all of your squares, tidy up all the yarn ends, sew them all together and THEN crochet a border all around the thing, you will BE a granny.  Possibly, a great granny.  And more than likely, one with severe arthritis in your hands.

So, where am I at now?  I have decided that instead of making a useless cot quilt, I will be making rug to fit a single bed (Sophie's single bed, Cameron has a king single which is considerably bigger, and besides, I don't think he would dig all the pink I used).  So I'm hoping to get it finished before Sophie inherits Cameron's bed.  And I've  made about sixty of these squares already, so by my rough calculation, I would hazard a guess that I have, say, approximately two hundred and eighty thousand to go.

I would say stay tuned, but I'm guessing this isn't going to be finished anytime soon.  Unfortunately.

The world's ugliest quilt.

When people ask me what craft I least enjoy, I tell them patchwork and quilting.  Without hesitation.  I just don't have the patience for it, and all of my past efforts have been epic and utter fails.  I absolutely boggle at some of the quilts I've seen - amazing, beautiful, intricate ones that look like they'd take a lifetime to complete.  Obviously made by very serious quilters with superhero-like quilting abilities, abilities that I am sadly lacking.

My effort above (if you could even call it *that*) was more an exercise in using up some gorgeous cotton fabrics my friend Sarah handed over to me, before she moved house, and other bits and pieces about the place.  Amongst other things, Sarah gave me some lovely florals which I was hoping to make into pretty bloomers for Sophie, but Sophie has gained a dress size since I last made her some duds, and I couldn't quite squeeze a size three pattern onto some of the pieces I was given.

Knowing my dark history with patchwork and quilting, I was determined not buy a single thing in order to make this up.  I was ninety percent sure it would end up in the bin. 

Besides the fabrics Sarah gave me, I also had some fabric scraps of my own that have been cramping my style for some time.  Spots and stripes in reds and blacks-and-whites that I've just gotten sick of looking at.  All of the pieces were cut into five inch squares, sewn into rows, and then the rows sewn into a big rectangle.

I didn't use batting, instead I used an old cot blanket of Sophie's.  It's not a very nice one, actually - it's not soft and scrumfy at all.  It's more like one of those horrid hard things that are used in hospitals which feels like it's been through an industrial washer ten thousand times, which is probably why I never used it when she was a baby.  For the backing, I again raided Sophie's old cot linens and just used an old, clean sheet.

When it came to quilting it, I googled up on machine-quilting.  I was no way going to spend hours hand-quilting my inevitably funny-looking quilt, so machine quilting was definitely the way to go.  The general consensus was that I would need to use a walking foot.  Errr, a what?  What the heck is one of those?!  Whatever it is, it was going to cost me thirty to eighty bucks.  Nup, no thanks.  I just ran it through the Janome the way I sew everything, using generic foot 'A' (although I did use a quilting guide tool that came with my machine, to help keep the seams straight.  Mostly.)

Then I bound around the edges with some more fabric from my Sarah, before throwing it into the washer and line-drying it to make it all puckered and wrinkly.

As you can see, the colour and print combination suck, and will serve as a constant reminder as to why my favourite colour is any and all shades of grey.
 

Ugh.

And because of that awful blanket I used instead of batting, it's not turned out to be one of those nice, squishy quilts you lie under, but rather one you sit on.  Good for picnics, or living room tea-parties with the friendlies, or just general swanning about on without any real purpose at all.

It's not quite worthy of the trash, but comes close. (And just to clarify, I'm still talking about the quilt).