Pyjama Party Sunday

This post could probably be called - Should have..........

A month or so ago I had the opportunity to buy reserved seating tickets for the Australia v New Zealand rugby match that was on in Brisbane last night. I had brilliant seats lined up, 7 rows from the front and near the try line. Instead of buying a ticket for me, I organised tickets for friends. They had a fabulous night, said the seats were in a fabulous position, and the game was excellent.
I stayed home and wished I had bought a ticket, sigh.

During the week I was invited today to a BBQ lunch on the Gold Coast. The weather forecast was for crappy weather so I declined and stayed home.
The weather was beautiful today.

Despite my really bad judgement calls, I made the most of today, and stayed in my pj's until way after lunch time and finished a couple of crafty things. So as I stayed in my pj's I'm hosting Pyjama Party Sunday. I don't know why, as I wouldn't exactly say it was a party around here today, more like a pity fest. See above ⬆ and below⬇.

Firstly the block for Kat. Kat asked for a scrappy log cabin and bright colours. I'm pretty sure I got the bright colours, but oh dear I  really have a hard time with scrappy. This took me ages to make, because I kept on changing my mind on the colours/fabrics. This will probably be the first and last time you ever see a scrappy block from me. I kind of enjoyed making it, because it was interesting to see how far I could go out of my comfort zone, BUT, I will never make a scrappy quilt for me.
I've finished it a bit bigger than the 15 inches Kat asked for so that it can be cut down to size.

I also finished the Tiggly Winks quilt top. It almost ended up an art installation. When sewing the last three panels together I managed to sew the first one where the third one should have been. I was mildly pissed off, but persevered and started to use my trusty seam ripper, after a few choice swear words echoed around the house.  I was resigned to undoing it and sewing it back in the right order, then I realised I had started undoing the wrong seam.  It did get tossed on the floor at that stage, but I didn't quite get around to setting it on fire. After swearing A LOT more and walking off to take a break, common sense prevailed and I sat down and unpicked the correct seam and then sewed it all together in the correct order.

Don't look too closely at it, there are a couple of seams that leave a lot to be desired. I'm not pointing them out, because it annoys me enough and I took this pic from far enough away you can't really see them. It's not very good lighting, the colours are a bit off, and I just whacked it onto the design wall without flattening it out, as I wanted to quickly try and take a pic before I went out.
Despite the not so relaxing finish on this, I kind of sort of don't mind it now.

Now for the fun bit of my weekend.  Because I didn't go to the Gold Coast today, I was able to go out for late afternoon drinks with a girlfriend who I haven't seen for weeks.  We had a lovely relaxing time and a drink or maybe two.

Hastings St, Noosa Heads

It was quite busy on Hastings St (even though it doesn't look it from the photo) the sun was out, it's still winter and the temperature was about 22 C (72F) at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. So despite the pity fest earlier, I had a very nice end to the weekend.

Pyjama Party Sunday

Where has this year gone, I can't believe we are already half way through August. I swear the years are going faster and faster.

A follow up from last weekends dramas. BP's car was found on Monday night. It is now at the insurance assessors and due to be mechanically tested tomorrow (I think) and then we have to go and check the car for any signs of damage that will need to be repaired. So far the only things that are still missing are cash from her wallet, two silver rings that were in her bag and the car and house key. I've had the locks changed on the house just in case. We are still waiting to hear what was found in her car, I presume her GPS and iPod were stolen, we should know the list of contents found in her car tomorrow. Meanwhile we have a hire vehicle organised by the insurance company.  

This weekend has been a very lazy weekend, and lots of time was spent in my pyjamas, possibly too much time.  I've been working on the French Roses quilt and I'm up to here.

I'm hoping for a finish in the next couple of days. That will mean two finishes this month, woo hoo.

Playing with this today and will show you in the next post what I am hoping to do with it.

There's been a little progress on the Mystery Quilt I've cut out most of the pieces for the block I need to finish to catch up.

BP has been playing around with the off cuts of the Plume quilt top and decided she would like to make a small quilt with them. I'm not holding my breath as I was all excited yesterday when she asked if she could sew them. I pulled out the  Janome but then we realised that some of the blocks weren't the same size. I cut them down to size for her as she hates using the rotary cutter and when I came back she had lost interest.

Not a very exciting post this week, and not much to show for the weekends work even though I have been quite busy.  As it's Sunday it's time to join in

whether you are in your PJ's or not, please come and join in the celebration of lazy sewing weekends.Thank you so much for linking up each week. If you haven't linked before and you would like to link up grab the code for the button from the side bar on the right, and then link below with the Mr Linky widget. Terri thank you for linking last week, unfortunately your link didn't work,  I don't have your blog or email address and unfortunately couldn't get in contact with you. 
Don't forget,  pyjamas are optional.

Pyjama (not much of a party) Sunday

I had such grand plans for the weekend.  A quiet weekend spent relaxing at home, sewing. Sigh, unfortunately the universe didn't see it quite that way.
In a nutshell, I didn't find very much time at all to sew.

Last night, I had the house to myself so was planning lots of craftiness, but started feeling a little unwell, so kept it to a minimum and finished the last few inches/centimetres of the binding on Spice Boxes, so yay, yippee, yahoo, finally a finish. I haven't taken a photo yet as I need a quilt holder upperer, so I promise pics tomorrow.
I'm a bit flat today as have had the "wonderful" experience of how shitty some of humanity can be, nothing life threatening, unless I get my hands on the person who ruined BP's day, then they might feel their life threatened, but it was enough to throw a spanner in the works.  It involved an impromptu drive to Brisbane and back and some help from lovely friends in Brisbane.

BP was in Brisbane with friends when someone broke into the house where she was staying and stole her handbag. Her car keys were in her handbag so they then stole her car.  That meant driving 140 kms (almost 90 miles) one way, to go and get her and then bring her home.  Fortunately our friends in Brisbane don't live too far away from where she was staying, so they went over to keep her company and offer support when she filed the police report.  BP is fine just shaken that someone could do that.  The good news is the police have rung to say that her bag was found, minus the small amount of cash, car keys, and two rings.  Our lovely family friends have now gone to the police station to pick the bag up for BP, yay. Fortunately all her I.D. was still intact so we don't have to race around getting a new drivers licence, medicare card, etc. I was so not looking forward to that.  We only have to organize new bank debit cards which I cancelled this morning as soon as I found out about the theft. The bad news, the car is still missing, but we have full insurance so everything is covered including the things that were in her car like her GPS and iPod. I spent half the afternoon on the phone to the insurance company to lodge the claim.  All in all not a particularly nice day and definitely no party, oh well, that's life, sometimes it throws you a curve ball. I'm determined to do PJ PS as I'm not going to let it throw me completely.






So all I have to show for my weekend is

two more blocks for the mystery quilt.

Strips cut ready for the plaited blocks in the Mystery Quilt.

Finishing on a lighter note, I finished the Flurry Quilt top on Thursday, happy dance!!!!!!!  

This photo is rubbish, I wasn't even going to post it as the quilt needs pressing and it was taken this evening in not very good lighting, but I wanted to show that I have actually completed it and I needed to finish this post on a positive note.  I'm not sure why I'm always surprised at the size of things I make from patterns. I read the dimensions of the pattern but it doesn't seem to sink in exactly how big it will be. This is way bigger than I thought, 

waaaaay bigger.  

I promise to post better photos during the week.

Remember to link up below if you'd like.

I hope everyone (including me) has a very happy week.

Pyjama Party Sunday

I hope everyone has had/is having a great weekend. Of course mine has been pretty fabulous as my birthday celebrations continued.  I was given THE most beautiful necklace by girlfriends yesterday.

I didn't have much of a chance to stay in pyjamas this weekend. Yesterday I had to go to the supermarket in the morning, and today we were up nice and early to go to the local farmers markets to pick up some supplies. Of course I couldn't go in my pyjamas, hmmm, I suppose I could have but I'm not much of a rebel.

A little bit of sewing has been happening at Chez Sunshine, working on the Flurry quilt yesterday and today.

I've changed the corner blocks, as this quilt design is for use with the Kate Spain fabric Flurry, which has a panel as part of it's line. The panel is supposed to be fussy cut for the corner blocks and some of the cornerstones in the main part of the quilt.  

I used my very limited mathematical skills to work out that I could make a 4 patch block in place of the corner block, and guess what

it worked.

I still need to add the sashing strips to either side of the pieced side borders and then add the outer borders, but it's almost finished.  I had to  cut ✂ 23589875944759284297455  2 1/2 inch squares for the borders. An easier way would be to cut 2 1/2 inch wide strips WOF, sew them together then cross cut them, BUT I always do things the difficult way and as I am using a layer cake and have used part of most of the layers already I had to cut very short lengths 2 1/2 inches wide and then sub cut them, so basically cut all those squares and then chain pieced them together again. That was fun................☹

French Roses

I think the 1/4 inch seam will work.

As it's quilt as you go, and you sew the blocks together so that the seam is at the front.

1/4 inch seam

Pressed to the front

Then add bias binding

Bias binding added to cover the seam

Voila, it should be ok.............

I think

The bias binding pic is from when I made the first few blocks, I haven't go that far with these yet.

My birthday present - front

Back

This is the absolutely beautiful necklace my girlfriends gave me. I just love it. I'm so lucky. 

We had a great evening, laughed - a lot. So much so that I think we may have scared off some of the other patrons, lol. 

The waiters were..............young, 

too young, but cute!


PJ PS will be taking a break next week as I'm visiting Melbourne (again) and will be going to the Craft and Quilt Fair while I'm there. (I'll be the one limping/hobbling around  like the hunchback of Notre Dame). I really hope my knee has improved a lot by then or I might need one of those motorised scooters, lol, I'll be able to run everyone over push everyone out of the way to get to the good stuff first, lol.

If you want to join in on Pyjama Party Sunday please link your post below with the Mr Linky widget. Thank you to everyone who linked last week.

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Remember pyjamas are optional!

Pyjama Party Sunday

I'm feeling a little sorry for myself this weekend. I spent all day Saturday in my pj's which would normally be a sign of very crafty things happening here. However I had a crappity crap moment on Friday night, I twisted my knee. (It wasn't because I was up all night partying and dancing on tables, if I had done it doing that I would be impressed, not feeling sorry for myself!!!!) I think I've torn a ligament, I have to go see a physio tomorrow to determine exactly what is wrong with it. It's possibly from an old basketball injury when I tore a ligament in that knee (which kept me on crutches), that happened umm, hmm, let's say it was a long time ago.  See exercise is bad for you. If I hadn't been fit and played basketball back then I wouldn't be like this now, lol!

My sports related injury bwah ha ha,  has meant I spent all day in bed trying to rest it and keep the swelling to a minimum. I couldn't have picked a better day to stay in bed as the weather was horrible - wet, grey and cold.
Fortunately for me I had a bit of hand sewing I could do to keep me occupied, and also Gone With The Wind was on satellite TV which kept me amused, boy that is a looooong movie.
I had cut out the pieces for a trial Amitie Circle Game block so I spent most of the afternoon doing that. I'm really really pleased I did a trial block, as I had hardly done any hand piecing before and never curved piecing nor a circular block.  Although about half way through I was thinking, yuck, I have to do this all again.  I think I've worked out how to do it better next time, hopefully I'll start working on the proper block this week.

This morning I was feeling a little better,  I worked at the sewing machine for 3/4 hour and sewed the bows to the boxes on the Flurry Quilt. Sorry no current photos.

I also finished another EPP star/flower and tried out some pieces to connect the flowers.

I had a big weekend planned, working on some of my projects but the universe had other plans.  It feels good to have been able to work on the hand sewing, so even though I didn't finish the quantity of work I had planned, I'm really pleased with what I did accomplish.
I'm now hobbling around, and as long as I don't straighten my leg or go down stairs it's not too bad.  I'll be back to training for triathlons walking normally soon.





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Remember pyjamas are optional. 

Pyjama Party Sunday

Last night I was all cosy in my pyjamas ready to finish sewing in the ends on the Spice boxes quilt. I had a nice quiet evening planned after being so social the last few. I sat down in my nice comfy chair to watch TV and finish the last few blocks. I was sitting there quietly concentrating on threading the needle, minding my own business, when all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye, I saw something hurtling toward me.  Next thing I know, I have a cat attached to my head. It gave me such a fright. I looked like Donald Trump having a really bad hair day.  How would you like a cat clinging to the side of your head? All I can say, I'm very lucky it was 2 kilo Lulu and not 7kg Bailey.  I'm not sure who was more shocked Lulu or me, Lulu is still alive although I think she might be deaf from the amount of screaming and cursing I hurled at her as I chased her around the house. Hopefully that will make her decide that it was not such a good idea to do that. 

The culprit

She has never ever done anything like that before,  I'm hoping she was playing with Bailey and misjudged her death defying leap from the other side of the room, and unfortunately my head was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well I hope that's right, otherwise I'm not going to be able to sleep for the next few weeks wondering what other plans she has in store for me.  

This morning in my pyjamas, I left Spice boxes alone and worked on finishing the last of the Floral Bouquet blocks.

39 blocks all done!!!!!

Some of the Spice Boxes blocks. I used bamboo batting and it has left a LOT of fluff, which you can see on the darker fabrics. I've already brushed the fluff off a few times, once it's bound and quilted it doesn't shed.

I sewed these blocks yesterday morning, again in my pj's, before I had to go out. Sorry no photos yet. I still have to cut the background fabric.
This afternoon I set up a High Tea out on the verandah. I was not in my pyjamas for that, I do have some standards. You can read about and see pics in my last post.
A very much more productive weekend. I hope everyone had/is having a great Sunday. Please join in below, grab the linky button, you can find it on my side bar, and share in the joy of Pyjama Party Sunday.

Remember PJ's are optional!

Pyjama Party Sunday

It's Sunday so it must be time for a Pyjama Party.

It's late afternoon Sunday and I feel a bit like this.

Bailey

I haven't spent any of the weekend at all in my pyjamas and I haven't been the remotest bit crafty, but I've been having a ball. More friends visiting, more sightseeing, more eating and drinking, I love it. It's just not so great if you want to show any progress shots on anything resembling quilting or crocheting or hand sewing.  As a crafty pyjama party it was an epic fail. Never mind, there's no Pyjama Party police around here so on with the linky party anyway.

Photos of another sunset cruise, it's a great way to spend the late afternoon.

After a late night, this morning we went early to the local Farmers Market. The rest of today we have been eating, drinking, talking and sightseeing. It's been wonderful.

As I usually show something crafty for my Pyjama Party,  here are the only things that are even remotely crafty. Firstly Friday night, I almost finished another paper pieced flower, that makes three now, wow I'm so fast................ha!

It's a stretch referring to this being crafty, but,  I've enhanced my stash this week with some red and white fabrics. I have a plan for these...................... eventually, after I've finished all my WIP's and most of the things on my mile long want to make list.  I just couldn't pass up this lovely bundle from Fort Worth Fabric Studio.

So all in all a very unproductive weekend, on the other hand if you look at it from a different angle - eating, drinking and socialising, I aced it!!!!

I hope everyone else had/is having a fabulous weekend. Please join in below, grab the linky button, you can find it on my side bar, and share in the joy of Pyjama Party Sunday.

Remember pj's are optional!




Thanks so much to everyone who linked up last week, it certainly makes for a fun party, the more the merrier!

Pyjama Party Sunday

Another fun weekend almost over.

Yesterday I had to go out during the day so didn't get very crafty, and in the evening I had a fabulous time out with friends. We went out for pre-dinner drinks and dinner. The temperature was milder than last week, so we sat at an outdoor bar and listened to a very talented singer/musician and then had a fabulous meal. No photos as it was really dark, we even had to use the table candles to try and read the menu!

I spent almost all day in my pyjamas today, I love sewing when I'm in my pj's, they are so comfortable.

On Friday night I started some raw edge applique and the machine went really well, but when I went back to it Fanny Pfaff had a phit, and made it abundantly clear she didn't want to sew free motion any more.

This is a sneak peek at what I was doing before Fanny stopped playing nice. The button hole stitching is  one of the programmed stitches in the machine.

I've finished 21 of these blocks now, so put them up on my design wall to see how they look. I love them, but I'm not jumping at the chance to finish the last 18.  I might try doing them later in the week.

Anther pieced flower that I made one evening.

Block 3 in the Mystery Quilt I chickened out of doing the paper pieced one, I might try it during the week.
I haven't been struck by lightning yet for mixing Kaffe and batiks. I'm not normally a fan of batiks but I really love the way these combine.




Join in on Pyjama Party Sunday and show what you have been doing this weekend,  you can link your post below.