Last day of March status

March has been very productive.
DDs quilt-top is finished.
Backing is acquired (but not yet pieced)
And the QD is getting a work-out.
... as can be seen on the picture. If you don't remember what it looked like on the first of the month, you can see the picture here.

A month ago, only one and a half rows were joined, and very little was pressed-and-trimmed beyond that.
Now, more than half has been joined, and the pressing-and-trimming of the individual blocks are that wee bit ahead of the sewing necessary for my enjoyment :-)
What is more, the brown setting-fabric (a lovely "solid" batik, Hoffmann # 1895 "Havana") makes the blocks "glow" ... well ... at least I think so :-)

I am not, however, joining the rows yet. I need to press and trim them individually, getting rid of the rabbit-ears and too-much fabric in the seams that I can, so that when I have the entire top joined, the amount of pressing-and-trimming still to be done will be minimal.

And that was the March-status ... and part of my Lent status.
I have fallen through - miserably or gloriously, as you feel inclined - on my "no shopping" ... but I have actually kept myself in line with the "no starts" :-)
And the result is - with one more week of lent to go - a finished top, and major progress on the next one.
Nice :-)

Falling off the wagon

Many things can be said about me. And I don't doubt that many things are :-)
What cannot be said is, that I can't do things in the grand manner :-)
Like falling off the fabric-diet wagon.

Well, the story is long, but to cut it short : DH was going to a meeting at a place very close to the best quilt-shop in this country (which is in the middle of nowhere). I need bacing for the QD-quilt, and the fabric for that particular quilt was bought at that shop. I wanted him to go there and see if they had more of the butterfly fabric that is used in some of the blocks. (sorry, no pictures, DH has taken MY camera to HIS job and have not taken it back home with him).
To see if it is at all possible, I go on-line to check their opening hours, and find out that ....
THEY ARE CLOSING !!!
AND they have a half-prize sale, starting Monday of this week.
DHs meeting is Tuesday.
I don't have a schedule for Tuesday.

As Oscar Wilde said : I can resist anything but temptation.

So, after a bit of fidgeting, and a good deal more of feeling bad for not keeping my promises to myself, I went. DHs parting shot as he set me down at the shop was "And I won't hear one single whine about how much money you spent. Either you get it and enjoy it, or you don't get it, but don't moan about what you spend."

So ... I got it :-) Yes. You may say that. I definitely got it :-)
And what I got ?
All the sensible things, naturally :-)

Backing for DD's quilt. (Oh, mom, that's HOT)
Backing for the QD quilt. (Green, and I had planned brown or sand-coloured)
Dark-blue Fossil-fern for Back-ground for a collection of Rawkos-fabric from New Zealand
2 spools of hand-piecing thread
2 spools of machine-thread
A new 15" ruler (yes !! DD broke the old one a while back)
A new 6" ruler (yes !! the one I had was worn out)

Wasn't I being the sensible one ?

I didn't stay sensible :-) because wishes and dreams and the general headiness of being in a very well-stocked quilt-shop with a half-prize sale got me, and then I got :
4 Danish books
1 Japanese book
16 cuts of daiwabo-fabric (japanese taupes, you can see the general style here )
8 cuts of batiks.

NEVER let it be said that I fall lightly when I fall :-)

Apart from a lingering feeling of ... slight dismay about not keeping the diet, I am happy with my buys, and I am back on the wagon again :-) Somewhat bruised from the tumble, but ... happy :-)

A March almost finish

And here it is
The finished top for DD's quilt. The hands you see at each side of the top belongs to DH :-)
And yes, when seen through the lense of a camera, it isn't too bland. Nothing that a 1" binding with colours same as the quilt will not fix.
So that's one (almost) down.

It will stay on my WIP-list until it - eventually - comes home from a LongArm quilter, and have the binding on. In my book, a project is not finished until it is :
Quilted.
Bound.
Signed.
AND
Ready to gift-wrap :-)

But it's a great feeling to have it be a finished Top. And in less than 4 months too ! First block was started on November 30th 2006, so ... it is possible to finish a twin-size top in less than a year ... and it is all hand-work :-)
It has now moved away from it's priority-project position, and the QD has moved into that particular slot.

What's in a name ....

Just a fairly short and fairly silly one, and just because DD asked me, what names I knew that "means something".
So here are some, from the top of my head.
Thomas means "twin", and Andrew, Andreas and Anders means "man" / "human being" (and comes from the greek). That's why "Neo Anderson" of the Matrix films is the flimsiest of hidden "clue" as to who he is in that picture "The new son of man".
Adam means either "man" or "human" or - very plainly - earthling. Not earth as in the planet, but as in "soil", seeing that it derives from the noun adamah which does mean soil. Eve on the other hand is a deriviate of a word which means "life".
Sara is "princess", a feminine of the hebrew sar which means "prince" (as in ruler), and Abraham means "father of many".
Christopher means "bearer of Christ" (from the greek, christo foros), Benedict or the female form Benedicta means "blessed", Beata or the male form Beat means "beautiful", both come from the latin. Peter means "rock", and Joshua is actually the hebrew form of a name many of us knows better in the graeco-latin version of Jesus, both means "Jo (= Yahweh = God) saves". Immanuel means "God with us" and Ursula means "little she-bear". Bjørn, is straight out "bear", and other Danish names that are straight out animals are Ravn (raven), Ulf (wolf) and Lærke (lark).
DD gave up long before I got this far :-)
My name ?
Tilde derives from "Matilde" which again derives from ancient German Mechthildis : mighty in strife.
So there :-)

March progress

Yes. We have progress in Copenhagen this March :-)

DD's quilt now has it's centre in one piece and has straight edges.
Nice.

It does look a bit wobbly at the edges, but that is due to not being ironed fully yet ... and the fact, that whereas each block presses easily and prettily, the setting messes things up, so every other seam (or so) has to be "turned" in the middle, if the points meeting has to lie flat.

Oh, well.

A certain amount of creative "violence" with a good, and judiciously used steam-iron will take care of that :-)

It now needs to become a proper rectangle, and will ... probably (hopefully) some time during the coming week-end.
I'll keep you posted :-)

Friday evening hello

Well, I'm still on planet earth ... sort of :-) but fairly busy with working. Got myself another part-time job, so that's two of them now. Should make for a full job, but ... the reality is, that it's more than that, so ... much work and little sewing.
And since I haven't got any major progress on any of my big projects (yet, but it will be there, and you will be informed, never fret), I thought I would entertain you with pictures of two of my cats.
The black gentleman is our alpha "male" (brackets because he is, technically, only able to become an uncle, seeing that he was neutralized before turning "really" male), Pushkin, named for the russian poet, AND because he is a puss :-) not quite in boots but still ... he is also the tail-less one.
The grey and white lady is my baby-cat (or Christmas-cat) who was rescued on December 23rd, 2003. She had been found, hungry and scared, and barely more than 8-10 weeks old, in a summer-cottage area, and the vet felt she had to be put away.
I couldn't let that happen, so it didn't :-)
Her name is Josephine, because the television advent-calender that year had a female (girl) lead by that name.
And that was that.
Updates on sewing and life will follow ...
... eventually :-)
Have a lovely week-end.

March status

OK, so here are the pictures of the priority-project (the very pink thing), and the next-in-line project, my QD-quilt (the rather brown thing ... which will be brower still as it is sewn together).
Not very good pictures, but ... pictures.
And I'm posting them, so that when I get discouraged over my slow progress, I can go back and check this page and actually see just how much (or how little) has been achieved so far during March.
Right now, I think I'll be doing this every first of a month, but I know I very probably won't :-)
I will post when I think significant movement has been made on either project.

And the next significant move on the pink thing is, when the centre is actually sewn together. As you see it here, it is just laid out on the floor.
I'll keep you posted :-)
And did I tell you that the QD quilt has a name ?

It has :-)

It's a quote from Northanger Abbey, chapter 14, but to ease your way (and not make you feel that you have to read the entire chapter ... or the book for that matter) here is the passage from which I am culling the name of this quilt :

"The advantages of natural folly in a beautiful girl have been already set forth by the capital pen of a sister author; and to her treatment of the subject I will only add, in justice to men, that though to the larger and more trifling part of the sex, imbecility in females is a great enhancement of their personal charms, there is a portion of them too reasonable and too well informed themselves to desire anything more in women than ignorance."
J. Austen "Northanger Abbey" chapter 14
Sharp, wasn't she ?
ANYways, I've settled for just the very first part of the passage : "The advantages of natural folly" :-)