Seeing Red

Happy New Year!  Are you ready for a New Year?  I am!
I have not been as near to my machine as I would like with days of dealing with fall out from house move, as well as finding places for things and doing endless loads of mundane laundry.  Yesterday the closest I got was to reach under the 820's cover for a little pat!!   Have been sorting out/ finding homes for things in the new place.  And how does our house look, you may ask?
Imagine stuff  all over the place, with slowly emerging tidy nook or crannies,  and you can imagine our home right now!!
Still we are making progress...that little mess above is a temporary, happy sort of  sewing mess, to be encouraged on  a regular basis.

I have finally  begun sorting out the sewing studio space which is swelteringly hot during the day with the blinds shut and putrid if they are opened even a crack.  Faces east and captures full sun in the morning. Its dark in there too with the blinds closed- unworkably dark. Warmth makes Bella sleepy, and she can make herself comfortable anywhere, but prefers the bed!We are insulated, and west windows have external shutters as well as curtains, so things could totally be much worse. In the sewing studio, which lacks external shutters, another lamp or two and a portable air con. unit will be the only way to make the space remotely comfortable for work.  And all work and no play...  I desperately needed some play time today.
Just for fun, I am  participating in Bonnies' online mystery.  It has been revealed for New Years but I am working on it more slowly than others.  A colour most appropriate for today's roasting weather, today was all about red!
I set myself up temporarily in the kitchen where we have nice air conditioned cool air and good light until we can deal with the oven aka studio.
 Bonnie's step 4 is  foundation piecing strips of various sizes onto squares which are later cut against into triangles, after the piecing is completed.  I had some fun raiding my stash of precut remnants and bits as well as slicing some red from the fabric stash, and used a paper trimmer to quickly cut the paper needed. A friend Melodie, in the U.S. suggested this on her blog In the desert quilting earlier  and its a great idea, very fast when stacking pieces together.  Last time I used kitchen baking paper and a old rotary blade and ruler to cut papers to size, because I was sewing in the hotel apartment, and had only those things to hand,  but this time I am recycling some unprinted newspaper. It tears easily and is virtually perforated with stitching, so should be super easy to remove.  Others use old phone books but I have always wondered if the inks from the printed pages transfer muck and stain the bed of the sewing machine when sewing, or the fabric itself when ironed.

This totally hit the spot- there are 64 to make in total for Step 4, before trimming.  My small but appreciated sewing session resulted in the piecing of 5 units completely with another handful partially started.  Nothing like brainless sewing sometimes, is there?  Good to pick up and put down again when needed..

We had a cracking great thunderstorm yesterday and another is building up now, sky darkening by the second.  Three afternoons of thunder in a row.

With roasting hot days, the garden plants are less than content.  Its a nice relief to have cool rain for the garden rather than have to dodge the mozzies whilst hand watering the plants. We have been trying to keep them happy whilst the zucchinis and tomato and potato plants grow with wild abandon, producing new evidence of fruit and vegies to come, showing off their  new little flowers and the start of zucchini flowers.


I remember Stephanie Alexander mentioning you could stuff the flowers and deep fry them, and they were gorgeous.  I would be tempted to do this just for fun, maybe in a wok, since we don't go in for deep frying.

Once I have carved out more work space and found my bag of butterfly pattern bits and pieces, and fabrics, there will be more progress on Meadow Argus Feasting, the second in my Meadow Argus series.  Now where ever did I put that roll of Vliesofix?

Happy Quilting,
Stephanie.