I'm still enjoying sewing my nine-patches, but I thought I'd better start making some decisions about setting them into blocks. I hunted through my extensive collection of photos and it was so hard choosing just one. I want to make them all!!
This is what I was thinking of originally, just a standard double nine-patch, with sashing, pretty straight forward. How about that colour though, I don't think I'm brave enough for all that yellow- wow!
I've always loved this very ordered setting, and it wasn't until I studied it this time that I noticed the chains are made from the white squares. For this I'd need to use five shirting squares in each little block, and four dark squares, but I've done them the other way around. Oh well, next time.

This made me look at my other pictures more closely and I found a lot of the antique ones were made with this configuration, some of the times set on point as well.
Doesn't this simple change in the placement of the light squares create a whole new look? And here's a luscious Amish version, love those darker colours.
This just makes me think I have to create more and more nine-patches in all sorts of fabric placements to try all these different ideas. I'm not sick of them yet and they make great leader-enders- how many nine-patch quilts can you start before you know you've got a problem (hint: obsession!)

Read more...

I suppose pikelets are an English thing, along with the scone, which, by the way we pronounce to rhyme with John. The American tv shows we've heard make it rhyme with stone, which we find peculiar. And I've got no idea how the English say it, any British readers out there that can offer their pronounciation?

Anyway, my recipe comes from this book, which is the first cookbook Keryn and I ever owned. Mum gave us each a copy when we were in our early teens, and they were duly placed in the "Glory Box", ready to assist us in our married life. (I should do a seperate post on this out-dated custom, which was virtually a trousseu girls collected over years and years, usually in a big trunk of some kind.) This book is Keryn's, which stayed a lot cleaner than mine did.
I used to make pikelets when the boys had sleepovers, and I can remember standing over the frying pan making batch after batch and watching them all disappear at an incredible rate. They were a great cheap snack to fill up hungry boys, and the ingredients were always at hand. I was happy when the boys graduated to being able to cook them on their own, and then I didn't have stand there, spatula in hand and looking at a child holding a plate out for more, more, More!!
And yes, they are smaller than usual, because I found this cute little ladle at the op-shop, and even though I had no idea what I'd use it for I had to buy it. That's a teaspoon for scale. It makes
dear little pikelets, and I love the fact that they're all the same size, and that I found a use for my purchase.
I'm still flitting from project to project- will I ever settle down to one thing again?
There are nine of the pastel Arrowhead blocks, still being pieced at night while watching telly. (two finished since this photo was taken)
These blocks have been resurrected and now there's ten of them.
There's eight of these blocks, and then there's the nine-patches!

Arggh! the nine-patches! (clutches head and wails...) I can't stop making them......110 at last count and I still haven't decided on the setting!

Read more...

Here's a close up of the setting fabric for the Feathered Square blocks. I didn't realise it was a quilting fabric until I read the selvedge, this feels more like a lightweight dress material. I do love the pattern, and when I first saw this there were very few large repro type prints available so I fell on it and bought about four metres.

I'd already used it as a setting fabric in a smaller top and it was flimsy but the straight seams helped control it- no bias to worry about here.
I like the idea of making a pillowcase from the remaining fabric, thanks Henrietta!

It was also Henrietta who said that Dolly and Pippi were such good dogs. Yes they are..... but there have been times when they've been in disgrace. Take for instance this pretty pink and green top of a friends that we ordered a special pink and green thread for....
Pippi pinched the reel from the table and this is what it looked like by the time I found it- unrecognisable. And as it came from America there was no hope of quickly getting another. Bad Pippi! And Dolly has turned out to be a cat chaser which is something we're trying to discourage- but no-one's perfect, are they?

The golf course is so lush in parts that the dogs have to wade through the grass and weeds. This is the last resting place of many golf balls but they love it and it uses up a lot of their excess energy jumping through it.
But there's always enough pep left for attacking a sister when she least expects it...Gotcha!

Read more...