I got a phone call today, from middle son Rob, asking if I could do a favour and babysit grandpuppy Curtis while they went to a barbque. Could I? Yep!!

This is the state of every rug in the house after Curtis skidded into town, delighted to see me again and doing laps of the rooms at a million miles an hour.

He's much bigger, and is still adorable, but his fringe had grown so much that I couldn't see his lovely brown eyes.He wouldn't let his mum cut it, but I've had more experience and after a brief tussle of wills.........
"I can SEE!!!"
His legs are longer than ever, his coat soft and curly and that tail just makes me laugh. He's a cross between a Britttany Spaniel and a Golden retriever, what I call Designer Mongrel. We can't think of a snappy name like Labradoodle or Schnoodle, but he's a good mix of genes, and a real character.

Quilt Pixie commented that the 3" 9patches could be made into Disappearing 9patches, ha ha. Yes, but a person would have to be totally stupid to even attempt that, wouldn't they? I mean, it was a joke, not a Challenge, surely. Because if someone saw it like that and spent an hour fiddling with tiny little pieces just to prove a point, they'd be a pretty sad sort of quilter, don't you think?

Besides, those little squares in the corners would be so tiny, the seam allowances would almost be wider.....
The little squares would measure 1/4" . Finished! No, a person would be totally insane to take this comment seriously. Nuts in fact.

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I've been really lax about replying to comments, so I'll have to try and cover all the questions you've asked.

Firstly, Henrietta, Keryn and I sell our patterns in America through Golden Threads, and Keryn has her own website here. Keryn is busy trying to get some new designs ready for release this year, always a stressful activity, and hopefully it will all go smoothly.

Carmel (Hi!) asked about the Disappearing Ninepatch instructions, but I can't remember using any in particular. Once I understood the concept I just made the block, but I did make some rules about tone.

These fabrics were all so wishy-washy, which is why I'm surprised the quilt turned out so nicely. I used 4 1/2" squares, as I didn't want it to end up too small. I put the darkest square in the middle and then pink or green in opposing corners. The lightest fabrics were in the centre of each row.

When I laid the ruler across the block to make the cut, I made sure that the 2" marking ( half of the finished size of 4") was a whisker under the seam allowance, that seemed to give me nice even halves.

Cut in both directions to give four quarter blocks ,

and then I rotated the pieces so I had either the pink meeting in the middle, or the green.

Easy as, and the small darker squares just gave it a bit of design. I think one of these made from novelty fabrics as an Eyespy quilt would be really good, and you could put pairs of fabrics in the corners, mix the blocks up after cutting and it would be like a game to pick the pairs in the finished quilt. I'll definitely make another one of these in the future, especially if I want to use up a whole pile of certain fabrics.
Also Nancy sent me an email about handpiecing eight point stars, particularly the centres. I'm going to get Keryn to take some pictures to illustrate how I do them, so I'll post that later.

My dear sister may have mentioned my 9 patches in her last post. I've been opening this drawer over the last few months, and in it is a stack of small Jacobs Ladder blocks I was making from Leader-enders. That's ok, there's about 30, and I wasn't planning on doing anything with them right away. But last week I pulled the drawer all the way out and discovered piles and piles of 3 1/2" 9patches at the back. Hmm, how many did I run up, again as leader-enders, just let me count them..........Over 140?!! How can that be, it was just a few scraps...! I've challenged myself to use them all in one quilt, but I don't think I'll succeed. Next post I should have them set into a top, or most of them. Somehow I never seem to be able to use up Every Last Little Bit, it's one of the Laws of Scrap Usage.

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Now I have three quilts to bind; here is a Bricks and Stepping Stones done from Bonnies excellent instructions. I found this was a great pattern to use up medium tone fabrics and some weird florals. It went together so easily that I'm cutting odd bits for another one as I deal with my scrap pile. I love patterns you don't have to think about, and as long as you have the dark and light 4-patches, and the bricks from medium tones you can't seem to go wrong with this. Loved it.

And I read about all these Disappearing Nine-patches that people were making and decided to try it for myself. I cut out one from pallid pinks and greens that were cluttering up the stash, very pretty and girlish (I seem to be obsessed lately with using up the fabric that isn't my style, just getting it out of the stash).

I was prepared to whip this up quickly and put it in the local shop for sale , or my Etsy one, but I've grown quite fond of it now. Shan't keep it though, but I'll be sorrier to see it go than I thought.

The pattern was blindingly easy, and again not much thought was required. I used up all the rest of the fabrics on a pieced backing like Bonnies and realised too late that I could have put a plain back on it and had enough fabric to make matching twin size quilts. I'll take a photo of the back soon, that turned out really pretty too.The panto was one of mine called "Pashmini" which I hadn't used before, and it suited this quilt perfectly.

Bonnie says (coyly)

"Why Sir!! You do disturb me in my bath!!"

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The borders are on this little quilt, I shopped Keryn's stash for just the right fabric. I get the satisfaction of the finish, and she gets to take the credit for 50 cm of fabric gone from her cupboard. I've been keeping track of what I cut, as she suggested, jotting down the strips in a notebook and totalling them up at the end of the day. I was astonished to find that I used nearly three metres yesterday, making a binding, cutting two borders and a few other strips. It really does add up and it's nice to know that much is gone from the stash. I don't know how I'd calculate what I cut from scraps, probably weigh a pile before I start and compare it to a full metre of fabric to get some idea of how much is there.

Now don't get excited seeing Keryn's quilt in the background of this shot, I think she's changed her mind about the borders again. It's looking good though, isn't it?

We had a customer coming to visit yesterday, and threw this little top on Ms Millhouse so we could have the machine running when she got here. (Some people round here have never seen a longarm working.)

This top was made from all those little samples that shops send, and which build up alarmingly if you're not careful. All the fabrics I liked just went into the scrap drawers, but these pastels, while pretty, just aren't "me". I trimmed them to 2", sewed them to a white on white (which also isn't my style) square and made this little baby top. I had one square left over, which I was really pleased about!

I took the time to open the stitches on the intersections and swirl the seams out, doesn't it look pretty on the back?Another quilt waiting for binding, just when I'd got caught up, sigh.

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We all enjoy those moments of quiet contemplation in the bath........

One of our New Years resolutions was to be more diligent about keeping up our fabric books. I have found mine to be invaluable when I want to know how old a fabric is, where I bought it, whether it's the right colour I'm looking for without having to rummage through the drawers.

If I wanted to I could write how much I'd bought too, but over the last 6 months I couldn't even get round to sticking the pieces in.

So I dragged out piles of new fabric and began cutting little snips, ready to stick into the pages. I also had a pile of little orphan and stray blocks sitting on the table and I began to idly wonder what some of the fabrics would look like if......... Another ufo finished!

The blocks are tiny, only 5", and it was the work of about an hour and a half to get this in one piece. It's vaguely Christmassy, so I'll quilt it and put it away for next year.Sometimes I surprise myself, I had no intention of doing this when I started sorting my fabric book. Does this just demonstrate my lack of focus, even though I have a finished top to show for it? Who can say?

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Well, we did our best with the jigsaw, but the nasty discovery that there were several pieces missing from one section was it's death knell. (Funny that you can only ascertain this after putting 1500 other bits together-oh we laughed!) The printing is so fuzzy and the shapes will obligingly fit together in numerous combinations so you can't be sure that anything's right... Bah Humbug!!! We officially give up. And if Keryn hadn't originally posted about it, I doubt we would have persisted with it thus far. To get my confidence back I quickly started this little 500 piece puzzle and much was done over one cup of coffee this morning. That's fun, not the sadistic torture of 3000, sorry 2992 piece monsters!

The anvil top has a couple of borders, and now I'm perversely wondering why I didn't make it bigger. Because you were sick of it, duh! The answer is not to make it bigger (Keryn please take note), but to just finish it. Perhaps I'll do a bedsize one in different colours later on, but the idea now is to clean out some of the old projects, leaving us free to start the things we really Want to do.

Another pile of left-over blocks from the twin quilts I made last year has become this top, awaiting borders and quilting. It's so good to get rid of the flotsam and jetsam that accumulates, I have two free containers now! Ready to fill with the next project.

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It's sitting-in-my-water-bowl weather again! Perhaps if we swapped bowls it would be cooler......Nup. Still as hot as ever.

But we're good-natured about it, aren't we?

But what's that you say? You've got a present for us?

Oh Yeah!

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The holidays just aren't complete without a jigsaw, but I'm ready to give up on this one. 3000 pieces and 4 feet wide is just too big in my book. We've done even more since I took this picture yesterday, but it's only getting harder and harder. The pieces that are left are just a blur of muddled colours- I don't think photos are meant to be blown up this big.
Keryn is more obsessive than me(she's done all the hard bits in the foreground and I did the roofs and hills, which were much easier. But I did them upside down, because we can't both work on one side of the table, so that made it more difficult. I have a lovely jigsaw that I really want to do, so if this one gets the flick (my goodness, look at that SKY!!) I'll have the new one set up in a flash. And that's only 1000 pieces, so it should be done in no time....

Keryn helped me weed out some material to cut up for pieced backings. There were a few tussles over bits she thought should be cut up, and which I was still a bit too fond of, but we managed to agree to the total of 12 and a half metres. Not too bad. According to her theory of stashout=stashin, does that mean I can go buy 12 metres? (perhaps I'd better sew these up first, I haven't technically used them up yet)

We each chose a project that we wanted to finish quickly this week and here's mine. I had the anvil blocks as a kit that I took to our patchwork meetings, so they didn't get worked on regularly. I was a bit sick of them hanging around and wasn't in love with how they were turning out so I decided to make a little top and call it quits. The broken dishes blocks were from another lot of scraps and became the border. I like this idea of using two sets of blocks in one top, and it turned out so well I might make it from nice fabric next time.

Also completed were 48 leader-ender four patches from 1 and 1/2" squares, the drawer is almost empty now so I'll have to cut up some more scraps. I'll tuck these away for later, Keryn and I want to tackle the orphan blocks soon, and these may be good for spacer units.
Three more bindings done, and I don't want to see another one for a while, thankyou very much.!
Keryn and I are making New Year's Lists and we'll probably see 2008 in with a glass of port or wine as we reflect on the year behind us, and welcome the one ahead.....

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Well, Christmas is over for another year, and very relaxed it was too. Matt and the dogs came in for lunch so it was only the three of us, and the dogs had their special present of raw lamb shanks.I'll stick to the turkey breast and roast pork thankyou.

Have you seen one of these strange little objects?
No it's not an anorexic rocket ship, it's a clothes airer- Keryn used to have a wooden one but it fell to bits. I found this in a second hand shop last week, and decided it would be perfect to hold projects that I'm working on.
It has ten arms, so I can work on ten projects at once. Hmmmm, is that a Good Thing? Oh well, they're pretty to look at while they wait , and wait , and wait...
I wish to quell the scurrilous rumour that I had cheesecake for breakfast. (Apricot nectar with marbled chocolate to be exact.)I would never be so indulgent and decadent.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm feeling a bit queasy..........

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There hasn't been much time for sewing lately, I guess it's the season. These are the quilts I've got bound; there's another two that need the binding sewn down on the back and another four bindings made. So there's progress, but it's nothing exciting, sorry.

I have been trying to cut out some more kits, in between other chores, like this framed cross and a blue square in square that I started a while ago. Need more bits to keep that one going, but as it's all scraps I had to wait to get some more blues first. And the album block below is a project I've started to use up all the leftover border fabric, those huge paisleys and florals and strange prints that look good in large pieces but not so good cut up small. This will be an on-going project too, I'll just piece it as scraps become available.

And during our visit to Adelaide I managed to get some fabrics that I'd been looking for, a border for a set of blocks and some fabric which I'll tell you about in another post. I love having new ideas and trying to find the perfect bits to carry them out; even better when you find what you're looking for!
My boys are coming for Christmas dinner today, as it's the only time we could all get together. I'm doing a vastly downscaled meal, compared to what we used to enjoy, but they all agreed we HAD to have pavlova.

So last night I got out my darling Kenwood and spent ages whipping eggwhites and adding castor sugar one spoonful at a time....Keryn, who has never made one, was amazed at the process (and probably a bit appalled at the mess and the time it took), but the boys will be happy. And you know what? I Hate pavlova, and although I've made this every year, sometimes two of them, I've never eaten a bite. I judge everything by the look and feel, rather like a teetotaller making moonshine, and I was worried because I've never cooked one in a fanforced oven before. But it turned out fine, and covered with cream and chocolate it will be demolished in short order. Keryn and I are having cheesecake, which we adore- each to his own!

Yesterday we had some unseasonal rain; it was hot but the heavens opened up and poured out quite a bit on our little town.Matt and the dogs had come to visit, and look at these two idiots.
Rather than sit in the shed where it was dry, they preferred to crouch on the back steps looking forlorn and trying to shiver pathetically. Bit hard when it was so warm, but they tried. I wasn't letting them in, because I want to keep the house clean for the Christmas visitors today and I didn't want 12 muddy feet racing all over the floors. Heartless aren't I?
And you ask, why 12 muddy feet? Well, look closely in the background....Jessie the dog of little brain at least knows when to come in out of the rain.....
"And they call ME stupid......."

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