New sewing space.

I mentioned the sewing room move a lot last week, and if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, you've been undoubtedly inundated with photos of the shift. I started last Friday and we finished Saturday night; so we've been in for just over a week. I have to say, I'm already heaps more productive than I was in the other room, but aside from that, I thought I'd take a few non-iPhone photos and share my fabric storing methods with you all. Here we go!

I set my work area up in an L-shape, so I can get to it all fairly quickly in my swivel chair. Since we had the big wall (and two Ikea Expedit units), I took advantage of the corner and placed my fabric shelving there. This is most of my sewing storage, as you can see.

I use six of the 16 cubbies for straight fabric storage - that means yardage (anything over half a yard). If I have a piece of fabric that isn't selvege-to-selvege it gets put into the FQs/large scraps section, neatly folded to fit. The FQs are in two places: in the wheat-colored basket drawers (right edge, 3rd row down) and in plastic dividing containers (right edge, top row). They are very visible and in color order!

The drawer units are used for small scraps (6" x 6" or smaller) and are also color coded. I have set aside rare and precious scraps, like Mendocino, in a drawer unit, and my precuts live there too. This makes it easy to fossick around for specific projects. Also in the Expedit is a storage box with batting and Insul-bright, and a stack of ready-to-be-pin-basted quilts (batting and backing included).

The top is currently a huge mess - it's part SydMQG group quilt, part Etsy stock, and part random necessary haberdashery and stationery! It should be much tidier at the end of this week, though, when the SydMQG quilt top is finished and my Etsy stock is moved to a different room in the house. :)

Now, on to the other furniture! This is my computer and sewing machine. I leave my machine out and open. Since I am obsessive about cleaning it, I don't worry about a dust cover. You can see how easy it is for me to watch my shows on my computer while I sew!

The opposite corner of the Expedit is the threads & snips corner, or where my cutting tools and thread rack lives. They're in a pretty convenient place for cutting and sewing! I also have my mini-ironing board (which is a converted TV tray) and iron there, for quick pressing.

On the other side of that is my Alex drawer unit, also from Ikea. I love this thing: it's on casters, it's a great height for seated rotary cutting (which I do a lot of these days, at seven months pregnant), and the drawers are great storage for haberdashery.

I keep the rulers I use often out, within easy reach; everything else goes into a drawer. Templates too.

The design wall is just a piece of quilt batting we used sticky-back Velcro (hook side, not loop side) to fix to the wall. It took about five minutes to hang up.

For my fabric, I arrange it in color order, starting with my whites/low volumes. I did try to destash this, but I gave my husband veto power, and every time I put one in the destash stack, he snuck it right back into my stash. I think someone deserves a low-volume scrap quilt. :)

I also have a fondness for blues.

I have been focusing on building up my greys/blacks/purples lately, and combined my stronger pinks into the purple/plums so I had a clearer color scheme.

My medium and light pinks sit alongside reds and oranges.

And the greens and yellows are all by themselves in a stack, so I put my little Ruby Star Shining divided basket (pattern here, by Anna of Noodlehead) in the gap and added a few precut stacks (Sarah Fielke's On the Pond bundles, Notting Hill by Joel Dewberry, purchased from Knotted Threads) to one half. The other half of the basket is devoted to Liberty tana lawn, both yardage and scraps.

Finally, my solids and linens are all separated out. I have Kona on the right, Michael Miller on the top left, and my linen/cotton blends below those. I love having a well-stocked solids stash!

For the smaller yardage, I use two methods. I have these file boxes from Howard's Storage World, recommended to me by Jenna, which I use for my blue and low-volume FQs or similar.

The rest of the rainbow of FQs/larger scraps goes in these baskets, also from Ikea. The idea behind both these systems is that I can pull all my FQs out in their containers and see what I have. This is quick and clever!

I keep bigger yardage (for quilt backs) and special fabrics (oilcloth, laminates, flannels and voiles) here in the big white basket, also from Ikea.

I've committed to getting a LOT done this week, so I'm using a "spare" cubby for quilts that are ready to be pin-basted. These are backs, battings, and tops in order. Can you believe I have four quilts in my queue? Five, if you count the picnic rug that I need to buy batting for?? This should keep me out of trouble!! :)

So this is it, basically: my new space and how I organize it. It works for me pretty well, though time will tell, won't it! How do you organize your sewing space? :)

The Cake.

Confession: I don't make a lot of food from home. I rarely pull out my mom's recipes, and partly this is because we have wildly different tastes, but also because American ingredients (and recipes) often don't mesh well with how I eat here, in Australia. For one, I'd never even heard of Ro-Tel before Pinterest. (Tip: use a few slices of hot chili in tinned tomatoes; it's the same thing.) For another, well...I just don't love the same food I grew up eating. I tend to fill up on all the food I miss when I fly over and visit, and it's invariably stuff I'm rather glad I can't get every day: french fries with ranch dressing, onion rings, biscuits and gravy, Dr Pepper, enormous burritos, PayDay candy bars. I feel like an anomoly for preferring my own cooking to my parents', but there it is. I'm not picky, but I know what I like, and I know how to cook it.

There is one notable exception to this, though. That is The Cake.

Sometimes I find myself craving The Cake. It was her mother's recipe, and her aunt's icing (frosting) recipe. It's fudgy and dark and sweet and moist. The icing is pure nirvana. My mother altered it (though she never revealed how), and she's given me permission to post the recipe here. When I bake The Cake, I feel connected to my mother, and her mother before her, and I imagine my grandmother and her sister cooking side by side into their sixties, only a five minute drive away, in and out of each others' pockets forever. Cooking with my sisters is great. (They take orders! They're so QUICK! They're EFFICIENT! I love you guys.) It's something I miss. So this cake links me. And I put Piper up on the benchtop and let her have a wee teaspoon of icing, because there is nothing better than licking the spoon (even if it's a teeny tiny spoon).

It's not beautiful, like so many cookies and cakes I make. It's homely and lumpy and something you find at a friend's house, not something you see in a shop window. There's no way to smooth the rough icing or make it uniform without taking something important away from the experience. But who cares what it looks like? It tastes fantastic.

Without further ado, the recipe.

Grandma Pearl's Sheet Cake

Grease and set aside either a rectangular cake pan or two smallish round cake tins. Preheat oven to 200ºC.

In a medium saucepan, combine:

• 225g of butter
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup of buttermilk (or 1/2 cup of milk with 1 tsp white vinegar)
• 6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Let this come to a boil; meanwhile in a bowl combine:

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp bicarb (baking soda)

In a ramekin or small bowl mix:

• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, beaten

Pour the hot saucepan mix over the sugar and flour, then stir; afterward a moment, add in the eggs and vanilla mix. Combine well and pour into cake tin(s). Bake for 15-25 minutes, checking frequently. Let it cool completely before icing.

Aunt Erelene's Chocolate Peanut Butter Icing

• 3ish cups icing sugar
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1x 250g packet of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I honestly just eyeball this step and chuck a wodge into the Kitchen-Aid)
• milk to thin if needed (I've never used this step, but my mom says to add 1 tbsp at a time)

Mix it all in the a stand mixer if you have one. It'll seem quite stiff but if you leave it, it doubles and thickens and gets all fabulous. I usually do the washing up while the icing is mixing. Either a whisk or a paddle attachment are fine!

This is enough to generously ice a two-layer cake with a thin middle layer, or to over-ice a whole sheet cake. Just try not to lick the spoon. I dare you.

I do love this cake. Let me know if you make it and how it turns out! :)

Cheers

Penny x

WIP Wednesday!

Well. I've been busy getting stuff done this week! Hooray for me. And a big thanks to my burly, amazingly patient husband, who helped me get everything (more or less) accomplished. Whew! Let's talk achievements!

I am linking up with Lee for WIP Wednesday!

FINISHES:

I am going to put the Rainbow Parterre quilt up to include as a finish since it is actually the only quilt I've managed to FINISH this year! Even though I blogged about it last Monday, I missed last week's WIP, so here it is!

I also managed to swap rooms around in the house and finished converting the baby's room into a new sewing space/study. Man, is it ever awesome! I am loving being IN my sewing space now that it's actually a sewing space...and not a sewing closet. I know people work with less room and do amazing stuff, but I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I am not one of them. I enjoy the space. Now I have more of it. Win!

NEW PROJECTS:

I had a 30-pack of Liberty pieces I bought from Calico & Ivy a long time ago (with the amazing fellow co-curator Jenna) but it wasn't quite enough, so I went to get a few more prints. Calico & Ivy is sadly closing down. Their last day is May 4th, so if you're in Sydney, go in and take advantage of the big sale. Their quilting fabric is all 50% off, and the Liberty is reduced in price, too. That makes stash-building very affordable (she says guiltily). ANYWAY, long story short, I got a few more prints and managed to organize a quick quilt top. I added in a few Michael Miller solids, but I kept it otherwise strictly Liberty.

STALLED WORKS:

Okay, my quilt show quilt is still just strips. I need to finish assembling the top! It'll only take an evening, it's just sitting down and doing it that seems to be the problem...because after that comes the batting, backing, and quilting, which I have not yet decided on. I am a bit nervous. It's a show quilt! My first! It has to be pretty great. So....yikes.

I also haven't done a thing with my Washi Windows top. It is meant to be quilted!

Or either Trade Winds quilt top. These are meant to go up in my Etsy shop in the near future, once a bit of the destash has cleared. I can't find pictures of the tops anywhere, so the stack will have to do! :)

Oh yeah. That Swoon quilt. Urgh. I love this block and I need to just MAKE this quilt already. If I did just one a night it would take me two weeks to get the whole thing done!

What else? My Os quilt is stalled. I doubt I'll go back to it, actually, and it's a shame I've already cut out the pieces. I might put them together another way as a scrap quilt, though. I am thinking of a nice cushion cover out of the existing Os. :)

And I haven't done anything with this though I really want to revisit it soon! I love this stack and the block I drafted (based on this excellent one from Film in the Fridge) is really perfect. Again, it's all cut out, and ready to make a quilt with!

It looks like I have lots of work to do! I better get busy. How about you guys? Link up with Lee and share the linky love! Hopefully next week I'll have a bit more to report!

Penny xx

Moving (in) house

This week I found myself, for the millionth time, in my too-tiny sewing nook trying to find a square foot of space to get some sewing done, and it just...broke me. I was jammed in a corner with no relief. I'd downsized my desk but still had to move two things out of the way to get to my fabric shelves; there were far too many things going missing in the various crannies and cracks behind double-parked shelving units, and I felt hemmed in.

I wanted to sew but I really felt like I couldn't.

Something had to change.

Back when we lived in a tiny apartment, I sewed in the lounge room. It was nice, because I was right in the middle of stuff, but it meant I had to keep my sewing area SUPER tidy (company tidy, which is a whole other thing to normal OCD-level tidiness). And as Piper grew up, and grew mobile, I knew having pins and scissors in the same room as her toys would be a bad idea. So when we bought this house, it was such a blessing: I finally had a sewing room! I nobly took the tiniest corner of the tiniest bedroom, and we have been making do.

We tried, you guys. We really did. We downsized and moved furniture and changed things around. Eventually, I had a whisper of an idea, but I kept ignoring it. I destashed. (By the way, if you bought something this week, THANK YOU! I have really enjoyed posting out all those lovely fabric parcels this week! And more will go up in the store Monday night!) I cleaned. I cleaned again. I threw out a garbage bag full of things. And still, it wasn't working.

The niggling, wiggling thought formed into a fully-fledged thought. And as it happens in my brain, soon it was accompanied by graph paper, measuring tape, and a steely determination. We needed to move the study into Piper's bedroom. I drew it out; everything fit beautifully. I could even have a design wall IN the room!

I sprang this on my poor surprised husband, and he very reluctantly agreed, on the caveat that I was not to move anything by myself. (I am seven months pregnant. I am also very impatient. But more on that later.) Mr Poppleton hates moving furniture, or moving house, or even moving his fountain pen one inch to the left of where it normally goes, so it is essential to have him on board. One time, I moved furniture for him, and it took him four months to go through and put everything where he wanted it. Literally, he did not use that area of the house for FOUR MONTHS. But I suspect he's been feeling the crunch, too. We stayed up late last night and hammered out a plan of attack. It was all set: this weekend we'd bit the bullet, stay inside, and get it sorted.

Well, except...I got started a little bit early.

And by the time Mr Poppleton was home for the evening, I had a fully functional sewing room.

Officially, I am to let Blogland know that I am very, very naughty for moving a sewing cabinet, a drawer unit, a computer desk, and a 16-unit Expedit while seven months pregnant. In my defense, everything had felt pads and we have very smooth wood floors. I really just pushed it around. I used my legs, I promise! But I am never to do that again. Ahem.

(Sorry, dear.)

So here we are, stealing the baby's bedroom. Terrible, isn't it? Except...

...she never uses it as a bedroom.

I'm going to come right out and say it: we co-sleep. We bedshared with Piper until she was a year old, and then spent a miserable two months getting up with her every couple of hours as we tried to get her to sleep in her own bed. (She slept through the night from 8 days old, tucked right in next to me; it was wonderful. So to switch to a suddenly clingy, needy, miserable little girl was like being dashed in the face with cold water.) We gave up one night, and put her mattress on the floor on Daddy's side of the bed and climbs in when she needs to. (About 1 night in 6.) And we don't care. Literally, having her in with us is easier for everyone. And in the mornings, she wakes up, says, "Oh!" grabs Ruby, climbs in with me, and snuggles in for another half hour. It is perfect. When she weaned, she never looked back or missed breastfeeding, but I missed the cuddling and closeness. This is where I get that, now. And I wouldn't, if she were running out the door of her room to get to her toys and Timmy Time. Because she sees us first, she's immediately registered that she is not alone, she is safe, and doesn't have to go all manic to hide her alone-anxiety. And that makes for a much happier little girl, day in and day out.

I feel absolutely no guilt stealing a bedroom she didn't even care about. Firstly, I'm not sure who I was pleasing by pretending Piper needed a bedroom. Society? Family? Some idea of what parenting a toddler is like? Our kid is amazing and totally into us and loves us and wants to be near us (often, sitting right on top of us, with all her pointy elbows and knees finding soft, weak spots to poke). Putting her in a room without us is not the kind of parenting I wanted to be doing. Lying about it to everyone (including myself!) was just making me feel guilty: why isn't she in her own bedroom yet, why is she so clingy, why am I irritated every time I open the door to the room she never uses, etc. So here's the official line: she'll tell us when she's ready to have her own room. And then we'll help that happen.

Until that point, though, there is no reason we shouldn't be able to move ourselves into the front half of the house. The green room (formerly Piper's bedroom, currently becoming the study/sewing room) is right next door to our bedroom. Bonus: we can hear Piper if she gets up. Bonus: I can sneak away for a few minutes here and there to sew. Bonus: no longer will we miss parcels because I'm not near the front door. This is one of those win-win-win-win-win-and-so-on-situations.

Right now, Mr Poppleton is moving his photographic equipment into the second set of shelves. I am typing this up. I'm not entirely done (I figure I've got about two hours of sheer sorting tomorrow morning), but I'm tired. (Something about being pregnant? And being so impatient that I sorta kinda went nuts and moved a  bunch of stuff around? Argh. Silly self.) But I am loving this already. A new space. And so much of it.

And of course, it seems so obvious, now that it's done, but...you'd never believe it took me months to decide this was okay.

Sleep well, chickadees. You are all really pretty.

Penny xx

The Long-Awaited Reveal!

So, um, somehow I let this blog languish for five weeks. FIVE. That is pretty bad, even for a dingbat, baby-brained, ultra-busy person such as myself. Consider this my apology: I feel so sad I have been a bad blogger, I have destashed about half my fabric.

It is in my Etsy shop. Go forth! Browse! Buy! Tell your cashed-up friends!

If you are in Australia, those work out to be below AMERICAN fabric prices per yard (and most of them are actually meters masquerading as yards, which means BONUS FABRIC). Unfortunately I cannot do much about the shipping costs; they are what they are, and I still rounded down, but the bundles are nice and fat and the deals are sweet. Get this stuff out of my house. I have three FQ sets arriving this week. And I missed having space to move around in my sewing room. It was getting cray-cray, y'all.

So.

On to what I did manage to do last month while I was neglecting you, oh blog I love!

I finished up the Rainbow Parterre Quilt. The pattern comes from Homespun 87 which I found on eBay, but I'll level with you: I saw this image on Pinterest and traced it back to the original author of the pattern. Then I couldn't wait for the pattern to arrive, so I drew it up in TouchDraw on my iPad mini myself. (Lynne aka Ms Lily Lalique has some fabulous tutorials here.)

Once it was colored the way I wanted it to be colored, I went to work. Chose my stacks...

And began to cut. And sew. And trim. And cut and sew and trim some more.

Along the way I developed a nifty little system for accurately piecing blocks. Because this quilt was in a block configuration of 24 x 24, I knew I could divide it up into 36 16-patch blocks.Which made the entire 96" plus quilt top into something suddenly extremely manageable. I got so quick I could do a block in 20 minutes, start to finish!

Anyway, long story short, cut the pattern into manageable bits, label the back, use Blu-tac or poster putty or what-have-you to stick it right in front of your face where you can't screw it up, lay it out, then sew. It does make it quicker, and aside from the first mistake I made, it was a perfect quilt top. I literally did not screw up, and I can only thank my system.

Now, I was going to wedge this thing into my Bernina 440QE and try and quilt it myself (!) when my friend Danielle (do you know Danielle? She is amazeballs, go read her blog) suggested I ask Jeannette over at The Quilting Platypus if she could longarm it. I was a bit afraid to ask because, well, I only had a week and a half, but Jeannette messaged me and said "I can do it for you in three days!" AND SHE DID!

It is really nice that she let me queue-jump, just because she loved the quilt. I had never sent a quilt out before (me, the girl who can do it all!) but this was just so easy. I was not relishing trying to squeeze in what would have been about 20 hours of quilting into a toddler- and puppy-filled life. Mr Poppleton chose the pattern (Rosebud, I believe, soft to give the quilt some movement and round to contrast with the sharp geometrics) and I got the binding attached at one of our Sydney Modern Quilt Guild meetings, then sewed it on over six hours. (I was a very bad parent that day. Piper and I watched a LOT of Timmy Time.)

This is us, binding. She thinks she's helping!

We delivered it as soon as I finished the binding. (I couldn't wait!) I know my mother in law pretty well by now and I knew taking a huge elaborate present to her birthday dinner (at a restaurant) would be quite a lot of effort and embarassment, so we took it over a few days early. That suited everyone just fine, except I forgot to take a picture of the whole thing!

Anyway. She loved it. That's the main thing.

And last weekend, I FINALLY remembered to ask her to bring it over, and I FINALLY have a picture of the whole dang thing.

It's 96" square, so amply queen/king sized.I deliberately kept it very heavy on the blues. I put a lot of different textures in there - so Mendocino right up against Hope Valley, for example, which are both quilting-weight cottons but with very different hands - because I know my mother in law is the kind of person who appreciates texture. Some things I kept deliberately symmetrical (the inner orange/brown ring, the outer pinks) and some were happy accidents (a large-ish triangle in the lower right that ended up being all the same fabric in just that quadrant). I played very fast and loose with value. The ONLY thing I wish I'd done better was fussy cut and added more scraps. By the end of my cutting I was so tired (and on my second of FOUR total rotary cutter blades) that I just went "oh, let's use these five colors" when I should have said "thirty colors". But it doesn't matter, because it is done, and beautiful, and loved.

I mean, look, it's a stash quilt (the only thing I bought was the binding because it was perfect), and the colors took a while, and I love all the negative space. It was a big stretch for me, getting away from square patterns, and I'm so proud I managed to wrangle this pattern into something fabulous. I want to make all of the things now. SIGH.

So, Rainbow Parterre quilt. What else has been happening?

Oh yes, we had a rather frantic few weeks at the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild trying to get the top of our group quilt assembled. We managed to get (over two days!) all the blocks sashed with white and the colored strips, and then at last weekend's meeting, we decided on the final layout, and added the white sashing and colored posts. Literally, this baby is ready to be put together. It is my job to trim and square these blocks for assembly. We will probably have another bee at some point, or we might do some work over Easter for those who hide out during public holidays. (Or is that just my family, hehe.)

Anyway, the Dream Team:

That's Jill, Tash, me, and Selina. What gorgeous girls. Thanks for spending nine hours with me. You are all totally the prettiest people I know.

I will endeavor to blog about last weekend over on the SydMQG website. Sometime soon. Before I give birth. Gah.

OH! And I sent off the form to exhibit my own quilt. For my first "big" show quilt I wanted to do something quite simple but striking. I can't seem to get away from HSTs, though...

This photo the quilt top is only laid out. I have the blocks sewn into rows, but haven't put it together yet. I plan on quilting this one myself. I even made up the binding already. :)

Oh! And I also did my bee blocks and sent them off already. They were for Charlotte this month. She sent three fabrics (Konas White, Slate, and Bright Pink) and said "send me back a 12.5" block!" I ended up making these ones:

It was quite hard to let those go, I tell you. Since she just had a baby girl (like two weeks ago!) I indulged myself and sent her a vintage children's pattern and a little bapron as well. I hope she likes them. :)

On the home front...Piper has learned how to climb things. Like her high chair. (She elects to climb OVER her tray, which is both terrifying and...nevermind, I am now remembering how danger-esque my sister Janaka was...there was NO method of near-death she didn't attempt as a small child. Piper is just adventurous.) Piper is eating a lot better, and knows how to slither into and out of her chair when it's time to eat, and sometimes will slither in as a way of TELLING me she's hungry. (Then she just sits there. Staring. Resentfully. I have heard her ask for "eskit" and "lunn" before so I often just stare back at her and ask her if she would like to tell me something. No response.) She can say "up!" and "Daddy" and "Timmy" (um) and "Mwa" which is kisses, and sometimes "Mama" when she is feeling particularly upset. If she hurts herself she unleashes a string of sounds that is a LOT like a sentence, but is basically nonsense, but her tone is spot-on. (She gets angry that she was hurt and she is mad at whatever hurt her and can I just fix it, okay, now put me down.) She can kick a soccer ball and shout "GOAL!" and tells the dog ALL THE TIME that she is a "good girl". She asks for "Ooby" (Ruby, her dolly) sometimes. She constantly says "tickle tickle" when doing anything - taking her shoes off, touching her bellybutton, etc. She always shouts "GADDAD!" when we go down Nanna and Granddad's driveway. She can say Nanna but, like Mama, rarely does. She can say "did it!" and "yay!" as well. She likes to imitate sneezing, snorting (we sometimes watch Peppa Pig too), and coughing when she hears it. And still grins when she sneezes. She climbs up on her bathroom stool to brush her teeth (and play in the sink, actually) and at shower-time, if you hand clothes to her, she will put them in the hamper (and her nappy in the rubbish bin). She has figured out how to change the water pressure from the overhead sprayer to the wand and often steals the water in the shower. Tsk. We recently bought her kid-sized cleaning toys (broom, mop, dust-pan and mini-broom) and she uses them all correctly. In fact, when I mop, she goes around behind me and "mops" too. Precious. She has also discovered textas. Nanna has whiteboard that Piper is allowed to play with, only the textas look exactly the same as my (permanent!) markers, so I had to hide all my markers up high once she figured out they were there. (My poor house. Sigh.) I let her draw on the grey walls with chalk, though, since it just rubs off, and she LOVES the freedom of that. She has also gotten a lot better at concentrating on tasks - she can sit and play blocks for longer periods of time, even up to an hour, and not get bored.

We have engaged our lovely friend Kat to come and look after Piper a few hours a week, so on Mondays and Fridays we have Kat Days, where Mama disappears into the back of the house and Piper gets some one-on-one time with someone who is just there to play with her. I am so grateful for Kat, honestly, because I always slow right down when I am pregnant, and this way I can get a lot done without feeling too neglectful. This also helps Piper adjust to the new baby: Kat Days wll stay the same once the new baby comes, as will swimming and playgroup, so the routine will not alter too drastically.

Pancakes is getting so big. She's still biting a lot, but we finally fenced in the back garden so she has LOTS of room to play and that seems to help a lot. It's really a relief I can just open the back door and let her out in the morning. We are still working on getting her NOT to wee on the dining room floor but she just loves that one spot. It's a tough break. But she is a joy and so cute and wiggly. I try and take pictures but literally they are always blurry. ALWAYS. She is just like Piper, wiggly and crazy and cute and fun. :)

And Mr Poppleton is reading and blogging about fountain pens and doing his usual hyper-intelligent pottering around, putting up with my insufferable questions like "do you think this fabric would go with this" and "what if I just bought TWO yards of Essex Yarn-Dyed Linen from Amanda" and "would you please make me some ice cream?" Because he is the best husband ever, he has also been very patient with poor, pregnant me, as I move slower and slower in these late weeks.

Bean (Bump, Slowy, the "inside" baby) is growing apace. Really, I just can't wait to meet this little one. I want to have a newborn again. I am a little worried about the adjustment for Piper - she is so very routine-oriented that when Mr Poppleton took a week holiday and was at home, she was constipated and her naps disappeared and she threw actual tantrums, and SHE LIKES DADDY - but it was always going to be a change. And I'd rather have a rough start than for her to have no siblings at all. That just sounds lonely. She will be so happy in about a YEAR when there is someone to play with all the time. :)

One last thing before I tuck myself in for the night - we use Reeder on our iPhone, iPad, iMac, and MacBook Air (shhh, we need them all for different things) and have heard that they will be introducing a fix/patch to accommodate Google's VERY POOR DECISION to stop Google Reader. If you haven't tried it before, it's a great little app, and I really like it. (I can use it, and I have zero patience with things that take a while to learn.) So there's a thought. I'm not sure what service they'll connect to, or anything really, because I depend on Mr Poppleton to tell me all of this stuff. He is very good. I'll go by what he recommends.

Anyway, goodnight my lovelies, and hopefully I will see you soon - how about on WIP Wednesday? :)

Cheers

Penny xx

How to fix a quilt block in situ!

I am in the midst of my SECRET PROJECT so I won't go into too much detail, except to disclaim straight away: this is not the whole quilt top!

That said, if you want to follow me on Instagram, feel free! (But please leave a comment or email me letting me know who you are/what your blog is, as I am set to private.)

Now, to the point: in this secret project, I screwed up. BOO. It's the last block of this section, and I am testing out my new, nearly idiot-proof system because, let's face it, I'd rather do someone once than twice. (Wouldn't everyone?) I'll blog about my method later, when I announce the finished quilt, but for now, let me just say, I made a dumb, dumb error, and I didn't notice it until I had a whole huge section finished. (And if I'd been doing it a different way I'd probably be in despair because instead of one error, I'd have 15. So I'm happy with the new method, but still made a mistake. Such is life.)

Anyway.

This is a picture of the current quilt top (not completed) against the relevant section of the pattern (not the whole thing):

Do you see the mistake? Second HST block in and up from the bottom right-hand corner. I only saw it when I put that picture together. That gust of wind you felt about two hours ago? That was me, sighing. SIGH.

I knew I had to fix it, and I did NOT want to tear apart a whole bunch of blocks, so I decided to do it in situ. This is how I did it, and it's a pretty good tutorial for anyone who's ever gotten this far and seen a mistake they can't UNSEE.

Tutorial - How to fix a quilt block in situ

Tools needed:

• iron
• pins
• sewing machine
• totally awesome seam ripper (I have both a Clover and a Havel Ultra-Pro; I used the Clover here)
• thread, sewing machine, snips (I use Squissors) etc
• spray starch (I use Crisp)/Best Press (optional)

Identify the offending block. Hi there, Echo HST. Your days at that rakish angle, they are numbered.

Turn your quilt top over and sigh again...I mean, identify the block you'll be taking out. I also checked the long-pressed seams versus the short pressed seams. Those are the ones you'll be unpicking to start.

Get your seam ripper and, starting 1cm (half an inch?) above the block, unpick the long-pressed seam on one side.

Do the same on the other side. It's important to also go 1cm (.5") or so beyond the block too.

Here you can see the block completely freed on the two long-pressed seam sides.

Now, the short-pressed seams. These I did a little differently: I started a quarter to a half inch inside the seam, mostly so I could seam-rip without losing the tension or risking my poor little fingers. Once you get to the end you just turn the seam ripper around and finish it up.

All unpicked on this side!

Oh. Turn your iron on. Mine is called the Pink Hulk. She is old and creaky but I still love her.

Unpick your fourth side, which is the second short-pressed seam, and be sure to start a little bit inside the seam so you can just run through that seam (carefully).

Ta-da! Your offending block has been relieved of its duties. Now you have a hole! What every quilter loves! (NOT.)

You can see how there is a sort of neat rectangular hole there, not a mess of unpicked seams? This is why we went along the long-pressed seams. It makes it easier to put back together.

Press your liberated block. Oh, but it's all hairy. Hmm. What do I have close to hand...?

Sticky tape, NIIIIICE.

Yes, that looks better. (This is such a classic ME step, honestly. I'm fussy about tiny little threads. The backsides of quilt tops give me nightmares, I can't DO rag quilts, I love bias-cut blocks, etc etc.)

Now, get your quilt top and press flat the edges of the hole. They should be as close to normal as you can make them. You're sewing right exactly on the lines so they don't have to look like fresh-off-the-bolt fabric, but should be flat enough to work with.

Take your liberated block, check its placement (!), and pin it in. See how that little extra bit of unpicking helps to lift the seam away from the quilt top so you can re-sew it? That is why we unpick a tiny bit extra.

Stitch it up. I use a normal stitch for all my sewing (between 2.4 and 2.8 on my Bernina) and I will forever sing the praises of my #57 quarter-inch foot.

Now do the same to the other side. (I used three pins on the second side because it was two half-square triangles, and I find they get a bit wobbly if not securely pinned.)

Stitch that little block in place!

Pin back the long-pressed seams and press open the seams you've just sewn. Those are your new short-pressed seams. I gave them a long finger-press and then dabbed the iron on, trying not to disturb the other seams. A tiny iron would be excellent here.

Unpin and fold over your quilt top to match your new block against the top. Press those seams flat. (It's just easier than fighting with pressed-open seams.)

Pin it together and take care here - it needs to go in well, so if it's too small or too large you'll have to go in and unpick your newest seams, adjust accordingly, and then get back to this step. (Thankfully my blocks and seams are pretty correct so this didn't happen...this time!)

Sew your long-press seam sides together.

Flip it and find the last open seam, then press the sides flat. Pin that and sew it together.

This is the second long-pressed seam side, newly sewn! Congratulations, you are done with the sewing part! YAY!

Turn the quilt top over and check to make sure the placement is correct and it fits well (not stretched or bubbled).

Turn the quilt top back over and press the long seams open.

Turn it to the front and lay it flat on your ironing board, and get your ironing aid if you're using one. I use Crisp because it's cheap and I wash my quilts before I sell or give them to people, but I have heard excellent things about Best Press. I am the kind of person who turns her quilt blocks into kevlar with spray starch though. So I love this step. Spray, and press. Ahh. Smells so QUILTY.

You could bounce a dime off that block. And, oh, the important thing: IT IS FIXED!!

Wait....you sure it's fixed? Let's check the pattern:

And now the "whole" quilt top:

That's much better. And it took maybe fifteen minutes! Including taking photos of every step like a crazy person. :)

I really hope you find this helpful! It is such a frustration to get all done (or partially done) and find a mistake that is super easy to make, but seems insurmountably awful since all the sewing is done. The only thing worse, I think, is un-quilting.

Thanks for reading my first tutorial and if it's not clear at any point, please let me know in the comments!

Cheers,

Penny xx

Secret projects!

So I have been working hard on something, but I can't really talk about it until...well, let's just say "for a while". I don't want to give away anything just yet! It'll be the first finish of 2013 and what a hard act to follow, for sure!

But if you follow me on Instagram, you will see what I have been up to. HINT HINT.

:)

Today was a good post day at the Poppleton house - Mr Poppleton got two very mysterious parcels, and I recieved the first of the bee blocks. This is my first bee and I am scared to death, so don't mind me while I just make a couple practice blocks on my own stash, right? Because otherwise I am certain I will destroy everything and this gorgeous collection of fabric (belonging to someone else!) will just be a pile of smoking threads in the disaster area that used to be, oh, my neighborhood. (Might be a tad hyperbolic. Perhaps.)

But on to the other things that are not so scary! I have been paper piecing. :)

The other good mail was four of the hexagon blocks from Team Di. We have a grand total of 12/49 back, and I am starting the long slow process of getting my other 9 blocks sorted. I have the hexies done, the other components cut out, and now I'm assembling the blobs. (Somehow I ended up with eleven blocks! World's slowest paper piecer. It takes me an hour and forty-five minutes to do a block start to finish. which is approximately...eternity!) But I am glad because with Lorena's blocks appearing in the post, I can lay aside the hexagons and unpack my machine, and switch it up for a bit! Besides, my poor little fingers are SO sore from piecing hexies!

But everyone's efforts are stacking up...I can't wait to see this quilt MADE!

We had our first guild meeting of 2013 last Saturday, and IT WAS AWESOME. Of course I forgot to take pictures, so I haven't blogged it yet (!) but we had nine girls and everyone loved the venue. Thanks again Viv & girls for turning up and being amazing! I can't wait until next month. Show and Tell will be awesome...some of the projects were just FABULOUS and I can't wait to see them finished!!

I have been living under a rock or something. Even though I love Mendocino, I've always been a bit "meh" about Lightning Bugs. (It's cute, but I think the jewel tones of Medocino and the merfolk speak to me a bit more). Apparently I missed out on West Hill entirely. That is, until I got a scap in a parcel from Blije Olifantje and was like "what is this mysterious and adorable fabric" and then proceeded to hunt around like a crazy person for it! So after a rather embarrassing fabric binge (cough, please do not judge, COUGH) I am done buying fabric for a while. Like, maybe until April or May. This was just my weekened of EXCESS.

What other excess, you ask?

Well, I got my hair done!

I don't usually get my hair done, because a) toddlers are wiggly and babysitting would take ages, and on weekends I like to be home with my family; b) I try not to do my hair too much, so it stays nice; and c) I have a lot of hair. No, you don't understand. When I say a LOT I mean it looks deceptively lesser but hoo boy, there's a mane there. It's fine but it's THICK. I always go over hair appointments and when stylists go to cut it, they usually stand there and just hold it for a while. "It must be so nice to have so much hair," they say, unfailingly. And I respond, "Sure, if you like blow-drying it for 45 minutes." (I don't. So I don't. And now you know why I usually look like a hobo. BEAUTY SECRETS RIGHT HERE, PEOPLE.)

So several inches came off, I have layers, a side fringe and the length stayed about the same. And oh my word. The difference it made was immediate. I feel like a new woman. Even today, with no makeup and a messy ponytail, I still feel heaps cute. So thank you, super fancy salon. It helps with the pudgy pregnancy blues for sure. :)

And baby is kicking lots more, especially when I sit down to sew. I have high hopes this one will be a cuddler (my daughter is not, to my everlasting sighs of complete understanding) but am starting to think if I have enough babies, they will form a little soccer team. Hmm. Not bad for two stay-at-home-and-fill-our-brain types, eh? :)

Time to get to cleaning my messy, messy sewing room. Egad. Does it ever need it.

Cheers, and I'll try and post again soon! xx

irresolute.

I'm not one for resolutions, really. I would rather focus on making ongoing positive changes than set myself up for failure. So when I sat down a while ago to suss out this year, I was really just recording what I have already been trying to do. This just marks it: a physical page in my red book, an image on Instagram, a post on my blog. What I'm really trying to achieve is ongoing evolution. This is just my declaration.

I don't believe in staying static. Staying dynamic is key. We are always looking for growth (personal, spiritual, relationship) and seeking opportunities to learn. Sometimes, yes, it is hard to see the mistakes as opportunities, but that doesn't mean I don't come around eventually. Everything we survive means we are stronger, smarter, more ready for the next time.

This list is part of that. Part of preparedness.

I'm a trained journalist; have I ever mentioned that? I am. I went to three different tertiary schools for various writing degrees. I ended up with a plain-Jane BA. My focus in the end of my BA was cultural studies more than writing, but having to train my fiction-writing head to bend to critical thinking, cultural analysis, and argumentative essaying helped to weed out the nonsense of my youth and fix in place a keen desire to learn, to understand, to see. I've always had a fantastic memory, especially as regards people; and I rely on that to glean information so I can better understand the world around me. A few years ago I began turning that lens on myself. And it was helpful, because in recalling what experiences had made me uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled, I was able to articulate the direction in which I wanted to travel. I knew I would never be a resolutions person. I want to be able to grow and change daily (hourly, even), not on some culturally prescribed timetable. If I make a mistake in June, I don't want to wait until January to change my behavior. I like to fix things; I like to fix them now.

So these are not resolutions. These are ideas. This feeling, this desire to "get it together" has been creeping up on me for a while, but with Bean coming at the end of May, I have definite nesting urges creeping up on me, demanding that I stop messing about and start getting serious.

So, with that in mind, I designate these ideas as my frame for 2013. It might change next week; it might be the same in two years (though I doubt it). At any rate, it is what I want to work on, for us, right now.

Yumm! Bowls.

Time to come clean, guys.

I miss American food.

Not just the junk food, though, let me wax lyrical on the sparkling sweet goodness that is Dr Pepper; let me expound upon the virture of onion rings generously dipped in a salty, tangy ranch dressing; let me offer up gratuitous moans of longing at the thought of buying plain flavored Cheerios. (And don't even get me started on how much I miss Mexican food. My husband frowns on my addiction to Thai takeaway but honestly?! It's the closest thing there is, over here in Mexican Food Siberia.)

As I said, though, it's not just the junk food. I miss the food I remember. So my mom's plain and quick meals which are somehow exactly what I needed. I miss Umpqua Dairy ice cream and milk. I miss Mucho Gusto's burritos. And I miss, more than ANY OTHER FOOD ITEM IN THE WORLD, Yumm! Bowls.

Café Yumm! was the kind of place I started going to with many misgivings. Look, I'm not a real vegetarian. (Flexitarian, I think we're called.) I'm happier eating vegetarian food but I don't care much about eating meat. And even though I'm as red as a nosebleed politically, I've always shied away from the traditional "hippie food" on offer in my adopted hometown of Eugene. Because, seriously, why eat beans and rice in a bowl when you can just eat a burrito and it is like four hundred thousand times more amazing?

I was won over, however, by the sauce.

It's perfect. Tangy, lovely, creamy, just zippy enough to be moreish, and balanced enough to be a real meal. (There are the most hilarious reviews of Yumm! Sauce on Yelp where people are like omg u guyz there's like fat in this sauce! and then I smile to myself and sit confidently in the knowledge that there is no proof that a lower-fat diet actually does anything to mitigate heart disease, diabetes, or health problems related to obesity. For things to avoid in food, see: sugar.)

The problem with loving Yumm! Sauce is that I live in Food Siberia, and shipping it here is prohibitively expensive. We brought a jar back with us, and it was amazing; once my best friend shipped me a bottle. I could have given her my firstborn, I was so grateful! But it's not something I can expect every day, or week, or month, or even year. It's not feasible.

Luckily there are lots of people like me who live in other places, and those people have hacked the recipe. It's not the same, but it's a close approximation. I'm calling it Scrum Sauce. It's scrumptious, but not the same. Here is the recipe I used, adjusted for Australian ingredients.

Scrum Sauce

• 1/2 c water
• 1/2c lemon juice (two lemons, juiced)
• 1/2c canola oil
• 1/2c almond meal
• 1/3c nutritional yeast (found here as savory yeast flakes - DO NOT sub in brewer's yeast! it is not the same)
• 1/3c silken tofu (I used Macro Classic Tofu from Woolworths and it worked perfectly)
• 1-2 crushed garlic cloves
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1 tsp dried cilantro leaves (here called coriander)

Method:

I got my two pyrex glasses out and mixed the water and lemon juice together in one, and set the canola oil in another. In my food processor, I put everything else, blitzed it a few times, and then scraped the bowl. Then add the lemon/water in splashes, scraping between, until it's all a liquid. Once you do that, feed the lemon/water through as the machine runs, do a scrape-down, and put the lid back on. Add the oil the same way. I generally leave it for a minute to let it incorporate. It makes two cups of sauce.

The original recipe called for curry powder as well, but I omitted it. It didn't seem right for the sauce. Anyway, this is last night's effort.

Now, for the actual Yumm! Bowls:

• brown rice, cooked
• black beans, cooked
• sour cream
• salsa
• freshly chopped tomato
• sliced black spanish olives (here in Australia they come in a glass jar!)
• coriander/cilantro
• freshly sliced avocado

It's a good idea to make a big mess of black beans all at once, because they are hard to find tinned. Buy black beans, cook them according to packet directions (I added more water than beans, salt, set them to simmer and checked them every half hour for two and a bit hours, adding more water to keep them covered as needed). Then make a mess of brown rice.

The way you assemble them is to put the rice on one side, beans on the other, and a stripe of sauce down the middle. As much or as little as you want - it's really up to you. (Since you made it, you know what's in it, and you'll have tasted it, and will know how much you want!) Then add your toppings. And eat it.

And, I apologize. Because I just changed your life. You're welcome.

:)

So little time.

But that's no excuse, is there? I should be blogging. After all, I enjoy writing. I like recording my day-to-day life. It's a good record to look back on; it challenged me to think about how best to craft my words; it gives me a place to organize my many thoughts.

But (you could sense there was a 'but' coming, right?)....but....family. And working. And so many things slip-sliding around in this slushy headspace we like to call baby-brain. But mostly, no sewing! (Well, hardly any. I finished up a few cut tops and am envying everyone's Scrappy Trip Around The World quilts on Instagram (hashtag #scrappytripalong) but I am not getting my rotary cutter out. No madam. I have other things to do!

Anyway, barely any sewing means no blogging, because what's a blog (like mine) without pictures? Anyway, I'll keep it brief and do a bullet point list of what we've been doing for the past month and a half!

• We got a puppy. Her name is Pancakes and she is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Piper adores her, Mr Poppleton is smitten, and I am totally over the moon. She's a funny little mate and we're glad she's a part of our family. (Now: to get her housebroken.)
• Christmas happened! It was fantastic. This year was the first year we really did our own thing. Instead of piggybacking on my in-laws' celebrations, we had Christmas Day dinner with them but really focused on our own family. I cooked a massive Christmas Eve feast, and we had Christmas Morning Breakfast Bonanza. And when Piper was in bed on Christmas Eve, we were busy looking longingly at our present piles, and made the Adult Executive Decision to open our gifts the night before Christmas. (This, guys, is why being an adult is so awesome.) I got a Nintendo 3DS XL (and the new Super Mario Bros game), the Matthew Evans deli book, a half-yard set of Constellations by Lizzy House, John Green's boxed book set, and face wash from Piper. Mr Poppleton recieved three new pairs of pyjamas, new barbecue plate and grill set, a new barbecue cover, new sunglasses, and Horrible Histories DVDs from Piper. Piper of course got a billion toys, including Duplo blocks, a pink plastic wheelbarrow, wooden blocks, a new xylophone, puzzles, books, and a doll named Ruby. It was a cold Christmas for Australia - only 15ºC and raining - I could see my breath at one point, which just kind of made my day.
• We had a "hi Kat, bye Jen" Ryan Gosling Appreciation Night at my place. There was Thai food. There was Lars and the Real Girl. There was much grumbling over my lovely Jen going back to London (before I had the chance to be a hobo/writer/annoying friend) and gratitude that Kat was in town at all from Heidelberg (on a whirlwind trip). We all had a good time. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I love my writing group.
• I started a new manuscript. I kind of hate it right now, but I'm a masochist, so I'm in it until the bitter end.
• We found out the sex of the baby! It's still a secret but holy smokes, I am so excited! (I think I would have been excited either way, to be honest.) I am excited for Piper to be a big sister and knowing WHAT we're having just makes Bean that one little bit realer! Plus, Bean is kicking a LOT now. It's amazing and miraculous and I really enjoy being pregnant. (After the first 14 weeks, that is...ugh!)
• I began planning a quilt as a gift. I won't say any more here, but I've got to get to work on it...sooner rather than later, too!
• I've been working on the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild blocks. I actually need to blog over there (perhaps tonight!) but for the most part, they are coming together beautifully!

And now for a few pictures.

Christmas morning haul!

My presents from lovely Mr Poppleton.

Pancakes, our little mate!

Part of this year's goals for me.

Piper enjoying a kilo of Finca coffee from Pablo & Rusty's

My first block for the Sydney Modern Quilt Guild group quilt!

Constellations by Lizzy House half yard set

Anyway, that's about it. I haven't had time to think about doing a year in review post, though I want to, and even though I'm anti-resolutions, I've been thinking about what 2013 will mean to me. (I tend to do goals on my birthday.) For now, though? I have a whole filing cabinet to fill up with a year and a half of filing, and two cupboards to empty out and clean. So I'll be busy doing that...at least until I get tired and have to rest! Until then, au revoir!

Cheers

Penny xx