Wonky stars quilt finished!

It has taken over six months, countless hours and a involved a bit of swearing on the way, but the Wonky Stars quilt is finished.  After finishing the hand quilting a couple of weeks ago,  Louise helped me trim it up at the last Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild SASE, then last weekend I finished the binding during a Downton Abbey marathon session.  So it will now be passed onto the recipient some four months late, but hopefully she will think it is worth it.  The problem is that is looks so good on my red couch that I wish I could keep it.

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Day 130: My Creative Space

My creative space has a few things on the go.  The things I'm most excited about are the work papers from the short interior design course I am doing with F and the basics of the debut quilt.  The course is quite a lot of fun; both F and I are taking a couple of hours leave from the Day Job each Tuesday for 3 weeks to attend.  Our unofficial name for the course is "The Graduate Diploma in Cushion Arranging", but we are both finding it interesting and useful.  For me, it is extremely relevant with all the activity on the building site and F is looking to convert her loungeroom into a more useful and attractive space.  We are learning about colour, lighting, design principles and are working on putting together a design board for use in a room for our houses.  It's fun to take a break from work for a few hours and do something creative.

On the quilt, I've finally sewn up the strip sets and yesterday set about cutting them into blocks.  However I've learned a few lessons about quilting measurements and maths.  The foot on my sewing maching is not 1/4 inch (I thought it was) and now my blocks are not square.  So I thought I would join them up and then trim them - this works OK on the first row, but the blocks are in a different order in the second row, so this won't work for all the squares.  So rather than trying to trim and work in seam allowances, I think I'll unpick them and sew them up again individually.  So my next job is to buy a 1/4 inch foot for the sewing machine along with more thread.  This is turning into an expensive hobby!  So much for the quick results of using strip sets, but it's really my own fault for not being absolutely sure about the measurements and a lesson in the need for precision in quilt making.

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Day 129: The Tin Lids

I have a couple of days leave owing to me so, having a clear diary, decided to stay home today.  How nice it was to get up at 7.45am, have a leisurely breakfast and set up for some work on the debut quilt.  However, more on that on Creative Space Thursday.  A day off isn't complete without a visit down the road to see what Bob is up to.  He and Pete are going great guns getting the roof on at the front of the house and this should be finished by the end of the week.  The handrails won't go in this week; Bob has to get some brackets made for the glass roof and porch so has told the Steel Man to hold off until he has this worked out.

The most significant progress this week has been settling on somewhere to live.  On Sunday we went to see K (aka Catwoman) to talk about moving in with her from late August.  We had a chat over a cuppa and a meringue and we think it will work well.  R & K had a ball, licking the cats' bowls, then trying to find the owners, who sensibly stayed out of the way.  We are relieved to get our living arrangements sorted out; while we did have options, we were keen to stay in the area and close to public transport and this fits the bill perfectly.  This house is about a kilometre from the building site and a six minute walk to the station (according to the sign in the park opposite).  And, importantly, we did not want to have to move again until our house is finished.  So we are very happy with that Catwoman has offered to share her home with us and look forward to some new experiences over the next few months.