Wednesday, July 25, 2012

WIP Wednesday: the one with the Grammar Nazi

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Annoying thing of the week: it's piqued when you're hooking someone's interest, not peaked.

1. to affect with sharp irritation and resentment, especially by some wound to pride: She was greatly piqued when they refused her invitation.
2. to wound (the pride, vanity, etc.).
3. to excite (interest, curiosity, etc.): Her curiosity was piqued by the gossip.
4. to arouse an emotion or provoke to action: to pique someone to answer a challenge.
5. Archaic . to pride (oneself) (usually followed by on or upon )

"I've piqued your interest, I see," as compared to, "Their single peaked at No. 2 but couldn't quite make it to the top."

And, incidentally, peeked means "to take a quick glance", and is different from both piqued and peaked.

I am piqued when the word 'peaked' is used where 'peeked' should be used instead. And vice versa.

Yes, it's being nitpicky, but this is one of the things that annoys me - like the misuse of the apostrophe, and the new tendency of even published authors to say "should of" or "could of" or "would of"...and worse...for editors not to pick this up.

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What I Did This Week

The truth is that I didn't do much. I sewed the columns of 'Build Me Up Buttercup' together and that was about it.

Build me up buttercup

Looks pretty good (even if the light is pretty crappy) even if my brain keeps saying it's too small! must be bigger! There'll be borders to add a little to it, but I think this one's going to be a lap quilt in the end.

I've been working crazy hours again, and we've been doing stuff on the kitchen, resulting in not much time or space in which to do quilting. But we're still making slow progress on the kitchen - we have cupboards in which to put stuff, and The Big Clean-Up Of Doom is this weekend, so I might get my sewing space back! *hopes*

The Linky Party is on! Go forth! Link! Comment! :)

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

WIP Wednesday: the one with kitchen

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Sorry for missing last week's WIP Wednesday. Work got crazy busy and I worked 56 hours in 5 days, which is considerably above my customary 40 hour week.

So there's been marginal movement on any WIPs...although quite a bit of movement on the kitchen! (That was most of my Saturday, leaving me a little bit of Sunday to relax in... But not enough time to get anything much done on the quilting frong!)

Kitchen renovations

We have a stove! And an oven! And a microwave! And a sink! And cupboards!

(And the tail of a cat!)

Kitchen! Nearly there!

And now maybe we can start moving things back into the kitchen and out of the lounge room (my sewing space), which still looks more or less like this:

The room formerly known as the sewing room.

The Actual WIP Part: Marginal movement

Build Me Up, Buttercup

Sewing the blocks in columns:

Build Me Up Buttercup: sewing blocks together

Halfway through!

Le Petit Poulet

All the points of the uneven stars are sewn into squares:

Le petit poulet

Now I just need the time and space to put them together!

Le Petit Poulet: pieces

...and the bit where I sat on my ass, a.k.a. "No Progress"
New York Beauty: Last two blocks to go!
String Quilt: still sitting in muslin squares
Hidden Harvest binding: Nope.
Go Back To The Jungle binding: Nope.

Friday, July 6, 2012

rainy day giveaway winner!

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The winner of the Amy Butler "Rainy Days" pattern is:

rainydaygiveaway

Commenter #7!

Congratulations, Kathy!

rainydaygiveaway-winner

I'll be dropping you a mail to ask your address and get it off to by the end of the weekend!

Incidentally, I'm afraid nobody got the Pterry reference correct!

pterry

a) The manaical laugh (written in a note sent by the Opera Ghost in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Novel Maskerade)
b) The five exclamation marks. ("The sure sign of a diseased mind." Well, the blog is 'Mad Quilters' Disease' after all!)

Thankyou for stopping by and for joining in with the giveaway!

Giveaway Reminder!

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I'm giving away a spare Amy Butler "Rainy Days" pattern over here! (Giveaway is down the bottom of the post.)

Entries close at 9pm, AEST Friday (ie. another 10 or so hours) and there's only about 14 people - your chances are very good right now!

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

WIP Wednesday: the one with the giveaway

WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced

Soooo, I finally made some progress on longstanding projects of neverending DOOM - not least of which was our kitchen renovations!

Kitchen

We've been without a kitchen since the 20th February, so it's so nice to have this much in! There's a bit of work yet to go, but we might have it done by...oh...spring. :P

Actually, I was hoping to have it done by my birthday (in just over a month) so I could throw a morning tea with all my friends where we bake up a storm. *hopes*

Done!

Books And Blocks Bee

I'm the Queen Bee for July, and I picked the Box Kite block out of the 99 Modern Quilt Blocks book.

Books and blocks bee: July block

Books and blocks bee: July block

I'm going to sash it in white, and post it in darks/blacks, and bind it with rainbows. Once all the blocks come in, of course.

WIP

Build Me Up Buttercup!

Got the last of the blocks done on Monday night at the Quilt-In at Pinky's.

Now it's just the laying out and sewing.

O

I'm not convinced about using the yellow as a background solid. It's not my "thing" if you know what I mean. But it all lays out very nicely, I will say.

New York Beauty

OMG! PROGRESS!

Block 7:

New York beauty: block 7

All those spines! PIECE THE SPINES! PIECE ALL THE SPINES!

Not sure about this colour combo: I think it needs some green, I just hope that the central segment is 'green' enough for it...

I'll make one more block in this colourway and fabric set - Block 8 - and then put the blocks I already have together for a wall hanging. Or possibly a cat mat. Or something. (Most likely 'Or Something'.)

Mum's Impstar

Sewed the binding on. No photos yet - I'll be finishing it off at Sydney SCQuilters group on Saturday, and while watching my hockey club's A-grade team battle it out on Sunday night. (I know my US friends are complaining of heatwaves, but it's hard to sympathise because When the sun goes down around here's it's FREEEEEEZIIIINNNGGG. And I hate FREEEEEEZIIIINNNGGG!)

I should make a 'hockey' quilt, suitable for wrapping around oneself when watching the games...

*puts it on the 'to do' list*

No Progress

Le Petit Poulet: The cut pieces are just sitting there, mocking me.
String Quilt: I sliced up a lot of quilter's muslin into 6.5" squares, prepatory to making a string quilt. I've got crazy scrappage and really need to use it all up.
Hidden Harvest binding: Er, yeah, no.
Go Back To The Jungle binding: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

Bonus Giveaway!

You made it through, and this one's made for yooou. (Sorry. 1980s Australian beer ad moment. Don't ask.)

While planning to make the Amy Butler Rainy Days, I managed to order TWO patterns from two separate retailers. *dings self over the ear*

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So I'm giving one away. Mint condition, never opened. It could be yours!

1. For one entry, leave a comment about one of my projects.
2. For a bonus entry, point out the Pterry reference in my post.

What is a Pterry? Google it. Am I gearing this competition towards the geeks? Why, yes, I am. Am I ashamed of doing so? Uh, no. Can you google the Pterry reference? Maybe.

Comments will be closed Friday night, 9pm AEST and the winner shall be selected by random number generator.

Good luck!

And go check out the Linky Party at Freshly Pieced!