a finish! On WIP Wednesday!

Build Me Up, Buttercup was started, oh, a good 10 years ago!

Its first appearance on the blog back in June 2012. Ten years!

Honestly, a lot of it was spent dithering over whether I should put borders on it or not. It's not a very large quilt, and at the time I was making large quilts.

It finally got quilted and bound for my hockey trivia/quiz night. It went in the silent auction, and a friend ended up having the highest bid on it. Somewhat ironically, I've been thinking I should give her a quilt for some time (we've known each other for twenty-five years, and played hockey for the same clubs for about 2/3rds of that), and so even though the bid she put in didn't even pay for the fabric...I'm okay with that because she had it.

The fabric line is Sanae! Oh my! and came out back around 2011. I bought a layer cake of it and used it in this with Kona Daffodil. However, one of the alternatives was Kona Buttercup, and so it got the name.

I'm glad to have it done and off my plate! And that it's gone to someone I know.

WIP Wednesday: the one with the Grammar Nazi

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.

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! :)

WIP Wednesday: the one with the giveaway

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

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.

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.

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:

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*

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!

WIP Wednesday: The One That Will Leave You Humming

Having missed out on the linky-party last week, I find myself wondering if I should do a recap. Or maybe just send y'all along to last week's post...

Extremely little progress this week on the quilting front. I have a 10,000 minimum word story due tomorrow and spent most of the weekend writing (or, more correctly, failing to write) it. It's presently at 8,872 words and I should have time during lunch today to get them through the present confrontation, to the crisis, and the ending.

Oy, the life of a writer!

Further complicating things is the fact that it has rained all week and so my already-reduced quilting space (thanks to the kitchen renovations which are STILL ONGOING) is full of drying clothes. It's a bit tricky navigating your stash between drying racks.

The only thing I really did this week was start sewing together the blocks of a new quilt.

WIPs

Oh, My!

Take 1x Sanae Oh My! layer cake, 1x quilting book: Scrap-basket Sensations, and a heckuvalotta Kona Daffodil:

Cut:

Sew:

Admire:

I'm starting to call it "Build Me Up, Buttercup" because the Kona colour may be 'Daffodil', but there was a Big Damn Discussion about exactly which shade matched the Oh, My! collection during the planning stages, and the alternative was - you guessed it - Kona Buttercup. Which promptly stuck in my head. And yeah, it's building up the quilt, so...

Stop looking at me like that! This is how my brain works!

Someday, My Prints Will Come
1. Mum's Impstar binding
2. Hidden Harvest binding
3. Go Back To The Jungle binding
4. New York Beauty (I haven't given up on these)
5. May and June Bee Blocks
6. June Birthday Block

You've heard the phrase, "Some Days Never Come" right? *wince*

Incidentally, I apologise for the dodgy photography. As I noted, it's rained all week, and we're heading for midwinter here - long nights, short days. I'm not usually at home during the daylight hours and I don't (yet) have decent lighting in my quilting space. (Heck, I don't even really have a quilting space right now...)

I'm thinking about getting or making a lightbox. Maybe. :)

Oh, and this weekend is the Sydney Craft And Quilt Fair! I shall be venturing in on Saturday (along with every other quilter in the Sydney region and her best buddy) and hope that Jenn has scoped everywhere out already and knows the best places to go! :D

...I just realised that with the key words/phrases 'Buttercup' and 'Someday My Prints Will Come', maybe I should have called this post "The Princess Bride"...

*hums and boogies in her chair*

Linky Party | Freshly Pieced | Go Forth And Peruse!

Heirloom Quilt: "For Everything Else...There's Mastercard!"

I fell in love with the Heirloom collection almost as soon as it came out, and bought a half-yard of my favourite colourway as soon as I could afford it. Possibly sooner than I could afford it, considering I was out of work.

The plan was always to make a big, simple quilt out of the fabric. I simply didn't want to cut down the bold colours into teeny-tiny squares - and I thought the big patterns would look better in big pieces.

So I started cutting the fabrics last Thursday night while over at Penny Poppleton's and it went faster than I expected!

Such bright, lovely fabrics in this collection! So richly sumptuous! I'm particularly enamoured of the magentas and purples, but the pale yellows provide much-needed contrast.

No blocks for this one, just big columns of fabric laid out and sewn together.

It's definitely going to be a quilt with personality...

Current working title: "For everything else, there's Mastercard!"