WOW: WIPs On Wednesdays

My WIP this week is no grand affair: it’s a repair. Yesterday evening, very late and I decided to bind some of my patterns together after my photocopier DIED. But I accidentally insert a photocopier transparency instead of a plastic transparency (distracted by the above) cover sheet and wham!

The piercing blades came down and became fused in the too thin plastic. The effect is like trying to hole punch fabric.

Disaster! No amount of wiggling helped.

And now on top of every other project that needs to get done, I have a binding machine that needs to be fixed. Why didn’t I pay more attention? Luckily, very luckily my DH pulled the machine apart and patiently unscrewed everything…and there were a lot of ‘covers’ and screws and bits that I was convinced would never go back.

I had an instant headache watching my beloved binding machine go to pieces. But then –and this is the most impressive part – it came back together. Perfectly. And it binds better than it ever did. And I can’t remember any other appliance ever successfully coming back together this easily. It feels too good to be true.

The binding machine has been rescued from my carelessness. From broken to brilliant in under one hour. I am so lucky to have a DH who knows how to fix things.

See, I tear myself away from quilting to make biscuits every once in a while and my DH repairs all my mistakes. Ahhh, just the way I like it.

Block 5 Will Not Be Launched On The 15th

Hello Everyone,

Mr. Toshiba, my photocopier died today. Without warning, he just snapped and that’s it, all my day’s plans over. My bright, shiny scanner, PDF converter and printer as well as old fashioned photocopier. The machine designed to streamline all my electronic tools into one smooth unit has stopped working.
This means that this month’s BOM Block 5 of Hearts Desire will not be launched tomorrow, the 15th of June. My DH has already called the technician who will look in on the machine tomorrow. I expect to launch the block on Thursday the 16th or Friday 17th of June, by the end of this week.

I know this is frustrating, but it really can’t be helped. I apologize for any inconvenience, but I simply won’t release patterns unless I am 100% certain that they are spot on when they reach you.

I convert my original patterns firstly by scanning them in, then I PDF convert them. Then, once I have created the pattern into one file and added the instructions, I ‘launch’ it online via my website and print of off from the online source. It’s a triple checking process against my originals. Even 5mm out is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in a pattern.

Hopefully tomorrow will prove a better day!

WOW: WIPs On Wednesdays

It’s still raining. I won’t complain as it is much needed in my garden. The camellias have stated blooming, it’s a wonderful light spot in the garden at the moment. With rain on the glass and the goings on outside cold and shivery – the WIP that comes to my mind is this: The Carriage.

This is a tapestry I started 20 years ago. Yes, 20 years ago. I still haven’t finished it. It was stretched over a tapestry rack, but I have taken to brief stints of hoop work by the window.

This winter I won’t be crocheting, I will be trying to get this done. It’s one of those things you can’t rush. Alas, it’s also one of those WIPs you can no longer purchase matching thread colors for, so I am always looking for tones when I pass an embroidery shop.

I hope to finish it this winter, quilty WIPs notwithstanding.

a Rainy Tuesday

Comment Update: I thought I had my commenting ability back - but for unknown reasons, I am still unable to blog on some blogs - and not others. I am visiting blogs and I love strolling through WOW entries, and I will keep on commenting when I can. If I dont comment, it's because I can't. I will persevere until it sorts itself out.

It’s been raining today and I have been pottering around my things. I’m getting over an annoying bug and haven’t had the motivation to really do anything except the basics, so I definitely haven’t been productive.

I thought, I may as well do a few stints of tidying up my studio so that when I do feel better, I will be ready to get stuck in.

Then I found this. Tucked away under some rather beautiful fabric. It’s my Easter Table Decorations. I purchased these 2 little crates in January and thought, wonderful for Easter –to brighten the table during cake and coffees. Except of course, we didn’t enjoy them at Easter because by Easter I had completely forgotten of their existence…and there’s no way I would have found them in the nick of time, because they were stashed near a project which is still a WIP.

 Another reason to sort my things out. I think I will have to create a decoration box. A place to put all the wrapping paper, ribbons, gift boxes and such that goes missing whenever we have to actually wrap something. Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Now I just have to actually do it.

It is just me, or is your stash so serious

you find things you forgot you purchased???

WOW: WIPs On Wednesdays

I'm sure many of you have heard of Sharon Shamber - she's an extraordinarily talented quilter. I am a member of her network, and once a week I like to take the time to sit down and watch one of her videos with a cup of coffee and get inspired.

I domestic machine quilt freehand, so before getting stuck into quilting work I like to warm up on a cushion, or a table runner or failing having any of those lying about waiting to be quilted...I sketch.

This image is of my quilting sketchy journal. It's also stuffed with recipes and I think there's a long lost invitation in there somewhere too. It's one of those journals that eats important slips of paper and refuses to cough them up when you're frantically looking for them!

I do love quilting and I love how ideas just flow out when I am doodling quilting lines. This is all good news of course, because it means I will soon be quilting something bigger - which means I will be finishing something soon. Ahhhh, I love those days. For today though, my Work In Progress is quilting ideas - pulling in inspiration, mapping out sketches and letting my pen run free.

What's happening in your wednesday?

Thank You For Commenting

Thanks to Everyone who took the time to comment on my last post. It's a relief to know that Blogger is having issues as I sometimes feel like these things only happen to me.

I can't leave comments on blogs - otherwise, it's business as usual on this blog and tomorrow is WOW again. This sure is motivation for me to keep busy!

Monday Madness

Did you take time to browse through WOW last wednesday? Well, I was delighted with it. 19 bloggers took part and I really enjoyed visiting each and everyone to see what they were up to. Thursday and Friday I got back into my own workload and hopefully I will be able to start sharing finished WIPs soon...ish....maybe.

Apologies to those who I was not able to comment on directly, something strange is going on and I am unable to post comments on other blogs at the moment. I was able to post a few and then my sign in fell out - and it never re-accepts it. This only happens via other blogs when I try to sign into the comments section with blogger...and it doesn't effect my actual blogging. Very strange and I can't understand why.

Blogging can be so maddening! I dont know what to do about it, I am hoping it will resolve itself as it's definitely something to do with blogger.

Today, trying to resolve this blogger thing has driven me to baking! Well, yes, I had been putting it off as I've been too busy quilting to do any baking and it's so easy to just buy some nice biscuits. Except, when I read the ingredients listings on biscuits nowadays - it drives me back into the kitchen.

I know it's easier to buy them but I can't ignore how much artificial junk is in them and I like to always have homemade biscuits in the house, for my DH.

Today I have gone the way of Too Simple with this easy easy easy recipe: (makes 25 - 30 teaspoon sized biscuits)

1 cup butter

2 cups flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon cornflour / cornstarch

Simply mix all together ( I put it all together in the kitchen wizz), pop in the fridge for 30 minutes. Then, spoon off some mixture and bake for 10-15mins at 180c or until golden.

These simple failproof recipes are the best. For the jam variety I made a dip with a spoon and filled it with home made jam, for the almond variety I just sprinkled some slivered almonds on top and pressed down.

You can spice it  / modify so easily and it turns out perfect all the time.

Now that the biscuit jar is full, I have quilting work to do, and hopefully I will be commenting again soon...