W.I.P. Wednesday - Triangles

Something I am yet to have made is a triangle quilt.  Until now.  I started on it yesterday, cutting out triangles upon triangles, but still a gazillion triangles to cut out!

I used a template provided by the tutorial I am roughly following, and really was hoping it would be ok!

Last night, I took all of said triangles, and laid them out to get an idea of placement.  Then saved them before Bella the cat mistook them for something for her amusement, and popped them in piles of rows.

And today - well, I sewed together two whole rows of them!  And then stared at them for ages, knowing that they weren't right.  My instincts were correct, and when I trialled sewing the rows together, I stopped after about 3 triangles, and scratched my head.....

The remainder of my afternoon was spent searching the interwebs for help.  And my un-picker was put to good use, painfully.   I found THIS fab bit of advice over at Stiched In Color, and in the end, I figured that the whole "blunt edge" on the triangle did not work for me, so I have now also spent some time shearing the edges off about 60 triangles, getting rid of the blunt edge and making them pointy.  

And what do you know?  I'm now getting perfect rows of triangles with 1/4" overhang to allow for the sewing of rows together.  The fact that it's taken me a couple of hours of frustration and a sore wrist from un-picking really doesn't matter......hmpfffff.

I currently have a few W.I.P.'S on the go - strange times for me!  I will be sharing another of them on Friday........so watch this space!

I'm linking up with W.I.P. Wednesday - which just happens to be hosted by my friend Kristy today! - You can too!

P.S. - To all of you lovely peeps who left me wonderful comments on my Refractatorium Quilt - I THANK YOU!!!!  I've had trouble replying to everyone due to the fact I've had my kids + some here for school holidays!  Please know I LOVE reading your comments and thank you dearly for your encouragement xxx

The Little Phone That Swam. And The Crazy Woman Who Sunk.....

Last Wednesday afternoon, I went and picked up Lochie from school - something that is out of my routine, because he usually catches the bus - got him home and ran inside to quickly use the loo before I had to head out again to get Chelsea and Cadyn.  So in I run, pull down my dacks in a hurry, and then I hear it - Splash.  I recognise the sound immediately and turn around to find my beloved iPhone5 at the bottom of the toilet bowl.  Thankfully it was pre-wee, so I plunged my hand in and rescued thy phone and went about rapidly drying it in a towel and pulling the case off it!  All this whilst my pants were still around my knees - too much information I know!

Less than five minutes later, this is what my phone looked like....

Ms Midge on Instagram

And this is what I looked like.....

Source

What followed this little "incident" can only be described as panic, fretting, fear, loss, grief.....well, you get it?  Within the hour, I had jumped up and down, emailed and rung my husband (he was in a meeting godammit) and then absconded to the shopping centre with Lochie's old Nokia phone to get myself a new sim card.

Within a couple of hours, I realised I had no idea how to use a Nokia anymore, and retrieved my ollllldddddd iPhone3 from a friend who had been borrowing it.  I then exhaled.

Why am I telling you all of this?  Well, after 24 hours of using my uber slow old iPhone, I realised just how much I depend on my mobile phone.  I realised that I do not know my husband's phone number, nor the majority of my friends and family.  I realised my life is entered in to my iCalendar.  I realised I needed to get a life outside of my phone.....

So, where to from here?  Well, I'm very happy to report that after three days buried in rice, thinking my phone was long gone and never to be used again, my darling husband suggested the battery may be flat?  So I plugged it in.....

Flash! Ahhh-ahhhhhhh.......

The old gal (ok, so it's less than a year old) has life in her yet!  She still has a little condensation under the screen, but my friends around the world Google tells me this should dissipate eventually.

What have I learnt from this exercise?

I have learnt that I don't need to check my phone every ten minutes - because when you're using an old phone that is as slow as a freakin elephant, you can't be bothered checking it.  And I have learnt that I should not wander from my normal routines, because when I do, I forget shit and phones fall in toilets!  Yes - I'm blaming my 14 year old son for this whole thing!*

In all seriousness, I am almost embarrassed at how much I depend on this little device.  The fact that it basically lives on one side of my arse most days is a little worrying.  And on that note - where do I store my phone in Summer when I'm donning frocks?  Yes, it's been a long Winter.....

The moral of my story?

Don't keep your phone in your back pocket.  And memorise important phone numbers.  Note to self: take note of these.....

Tell me - where do you keep your mobile phone?  Ever had a "toilet incident"?  Did your phone live to tell the tale?  Spill.....

* Ok, maybe not the whole thing.  Just a little bit.

Who knew? Not me....

So I've been reading hysteria filled posts for months about the fact that Google Reader is closing down. As I read them, I thought "Hmmm, never heard of it" and wondered for a few seconds each time how I read my blog posts and why it wasn't on Google Reader??

Fast forward to a few days ago, when a lovely reader commented that they couldn't find my Bloglovin' follow button thingy, but added me anyway.  And press that fast forward button again to tonight when I finally mentioned said comment to my friend Alyce over at Blossom Heart Quilts.  She suggested that I should add the button for all the new Bloglovin' fashionistas, and to use her tutorial.  So I did.

And who knew?  Well, clearly not me - apparently all these years I HAVE been using Google Reader - in a round about fashion!  Yep, technologically challenged me figured out by signing up to Bloglovin' that when you follow all your blogs through your Blogger Dashboard, it does in fact link up with Google Reader.  Derrrrrrr.......  And I only found this out when I decided to give the "Import Blogs" button a crack.  And 334 blogs a following imported for me.  Ummmmm......

So here you have it friends - 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

I'm working on adding the goddamn button!

xxxx

W.I.P. Wednesday #18 - What a doozy!

Well what a mammoth week I've had!  I was very excited to see Lee's directions posted early Friday morning for putting the Bloom Bloom Pow blooms together, but alas, did not get around to finishing my part until yesterday!  When I started placing it all out on the weekend, I wasn't entirely happy with how it was looking.  I felt like it was too "slim".  So yesterday, I banged out a couple more blooms.

First attempt - 12 blooms

Finished product - 14 blooms!  I was so utterly pleased with myself when I'd finished putting this top together!  I'm really excited to get this baby up to single bed size, and figuring out how to use all the "scraps" to bring it all together.

I love this view.  Sooooo Pretty!

Now my points are far from perfect, but really not too bad!

Another WIP I played with, is my bee blocks for my month being queen!  I chose THESE tutorials, and asked the ladies to use some nice bright scraps and Iron grey homespun.  I LOVE how this looks, and am looking forward to working out the right placement for them.  It is going to become a quilt for our lounge room.  I was sitting in there the other night with a fluffy throw rug on and said to my husband that we needed a quilt for in there.  To which he responded "I'm pretty sure you can fix that!"

So scrappy and yummy!

And this below my friends, is what would be commonly known as "mind numbing production line".  My darling Mother has popped zips in the backs of nearly all 116 cushion covers, so yesterday I spent three and a half hours squaring them all up and sewing them together.  I got through 40 of them!  Just waiting on the extra special labels to arrive so I can bind them all!  I'm getting there.....

And my last WIP this week?  Well, it involves a visit to the car wash.  You see, last week when driving Chloe home from creche, she was complaining of a sore tummy.  Which she does ALL THE TIME.  I changed the subject, and she told me she was going to be sick.  I told her she wasn't going to be sick "don't be silly" I say.  And she vomitted.  In my car.  All over the floor upholstery.  Sooooooo, after several attempts of cleaning and getting the smell out myself, I took it to the car washes for a steam clean.

Only problem being that I got in it today after being locked up all day whilst I was at work, and got that faint little whiff of spew.  Fail.

And that's my week!  I have lots of plans for the coming week, but have no idea how I'm going to manage to pull them all off!

I'm linking up with Freshly Pieced.  You can too!