This quilt is consuming my brain. I can't bring myself to change the thread in my machine to work on something else. I'm so curious to see how it turns out I just have to keep working on it. It's almost all I think about while I'm at work and the first thing I want to do when I get home. I've got six large panels done now. I tried to lay them out on the floor on Saturday morning, just to get an idea of how I'll be putting things together and how big this quilt will be, but the floor would not co-operate.

I decided to move on to step two.

The bag of scraps this quilt came from included pieces of muslin along with all the quilting cottons and I had decided to just sew in the muslin scraps like everything else. Once I was working with larger pieces of quilt top I thought the muslin looked a little too plain and wanted to spruce it up a bit.


I had a package of Sublime Stitching embroidery designs (actually intended for some very comfortable but boring underwear) that looked perfect for the task. This is the Flower Power set and they are a lot of fun to use. I transferred on different designs for different sized pieces of muslin, kind of randomly. Some of the larger pieces were big enough for two or three designs to fit together. A few pieces were too small for anything. I experimented with using different stitches (well, stem stitch) but mostly stuck to back stitch because it's so easy.


I'd forgotten how much I enjoy embroidery. It's so quick and satisfying. I don't know why I don't do it more often. There must be all sorts of things I could embelish. You can make it as complicated as you like, though I tend to keep things rather simple. I like the way it makes me think about the weave of the cloth I'm working on; something that was previously a smooth expanse becomes a network of lines and spaces and I'm trying to decide which space would be best to push the needle through.


I love the textural quality of embroidery. It always seems like it should just be flat - it's a line drawing after all - but the design is raised and almost sculptural. I like to think that even someone who could not see would enjoy touching a piece of embroidery.


For those tiny spaces too small for any of the transfer designs I realized I could make things up. A fun adventure and not anywhere big enough to be intimidating. I'm now finished two of the quilt panels but that doesn't really tell me how many embroidery patches I've got left because the muslin pieces are not evenly distributed throughout the quilt. I know there is one with cat-tails still to do; I'm thinking of trying some satin stitch.

So, about that mail ...

It was actually two packages: one from The Workroom and the other from Mokuba (who don't seem to have a proper website), both in Toronto. What are all these lovely goodies for? Underwear.


Amy, of Angry Chicken, has been talking about making her own underwear for a while now and I thought it was kind of cool. Then I saw what Karyn, of Make Something, had made and they were so cute. I've been wanting to learn how to sew with knits and underwear seem like a perfect little starter project.


Karyn's underwear were made for a class at The Workroom in January so I called them up to see if they still had the pattern and fabric in stock. They did so I placed my order and waited for it to arrive. The pattern is this one and the fabric is a bamboo jersey that is just so soft. I got two different colours, just a half metre of each.  I can't wait to wear it (If I can get the hand of sewing with knits I'm thinking of getting more and copying one of my favourite tops). The Make Something pin was an extra in my parcel and is currently sitting on the shelf above my sewing machine; I'll need to find it a good permanent spot where I can always see it.


In her blog entry Karyn also suggested places to find trims. Since I had a few pictures to work from I decided to go with Mokuba since they are in Canada and it's always nice to shop 'local' (I also couldn't find anything nearly as nice online). I was shopping mostly blind but the woman on the other end of the phone was really patient and pulled out and described all sorts of things for me while I pictured them in my head and said yay or nay. It was so much fun to open the package.


Now that I've got everything together I can't wait to start sewing ... as soon as I'm finished this quilt top.

I forgot my camera on my desk at work today so of course what I most want to do is take pictures and blog. Picture taking is pretty much a no go without the camera (it's too grey outside to even try out my sunprint kit) but blogging I can do. This is a cake I made on Sunday.

We got a basket of BC peaches at the grocery store on Saturday and I decided to use a few of them for an upside down peach cake. I used this recipe but added cinnamon and nutmeg to the topping (about 1/4 tsp each) and some more nutmeg to the cake (I was aiming for a teaspoon but since it was grated in I don't really know what it was). I like nutmeg. The cake was delicious and moist and not too sweet, except for the topping which was very sweet, but that was perfect with the cake.

I got to eat several pieces of peach while I was cutting slices. So good. I think fruit tastes better when I comes in a basket - even if it's a cardboard one. We've got lots of peaches left. I'm thinking of crumble or maybe fool or maybe just over the sink (because they are that juicy).

I'll try to remember my camera tomorrow; I've got some fun mail to share.