Priorities vs desires

After my post on Friday I reassessed my wardrobe and decided that I should be able to scrape together enough clothes for a week from my wardrobe and rather than make a shirt what I really wanted to do was start quilting the genome quilt

So that's what I did. Three sets of concentric circles down... lots left to go. I'm loving it so far!

Shifting Gears...

As much as I want to work on my Genome Quilt, a slightly more pressing need has arisen and it has been temporarily put aside.

Shirt Fabric - Top two from Tessuti, bottom one from Clegs. (All a bit crumpled as the photo was taken immediately after removing them from the washing machine to pre-wash the fabric)

I have (finally) found some work, but have discovered that my wardrobe doesn't really cater for work in the corporate world, so urgently need to correct that little issue. Earlier this week I bought a suit jacket and a shirt, but while that's good enough for an interview that's not quite going to be enough to get me through a whole work week! I need at least one more shirt. Rather than buying another shirt, however, I have got fabric for three different shirts in my stash that I really need to get around to cutting into. Thus, I have the weekend to transform at least one of those pieces of fabric into a wearable shirt.

 

I have a number of shirt patterns that I've made before (JJ, Emily and New Look 6732), but none of them are quite suitable. My JJ is great but as it doesn't have a proper collar doesn't feel smart enough for the corporate environment. The Emily shirt I made is in black poplin and is more suited to being a waitor than a receptionist, and the version of New Look 6732 is just a bit of a disaster and makes me feel like a 9 year old (who can't lift her arms more than 45 degrees).

Left: "Emily" Shirt, Right: "JJ" Shirt

I also have a shirt that I bought at Next for my graduation from Uni, but when I put it on the other week I discovered that the bottom half of the back panel is disintegrated, and despite trying to repair it, more rips keep appearing. That shirt fits really well, so I'm tempted to cut it up and make a pattern from it.

"Next shirt"

So, decisions - What do you think? Stick with the JJ pattern, but have a go at adding the Emily collar? Or dismantle the Next shirt and make a pattern from that?

Genome Quilt Top

As promised, some photos of the finished genome quilt top. Sadly the weather has remained miserable here in Melbourne so the photos aren't the best, but I'm eager to baste the quilt and start quilting it so they'll have to do. Everything to say has been said already, so here are the photos:

Genome Shopping...

After posting about the finished blocks I continued on and stitched the blocks together on Sunday as well. It all came together surprisingly quickly. So, yesterday I toodled on down to Amitie to get their advice on batting and quilting and to buy the supplies I need.

Above shows (almost all) my supplies. My quilt top, my backing fabric, and then purchased yesterday from Amitie: Four perle 8 threads to match the gradient of colours, appropriate needles, a new thimble, a marking pencil, more basting pins and some batting (not pictured).

I decided to go with the 100% wool batting that they have, so hopefully the finished quilt will be nice and warm. Also, the batting is nice and fluffy which should hide the lumpiness of some of the seam allowances.

Now, once I've taken photos, to baste... my knees, back and fingers aren't looking forward to it!

Hooray!!

All 49 5x5 blocks sewn together! Hooray!

Now to start sewing the blocks together into the top...

Exciting...

Only 6 blocks left to go...!!!

Guilt Free Diet Breaking

I'm on a self-imposed fabric diet at the moment.I'm trying to not buy any fabric but to finish WIPs and make things out of the fabric I already have. However, there are a few exceptions that allow me to break my diet guilt free, and a purchase I made last week was one such exception.

I have been pondering what to use for the back of my genome quilt ever since I started it. Initially I was considering a pieced back with the same fabrics as the front in a coin quilt style design. But then I worked out exactly how much fabric I'd need to do that and my student budget got a little overwhelmed and I abandoned that idea.

I have since decided that I'm going to hand quilt this quilt, so decided that the less seams on the back the better, as the front of the quilt has enough bulk in it, I don't want to make the quilting any harder than it needs to be. So since making that decision I've been keeping an eye out for suitable fabric. Obviously the fabric needed to fit into the colour scheme of the quilt, but I also didn't want anything too busy, but equally didn't want a solid - I want some small disguise to my inevitably messy quilting!

Then I saw this fabric at GJs at the SASE last month and got a swatch of it to compare with my fabrics in the quilt. After comparing it to my quilt blocks and thinking about it for a month I went back last weekend to buy some. It is in their backing section, so is 2.4m wide (I think, it may be wider), it really is one massive square of fabric. It was still only $20/m, meaning that as I only had to get about 2.5m, the back cost about $50 rather than over $100 as it would with normal quilting fabric due to having to buy twice that length. Another bonus is that my quilt back will have NO seams at all! The fabric is also really soft, particularly now I've pre-washed it.

I really love how it looks with all of the fabrics in the quilt (as much as that matters for the back) and I think I'm going to bind the quilt with a navy blue to even out the green/blue balance.

The next decision is batting... any suggestions/tips?

"Oh Beehave" - June Block

I'm currently waiting on corrections of my thesis at the moment, so have finally had a chance to take some time out and do some sewing, so this evening I decided to get caught up on my bee blocks.

June's block for the MMQG quilting bee "Oh Beehave" was for Helene. Helene asked for a scrappy, but not wonky, 15.5" log cabin block:

Aren't her fabrics gorgeous!