The First Week of March

March is the official start of autumn here, but the weather, other than one day, has definitely not been autumnal, with every day for the next week forecast to be over 30 C.  There were storms all around our area yesterday, with lots of thunder, but we didn't get any rain.  No rain is forecast for the next week either.

We have had some lovely sunsets.

I have been playing in my sewing room.  I mentioned that it needs a bit of a tidy up before I can get productive.  

Well, I made a start, cleaning, not jut tidying, my sewing table, cutting table and the little shelf above it. 

Not only that, we finally hung my new items on the minis wall, being Sunbonnet Sue, the vintage felt picture of a girl stitching and a silly picture I found at a markets.  

I may know things, but most of them are of no consequence.

Mind you, it is not as tidy now and the rest of the room still needs lots of work.

Once that was done I started to contemplate my panel quilt.  Despite being a juvenile design, it would need to be a sizable quilt as the pane is the full width of fabric.  I decided to just use the simple pattern that I used last month.

Firstly, I did a little drawing to work on colours.  

For that I needed to get out my pretty tin.

This is inside.

And inside the pretty cardboard box.

These are my colouring pencils from school.  Some date back to kindergarten, all duly marked with my initials so they wouldn't get lost.  Not today's throw away society.  They were well used, and yes, I still used some of those tiny stubs for this project.  One thing about pencils is that they don’t dry up or go off.  The pencil at the top of the photo was precious to me, as it was the perfect colour for skin when colouring in.

I digress....

Anyway, after a couple of days of fiddling, I now have a quilt top and the binding prepared.  Monique still needs to be excavated before I can quilt it.

While stitching the quilt I pieced my RSC split nine patches as leaders and enders.

On another note, while working on the quilt I noticed that the steam wasn't working on my iron.  Blast!  Then, I realised that not only that, there was next to no heat coming out of the iron either. Double blast!!  Time to go shopping.  I had received a gift voucher for Christmas that I could use for it.  Perfect.  Once an iron had been purchased it was time to get working again........but when using steam, the iron was spitting all the time.  Not good.  Time to be returned to the store.

I started to see what other options there were for irons, as most stores all sold the same models, and discovered that Spotlight had a sale and Oliso irons were reduced.  Whenever they come on sale there are never any in stock at our local branch, but this time there were.  Bonus! 

So, now I am the proud owner of a pretty pink iron that matches my sewing room and it works beautifully. 

I even tidied up and cleaned the dresser behind my ironing board so that I could take a photo to share.

While I was going, I set up my second display cabinet of thimbles.  I have have one for years and about a year ago found an identical one.  It has taken me until now to fill it, with thimbles that have been tucked away in all sorts of odd places.  

Some are rather beautiful silver ones, even down to tiny child sized ones.  It's good to have them on display.  The tiny house at the bottom is a thimble holder.

Also, about a year ago, I came across an antique half doll with beautiful features and mohair hair for next to nothing.  She has just been laying around until now.  

She is now sitting upright in a vase in the china cabinet.  I don't think I will make her into a doll.

So what next?

The March fish block pattern released, so it is time to start playing with colours. I have already cut more background fabrics for the rainbow version as well as the batiks.  I need to get three month's blocks prepped for the second quilt.  It will keep me amused for a while.

I still have to make a start on my One Monthly Goal, but that will be after I complete the panel quilt.

But first……start sorting out the rest of the mess in my sewing room so I can use Monique.

Yes, 15 minutes has been spent each day.