Hot Hot Fabric

Here's a few of the pieces that I tray-dyed yesterday in all that hot hot weather. Quick and easy to do and always a surprise how it turns out. Definitely too hot for ironing it so that will have to wait.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot

It got to 44 deg C today (thats 111 deg F) . Much the same yesterday and expected to be the same tomorrow. So what do you do when your hot hot hot? Well I've been itching to do some direct dyeing for a while but that would need space to spread out fabric and that would mean working in the shed. Definately not a job to do in this heat so I contented myself with some tray dyeing. I have quite a bit of print fabric that I want to overdye. You don't see the print on the reverse side of the fabric and when it's been dyed it doesn't look any different to plain fabric. Turns something I wouldn't use into some thing useable and doesn't cost anything.

Tomorrow I'll show you how it turns out.

Thumbs up - Thumbs down?

I'm not really sure what I think about this quilt top. I put it together over a year ago. Occasionally I pin it up on the design wall and wonder if I feel like doing something to it. Whether I might use the other bit of hand-dyed pinned up next to it in a border, or just wad it up in a ball and toss it. It's probably the colours. I'm just not a yellow, green, orange person.

I have no recollection of what was going through my head when I started it. Let me know what you think.

Real Age

Are you in good shape for your age? I did an interesting quiz today. Occasionally I watch Oprah and the other day they were doing one of their medical type shows with Dr. Oz. They had members of the audience do this quiz with lots of questions on different aspects of their lifestyle, health, diet, exercise, cholesterol etc and from this they determine your REAL AGE not just your calendar age. Quite a nasty surprise for some of the audience members. Someone may be 45 but due to being overweight, smoking or not eating right their real age could be closer to 60. Or, your real age could actually be less than your calendar age.

Well I was quite surprised to find out that my real age is 45, 6 1/2 years less than my calendar age. I'm 5'5", 61kg (134lb), I exercise, don't smoke, hdl:ldl ratio is 1:1, BP is on the low side of normal, low stress, rarely eat junk food or take away, and I'm very careful about what I do eat. People usually say I don't look 51.

Try it http://www.realage.com/. Helps if you've had a recent blood test and know your cholesterol etc. In Australia we use mmol/l and in the US mg/dl. Just multiply by 38.67 to convert cholesterol and 88.57 to convert triglicerides.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years? Part 2

OK its Part 2. Don't groan. I said I'd give you the abridged version. Then we'll get on to the quilty stuff. I suppose the most memorable bit of 2008 was ending up in hospital for a week in December for a bowel resection. I have Crohn's Disease and although I haven't had a flare up for over 2 years some previous bouts had caused some problems and the surgeon needed to remove about a 12" section. I seemed to recover from it very quickly and even got back to the gym after a few weeks. Nothing too strenuous.


I managed to get quite a bit of hand sewing done while I was in the hospital. I've been doing this very traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden (English Paper Piecing) for most of last year. It's my 'take to meetings' project when I can't get to a sewing machine. It might get finished in another year or so. It needs to be about twice as big as it is.

So?....watcha been doing for 2 years?

I noticed the other day that this is the 2 year bloggerversary of my last post and as good a reason as any to get back to blogging.

Quite a few things have happened since then and I've been sitting here trying to remember them all. Don't worry. I'll just give you the abridged version.

I suppose the main change has been that my mother moved in to live with me at the start of 2008. (remember I told you - only child of an only child of an only child.....) She turned 90 last week and drives me insane most days. She had been living on her own since my dad died 7 years ago and in mid 07 had a pacemaker fitted. A couple of months after that she had a fall and broke her wrist. It became clear that it wasn't really a good idea for her to be living on her own. This necessitated the recently relocated studio in bedroom 2 to relocate again to bedroom 3 so that she could have the bigger room. And Daniel (son No.2 age 24) to relocate himself entirely to his fathers house, a few kilometres away, instead of living in both places.
Daniel spent a month in Greece with his girlfriend in July 07 and then went to Scotland for a couple of weeks.
I'll tell you some of the other things next time.
Only a modest amount of non work related sewing was accomplished. A few quilts, including this one using my own hand-dyes.