By bedtime last night I was feeling pretty smug as I was sure I had 'cracked' the design for the foundation piecing. Today I tried to implement it using some of the 'what was I thinking?!' fabric found during the clearout. Two of the three subunits went together like a dream and came out looking like they should. But when I added the third one I found i had an acute triangle where I wanted an obtuse one. I suspect this came about as I tried to reduce the elements down to too few and that last triangle I added should have been a reverse of the one opposite, not the same as I have made it. Will get back to it some time when I have some thinking room. The other factor to consider is that this is actually a potential money maker. Why muck about with 60 degree corners when you don't have to? Why go to the bother of strip piecing ( which only works for those whose seams are perfect) when you don't have to? Copyrighting it and marketting it to appropriate end-users might be a useful exercise. I will have to ask the one person in the quilt world who is likely to know and who is also trustworthy (not a common combination) to get ideas as to how to go about it. Failing that, i could always make up some kits and distribute them to some of the shops and see how they go (crib size, not huge ones). But I am rather getting ahead of myself if I can't make this last element work out properly. Awfully chilly here though the promised rain seems to have been a bit half-hearted. Still, just think of those lovely steak and kidney pies waiting to be reheated for dinner!!

The sorting out continues, with all those bags of scrappy bits now either ironed and replaced, or discarded as I have concluded that applique is unlikely to be high on my agenda any time soon. The pie is presently going through its early phases of cooking (i.e. the meat and suitable flavourings are presently slow cooking so they are soft and tender and flavour-some), and the dog is presently demanding to go outside for some reason. Whatever it is it appears to be the same invisible atom that required a flurry of barking and permission to use the front door about half an hour ago. Once outdoors he tried to make a break for the front yard, but is now safely heading downhill to the orchard and freedom of another sort. But he is back in now. Last night i tried to buy a bundle of fat quarters on Ebay. You may well ask 'why?' but the process of sorting through the material I have was sufficient to point out to me that i do not have the right sorts of colours to make the BOM I am enrolled in, and the kits of the 'right' fabric are unavailable. So onto Ebay I ventured and bought myself a bundle of civil war fat quarters so I can make it up using calico as the background fabric. Long story really as the BOM is part of a free craft class I enrolled in when joining Craftsy.com which is a huge website covering off on a number of crafts of which quilting is but one. The pattern for the class is actually a rather modern a-symetric layout sampler quilt which was to be done in bright polkadots and sherbert gelatos. So the civil war fabric is completely at odds with the original design, but there seem to be a number of people using their own colour-ways.I personally err toward natural tones (though there are clear contradictions to that statement in some of the stuff I have made) and these will go nicely with the calico background which I would otherwise have to buy in addition to the fat quarters. So, getting back to the point, I tried to buy these on ebay but the credit card was refused which was silly as there is money available, so we (the vendor and I) concluded the bank had stopped the payment as it was overseas. But no. I had given the wrong expiry date. So all is now well with the world and I have 21 civil war fat quarters winging their way to me for about $1.50 each (which is a lot less than the 4-5 dollars they would cost here in case you non-quilters are having conniptions. and I DO have enough spare bits and pieces of the same fabric ranges to make up any shortfalls. Today, while sorting that lot out, making the steak and kidney pie fillings and so forth, I also continued the sorting and so have only two more piles of fabric (red and brown) to sort through and find a home for. Now it is all neat and ironed, it kind of fits better so hopefully these two piles will fit in comfortably and continue to allow access. A small pile of stuff is also to be taken in on Wednesday and sold at discount rates to anyone interested. And I have printed off some isometric graph paper so I can try to work out how to foundation paper piece the six-pointed stars that I want the blue and white quilt to be made of. I suspect that since it has not been done before it can not be done, but if I fiddle around a bit, maybe I can work something out. The foundations papers I have found to date only make up to a solid star, and I would like the arms of the star to be half midblue and half dark blue so you get the optical illusion of 3 dimensions.

Those of you with (very)good memories may recall that when I first started going to quilting I became terribly ambitious and designed my own lattice quilt. the inspiration was the fact that i had randomly picked three fabrics that I rather liked, and decided that i really should make something of them. Since the Bernina was still in the shipping container and I was still in the caravan, I became even more ambitious and decided to do it all by hand. So I designed and embroidered a central medallion (which I think we can agree is just a bit too subtle and needs a lift) and did all the blocks by hand and by the time I was done I was so sick of hand sewing I took it all up to Caroline's and pieced it together with the machine. But when I came to put the two halves together (it being 'on point) I discovered that the second half was not doing the lattice thing. Or so I thought. So the whole lot was bunged into a plastic bag and I have not looked at it since then. Today I decided I really should move my 'organising' into the spare room. (Remember the organising? I kind of lost interest once I could get into the rooms i usually use). So of course the first job was to organise the Stash as all good quilters will understand. I found one half of the quilt, but not the other half. But rather more rummaging unearthed that too. As well as various bits of fabric acquired with the thought they may be useful for borders, or whatever. So the 'organising' was put on hold as I decided to see if the lattice looked any better now i a not cross-eyed with looking at it. Surely three years should be long enough!! And sure enough, once it was sewn together I struggle to see what my problem was. Perhaps you can spot it? Clearly it is not, presently large enough to do the queen size bed. It needs an additional 30 inches, well 15 inches all around. So borders are the order of the day. I have these fabrics, but none in sufficient quantity to achieve the 30 inches I need. I was thinking the white on green which is also used in the quilt, could make a 2 inch border, to match the proportions of the remainder of the quilt, then perhaps the solid green for a slightly wider strip, but that still leaves me with at least 10 inches to go. The pink is, I feel, rather too pink and needs to be muddier, so I think I will need to take a couple of bits of fabric to Spotlight with me to see what I can work out. I bought a green gingham for the back which is a bit too limey at present, but I recall I had planned to teabag dye it and it should work out OK once that is done. So once that was all organised, I moved onto the fabrics... The idea was to have them grouped by colour. So muddy blues, clear blues, china blues, reds/pins, neutrals (how do I have so many of these, but still can not find the one I need when making something up?), browns, greens, and another group loosely termed yellow which includes oranges and mustards and various other forms of the colour. The three inch strips are ironed and bundled, as are the 2.5 and 1.5 inch strips (you never know when you need a log cabin in a hurry) the orphan blocks all have their own designated part of a drawer. The batiks are all together. And so it goes. Now all I have to to is work out where to put them. They were previously strewn between various locations (and I suspect more are lurking in the bins I have not looked at yet) and those bins and other containers are assigned to 'tops that are almost done but need finishing off', tops that need to be unpicked and re-sewn due to inaccuracies that even I can not cope with', collections of fabric (as opposed to my own collection - these are things that have been picked and grouped by people who know about these things) and so forth. So no prizes for guessing what happens tomorrow. Thought tomorrow I will hopefully be able to spare the time to make those steak and kidney pies that were not made today (individual ones in ramekins I have decided). After sitting up till midnight last night I have, however, finally worked out how to make the quilt top I want to make using the blue and white fabrics - which I have more of than I thought I discovered today. basically dark and mid tone six point stars separated by light hexagons (white with a very light blue pattern or self-patterned). Turns out that what I needed to be looking for was a pattern for Tumbling Blocks. Once I worked that out it was easy...

The overnight temperature forecast for tonight is only marginally lower than the daytime temperatures we endured last week. All very confusing, and making the addition of flannel sheets a bit premature. Still at least they are nice if they are all you have on the bed (until the wee hours that is). This week we agreed to book ourselves in for the quilting and craft fair which is to be held at the Entertainment Centre. The group will be attending on the Friday which could be tricky if I happen to get lucky with the job but the group ticket bookings do not oblige one to attend as part of the group, so I can always go on the Saturday. I missed it last year as it alternates with Launceston (Tasmania being a land of two halves). The previous year when I managed to get there, I found there was so much temptation in my path that I did silly things and bought things I am still looking at and wondering why I did that. So this year I have a plan... lol. I have always rather fancied making one of those blue and white quilts. No idea why as white is not a colour likely to survive in my household, but they do look quite lovely and i can always wrap it in tissue paper and put it in storage for some beneficiary to find in future years (meanwhile gloating over it's beauty from time to time). As a consequence, whenever I see fabric of the right shade of blue, I buy it. No idea what the pattern should be, and not great plans yet. But I do fancy making one. So today I trawled the web for free foundation-pieced patterns of stars on the principle that if they can be blown up to 12 inch blocks (or shrunk down, depending ...) they can be put together with little 3 inch blocks at the intersections and sashing between each block. Whether the sashing will be blue or white remains to be seen. Whether it will work remains to be seen. Anyway it kept me off the streets for the day as I waited for washing loads to finish and made phonecalls to prospects who may or may not actually buy something one day. Once i work out a pattern, I can then get someone who knows that they are doing to work out the fabric requirements and then head off to the fair confident I know what I should be buying. This assumes, of course, that I actually have an income by then. If I don't then it will not be a complete waste of time as I can get in touch with my favourite quilt shop (in Lilydale) at some future date and order the fabric in as I know Deb will get it right if I scan copies of the fabrics I already have so she can do a colour match. Soon to go into the oven is a chicken and potato and leek and preserved lemon pie which will hopefully taste as good as the recipe sounds. Tomorrow is steak and kidney pie time, assuming I remember to get the meat out this afternoon.

Wow! What a glorious day. topped out around the 18 mark, but after the mist burned off it was just glorious - blue skies, gentle zephyrs, birdsong, everything you might want really. I spent the morning indoors despite the temptations and finalised the application, submitting it electronically using their on-line process. Tricky really as they wanted particular file names so they could work out what was who, but this did not allow for distinction between CV, cover letter and selection criteria. In fact you could only attach two files, so I merged the letter and the selection criteria and sent the CV separately - phew. Then I carefully studied the two pie recipes I wanted to make and ventured into town to get the balance of the ingredients. But I forgot to get the leeks, so the pies remain unmade. I could have made the steak and kidney one, but the meat has not been defrosted yet, and microwave-defrosting kidneys does not sound like a good idea to me. So, wood is cut, recipes are ready to rock and roll (albeit on hold till tomorrow) and the fire is laid. Not that it is likely I will be lighting it tonight I have to say. Tonight will be last night once more, since the pies remain a distant dream. My Le Creuset casserole dish appears to have developed some flaws in the internal enamelling which is a pity. I may have to invest in some of those el cheapo cast iron pots from the Reject Shop or Shiploads if they carry them. Will check it out next week while I am down that way getting dog and cat food and some other of the more exclusive grocery items (like a tray of tinned tomatoes since it is casserole season once more). They are probably made in China, but the Indus civilisation (and from them the Chinese) did invent cast iron, so presumably they know what they are doing.

Spent the afternoon snoozing on the couch, much to my embarrassment Should be writing that job application. Must get onto it. It was supposed to be 20 degrees, but I gave up waiting for that by 11:30 and lit the fire. Surprise surprise, it warmed up after that, but not enough to make the fire redundant, so all was not lost. Remade the bed with flannellette sheets - a decision I will doubtless regret for the next couple of nights, but there you go. The braised steak was subjected to another hour and a half in the oven which vastly improved both the texture and the flavour, so no prizes for guessing tonight's dinner. And i have found a tasty sounding steak and kidney pie recipe which I may give a work out to tomorrow. Not sure where in Oatlands I might find some stout, but I will give it a try. And the anchovy essence will just have to wait in favour of your actual anchovies. Allegedly it will be 20 degrees tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see if it achieves it. Meanwhile the other two of the three disasters have arisen. The starter motor of the ute appears to be on its last legs, judging by the sound effects it causes when I try to start the motor. So hopefully no frosty starts for a few more weeks so I can save up to get a new one fitted. And the pump of the hot water cylinder appears to have sprung a leak around the gasket. Was particularly worried due to the electrical connection, but have realised this is off to one side, whereas the leak is running straight down. Fortunately I overpaid the plumber by a couple of hundred quid while I still had money so that one should, hopefully, be fixed as soon as I can get to him (unless it needs new parts in which case I may be boiling the kettle for a while). It never ends does it?

I have been trotting out the same CV for the last 20 years - duly updated with the latest job of course, but otherwise only with minor variations. So today I had an independent third party look at it - someone with no experience in the profession, but some in job applications. So now I am re-writing the CV and adding in stuff I had dropped off over the years for the sake of brevity. And having the final charge at finishing off the selection criteria so I can hopefully email the application tomorrow. Quilting was interrupted by our travelling quilting supplies saleswoman who happily had nothing for me to spend my money on. I did however succumb to the Mancey's sale and bought a pair of bamboo socks which promise all manner of foot comfort not to be expected from lumps of grass woven into fabric. Sunshine and warmer climes today, and tonight, but the casserole is back in the oven, both to reheat and to serve as tonight's dinner. After I have driven back into town to buy dog food (or the dog will be demanding the casserole).