Then I came across this beauty. It’s the Boho Honeycomb Quilt designed by Erica a Kitchen Table Quilting, and it incorporates the new hexagon precuts from Moda. And that’s where I hit my first roadblock. For all my searching, I can’t find them in stock anywhere in the UK, and with shipping from the US, it’s hardly worth the convenience of not having to cut them yourself, so I’ve resigned myself to having to cut them myself – I’ll only need 36 after all, and they’re not tiny. But if anyone knows anywhere in the UK that stocks them, please let me know!

So anyway, next up was deciding on a colour scheme. I wanted to keep it fairly mellow, but not bland, and I knew I wanted to use grey for the spaces in between the hexagons. I looked at print after print after print, and couldn’t find anything that felt right. And then it occurred to me to use solids, and everything suddenly fell into place.

Here’s what I came up with:

I’ll need about a metre of each, except for the dark grey that’s going to be the “filler” colour of which I’ll need two. I’ve not yet decided on backing or binding, but I’m a heck of a lot further on now than I was before. My next problem is that I will have to wait till my next pay-day to actually buy any of these fabrics, since my wallet needs to stay under lock and key till then.

But not to worry, I have plenty of things to occupy myself with until then. I still have to finish my two hexagon cushion covers, and two more in the same fabrics made from hst:s, some place mats for my mum, and some other bits and bobs for around the house – and I have the material for all of them already.

One finished cushion cover top. I love the fabrics and colours. I almost feel a bit sad that I have to give it away when it’s finished.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say that you can also find me on Bloglovin now.
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I was terrified when I sat down at the sewing machine to start putting down those squiggly little lines onto my carefully basted quilt sandwich. I started, did a whole section before I noticed that my thread tension was too loose. I had to unpick it all again – quite disheartening, but I started again, did it over and did it right. And the further I went, the better I got and the better it felt.

I used mostly scraps for the patchwork, and it felt good to use up the little bits of fabric left over from three other projects. And I do love the texture that stippling gives to the quilt. I think I might even like it better from the back.

As you can see I decided to add some colour to the grey back, turning the quilt somewhat reversible, depending on how playful you feel, I suppose. The grey binding works well with both the back and the front – it adds framing to the design on the front, and doesn’t distract from the simplicity of the back.

So there you have it. My first free motion quilted quilt. I’m so proud!

It’s available to buy from my Etsy shop.

The fabrics are for two different projects, and the one I’m going to write about today is a baby quilt for a newborn baby girl. The quilt will be a simple, but very cute plus design, using a plain white cotton as the base. You get an idea of the pattern below.

Since the entire quilt is made up of square or rectangular pieces, it was fairly quick and painless to cut up. I only have an A4 cutting mat as well, so the fact that none of the pieces are very large was a big plus. I used one fat of the fat quarters to make up the binding, and off I went.

The quilt top came together far quicker than I had expected, and without any major incidents. I only had to use the seam ripper once, and only for a very minor mistake. Hooray!

Instead of making the back entirely in plain white like I had originally planned, I added a vertical row of leftover pieces from the front, and I love the effect!

But you’ll have to wait to see the finished product until the quilt is complete and has reached its new owner. I’ve still to hand stitch about half of the binding, sew on the label, take photographs and deliver it to the new parents.

Stay tuned!

My first quilt – it’s finished! I’m so proud, and feel so accomplished while I let it warm me when I watch TV at night. And as you can see below, the cat seems to approve as well.

She can’t get enough, actually. Seems to love the soft cottons that lend themselves so well to snuggling.

The quilt itself is about 150 cm x 170 cm. I haven’t measured exactly, but it’s enough for two adults to snuggle up under, and it makes a great throw for our quite large sofa.

The binding was hand stitched to the red backing by yours truly while watching the Brits, and a number of episodes of various cooking shows, and about 4 episodes of Archer. The quilting was done on my little Singer, and I must say I’m amazed at how much it could handle.

So there you have it. I want to do it all over again now!

I ironed the backing and started laying everything out in the back room. Thankfully the floor space was large enough, but only just. Who knows what I’ll do if I decide that I want to make a quilt for our bed one day.

Anyway, the cat was very interested in this part of the process. Mainly in lying on top of things I needed, getting hair on the quilt, and trying to eat the tape I was using to hold the quilt back straight. I ended up having to shoo her away and closing the door.

I must say, though, the basing was much harder work than I had anticipated. When I was done putting all the safety pins in I was exhausted and sweaty, but very very satisfied. It’s about halfway done in the picture below, and I’m sorry about the poor quality, alright. When everything’s done, I’ll borrow Kev’s massive camera and take some proper pictures. Right now I’m just waiting for my sewing machine feet to arrive, so I can start quilting. I’ve ordered both a walking foot and a darning foot, and I keep changing my mind about which one I’m going to use. The sensible part of me says it’s probably not a good idea to start with free motion quilting on my first quilt, and then the other, braver part wonders how hard it can be.

I want to quilt along the zigzags, so there’d be a lot of turning and twisting involved with using a walking foot, so a darning foot would maybe be easier in that respect. But then I’ve never done it before, so I have no idea how much practice I would need to do it. can I even go in a straight line on my own? Argh! I’ll practice a bit when they arrive and decide then.

Basting the quilt

Now, it’s not perfect – far from it. The piping is a bit loose in places, and the quilting is a bit wobbly due to me not owning a walking foot for my sewing machine yet. I also cut the pieces by hand using scissors, making the edges very wobbly, and a bit frayed, but that didn’t show up in the final result, thankfully. All in all though, I’m very happy with the result. It’s the first time I’ve sewn anything since I moved out of my parents’ house almost 10 years ago.

My success freshly in mind, I started planning something bigger – a quilt:

I decided to go for something we can use around the house, so I picked out the colours of out living room, and decided on a fairly straight forward chevron pattern. Since I drew this, though, I’ve added two more blocks both vertically and horizontally, since I realised the finished quilt was going to be too small. So the numbers pictured are way off. But you get the idea of the design, at least.

I went to the fabric store and got a rotary cutter, a quilting ruler, thread, batting, and the fabrics I thought I needed, plus some bits and pieces, and a couple of extra fat quarters that I just couldn’t leave without. They turned into this, another cushion:

I’m actually very pleased with this one. It feels much more finished than the one above, and I just love the vibrant colours and sharp lines.

And then I went back to the quilt. I did a lot of cutting and ironing.

A lot of sewing triangles

And this is where I’m at now:

I’m going back to the fabric store again after work today to buy the extra bits of fabric I need, as well as some grey thread for the actual quilting. Hopefully the walking foot and the darning foot that I ordered will arrive before the weekend so I can finish this beast then. I’m gonna use the walking foot to quilt this quilt, and then I’ll practice using the darning foot on some matching place mats or mug rugs for the coffee table. Free motion quilting feels a little daunting to start off my quilting career with, so starting small feels like the way to go.

More pictures will come as I progress!

xx

2012 was an eventful year for me in terms of life changing events, and it feels like they took up so much energy that the year just rushed by.

The Beginning

It started quietly enough with a spot of house hunting, along with a weekly meetup with GLoC – The Glasgow League of Comics, which was (and still is) heaps of fun. It got me back into drawing again, something of which I’m immensely grateful. I also got to know some great people, and it motivated me to finally start drawing that web comic that I’ve always wanted, but more about that later.

I can’t remember exactly when it was now, but it was before we moved from the flat, but after we had been to view our new house, so it must have been at some point in March, or maybe February. Anyway, my mum called me, I was in the living room at the moment, and I can remember staring out the window at the bare trees in the communal garden when she told me that her an my dad were splitting up after 27 years of marriage. I was dumbstruck. I really didn’t know what to say, or do. I called my brother afterwards and he seemed to be taking it better than me. I was upset, but I was determined not to take it out on my parents. I reminded myself that they are both adults and that they knew what they were doing. It didn’t help much, but eventually it got better.

At the end of March, we found our house. We had been looking at house after house after house for weeks, and I was ready to give up and just convince Kev to buy a house I knew wasn’t perfect just because I wanted a proper home, not a rented flat, so, so much. He asked that we went to see a couple of more houses, showed me some pictures, and even though I wasn’t impressed, I agreed. We brought Kev’s parents along to the viewing and there it was – our house.

It was the longest viewing we’d been to, mainly because of the very talkative owners, but also because neither of us could quite believe it. When we finally left and got into the car we both just had one word to say: Yes. We put an offer in the next day, it was accepted, and on the 12th of April, the keys were ours.

We spent a couple of weeks renovating and moving our stuff in – there was a lot of pink, both on the walls and in the carpets, that needed to go before we could move in. We got bits and bobs from friends and relatives to fill the house with until we could get our own stuff, we poured over expensive furniture (I’m still doing that) and eventually, the house started to feel like ours. I still get quite giddy sometimes, thinking about the fact that it’s ours, that we can live there for many, many years. We’ve become people that talk about loft extensions and kitchen islands, and discuss what colour we want in the hall when we get around to painting it. I love it.

We had a big house warming party, and all I can remember is having too much to drink and zooming around, frantically trying to talk to everyone, only to forget who I’d already spoken to the minute after. I had a wonderful time though, and I think everyone else did too. My parents came, and it was weird. They were normal, and seemed ok, and yet they were different. It was nice to see them and hug them and talk to them after only having spoken to them on the phone about everything that happened. I think it settled me to have them both there, to see that they were going to be ok, that I was going to be ok with them be ok apart.

The Middle

Summer came along quickly, and brought with it a trip to Sweden, and more home improvement. We had a busy holiday, if there’s such a thing, travelling around Sweden, visiting friends and family and doing a whole load of walking and walking and looking out train windows. We went to Copenhagen, Malmö, Lund, Öland, Kalmar, Gothenburg, and my hometown, Trollhättan where we stayed a few nights in each of my parents’ new flats. It was a great holiday, although I think this year I’ll be wanting more time in a sun lounger, and less time catching trains and buses.

When we got back from the holiday, I convinced Kev to come with me to the local animal rescue centre, something we haven’t regretted since. Mainly because of this:

She’s Suzie, and she’s quite a character. She’s settled into our wee family so well, and I’m still amazed at her little face, and the funny things she gets up to. She loves to sleep on the pile of clothes next to my side of the bed, if she’s hungry she’ll alert you by making lots of noise, she goes crazy for her catnip banana, and she will not stop trying to drink water from the bathroom tap even though we don’t let her. Meow!

Although Suzie helped keep my spirits up, by august I was feeling increasingly downhearted, worried and experienced a severe lack of energy and will to do anything. I knew the symptoms.  So I left work, cried in the car on the way home, and went to the doctor the next day to get time off for stress related depression. I had been feeling the pressure at work lately, and it made sense – the doctor agreed. But I kept getting worse, kept getting more symptoms; nausea, my eye sight was getting worse, heart burn, dry mouth, needed to go to the toilet all the time. Then I though I got the flu, I was vomiting and shivering and I was extremely tired. I went to the doctor and got my sick note extended by another 3 weeks. Then next day I developed difficulties breathing. We called NHS 24 in the evening and they sent an ambulance. My heart rate was through the roof, and I still felt like I couldn’t breathe, so they took me to the hospital where I was seen to right away.

I drew a comic about it while I was getting better. Click it to see a bigger version:

I’m very pleased with how I was taken care of and treated at the hospital. All in all I’ve had a very satisfactory experience, as far as going to the hospital while really, really ill can be.

I’m still learning to cope with all of this, and I think I will be for a long time, but I’m doing well, I’m feeling well, and that’s what matters in the end.

The End

The following months were all about learning. I had more time off work when I got out of the hospital, so I could learn to cope with my new medication and my new diet in my own home, at my own pace. I went back to the hospital to see the nurses twice, then once a week, which was a tremendous help in keeping everything straight inside my head, and in not freaking out. I was already doing ok with my diet, so there wasn’t that many new things to learn. I just had to figure out which combinations of food and medication worked for me and my body, and I’m still doing that.

I think the best thing about all of this is that it kick-started me a bit. I got more creative, I started doing things that I had mostly worried about before, it was easier to talk to new people, and well, it was like I’d become the person I remembered being many years ago, before anxiety, and before… well, before.

Having type one diabetes still scares the shit out of me sometimes. I think about what could happen, all those what ifs that were so paralysing before, even when I wasn’t sick – except now I’m able to push them away and convince myself (rightly so) that they won’t happen because I’ll be prepared, and there’ll be people around me that will help, and mostly because I know what I’m doing and I can handle this. And I will not, will not, think of myself as a sick person, because I’m not. I’ve got a thing that I need to control, and if I do that I will be well, I will do well, and I will never ever become one of those people who’s whole life revolves around having a thing, being sick, being your condition or your disease – never.

So, I started being a bit healthier. I cut out sweets entirely, stopped eating crisps, and cooked healthy meals. I started baking my own bread every week, and it’s lovely.

Since Christmas of 2011 I’ve now lost 15 kilos. I can’t even believe it, it doesn’t feel like it. But when I look at old pictures I can see that I have, and it feels nice. And the nicest thing is that I eat. I don’t go around feeling hungry, I eat three meals and two snacks every day, and I allow myself to pig out occasionally.

And then there was the web comic. www.fairygodsis.com. I started it in November, had a break for Christmas, and it’s still going. That’s the longest I’ve ever kept anything like that going, and that also feels really great. It’s like I got my creativity back. I think that came with feeling better though. I’ve always been creative, but self doubt and a sense of not being good enough has put many a roadblock in my way.

We spent Christmas at our house, and it brought the whole family together. My brother came over, and saw the house for the first time, mum and dad were there, as were Kev’s parents, and I was loving every minute of it, even in spite of having a horrendous cold the whole time. I cooked Christmas dinner, a combination of Scottish and Swedish holiday delights, and everyone ate and were merry.

And that was my 2012. Eventful, if nothing else. But when I look back on it, I don’t see the year I got sick, I see a year where I bought a house, where I learned a whole lot about myself and what I want in life. I see the year I got a wonderful cat, the year I got creative, and I see many years to come, that can only be better.

By Tyler James

I’ve finally had the opportunity to sink my teeth into Diablo III, and completed normal mode last night. Not a great feat, I know, but I’m having a blast, so I don’t care. I’m looking forward to it getting more difficult, I’m looking forward to the secret level, more co-op and more items. In short, it’s a game I look forward to playing every day, I’m excited when I start up the game, and I have so much fun while playing, not to mention the fact that I get to play with old friends that I probably wouldn’t see as much of otherwise.

I know there are complaints about later difficulties and gear balancing and all that, but I’ve not experienced it myself yet, so I don’t feel that It’s my place to comment on those issues.

So right now, there’s only one problem.

I visit the official Blizzard site for Diablo III fairly often; to get news about the game, look at the guides, and to get a feel for what’s going on in the community. But I’m going to stop the latter. In fact, I’ll probably take all of my business elsewhere, and that’s in no part due to Blizzard or any of its employees.
I am so sick of the fanbase. Regardless of the region (EU or US) they are horrible, whiny ungrateful little shits. Sure, there are exceptions, and I commend them for trying. But the fact of the matter is that they are alone in the dark, pitted against hordes and hordes of rabid opponents. Sounds familiar? Unfortunately these gems of common sense and tact do not possess nephalem powers, and can’t possibly hold the fort agains the aforementioned hordes.

So I’m going. Bye battle.net. Hello Diablofans.