Then I started the first cat portrait inspired by the t-shirt design. Since Slinky is a tuxedo cat he was mostly the same colour as the background cloth so there wasn’t a lot of point in filling in his body with black thread. I decided to outline him in blue instead. This meant it was a much faster piece to stitch, and I finished him a couple of days after the con.

Unfortunately I came down with the ‘con crud’ – the cold that was going around. Fortunately it wasn’t too bad so far as colds go, so I made some more cat portrait designs on the computer.

I’m really enjoying embroidery, which I would not have predicted. Perhaps I was put off by all the twee and old fashioned designs of things like ducks and flowers. Not that ducks and flowers couldn’t be awesome, if the style of artwork was interesting. Which seems to be the key. I’m enjoying the challenge of choosing or making designs that suit my tastes.

The closer relationship with art appeals to me. I’d like to try turning line drawings into pieces, like this and this. To do that I need to find an effective way to transfer laser prints to cloth. I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting, but the results will have to wait for another post.

I grabbed it because the fabric was soft and said ‘sew these squares into a blanket’ to me. Quilting has never interested me, despite having several friends over the years who enjoyed it. I admire other people’s work but I’ve not been tempted to do it myself… except the occasional quilting-ish project. Like when I saw knitting blogger made a simple rough-edged blanket a few years back.

A few months ago I decided it was time to try it when I saw this tutorial via Pinterest for a ‘Jelly Roll Quilt‘ which uses much the same method. I bought some dark blue flanelette to back the pieces and some batting. The beauty of this method is the fabric, batting and backing are sewn together all at once. But you do need to sew the three together beforehand for stability.

Instead of lines across the squares, I decided to sew around the leaf shapes by hand. Then I traced them off and used them as templates on the rest of the pieces.

When they were all stitched up I brought out the machine and got sewing. Squares together then once around the outer edge to finish. Exposed edges snipped with pinking shears. Done.

The front:

And the back:

It’s a lap blanket size, which is fine because that’s what gets used the most here.

The hand stitching of the leaf shapes took the longest, yet I enjoyed that part the most. It’s one of the prompts that had me trying some embroidery. One tip I would give anyone thinking of trying this is to hand sew the batting down before washing the quilt, as it tends to bunch up inside the squares.

Now that this project is done, I’m thinking of turning the curtain fabric swatch book samples (on top of the flanelette sampler on the right of the first pic above) into throw pillows. I need to find some similar fabric to add some contrast, and I’m thinking of doing strips – and perhaps adding some embroidery.

This year I was asked to bring some weaving in for “We do this stuff so you can write about it”, where several people made themselves available for writers (or anyone else) wanting to ask questions about their hobbies or jobs. This time I’m bringing in stick, inkle and rigid heddle looms, but not the table loom because I’ll be using public transport.

This time I set up a stick loom using dowels rather than straws:

I have one of the heddles I bought along with the Sunna heddle to demonstrate making inkle bands using a ‘backstrap’ method rather than a loom.

And I have the Ashford Knitters Loom set up with a scarf warp on it for people to try out weaving on.

I thought I’d try backstrap weaving, too, but after two failed attempts using a not particularly clear tutorial I gave up on that idea. I don’t know whether it was the tutorial or me, but all I seemed able to make was a big tangle. Fortunately I was able to salvage most of the yarn.

I also put a pick-up project on my mini inkle loom, but decided I would take a photo of it instead so I have less to carry.

And I got Paul to take video of myself weaving on the inkle and table looms.

I was occupied for most of the session, though I know as a writer I’d have been more interested in taking advantage of experts in police procedures, fencing (the sword-wielding kind) and horse management. But the weaving attracted interest and two willing testers. In fact, I suspect that one of the testers may be venturing into the realm of rigid heddle ownership quite soon.

Unfortunately, for most of the con I was hovering between being in pain from my back or zonked out on pain killers, so I’m pretty amazed I managed to make any of it sound exciting. And now I have ‘con crud’, the inevitable cold/flu/whatever that does the rounds at these things. Thankfully I have this week off, though it is always annoying when you’re sick during your ‘holidays’.

Still, I’m well enough to browse the internet, read and do some stitching. I nearly finished my Slinky Cat piece over the weekend, so I need to design a few more cat portraits to embroider.

Making wine glass charms has been on my mental must-do-someday list for a long time now, but I never got around to it – not even when I had my big jewellery-making temporary obsession last year. Then I saw these and realised if they were all different then they’d work both as coasters and identification devices.

I used felt rather than suede or leather so it would be easier to sew and two different edging stitches. They’re quick and easy, and would make great handmade gifts – perhaps using metallic thread. I considered stitching designs on them too, but figured that they’re likely to get red wine on them at some point. Stains won’t show on the black felt, but they might on the thread.

She took longer than I expected, which is good. Stitching seems to be an excellent way to keep entertained in the evenings, especially when the ad breaks are on, and at this size it’s very portable. But if it’s too fast I’ll end up with a pile of pieces I don’t know what to do with or embellishing everything in the house, or both.

Inspired by the design, I’ve made my own for Slinky. I was going to give him a snowflake for a backdrop in contrast with the fire of this one, but then a friend said he was no snowflake and suggested I do a slinky toy. Today I remembered that my childhood cat was named Frosty, so I may have to use the snowflake in a portrait of her, too. And if I do that, I’d have to do one of Pepi, the cat that adopted my family when I was a teenager, and Peri Peri, my previous cat to Slinky. (I thought the Fire Kitty could represent Peri Peri, but it definitely has a she-cat look.)

I still haven’t decided what I’ll do with them. The portraits are more like artworks than pieces to be turned into usable objects, but I think this original design would be great turned into a purse or clutch.

This is the project I’m working on now:

As with the Fire Kitty, I’ve started with no idea what I’ll do with the finished piece but I figure it doesn’t matter so long as I’m doing something and learning from it.

So I’m fully aware that I’m breaking all my own rules about diets at the moment. Well, sort of. Paul and I saw a doco by Dr. Michael Mosley about longevity and how people who eat a low calorie diet tend to live longer. One of the methods of achieving this that he investigated was intermittent fasting, where you reduce your calorie intake to a quarter on some days and eat as you please on others. On ‘feed’ days people don’t tend to make up for all the calories they reduced on the ‘fast’ days, and the fasting triggers some interesting beneficial changes in the body. Dr. Mosley settled on a 2:5 day ratio and called it the Fast Diet.

It sounded doable to both of us. I could do with losing a few kilos and I like the idea of not having to give up foods I love – instead rewarding myself with them after getting through a fast day. Paul looked into it further, bought the book and we both read it and decided to try the diet.

We’ve been doing it for five weeks or so. At first the fast to feed days were more of a 1:4 ratio as we worked out which days of the week better suited to fasting and there was one fast day I skipped because I was ill, but we’ve got into the swing of it now. We’ve had fun searching for and trying different low-cal recipes. Our bodies are adapting to the fasting so that we’re not so hungry (and cranky, in my case) on fast days. I’ve also noticed that on feed days I’ve gone back to preferring smaller meal sizes, as I did before I moved in with Paul.

Paul has lost a few kilos. Until last week I’d lost nothing. Nadda. Zilch.

I find this hilarious, considering how skeptical I’ve always been about fad diets.

To be honest, we were eating a fairly healthy base diet already with occasional treats that were often low-fat anyway. The diet recommends 500 cals for women and 600 for men, but a different cal count is impractical when you’re making meals for two so we’re both aiming for 600. My ‘cycle’, such as it is since menopause started, often gives me water-retention which will add to how much I weigh.

Even so, I’m eating less than I used to overall so I’d have expected some reduction. This last week I finally started to see something other than ’74′ on the scales. It could just be that I’ve managed to get a few walks in on the treadmill.

So it’s slow going. I’m not going to give it up, though. Partly because I want to support Paul, partly because it does have some unexpected benefits. For one thing, I sleep better at the end of a fast day. For another, my digestive system feels a lot happier. It’s easier to avoid alcohol when Paul does too. I like soup but Paul isn’t keen on it, yet will eat it on fast days. When I do eat something hi-cal, I want it to be something nice so I’m not as tempted by crappy food.

Now that we’re in the habit and have worked out which days of the week are best for fasting, it’s surprisingly easy to stick to. And if I do eventually lose some weight I’ll regard it as a bonus.

There’s not much that doesn’t. I can go shopping, walk on the treadmill, watch tv/dvds and cook, but even these have limits. My lower back is acting up a bit and doesn’t like me sitting down to watch tv for long hours and my hands aren’t too keen on chopping lots of veges. I can’t walk on the treadmill all day and there’s only so much shopping you can do before you start buying stuff for the sake of it.

I’m sure there are lots of people who’d love to spend their time doing just one of those four things, but even doing all four I get bored pretty quickly. I need to make stuff. So I end up writing endless project lists, buying materials for making stuff, coming up with new project ideas, and inevitably cracking and doing a bit of crafting anyway.

I’ve been mostly good this time. The flanelette blanket sits waiting for a bit of sewing machine time:

I haven’t tried my new Sunna heddle yet, not even with the perle cotton I bought on eBay:

I also bought this big batch of embroidery floss on eBay for $31:

And wound it onto pegs:

And put the short pieces onto cards:

I’ve allowed myself a little bit of embroidery time in the evenings, so I’ve made gradual progress on the Flaming Kitty:

And I’ve woven more of the Paua Shell Ruanna when my neck wasn’t too sore as it doesn’t bother my hands:

And some of the cooking has been a bit creative:

Of course, once my deadline passes and I have more time for craft, I know I’ll end up suddenly floundering with indecision, unable to choose which project to tackle first. And they aren’t the only tasks wanting attention. The weeds in the garden are evolving into new giant species, I haven’t done any family history research in ages, and I have a half work/half fun overseas trip to organise.

A year or two back Mum gave me two doilies she and her sister embroidered as teenagers. She was 14 and my aunt 16. Not being a doily using sort of person, I decided to frame them, but spent a long time hunting for the right frames. Because the orientation of the pattern on the doilies is different they looked strange together, so I wanted separate frames, but I couldn’t find rectangular frames in proportions that looked right. Circular frames would be better, but there didn’t seem to be any of those available.

Eventually I hit on the idea of using embroidery hoops. I was going to sacrifice my own hoop, that I’ve had since I was a child, but once I saw how crappy the ones in Lincraft were I decided to buy two of those and keep my old one in case I needed to embroider something – something I’m glad I did now the stitching bug has bitten me.

Then lots of time passed with me trying to work out how to turn the hoops into frames. Simply stitching them onto cloth and stretching it over the hoops would have been easiest, but I wanted to put the doilies behind glass.

I found some pre-cut particle board circles close to the right size and I got the local glass shop to cut glass to match. Then I sewed the doilies to some calico and stitched that to the particle board. After bit of stain and varnish the hoops looked pretty good.

The hard part was finding a way to keep the glass and embroidery fixed inside the frames. I tried bending brass wall hooks into L-shapes, but couldn’t find nails or screws small enough for the frame. I wound up holding the glass in by hammering nails into the inside of inner circle and cutting off the heads, then using tacks on the back to hold the boards in.

I thought this project was going to drive me crazy a few times but, as always, it was just a matter of waiting for the perfectly simple solution to come along.

Then I was paralysed by indecision about what to stitch next.

Most embroidery is so far from my taste that you could build an entire transport industry between us and charge a toll for use. I am amused by more subversive kinds – burlesque and tattoo inspired – but I don’t want to make it myself. But every now and then I see something awesome. Not that I want to do the same piece, but it convinces me embroidery can be awesome.

There was also the issue of what to embroider onto. I’m not 100% sold on the idea of a wall of hoops displaying embroidery like artwork, though I’d probably come around to it if wall space for art wasn’t always in short supply in a house owned by an artist and photographer with many, many bookcases. I’d like to embroider clothing, throw pillows, maybe table linen and fabric from which to make bags, clutches and wallets. But what if I did a terrible job and stuffed up the thing I was embroidering?

I procrastinated by shopping for more floss and hoops and organising my supplies:

And taking inspiration from Pinterest:

After writing several lists I eventually decided to just stitch some fabric and decide what to do with it afterwards. I got some line drawings of Minis from Paul and decided I would see if it was true you could transfer laser prints onto cloth just by ironing:

Then while browsing through photos on my computer for something I could convert into a pattern I found this:

It was a design on a t-shirt that I grew out of. I loved it so much I took a pic thinking that one day I might screen print it onto a bigger t-shirt. But now I could see it would make a pretty cool embroidery pattern.

Of course, there wasn’t much point ironing a laser print onto black cloth so I rubbed tailor’s chalk on the back of the paper, traced it then went over the lines with a white gel pen.

And then started stitching:

I’m thinking I might be able to design one of Slinky in a similar style.

One of the suggestions I found was to make your own scent diffuser sticks. Now, I must have missed the diffuser stick thing. Probably because they look like incense, which gives me a headache. Or I saw that someone was trying to get me to buy what was essentially (pun not intended) sticks in a jar.

Other people out in the internets must have been as unimpressed as I was at the latter, and made their own by drilling holes in a jar lid and sticking twigs of bamboo skewers through it. I have an abundance of bamboo skewers because I’d experimented a while back on making my own hot chocolate pops.

I was all ready to find a jar to drill a lid into when, in one of those moments of serendipity, I spotted the plastic tube that had come off the long-stem rose Paul had recently bought for a photo shoot. The shape of a test-tube, but with a rubber stopper with, yep, a hole in the top. I have plenty of these from a bunch of flowers someone gave me a few years ago.

So here’s the ‘recipe’ for my Reused Flower Tube Scent Diffusers.
Add 20 or 30 drops of essential or scented oils to tube, attach lid, stick a couple of bamboo skewers in, tie a string around it (I used offcuts from weaving) and hang it on a hook:

Or a door handle

So now my workroom smells of rosemary and peppermint, the wardrobe of lavender, and the bathroom of cranberry and ginger.