because I am worth it

I got myself a present, it arrived on Friday, after gathering dust on customs clearance shelf for 10 days. I don't know why it takes so long to clear a simple parcel. Also, the handling fee is more than the import duty, which seems excessive.

I am past the halfway mark with my hand-stitched hexagon quilt now but I don't think I will want to miss the process of hand sewing a quilt.


I bought the Ice Cream Soda English Paper Piecing kit from Jodi at Tales of Cloths. You must go and have a look at the fabulous photos on Jodi's shop page. I don't remember how I found Tales of Cloths but I am glad I did. Whenever I visit, I want to immediately hand in my notice at work and do nothing but stitch tiny little shapes together for the rest of my life. If only I could convince someone to pay me for the pleasure.

The ice cream soda quilt ticks all the boxes for a new project:

• The individual flowers are portable and manageable in size. 
• I can make lots of different flowers with as many colours as I like
• The shapes are small enough to make a dent in my collection of small and irregular scraps bag. 
• I won't have to agonise over a new project for a long time.

It may seem a bit extravagant to order a kit that includes all the paper shapes and the acrylic templates but I think I am worth it. Also, I don't see how I would ever enjoy cutting out 680 teeny tiny paper diamonds, 452 kites, 438 crowns, 150 triangles and 18 corner pieces. Would you? The papers included here are machine cut and super accurate, which is essential for smallish shapes. I am not sure if I will make the full 68 by 68 inch quilt, it is quite big. We shall see.

Can you see how small the central diamonds are? I hope I can handle these with my clumsy big hands. I might give glue basting a shot, I have never done that. On the other hand, I quite enjoy hand basting

I thought that maybe some of my friends might fancy making a flower for this quilt. Oftentimes in the past, there were quilt groups that would work on one quilt together. I like this idea. Do you? Let me know.

That's it all for today. I am going to do a bit of machine sewing now, I have been banned from the living room. It is full of squealing, giggling and singing 15 year old girls.

Have a lovely Sunday. xx

P.S. This morning I found I liquidised mouse under the drain plunger. I don't know how it got under there, sheer super mouse strength when facing almost certain death by cat maybe. I hope it died quickly.