Quilting is the new Friday night out...

So it's a Friday night and I'm ill. Not that I need much of an excuse to stay in with a bit of 6music, a glass (or bottle) of wine, a load of fabric and a pair of scissors. As I'm not going anywhere I thought I'd share some of the things I've been working on. Unfortunately some of my prouder moments went away as gifts and I forgot to pap them before handing them over. Having said that, some total disasters were given away as gifts too so it's best not to dwell on these things....

The main thing I'm working on that has an actual deadline (December) is a quilt for my gorgeous nephew Joseph. 

I've never made a quilt before so I'm sort of making it up as I go along....I'm making it almost entirely from his old clothes which I just love the idea of. In a world where photography has become such an everyday activity, we have tonnes and tonnes of photos of Joseph at every stage and every occasion, and so I'm looking forward to him having something I've made where he can look back at photos of himself wearing the clothes the quilt is made from. I have clothes ranging from baby-grows, pyjamas, t-shirts and even his first shirt. Also, it's saved me an absolute fortune in fabric. Let's face it, boys stripey blues and greys are only exciting for so long (and they don't make me squeal then whip out my bank card like the flowery ones do...) The only thing I've bought so far is some dinosaur print fabric and 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' fabric, which I probably would have bought with or without Joseph! Here's just a small selection of what I've got so far...

Joseph is absolutely insanely obsessed with Thomas the tank engine. 

He probably won't be when he's 7 so I don't want to over do it, but his 

quilt will have a giant Thomas shaped hole if I don't feature any. 

The fabric I've got is from an old pair of pyjama bottoms he's outgrown. 

This is from a t-shirt I bought for Joseph when I was in Costa Rica 

in 2008 so has very special memories for me :)

And how amazing is this!:

Hopefully it won't be a total disaster :\ At the moment it's just piles of squares and bags of fabric - but I'm getting my new sewing machine for my birthday next month so that's when I'll really be tested! 

Passions/Hobbies/Interests

I am a bikeaholic. I love nothing more than riding my beautiful bike. I call her Old Faithful. 

Think less:

 

More:

 

Actually, much more like this:

Because that is actually me (a year ago)...but I wish I was the middle one! Alas, I'll never be sophisticated or beautiful enough. For me it is porn. 

One of the main reasons for writing this blog is to motivate me with all things cycling and share the things that excite me/grab my attention. In a fortnight I'll be en-route to Paris from London, err avec bike(?) - well I will have *hopefully* completed day two (the worst one - 95 miles!!) I've done quite a few long distance rides before but never one that far. I'm doing it as the representative for CLIC Sargent (the charity I work for) along with 20 odd actual fundraisers - I was chosen for the rep role which is a fantastic honour. I'm piss-myself excited and scared all at the same time. I can only expect this to only get worse over the next two weeks...

My other big geek hobby is CRAFT! Well more specifically sewing. Ok if you want to be really specific I'm obsessed with buying fabric and then dreaming of all the lovely things I'm going to make while eating a fishfinger sandwich instead. I'm getting a new sewing machine for my birthday (no longer a pipe dream, it currently resides in a box at my parents house) next month and in the meantime I'm doing all the projecty bits 'until I get the new machine that will do it all for me', i.e. nothing. My main project at present is making my soon-to-be-4-years-old nephew a quilt so I'm spending a lot of my time gushing over dinosaur print fabric and cutting out squares til my neck/eyes/wrist goes funny. As I've already mentioned, I need major motivation as his birthday fast-approaches (19th December sounds far away doesn't it?), but to make myself feel less bad I've also bought him a bike. I should also mention I rock as an auntie!

So welcome to my blog proper. Next up: photos! 

Hello world!

Right, it's about time I started writing on this thing and not just use it as a platform for reading everyone else's blogs...

I remember when I was a young teenager in the days when the internet was becoming widely available but was still pre-facebook, twitter, myspace etc, (I'm thinking circa 1998) I had a 'livejournal' (google it - it still exists!) which I updated obsessively and couldn't imagine my life without it. Now I wonder how I ever had so much free time, or so much to write about considering I had so much free time...it's been a while since I've written actual sentences for/in the cyberworld. I'm not sure if I'm now more shy or just less self obsessed...with facebook I certainly feel more paranoid. Yes, yes, I could leave, or whittle down my friends list to people I 'actually know' or am 'actually friends with'... In all honesty, I'm too bloody nosy (hence my addiction to blog reading).

It took me a while to get the point of blogs for the post-teenage among us, but now I've started reading them I've found they're a world away from the whining ramblings of my youth. I follow blogs on everything from sewing to cycling. I'm constantly adding pages to my favourites; I've got categories and then subcategories to manage them all, lists of projects/places to go dominating my task bar, an amazon wishlist stretching from here to Neptune....

I've also noticed it's a great 'tool' (can you tell I work in charity?) to keep people motivated. I guess by putting it 'out there' people are expecting something...results?Whether it's a craft project or bike training, I need all the motivation I can get following a long day in the office - to do the things I actually 'enjoy'. Tragic huh.

So let's get on with it...