Excited! Excited!

It's an exciting time in the House of Thimbles today I tell you. Ex. Citing.

Reason for excitableness #1: I've just enrolled in a beginners dressmaking course. It's a 3 day intensive course after which I will hopefully be the proud wearer of a new (made by me) dress and will no doubt be brimming with over confidence and will start making rash claims about setting fire to every item of clothing I currently own and replacing my wardrobe with gorgeous hand made delights.

Reason for excitableness #2: I'm going to New York in 10 days! Now on the face of it the trip is for my brothers wedding which will all be lovely and fun, but really, do you know how many fabric shops there are in New York? And how cheap they are? And that there are whole entire shops just selling buttons? And that Mood is three whole floors? (My voice is getting a bit screechy and over-excited now, sorry.) The last time I was there I had to do a whistle-stop tour of fabric shops as I had my bored bro in tow, but this time I'm taking my fabric loving sewist Mama so we can stay there all day!

Cue harps and angelic choir

A binding mess

Binding. A.R.G.H.H.H.H.

I've made quilt tops before but have always abandoned them before they were anywhere near finished (Oh look! Shiny things! *runs away*), so this is the first time I've ever bound a quilt. Now this binding lark looks pretty simple and there are loads of great tutorials online but I'm still making a big old mess of it. 

How not to bind a quilt in 20 easy steps:

1. Cut 2.5 inch binding strips.
2. Sew strips together to make a SUPER STRIP long enough to reach the moon.
3. Pin binding to the quilt edges, not forgetting to do snazzy mitered corners and stab yourself with a pin every few minutes.
4. Sew the ends of the binding together.
5. Start sewing the binding on.
6. Realise the binding isn't wide enough. Panic. Unpick stitches.
7. Create millions of samples to test out different seam allowances.
8. Resume sewing using 2.5/8ish allowance - use inside edge of walking foot and close-one-eye-and-squint as a seam guide.
9. Stop to celebrate successes of sewing mitered corners correctly.
10. Realise binding ends aren't joined correctly. Cease celebrations.
11. Unpick stitches.
12. Consult internet for correct joining method.
13. Repin and sew ends together. Press and repin to quilt.
14. Realise red thread used to sew ends together after not bothering to change thread for one little seam is visible on the binding.
15. Stop for a gin.
16. Decide no one will notice red thread, resume sewing.
17. Complete sewing!
18. Realise 2 out of 4 mitered corners aren't mitered.
19. Have another gin. Unpick and resew corners.
20. Complete sewing!

Now if anyone can also let me know how to do the binding without getting constantly stabbed with pins I'd be very grateful. 

Time for more gin.

A bit of everything, but really nothing

It's all pretty quiet on the western front; have been doing a bit of sewing (just the binding to go on the baby quilt now), a bit of cross stitch (Christmas one should be done this week), a bit of knee surgery (chopping out some cartilage, yuck) and a bit of fabric shopping:

Cushions in waiting

ROAR! Take that, building! *breathes fire*

Plus a LOT of reading and biscuit eating. And working, boo.