Heavy Weather

You know those days when you should be doing stuff, but you can't quite be bothered?

That's today, or at least, this morning.

I have so much sewing I could be doing but wasted invested some time instead making a new header, not before time.

Then some more time making a new button....still a wip.

In a wee burst of energy I went off into the garden and managed about half an hour's heavy weeding before the rain came on. At that point I made the stupid decision to leave the washing out - hmm, it's been rained on  so much it's going to need spun again - duh!!

Was looking forward to Andy Murray's match at Wimbledon and knew he was on later in the afternoon, so stirred myself into action and hit my sewing room..........

...............but not to sew. I started clearing shelves, and throwing out paperwork and old magazines etc.

Andy is now on court, and to keep my nerves steady, I am going through files of patterns, thinning and weeding, very satisfying.

Part of my blah feeling is my impatience - I have been waiting for a couple of parcels from the US and hoped they might have arrived by now, haven't seen a glimpse of a red van in days!

So, in order to add a couple of pics to my post I'll show you some of my holiday buys.

This first one is from Spotlight - thanks Hadley. She mentioned this store to me before I left on holiday and my sister very kindly took us straight there one day, in Cairns. It's a big chain and a bit of an Aladdin's cave. Not a dedicated quilting shop, they have homewares and furnishing fabrics by the ton too. I had seen some of this Melbourne fabric in flickr and thought I'd look out for it so was chuffed to find it there.It seems to be a cotton/linen mix.

 Believe it or not, I don't buy a lot of novelty fabrics but when we visited Port Douglas Sunday markets there was one patchwork stall selling items made by the seller - there was a really fun quilt made using this next "cartoon" print, I will have fun playing with it.

 And these two were just plain corny and I can see me making some fun item for a certain small person in my life.Both of these prints were bought at the Sydney Quilt Show.

 The show was held in three exhibition halls down at Darling Harbour and my friend Delia and I were really looking forward to our day. I would say 2/3 of the space was given over to traders, lots of traditional Japanese stands, lots of Australian folksy sort of stands and many others similar to what we see at home.

Fabric was just as expensive as it is here in the UK, if not a little more and we found only one stand selling the modern fabrics that we are getting used to seeing online.It was also very expensive but it was exciting to see rolls of Melody Miller, bales of Lottie Jansdotter, "in the flesh".

As for exhibited quilts, we were quite surprised to see just so many huge, traditional ones. I always have the impression that Australia is big on art quilts and hoped to have seen more - there was, thankfully, one Gloria Loughman on show.

And then yesterday I read this post by Shevvy and it really made me pause for thought.

Mindful of my future Zakka projects I bought a bag handle, some teeny clothes pegs, and some fun tapes, as well as a lovely Christmas kit from Annie Down's stand.

 My next purchases were from Target! Two sets of tea towels that will never see a wet dish.

The ones in the first picture are 100% cotton but feel like linen.

 This next set is also all cotton and just cute. I have plans for these tea towels but I'll share with you another day.

Well, I am surrounded by mess, Andy is now fighting to stay in the 2nd set, and I must go peel a potato or two.

C'mon Muzza!!