Monday 3 December 2007

Not quite stitching but nearly

I'd thought I'd cut away all the batting for the trapunto on my wholecloth but clearly I hadn't. Now if only I'd found this out when my knee was really bad. So Pauline has pinned up the large sample from this quilt and I've pinned and even smaller piece for tension practise and I'm ready to go. Saturday's hiccup with my PC has been a problem. My darling DH rebuilt me a machine yesterday and I expect today I shall be reloading all my programs as I discover them missing.
This is the centre of the wholecloth with the excess batting cut away round the feathers. This is a slow process but it's crucial to do it very carefully. I have to cut as close as possible to the stitching line (Superior Threads water soluble) but at the same time be very very careful not to cut through the top fabric. The batting I'm cutting away is Quilter's Dream Poly De Luxe weight. This stuff feels like felt and clings like cotton batting but without the shrinkage problems. And if you are wondering what markers I use refer back to 'how to find your perfect marker' here.

This is how it looks on the back. This took well over 2 hours.


And these are the toys I bought yesterday. I used to have a Wacom tablet but it was tiny and anyway it died. (sigh). The larger ones are quite expensive but this beauty was only about £30 ($60). One of the frustrations of my knee is I cannot get down behind (or to the ones in front of ) my PC to use a USB port so I can plug in and play.

The other toy is this clipboard which I can draw on anywhere and then upload onto the PC. I can see me using this in bed, or when I'm away from home, or sitting on the sofa. I might even be able to draw feathers for you guys to print out and use.
I got both these toys and a new set of PC speakers for less than £100 in total. If you're in the UK, I got them from Aldi who often have special deals on electronic toys and TVs. I sign up to their email updates and mostly they have stuff you wouldn't want in a month of Sundays but sometimes, just sometimes, it's worth the effort to get there when they open for one of their deals.
Yesterday was the first time I did it and there was a queue of about 50 people waiting for it to open. Most of them were waiting to buy a super fast PC or the hard drives they also had on offer. Acouple of weeks ago DH went down there for me and picked up a couple of 1gig cards for my camera for only £5.99 each. No more shall I go out and find I've left the card in the card reader (grin) or am I the only person who regularly does this?

4 comments:

  1. even though I have several cards for each camera I still managed to go to town to take photos of xmas ice rink and german fair without a card in camera i had picked up.

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  2. I bought the graphics tablet aswell. DD wanted one for her technical drawing studies. I think that I may be using it a bit though.

    love and hugs xxx

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  3. that wholecloth is gonna be wonderful when you get it done!

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  4. I'd seen the graphics tablet advertised but didn't think they would still have it today (Friday 7th. I've wanted one for ages and I was lucky they still had them in stock so I'll be trying it out tomorrow.

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