Easter, patterns, and some stuff I bought

I shall forgo my customary Easterpest rant (formerly called the Australian Gospel Music Festival) - suffice it to say that it’s very difficult to have a quiet and contemplative Easter when there are THUD DOOF DOOF DOOF SCREAM YELL noises coming at you from all directions.

Now that we have a new council (Queensland just did the mega-merger thing that NSW did 20 odd years ago) I will be petitioning for the damn “festival” to be moved OUT of our central city park, and far, far away.

Grumph.

After much consideration I ordered three things from Hancocks of Paducah last night:

The All in One Quilter’s Reference Tool (C&T Publishing) - my friend Sue showed me this at Quilters a few weeks back and since then I’ve been thinking “Dang, if only I had that I wouldn’t have to be sitting here puzzling out how wide to cut this @*#$&)* strip/triangle/block…” It was only $13.95 US - and the cheapest I could buy it online even in Australian was $33. Worth the share of the postage, yes?

Second thing: I’ve been a fan of Suzanne Marshall’s beautiful applique for as long as I’ve been quilting. I deeply regret selling her “Take Away Applique” book - not because I wanted to make her patterns, but because the gallery of her quilts was so gorgeous - and she included both the positive and negative judging comments for each quilt. Ah well, I needed the money at the time…

Anyway, I ordered her new book Adventure and Applique. $20.98 from Hancocks - $21.56 is what I would have paid as a member on the AQS site - except they won’t accept orders that go to post office boxes (so you can imagine what THEIR shipping costs!) To buy the book in Australia (even if I could get it) the cheapest price is $33 + postage (fishpond.com.au) - but it would be AT LEAST twice that if I bought it from a quilt shop.

And they wonder why I shop online?!

Last,but possibly most deliciously - some Hoffmann fabric. 4 yards (fingers crossed, it’s not confirmed yet!) of this lusciousness from the 2008 Hoffmann challenge. I’m thinking it needs a truly groovy shirt pattern - just got to find one that I love. Maybe one of the Sewing Workshop oriental-inspired shirts? (I would have to grade up the pattern to get it to fit me currently, I hate doing that…)

Any pattern recommendations,please? I’m also considering using it to make this top (size 2x only needs 2 yards…) - it’s not like this is an actual stripe that needs to be matched, after all, it’s more of an overall texture.

Right - off to watch the prancing; then later on the Malaysian Grand Prix - even though my beloved McLarens have been penalised AGAIN (we suspect it’s mostly for Not Being Ferraris…) - I know Lewis will still drive his cute little butt off!

later edit: Bloody prancing had this SUCKY “look how far they’ve come” show on - I have NO interest in seeing that, I want to see DANCING, dammit!

At least I got to talk to my parents tonight (Mum loves her new bag, hooray!) and had a surprise phone call from Robert who was sitting at the Qantas lounge waiting to fly to Tokyo, lucky thing!