It has begun

o I went and bought fabric for the Birds in Flight quilt yesterday.  Just the background fabric, because I’ve decided to use a “scrappy” style for the actual birds (where you use a mixture of similarly coloured fabrics to make up the shape, rather than just one fabric), and I’ve got more than enough in my stash for that.  But for the background fabric alone I needed 6 metres (I probably could have got away with less, because for the layout I decided on Tartankiwi had estimated 6 yards, which is about 5.5 m, but I didn’t want to risk running out in a few months time and the shop not having that exact fabric any more, so I added a bit extra just in case), so even though I bought the cheapest fabric I could (well, without resorting to undyed calico, and believe me, I did consider it briefly!) it still came to nearly $50.  Anyway, as I’m going with the scrappy colourful birds, I decided make the background really plain, so I picked a dull grey-blue fabric that all the colours should look nice and bright against.
So this morning’s job was to tip out all the fabrics from my stash on top of the blue, and try and sort them into groups that looked good together:

(This was part-way through the process, so it’s not exactly how the colours ended up).
Meanwhile, back in the study, Parsnips was taking advantage of the absence of the bin of fabrics to make a nest in the next drawer down:

She was not impressed when she had to move so I could put the drawer back in!
I’ve got quite a good set-up for sewing in my study now:

1. Very large bundle of grey-blue background fabric waiting to be cut into very small pieces and sewn back together again in clever ways.
2. Cutting mat strategically positioned in the sunshine so I’ve got lots of light and can easily see what I’m doing.
3. Cat strategically positioned on the cutting mat so she can:
   1. lie in the sunshine;
   2. get in the way as often as possible;
   3. attempt to sneak onto that temptingly comfy bundle of material as soon as my back is turned.
4. Selection of scrappy fabrics to be used for the first bird.
5. First bits of paper-piecing in progress.
6. Dr Who DVD playing on the computer, keeping me entertained while I sew.
7. The Beast itself (with lots of clear space behind it for when I’m working on the quilting part and need room to move large amounts of material around).
8. (not pictured) The ironing board, which is right behind me.  It doesn’t leave a lot of room to move in my tiny study, but it’s very ergonomically efficient – I can roll my chair from cutting area to sewing area to ironing area with minimal movement.  It’s just when I actually have to leave the room that it’s a bit of a squeeze to get through the gap between desk and ironing board…

I haven’t finished the first bird yet (I blame the fact that I went outside at lunchtime to enjoy the sunshine (in the shade of the tree – see, I have learnt my lesson), and got kind of absorbed in my book (Terry Pratchett’s A Slip of the Keyboard, which I bought the other day with the book voucher the union had given me in thanks for editing the branch newsletter last year) so somehow the day slipped away on me), so no in progress photo to show you.  But I do have another photo of Parsnips (because obviously she hasn’t featured in this post enough yet), whose response to being kicked off the bundle of fabric yet again was to give me a wonderfully martyred “Well, if you won’t let me sleep there I’ll just have to sleep in the most uncomfortable place possible then” look, and lie down with her head on the pin cushion…

Stupid cat.