What a week!

Oh my goodness, this week has been such a blur, and in the best possible way! It started with my birthday on the weekend. I was thoroughly spoiled by my friends and family - I love you all!

And then on Wednesday my tennis team and I played in the Grand Final, and can you believe it? We WON!

It was just the most exciting thing ever, I adore the ladies in my team, and we had the most remarkable season. Wednesday next week we have an association luncheon and the presentation, and that will be the end of tennis until late January next year.

Also, we only have two more quilting sessions on Thursday before breaking up for the year ... so what will I do with all this extra time on my hands? This is not something a quilter really ever needs to worry about ... but I had a delivery this morning, and I'm starting to wonder about my state of mind when I placed this order:

I have taken leave of my senses, surely? I've fallen down a rabbit hole ... but to be honest, I'm pretty excited about it. Who doesn't love to colour in? And this will be like colouring in for grown ups! It's taking all my inner strength not to just tear right into it, but I still have things that NEED doing first. I'm exercising some restraint.

I'm not completely good though, I've really had my head turned by all the quilts I'm seeing on Instagram and Pinterest with circles appliqued to squares of background fabric and then sewn together. Some of them have a lovely colourwash effect. I have no idea of the dimensions, or who started making these first, but I grabbed some scraps and my box of 3.5" strips and started cutting squares for the backgrounds:

Whoops, that picture has come out sideways - attention to detail is lacking tonight! Anyway, I don't expect to see much progress on this particular project, but sometimes an idea gets stuck in my head and I have to run with it for a bit. I'll see how long it lasts for.

Last week I had a question from a lovely reader Natalie Spilsbury. She was so sweet and mentioned that she has followed my blog for years. Thank you so much Natalie! I wanted to reply personally, but your email address didn't come to me - apologies for that. Anyway, Natalie asked what thread I use for hand quilting. I'm always happy to share that YLI hand quilting thread is my absolute favourite. It has been harder to get lately and their range of colours has been rationalised, but it remains my clear preference. I also like to use Thread Magic when I'm hand quilting, a light run through thread conditioner just seems to help draw the thread through the fabric and ease tangles a little. So there you go, maybe more information than you wanted, but thank you for asking!

Okay, that's it for me for tonight - not much quilty content right now, but hopefully next week I'll have a bunch more to share, chatter soon! xox