Progress, and thank you!

Thank you so much to everyone for your wonderful help with Prue's fabric search - crisis averted and she has enough now to complete her border. Once again - thank you!

I have been madly hand quilting away, and with good progress - sadly though - endless hand quilting does not make for good blog fodder, so I've neglected you all, but you know that once this project is finished, I'll be back to blogging more regularly.

Here's a little area on the quilt that I've completed out to the zig zag border.

The border area should be much faster to quilt - well, at least I'm hoping so anyway!

And this is the last of the blocks I have to quilt - one little half block - with any luck I'll have it done tonight and I can concentrate on the border. Once the blocks are finished I'll swap over to my square 'hoop' for the border - much easier! But for some reason I don't like the square one as much when I'm working on the middle of the quilt. I don't question it ... I just go with it :-)

Lots of chores to get done today, and then hopefully some stitching time this evening ... must get busy!

Fabric Hunt

Just a quick pleading post tonight: My dear friend Prue is desperately looking for a particular fabric, and I thought I'd put up a quick shout out to see if anyone can help out.

She's looking for this fabric: It's from Kaye England's Back Home Again collection. A yard would be wonderful if you can spare it, and we'll take care of all costs.

The fabric has kind of a linen look to it - if you have it, you'll know what I mean :-) Thank you so much for reading! xox

Christmas Tree Skirt

Since I don't have anything interesting of my own to report - I'm happy to tell you all about the achievements of others :-) Recently I made up another tree skirt to kit up for the shop, and today my dear friend (and quilting magician) Lizzy called to tell me that she had quilted it up for me!

Hasn't she done another spectacular job with this one? I'm entirely thrilled and can't wait to get the binding on! (If only I could take better pictures for you to see the details)

On the reverse side, her quilting really shines through - she's a feathered wreath master! Do keep your eyes peeled, I'm hoping to have this project advertised in AP&Q.

In my own news, I have now only got 7 blocks of the NI left to hand quilt, and then the border ... I'm on the home stretch! xox

Lady of the Lake Table Runner

My 'Lady of the Lake' table runner has come back to me! Australian Patchwork and Quilting have finished with the photography, and I'm thrilled to be able to put it on my table.

It looks so nice in the morning light - I wander by all the time so I can gaze at it.

My dear friend Lizzy did such a marvellous job of the quilting, she's a superstar with her longarm machine. Thank you Lizzy!

Something different ...,

Hand quilting has kept me very much occupied since I last posted, but recently I've had the need to work on a couple of different things:

A dear friend Margaret came to visit Friday week ago for a sewing afternoon. Rather than continue with my quilting, I thought I'd start on the Civil War Love Letters quilt I'd like to work on when I'm done with the NI. I made the two easiest blocks I could find, just to see if I really want to continue with the fabrics I've chosen.

These blocks are called 'Enthusiasm' and 'Virginia Military Institute'. I quite like them, and think I'll continue in this vein :-)

And on Friday last week, I quilted something that I threw together at the shop on Thursday.

It's a table runner made using the Kaliedorule - it'll be useful for demo's at the shop, and really nice if I do say so myself! Amazing things can be done with lovely border prints :-)

And this morning, I just finished quilting on this little project. It's hanging on my clothes airer, so looks a little funny.

I had a really great time quilting this one - it's the Dogwood Trail fabric and project from Moda. This is also a shop sample, and I hope there are still kits left as I type this, because they've been going so fast!

Well, that's what I've been up to recently - this afternoon I'll be getting back to the hand quilting - I'm really getting it done now!

Good ... or just okay??

I'm just getting ready to quilt this block - it's the infamous block 18. Yes, the 6" block with 229 pieces. I'm pretty pleased with how it went together ... mostly.

DH took this picture a few minutes ago with his fancy-pants camera :-)

And just for giggles, he took this macro shot ...

Not looking quite so good now is it?? *lol*

And two weeks flew by!

Some would say that I'm obsessively hand quilting away on my Nearly Insane quilt. I prefer to say that I'm consumed by the quilting. Utterly and entirely!

I took a quick snap when I moved the hoop the other day - apologies for the poor quality - flat battery - used phone camera and all that :-) At last count I had quilted 58 of the blocks in the centre (and some of the zig zag border). I must confess that I'm starting to stress a little that I won't have the quilting done by my (self imposed) deadline! Wish me luck friends, I'm going to need it!

Today has been the last day of my kids's school holidays. Amy and Camo have both had a lovely time - and in very different ways. Camo has been to Mannum with my Mum, and to Yalpara with Marty, and on Thursday last week Camo, my dear friend Chris and I went to visit our lovely friend Prue at her farm.

We had the nicest and most relaxing day - Prue provided a lovely lunch, and then we settled in for a little stitching together. Camo made a new friend of Prue's son (never mind the 15 odd year age gap) and settled in for some TV time.

I took some happy snaps - once again with my phone camera. But still nice for friends from afar to see a little slice of Australia.

And what was Miss Amy doing while all this was happening? She was living large on a school trip to the snow - Mount Buller to be precise. Doesn't it look delightful?

She learned to snowboard for the first time - and she and her friends were entered into the SA Interschool Snowsport championships. Can you believe it that Amy placed third?!? How amazing is that? And her school won the gold group medal. We're so proud. And you can bet that she'll want to go back again next year. How fun!

Well, that's my update for now - I'll get back to the hand quilting, and hopefully I won't take two weeks to get back to you. Chatter soon!

Setting up the next project :-)

It's not that I'm going to be ready to work on another project any time soon ... but this endless hand quilting can become a little tiring ... so I started to pull (and order) fabrics for the next project I'd like to work on.

Two of my dear friends Prue and Chris are working on the Civil War Love Letters quilt, and seeing their darling blocks come to life inspired me to consider working on my own when I'm done quilting.

Rather than the scrappy selection I've gone with on my last couple of quilts, I have decided to just use a couple of fabrics, and you can see the ones I'm leaning toward in the photo above.

Far left is a fabric I'm considering for sashing strips - I'm not certain of that one just yet. The red, pink and mustard colours are for the blocks, the cream print is my 'background' fabric, and the fabric at top will be used in the border. A very unusual colour combination for me, but I think it'll look great in the blocks.

The hand quilting on my NI quilt is progressing nicely - sadly though it doesn't make for good blog fodder :-) I'm thinking I may do a little piecing next week just to keep my hand in, and hopefully that'll mean I have something interesting to share! Chatter soon ...