Not sure where I'm going here

I started my challenge quilt on Sunday, and have made a few floating star blocks as the centrepiece. Not sure what I am going to do next, I am just making it up as I go. I think I am sticking with pinks and yellows, though.




Lately, I've also been making these easy cross blocks with a stack of blue and a stack of white fat quarters. I don't know what I am going to with them. From each pair of a blue and a white FQ I can get seven 8 inch blocks, and it only takes about 15 minutes to make each set. So I have 21 already and if I keep going, I should eventually have enough for a biggish quilt.

Happy Weekend

I've been putting together this simple flannel quilt this week. I haven't worked with flannels in ages, had forgotten how soft and snuggly they are. This was from a kit I purchased from a patchwork friend. I just need to find some backing fabric now. Anyone know where I can get some nice flannel fabric for the backing?



I started basting and quilting my lap quilt from last week, yesterday. I ended up just putting a border on two sides. I don't know why. I think I am just sick of making square quilts! I am just doing a very large meander for the quilting. I'll try to finish it today.

Another thing I need to do is work out what to do with this fabric below. My patchwork group has issued a challenge to make a cot quilt using this fabric, the quilts will then be judged by another quilting group. I wasn't going to take part because I really don't like the fabric (although I am surprised to see it isn't as ugly in the photo as in reality) but then I realised, that is probably the point of a challenge. ie. it wouldn't be a challenge if you were handed some pretty fabric and told to make a pretty quilt! But it will be a challenge working with fabrics which just aren't my style! Two of the group have already finished theirs, and they came up with some really lovely ideas. One of them fussy cut the pink gingham squares and just used that, which was a clever way of dealing with the issue.

Another quick lap quilt in progress

I've been playing with a pack of charm squares and a jelly roll again. I am into quick quilts which only take a few hours these days and charm squares and jelly rolls take half the cutting work out of it!

I've made 10 of these 16 1/2" blocks, so quick and easy, and such a pretty fabric range.




And put 9 of them together to form this so far. I still have quite a bit of the jelly roll fabrics left so I'll put on another border. And make the spare block into a matching cushion.

A few days between posts

I haven't been online much the last week and haven't been doing much crafting either, so haven't posted much at all lately.

One thing I did do on the weekend was start putting my Bento Blocks together. I just need to find a nice border fabric now. I don't really have anything that "goes" but found one fabric that looks "not too bad" so I will probably go with that one!


On Sunday we went for a drive to Dural and Glenorie to look at some nurseries. We were going to stop at a cafe we like for lunch but were in that vicinity a little early so decided to press on to St Alban's, a quaint little place on the otherside of the river from Wisemans Ferry. It has a nice, old pub which serves great lunches.

Well, we hadn't realised there was a major 100km bike race on, ending at St Alban's, as well as a big boat race on the river. Trying to get back across the river on the ferry after lunch was a nightmare. We were in a queue of traffic about 600 metres long, but it took two and a half hours to get onto the ferry! All in all, four hours to get home! I don't think we'll be going back there for a while.

At one stage we were assessing our situation and realised we only had a bottle of stale water and three rawhide dog treats to see us through if we were stuck there overnight. (Although scarily, J has an axe and a shovel in his car - which was going to come in handy when someone decided to queue jump - but they retreated without us having to dispose of any bodies. Maybe they realised they would be lynched if they tried it!)



To make things worse, although we were in some beautifully scenic places, I forgot to take photos. I did take this one of a goat's bum out the car window, when we had to stop to let some goats meander across the road.

And I did take this one of a swamp while we were stuck in the traffic jam! But that's it I'm afraid.

Happy Birthday Sugar & Spice

My babies turned 5 today! Yes, 5! I don't know where all that precious time went, it has just gone so fast. It seems like just yesterday I could pick one pup up in each hand. And now, well, I can't even shift either of them if they don't want to be shifted!

They had a special roast chicken dinner (with bones removed of course) this afternoon and are now running amok playing with their new squeaky toys.