it's been a long time....

been a long time,
been a long
lonely lonely lonely lonely
t-i-i-i-me!

'Though not a Led Zepplin fan (by a long stretch!) this song has been twirling around my brain for a many days, subconciously urging me to write something perhaps?

What have I been up to since last post?

1. Attended the Antique Quilt Big Day Out
2. Purchased a car, sold a car
3. completed the quilting on all 9 blocks on the Mad Birds quilt and 3 of the 4 borders
4. completed 2 rings of Circles of Death quilt (my new name for Jane Pizar)
5. Caught up to date on my Bee Balm blocks
6. booked a holiday!

Amazing how much you actually achieve in a month(or so) when you start to list things out.

1. Big Day Out.

The Big Day Out was a huge success. Considering the rain on the Sunday was some of the heaviest Sydney had experienced for quite some time,the fact that quilters still came out was extraordinary. Their quilts too were extraordinarily beautiful.(Soz, not many  pictures the camera battery died.) Bernadette raised $800+ on the day which, when added to previous fundraising meant Meghan had raised well over the minimum requirement of £1500 in order to participate in the London Marathon. After doing a PB at the marathon earlier this month, Meghan's funds went directly to the charity  "Merlin". My congratulations to both Ramseys for super efforts.

2. New Car.
The new wheels came home about 3 weeks ago (yippie) -  not "new" new, just new to me; a sporty little number I've drooled over for quite some time, now, after a nice pay rise, I'm allowed (she says with a little smile).Yesterday the red devil found a new home in Tasmania. Funny that. (Tassie devil - get it?) So bye bye red devil hello silver bullet. :o)


3. Quilting Mad Birds.

Quilting.... yes my left index finger is proof that I have been quilting my fingers to the bone - you really don't want to see the sorry state its in. Deadline to drop our quilts off for the Darling Harbour exhibition is June 15th (eeek) so I am actually ahead of schedule. I had allowed one week per block and four weeks for the border. I have 9 blocks and 3 borders down and with 2.5 weeks to go, I have one border remaining (plus binding, hanging sleeve and label). Pressure' s on!!

4. Circles of Death.

My renamed Jane Pizar, I was initially calling this WWITM2 (what was I thinking mark 2). But Circles of Death is so much more apt! I wanted a challenge and with this I certainly have it. After carefully numbering each piece of the pattern then cutting out a millionty seven tiny pieces for the central medallion the task of covering each paper piece seemed easy. heh heh,
No.
Although I was aware of the potential for "growth" because of the thickness of the fabric over the paper pieces (and duly compensated for by carefully shaving a tiny amount from each side of each little template), I have still managed to create a ring about one quarter inch larger in diameter than the pattern. In disgust it was  set aside for consultation with Marg George my tutor. (and it was distracting me from the more important task of quilting, quilting and more quilting!) Marg has since announced it would be fine so I have been soldiering on with the inner ring.

5. Bee Balm blocks

 

March for Marls and April for Melina are done.
Marls chose an African themed print for the centre of this lovely star and provided the black and cherry red - all I had to do was add a bright. Easy!
Melina loved Marls' block so much she said "me too" only in greens. I chose my '50's hunting dog green scored from eBay and changed the layout a little to incorporate the game birds in the corners.
I am June so I need to chose what I ask my friends to make for me....


6. Holidays
Nothing major, just the annual ski trip, this year I have convinced Mr empty field to accompany me as we have cast asunder our enforced school holiday holidays, now that Miss EF is a free bird. In fact she will be skiing with friends and without parents under her own finances this year (oh how I love it).... and of course there's the dreaming... Peru and the Inca Trail....or maybe narrowboating in the UK...it will have to wait because holiday savings are being poured into the house to complete renovations by the year's end. Then maybe a holiday as a reward???

7. Other blocks

And lastly, a peek at a friendship block I started yesterday,  the brief was 12" finished, brights, with a space for a signature.  This lovely block is taken from an antique 1840's quaker quilt  - The Pennock Family Album -  published in Quiltmaking in America, edited by Laurel Horton.  I found it quite easy to draft up and elected to paper piece it as the original was made. Seems to be going together quite easily at the moment.

So that's it for me.
Next time I post hopefully Mad Birds will be all finished and given over for the show. I have volunteered to be a white glove lady at Darling Harbour so if you see me there - please say hello!

cheers and happy quilting. K