Where did the week go

Last weekend I went to a QGI ( Quilters Guild of Ireland) retreat. I left home at 5 am and drove to co. Tipperary not sure how far but I arrived at 9.15 am in time for my first day workshop with Sally Schneider. The work shop was on woven stars and i really liked this. Browns aren't my colour but I decided id take down autumn shades to do my workshop in.boy did I ever get the green wrong. I was trying to do browns, rusts and muted green... I'm going to have to do the two green blocks again maybe in a golden yellow.

The sashing forms a star really like this idea where the sashing forms another pattern and makes the quilt look intricate.

Sewed most of the day and generally had a good time. Saturday was another class with Sally.
However, in the morning I had my shower . Well the first thing that happened was that because I wear glasses and am as blind as a bat without them i turned on the sower and stepped in ... onto this soft wet thing. yep it was the bath mat... what a stupid place to put it .inside the shower!.
I flung the sodden mass out onto the floor and turned the shower up full .the shower head shot up vertically and washed the whole of the opposite wall in the en suite. BY now I'm wrestling with the shower head trying to get it to point down and trying to turn the tap down..
I was exhausted nearly had to lie down .

Gathered all my bits and headed over to the next class with Sally all about borders.

This is really very simple but again looks difficult.
She was so full of ideas.
She suggested for scrap quilts to cut up a FQ along the widest part in the following strips
1.5 "
2"
2.5"
3"
3.5"
5"

This uses up most of the FQ what a clever idea especially for these FQ's we no longer like

Monday and Thursday of this week I had two job interviews , the first interview was relaxed and went well, the second was the interview from hell, I could barely string a coherent sentence together. Dreadful.. On Friday I got word to say I got both jobs!!,
They are both 60 miles away, they both are in the university, one was easy the other more challenging. Guess which one I took? The one that is gonna send me nuts lol .. I like a challenge.

Talking of which I started the Orange Crush mystery quilt with Bonnie, and did half of clue 1 and I thought no i want something different and instead of using cream background I am doing mine in grey I now have about 1/3 done and still step 2 to do So far behind

Will have to knuckle down next week as I am going to France on Sunday for 2 weeks.


Now I am almost embarrassed about this next bit. I was looking for something in one of the bedroom cupboards and thought ah great there

those 3 boxes they will be perfect for the strips
I'm cutting as I was short of them I couldn't figure out where they were.
I opened them up and they were full of fabric. I had not missed this fabric, I had not looked for this fabric, It is all 1/2 yards, all hand dyed, all colours. I can't even remember why or when I bought it all. I don't even know if I had a project in mind when i did buy it.

Scarey!!

Caved in

I caved in and have decided to do the orange crush mystery... I even bought orange ... scarey colour!!!

I did half of the 9 patches and I decided I dont like them and found some grey fabric that has been lying around for year.. can't even remember anymore why I bought it or what I was going to make with it.

I am toying with the idea of using the grey as my background, just not sure if it will work or not

Jim and I took the terrible two to a deserted beach this morning they spent 2 hours galloping in and out of the sea and generally enjoying life, tomorrow they go to the groomer. Who will cut out all the baby fluff from Bailey. He looks like an Afghan !! and he is meant to look like a cocker spaniel, so its clip time for him . Saphy will just have a wash and tidy up. They are almost a year and a half now and still giddy.

Jenni's quilt

I have a dilema over this should I put the border on or not in my minds eye it looked all so different now I dont think I like it.

The border was meant to curve round and echo the pattern it just looks busy to me and i think if just bind it with a multi colour strip it will look better.

I also have not a clue how to quilt this one.

It was a really easy pattern I cut a black square and the same size coloured square. folded the coloured square into a triangle, basted it to the black. Then turned back the edge and slip stitched, leaving a little 'pocket'

Its a basic churn dash pattern and could be done with any block to give a nice curved effect without all the fiddling when sewing.