Friday, February 22, 2008

This photo shows a few of the WIPs on my worktable this morning. I finished all 20 blocks of the True Lovers Knot on the left, so it just needs sashing and borders. The Monkey Wrench blocks on the right are my take-along project for our patchwork club meetings; I need 81 and I have 34 finished. Nearly half way on those, but I don't want to sew them together anytime except at meetings. However I do like to make the HST units beforehand, so that it's just a matter of fitting the pieced units together on the day. I need to cut some pieces out of my gorgeous new fabrics, and start to choose a setting fabric to show off those rich browns.

In between other chores today I put the borders on my Carolina Coverlet, so that's another finished top to join the pile.When I have a spare day it will have a panto quilted on it. It may be a challenge to quilt, with all those tiny squares on point; it's not as flat and square as it could be, but I'll deal with that as I quilt it.

We had a lovely overcast day today, and the gentlest sprinkles of rain. Mereth and I spent time working in our gardens, repotting plants that needed it and fertilising and weeding. My garlic chives are flowering, and the clusters of flower buds on their long stalks are very graceful. I am slowly collecting the herbs I use the most; parsley, mint, rosemary, basil and chives, and some stranger ones like Brahmi. It's a herb to improve memory, and I like to put a couple of sprigs in a pot of tea (if I remember!). It grows like a weed, which is good; the tablets are expensive so it saves money to have it for the picking in my backyard. As soon as it gets cooler I will start sowing salad herbs again, I loved growing them last year.

I rather fell off the Stashbusting wagon with my latest puchases, but no doubt I will come to my senses soon and stop buying. The exchange rate is so low that it's very tempting to put in just one more order; however, there is a time for buying and a time for sewing, and it's sewing time now.

I am a bit jaded with my drawers full of cut strips. These fabrics have been around forEver and I"m tired of using them, and tired of all my quilts having the same fabrics in them. So I'm going to sew all these 1.5" strips into 4-patches for some undecided project, and then replenish the drawers with entirely new stuff. It will be interesting to see how many 4-patches I get out of this lot.......

6 comments:

  1. It's rather shocking to see all that green - it's still the dead of winter here.

    Sometimes I get tired of my strings and think I should pack them up and send them off to someone else and start over with new fabrics but I'm reluctant to let them go. It's so great to pick up a string and remember using it in an quilt I made several years ago.

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  2. Oh your Carolina coverlet turned out wonderful! A very cool variation on it!

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  3. I love the way your CC turned out. Your block placement created an entirely different look. Well done.

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  4. Anonymous5:08 AM

    I'm into log cabins with my 11/2 inch strips -

    Do you buy your fabric direct from USA? If so can you share please some sites you like

    Love Leanne NZ

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  5. Your Carolina Coverlet is my favorite of all the ones I've seen--really beautiful!

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  6. Looking at all those strips...they look so interesting to me.
    It is odd how we can get tired, or jaded with our stashes, & crave new & exciting fabrics.
    My daughter is tired of her stash, but to me it is new & exciting!

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