It's the last day of a long weekend  here, and I mean to make the most of it.  I have a customer coming to pick a quilt up at 10, but the res of the day is mine and I want to spend it in the sewing room.

On Saturday we went to Clare, a larger town about an hour away, to visit the patchwork shop in search of the right setting fabric (no luck).  We had lunch in a pub, and wandered through a few shops, so it was a lovely outing anyway.

Yesterday I continued the tidying, and tried to sort out the blocks I made as leader-enders while I was sewing the crosspatch blocks.

I amassed quite a few of the smaller cross blocks, and when I ran out of pieces for those I started making ninepatches from 2.5" squares, and then turned them on point, an idea shamelessly pinch from Mereth.  Lots of seams in these, so they are excellent as leader-enders.

Both of these blocks threaten to take over as major projects, so I need to be strong and keep them under control. I also need to make sure that I have lots of pieces ready to use, so I tried to cut heaps of pieces and bagged them up.  I'm itching to get started on them, but I know if I do I'll be scratching around for something, anything to sew at the end of a seam, so I'm going to be good.

The tiny block at the top is a test for the next major quilt I want to make, just to make sure the measurements are correct, and they are, so I will start pulling fabric for them soon, how exciting.

My TV in the sewing room is proving very useful as a way of keeping me working; I'm addicted to the Adele at the Albert Hall DVD, which Elisa gave to Liz for Christmas.  We watched it at their palce, and I loved it so much that Seonaid bought me a copy too.  What a voice!  I don't know what my elderly neighbours think of her language, hopefully they can't hear it.....

After our trip to drop Macca at the vet on Wednesday, Matt and I stopped to pick apples from two trees by the side of the road. 

They were absolutley loaded, we had six shopping bags full, and a few other containers as  well.  He juiced the ones with spots and blemishes, and has 20 litres of cider brewing, and we are eating the good ones.  I wish supermarket apples tasted this good.  An apple tea cake is in my future sometime soon.