At least I have some progress to show, after two weeks of blog silence.  I've added all the blue diamonds to the rows of vintage hexagons, and now I'm joining the rows together.  The top two rows are together, and the bottom two rows; I'll make two large pieces, then add all the blue diamonds around the outer edges before I join them into one piece.

I'm starting to get very enthusiastic about this project; it's nowhere near completion, but at least it's closer to a finish than when it was just a pile of blocks.  Later today  I'll go through all my white fabric to find a match for more of the white hexagons, and then I need to design a border.  Of course the border will be a whole lot of work on it's own, but at least it will be the final step.  I don't think I'll ever do these fiddly diamonds again!

There's been lots of life going on, visits to family, working in the garden, the local show. The Farmer's Wife quilt that we quilted won First Prize in the quilting, and the Trophy award, so we were pleased for it's owner; she was thrilled with her win.

 I was going to say something about the frosty weather, and how we still have two weeks of winter left this year, and already I'm mourning its passing.  But Spring has arrived, the last two days have been uncomfortably warm, and I'm going to have to discard my woolen thermals. It's been lovely to have such crisp, clear, cold weather; I suppose if it was miserable and wet I might be a bit sick of it, like most of the people I talk to.  They all want summer to come back, and here I am clinging to the cold.  Oh well, everyone gets their favourite weather in turn through the year.

While I've been working on Work things, there has been no sewing time, so today I would love to sit at the machine for several hours.  I did manage to cut up a lot of red and shirting scraps, to make my nine-patches.  As usual, I'm fighting the urge to sew them all up at once, but I must remain firm about them staying as leader-enders. I did manage to make a few, but there's a little problem with two of them;

I'll unpick them and make them right, and next time I'd better pay attention to what I'm doing.

 I need to make a lot of triangles for the border of my baskets, and then I can get that finished.  I've made the two long borders, now I just need to do the top and bottom ones.  I'll have to do a lot of fudging with this, seeing I messed up the setting triangles.  None of the sides are the correct measurement, alas.  I seem to like making work for myself.

The possibilities of a new UFO are very exciting; I'm still loving the old projects. What an odd year this has been on the patchwork front; so many ancient things dealt with, such self-restraint about new projects, such dedication.  It will be funny if I snap and start four or five new things all of a sudden.

One thing I've been doing with my time is rearranging my kitchen, to make space for a gas stove that my DB and SIL gifted to me.  It's pretty big, and I had to shift everything to make room for it, so the kitchen is in chaos.  That's a good thing in a way, because I've had to consider every item, and where it should go; my goal of reducing everything by 30% has not been forgotten, and I've ditched a lot of stuff from the pantry that was out of date, and donated multiples of cooking items to the op-shop.  There's still a fair way to go, but the job is underway, and that's the main thing.

Ah well, there's Spring flowers to look forward to, and butterflies and singing birds, and two weeks of my favourite season left.  Time to switch the machine on, and get some fabric going through, while I watch the archive of the latest Quilt Cam with Bonnie.  Onward!