Where was I?  I seem to have spent most of April driving, 1800km back and forth to Adelaide, and all over the city.  I'm relieved to have a bit of time at home now.

My DS is back in Queensland, we had a wonderful time together.  We spent the last five days of his visit in Adelaide with DD, and we took Dolly with us.  She didn't mind, and had four adults to lavish attention on her, she was so spoilt.  We took her with us to National Parks and many dog parks,

so she got to do the tourist thing too. 

 She even came to a dog-friendly cafe for lunch!

What a whirlwind it was, so many sights to see, so much Traffic!  I'm not cut out for the city.....

And now I'm home, and I hardly know what to do with myself.  I'm plugging away at the blocks on the design wall, nearly finished, but I'm not feeling much love for them anymore.

 I'm ready for something that doesn't involve triangles, or the colour red.  I like it as an accent, but I'm over it in these blocks. 

I gritted my teeth, put NCIS on the TV and sewed for hours; the result was two of the borders pieced, and that just about tipped me over the edge into hysteria.  All that work, and now I had to do it all again for the remaining two borders? 

I wasn't impressed.  I'm on the verge of putting it away, and using the HSTs I need as leader-enders while I work on something else. 

I need 120 more of them, and I can't decide whether to plod on and make them all in one go, or do them in little bits.  While I'm at work this morning I'll come to a decision, and when I get back I will jump right into it.  I've got some catching up to do.

Time is a precious commodity these days, there is just so much that we're trying to fit in.  DS is halfway through his holiday, and after a week of visiting family here and in Adelaide he departed on a trip to Wilpena Pound, where he and seven others will ride their mountain bikes around the Flinders Ranges National Park.  It's difficult country to walk in, let alone ride a bike, but it's all about the challenge; he declares it boring to ride on a road, and loves riding up hills.  He didn't get that from me, at the slightest incline I would get off and push my bike up, and I pretty much loathe bikes anyway.

He went for several training rides beforehand, and while he vanished into the distance at a great rate of knots I walked along much more sedately with Dolly. 

When he was looking at my photos later he said, 'I didn't see any of that, I was just concentrating on the ride'.  Everything is a trade-off; he added to his fitness and I didn't, but I got to stop and snap pictures of anything that interested me.

When he first arrived down here I was shocked at how thin he seemed; then we went to a bike shop so he could get some parts.  Every man in the shop looked exactly like him, tall, thin, fit, very short hair, like a Brotherhood of the Bike.  I guess it's just a body type; if you want to ride well, you need to get rid of the weight.

He will be back at the end of the week, and my holiday will resume; I'm working this week while he is away.  So there will be lots more family visits, then down to Adelaide to ride a couple of the trails there, and then he goes home again.  It's been so wonderful to have both my son and daughter together with me again; they were playing some shooting game on the X-box, and I smiled when I heard Shonny saying "We have to get you a better gun Rhys, come up these steps, and I'll protect you while you get it."  Always the big sister, even in a zombie game......

He and Izzy got on just fine;she had her first taste of chocolate, and she thought it was pretty darn good.

We've been staying up late, talking and playing cards, so not a chance of any sewing taking place.  But I don't want to waste of moment of this time with my family, and the quilts are waiting patiently for me.  We all know Family trumps Quilts!  I have 3 more nights on my own, so I will work as hard as I can to get the blocks on the design wall finished, and that will please me greatly.  I'm getting a leeetle bit tired of them, but I have a secret weapon; series 11 of NCIS should keep me glued to the machine.

While I was cleaning up a file drawer I discovered this sample card from long ago.

 My friend ran a patchwork shop, and she gave me this when these prints were discontinued. 

These Concord prints were available for many, many years, not like today when fabric ranges have been and gone in 6 months.  Because they were available for so long, most of my early quilts contain these prints, so it's a trip down memory lane to see all these swatches again.

 I must admit, I still have some of these in my stash, and they are still useable, and some are still lovely.

 I bought lots of them at Spotlight for $2 a metre on sale, and used them for backings and borders and setting blocks, and I still adore some of them.

 I used samples from other quilt shops to make half inch hexagons, and that project is nowhere near complete. 

I called it my 60 year quilt; it would either take 60 years to complete, or I would be 60 years old when I finished it. 

I was 42 at the time, and 60 seemed a looooong way off.  I figure I've got 3.5 years left to finish it before my 60th birthday, so I'd better get a move on, hadn't I?

 Those hexagons look awful small, don't they?  These ditsy little prints were perfect for such small scale work, because they are still recognisable in each little hexagon.  In fact the swatch card says;

"Any print small enough to be recognised in a 1 1/4" x 1 1/2" swatch."

I've kept this card for so long that I really can't throw it out now; it's Archival, and so it has to be preserved.  It can go back in the drawer for now, and come out again on my 60th birthday, when I'm celebrating the finish of that hexagon quilt.........