I was up at 5am this morning, so I did a little bit of cutting and planning.  I'm aiming for 56 of these blocks, and I need another 11.  (Don't think that my maths is up the creek, I found a heap more after I'd taken the photo.)

This fabric is so lovely, it's going to really bring the quilt to life.  I love big prints like this, but I rarely buy them; I'm glad I was daring and bought yards of it when it was released.

 I didn't want to turn the sewing machine before I went to work, so I amused myself by pairing up the blue and red fabrics with the red shirtings.  It's only a matter or time before I cut out the first block, and then I will have to list it on my WIP spreadsheet.  It's the only thing stopping me.
I might just make a sampler, it would let me choose different blocks to showcase the larger prints, and it would stop me being bored with the same thing over and over.  I have these ideas, and then they turn into an awful lot of work and I wonder why I bothered.  Good thing I'm going to have to wait a little while before I start anything.  I'll have more time tackle this sensibly.

I haven't been able to sew a stitch since I finished the last little top; there's been so many things to do that I can't afford even 15 minutes.  Our long weekend was entirely taken up with computer work and visiting family, and I was so tired when I got home each night I just went to bed.  I'm thinking that Great-Aunties can get just as tired as Nannas when it comes to running after little people.
I haven't seen Max since he was 18 months old; Mereth has visited him a lot more, so he knew she was Nanna.  But Logan kept talking about OtherNanna, and Max wouldn't have that.  'No', he kept saying, 'only ONE Nanna'.
When I arrived at the playground Logan was triumphant; 'See!! Two Nannas!'  Max thought about that for 10 minutes, then went to his mum and demanded 'I want two Dads'.  He had a meltdown when told he was only going to have one daddy; I'm sure it was reasonable to his nearly 3 year old logic.  If there could be two Nannas there could also be two Daddys.  So funny.
In the interests of my sanity I'm going to iron some fabric tonight, so I can cut it out tomorrow, and maybe sew it later on this week.  I'm going to finish the blocks on the design wall first, and then I will start planning a quilt to use up two lots of fabric that I have far too much of in the stash.
When I organised the blue drawers I realised that there were heaps of blues that had red prints, and that I always passed over them when choosing blues.  So I pulled them all out, and they are going to have a project of their own.

I've also got a lot of shirtings with red prints,

so I want to combine the two and make a quilt that uses up a heap of them.

This fabric is ancient; I'm thinking it was printed in the '80s, though I bought it after it had sat in the quilt shop for a few years.  It's always been precious, but now I look at it and think it's too bright for my taste.  It's precious because I've had it so long, and had so many plans for it, but I think I could actually bear to cut it up now.

This paisley is lovely, I need to make sure that I choose a block pattern that will show off those big swirls.  I'm thinking this is rather elderly too.

Got to love those shirtings, but I've got to use them too.
How much sewing have I done this year?

I found these behind the machine while I was tidying up, and there were another two in the drawer.  Mereth and I usually add these empties to a large jar in the workroom, just to remind us of how much we've achieved.  2000yds of Masterpiece cotton, 1300m of Aurifil cotton, and six 600m spools of Rasant polycotton.  That's a lot of thread, and a lot of seams.

It's a long weekend here in South Australia, and the weather has decided to be uncomfortably hot all of a sudden. I was in the garden at first light, doing chores before it got too hot, and now I'm staying inside where it's nice and cool.  Not sewing alas, but working on the computer.  I did get a heap of work done yesterday, so I deserve a treat like 15 minutes in the sewing room, or half an hour spinning.  Too much fiddling with different software just addles my brain.  We have family arriving for a visit later today, I won't get much done after that.

I have to decide what I'll work on next, probably the 4Patch-9Patch blocks that I started some time last year.

 They are a lovely block to sew, and I have heaps of pieces cut out.

I just need a little break from the red nine patches, I can't face sewing the rest of them together just yet.

I did get four tops finished in September, so the tally for this year so far is 12 projects finished to the quilting stage.  I'm going to have to tackle a lot of computer work in the next month, and there won't be a lot of sewing time so I'm glad I got so much done.  It helped that I had my dates wrong when I decided to try and finish this little top; I thought it was the 30th when I started sewing the blocks together, but it was actually the 29th. So it was easy to get them all done because I had 24 more hours than I thought.  It's not often I get a gift of an extra day....

This was going to be Bonnie's Sisters Nine Patch, from her Leaders and Enders book, but I only had this much of the yellow fabric.  I still have 160 nine-patches that I've been sewing for the last year; I can't believe I started them in August last year, but I blogged about it so I know it's right.  They will become a full size quilt like Bonnie's and this is going to be a little Christmas quilt.

This little red and white print is so cute, I'm glad Mereth suggested it for the setting triangles; it makes the quilt feel playful and happy, and that's a good thing for a Christmas quilt.

I'm never going to get anywhere with my UFO list.  These blocks were listed as #20, Sisters Nine-patch.  I had to add it to the list as #21, Christmas Nine-patch, so I could cross it off.  I still have 20 items on the UFO list,  but at least I'm not going backwards.