There has been so much sickness in out family this year;Flu, colds and that ghastly virus Herpangina, which is responsible for Hand, Foot and Mouth.  Lily and Mia had it, and Lily was hospitalised for 4 days she was so bad.  Nephew John had it and was hospitalised.   Just as the Pirie family was getting over that they all went down with colds, then gastro which unfortunately I caught too.  Last week Thomas and Isla had Hand, Foot and Mouth, Isla for the third time (!) and now she has a UTI and suspected pneumonia. I'm not going down to visit this week, if I took the gastro bug down there I would never forgive myself.  So nothing much has been happening here, except nursing sick kids and trying to survive all these plagues.

Before I got sick I was organising fabric to cut more big triangles for this quilt, Country Cousins.  I have strips ready to run through the Accuquilt, which I should be able to manage tonight.

It's all looking too brown at the moment so I want to put a few greens and reds in there as well.  And I need more light triangles so I have to pull some of those out of the stash drawers.

I also sewed a few seams on my Carpenter's Wheel  block, and I nearly have the second one completed.  I've been playing around in EQ7 with setting options, and I think I've decided on that corner colour....

I'll have to take it easy for a while, but it's so good to even think about working on a project again.  Being sick certainly makes ordinary life seem wonderful by comparison.

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The end of April was hijacked by a visit from DS Rhys.  He and Isla share a birthday, and he decided to fly down so we could celebrate their birthdays and Easter all together.  It was absolutely wonderful to see him, and see him reconnect with Thomas and Isla.  He brought a new mountain bike down with him, and we visited many state parks and mountain bike trails that he wanted to ride.  The trip meter on the car said we did 1800 kilometres, from Melrose in the mid north, out to Burra, and all around the Adelaide Hills.  It was tiring (and I didn't even ride or walk the trails!) but it was a lot of fun to catch up with my boy.  I don't see him enough.

I finished his quilt, but I'll have to post it back because he didn't have enough room in his bag to fit it in.

I added new borders all round, patched all the holes and weak places, and added a binding.  I even had some of the original fabrics still in the stash, which was very useful.  I added patches of material printed with things to represent his interests; bikes and music, a coffee cup to remind him of me, and some palm trees because he spent most of his life in the tropics. It was fun to choose prints of things that meant something to him.  I figure there's probably 3 years left before it disintegrates even more, and when that happens I'll use it as the batting in a replacement quilt.  Rhys seemed happy to know that his quilt will live on, even if it has a new top and backing.

I was stitching the binding down when Isla came into my room.  'What's THAT' she asked, looking at the needle and thread.  I explained what I was doing and she leant against me watching intently.  'Can I do that?' she wanted to know, and I said yes she could, but not right now.  YES!! The chance to teach her to sew is precious.  We'll start with those sewing cards and wool, and see how she likes it.

Mereth and I were taught to sew very early, 3 years old.  I know that because I remember the house we lived in at the time.  Mum gave us some coarse weave fabric and tapestry needles threaded with wool, and we wove those needles in and out of the fabric for ages.  I can still remember the thrill of her showing us what to do; it was like magic, like a door opening on a world of possibility.  And we've been in love with sewing ever since.

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