This beautiful quilt was hanging at the Sydney show, and was made by Rhonda Coates. She and three friends stayed at Kaye's last night, and Rhonda kindly gave me permission to post the photo of her quilt. It's based on the Nearly Insane blocks, and is just the sort of quilt I like, very antique looking. I love it.

I saw some desirable things at the show. These wooden stamps are from Bali and were used to print Batiks. I had a hard time choosing just one to buy. I've always wanted a collection of them, and bought a simple edging one to start with; I hope to add more each year. The ones on the left are new, carved for the tourist market, and the ones on the right are older, used ones. I would rather have the old used ones. I'm in no hurry to amass a large colletion, so I'll just wait and buy nice ones when I see them.

And there was sock wool. Mereth and I can fight over who gets what when I get home.
I bought a few bits and pieces of material,some for Mereth and some for specific projects. Some of the shirtings are to make more blocks for Kaye's quilt. I love that pretty pink stripe, but I have no idea where I'll use it. I can see another Pretties quilt in my future.
Mereth would be proud of me, using up all these scrappy bits in Kaye's blocks. I love the look of them, I will make a few more tonight after tea I think. I don't know that Kaye will bother with all the tiny bits, so I'll try and get them all into blocks before I go home.

And as an aside, it's Freezing cold! Down to 1 degree overnight, and decidedly chilly in the mornings. I'm appreciating the electric blanket and the extra quilts on my bed.....

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I've been busy with the Dear Jane blocks, and have 40 finished, which rather surprised me. I didn't think I'd finished nearly 1/4 of the blocks; I'm going to slow down a bit, I want this to be a long term project, not something I gallop through at great speed and hardly remember doing. I mean to enjoy the journey with this quilt.

That block in the middle of the top row nearly killed me; it's fairly straightforward, if tiny and complicated, and it took me about 3 hours to do. If I EVER do another Dear Jane I will substitute a 4 patch for this block, I never want to make it again.

Last week was busy, lots of things to do, including taking all seven pups and Bonnie to the vet in Pirie for immunisations. They all behaved impeccably, and a lady in the waiting room fell in love with this girl, Panda, and bought her. There was much weeping and gnashing of teeth from Mereth, because Panda was her favourite, but she's gone to a great home. She will have an older lady dog to mother her, and a German Shepherd pup to play with, a 5 year old boy as her master and is going to sleep on his bed every night. I'd say she's fallen into a life of luxury.

But Mereth still misses her....

There was a trip to the Moonta patchwork shop with the Sonias, and we had a wonderful day out. Everything at the shop was 50% off, so we did our duty and bought quite a bit of it. This is my haul, and I'm just waiting for a spare moment so I can pet it and put it away in the stash baskets. It's gorgeous stuff.
And today I finished this top, at last. It's been a bu**er to make, it fought me every inch of the way, but at last it's in one piece. I caused half the trouble myself by ironing the seams in different directions for each row. That didn't work at all, because I kept changing my mind and putting bits in different rows, and then all the seams didn't nest properly. Finally I bit the bullet and ironed every seam to the dark side, and they fit into each other perfectly. I knew to do that, but I just forgot somehow. I had one awful seam where I just had to mash all the allowances flat, but after that it was easy.
I'm glad I put the red in there, it would have been dull without it. It's due to go on Millhouse later this week, and then off to the bushfire appeal.

I'm off to Mereth's house for a roast dinner, and to watch some Inspector Morse episodes. I love Morse, and I've never seen any of them until now, so it's a real treat to have 2 whole DVDs of them.

These are the only two puppies not spoken for;

Dollyand Pansy. Anyone want to give them a good home?

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