On the weekend we went for a drive in the country.  It was a lovely day, not like winter at all, and I decided it would be better spent out in the fresh air rather than locked inside working. 

\We visited a little seaside town not far away, which has an antique place I've wanted to see for a while.  It's one of those shops so full of things that it's difficult to move around in, which is just the sort of place I like.  It was every bit as interesting as I thought it would be, but there was an added bonus in the quilts that were on display.

  Unfortunately, there was so little room that I couldn't unfold these beauties to hav e a proper look at them. 

It's so nice to see antique quilts up close, something that we don't often get to do in Australia. 

I loved the fabrics in this kaleidoscope quilt,

some of them have been reprinted as reproductions and are already in my stash.  I could spend all day examining this one.

This quilt was made entirely of ties, and in a strange co-incidence another quilt like this showed up on a blog I read the very next day.  It's an interesting way to use the whole tie, and the quilt was very heavy and textured,  it felt quite luxurious.  The owner of the shop made this quilt. and she said it was very quick to do, just weaving the ties together and some straightline quilting to hold it all together.  People come up with good ideas all the time.

Another strange thing in this shop was the baby grand piano, painted green with raised Oriental motifs. 

The odd thing is that I have photos of it on my computer, so I recognised it straight away. 

Four years ago a friend took Mereth to an old Post Office in a little ghost town not far away, to see the incredible piano that was in pieces in one of the rooms. 

She sent the photos to me, and wondered how on earth such an exotic musical instrument ended up in a ruined building in an abandoned town.  I was able to go home on Sunday and tell her the next chapter of that piano's story, and how it's being renovated to it's former glory.

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When I'm really busy it's amazing how much I can achieve by using every last scrap of time.  I sewed most of these plaid blocks in my coffee breaks, or waiting on hold on the phone, or before I went to work in the mornings.

It helps that it's a simple pattern, 8 seams per block and it's done.  I've really cleared out the 3.5" strips, which was my aim.  The next step is to go through the stash drawers and weed out bits less than an eighth of a metre and cut them into more of these blocks.  It's always therapeutic to thin out the stash drawers and make room for homeless fabric.

And I have a bit of that, after succumbing to the latest free shipping offers from Hancock's.  I need to get this lot put away, but first I have to make room for it.  I'm thinking of making a plaid quilt like JulieK's, and that should clear out the drawer where  I keep my small stash of plaids and stripes.  Well that's the plan, but I could probably make 4 or 5 quilts from that drawer before they are all used up.  Anyway, it will be progress if I can fit them into a smaller drawer.

Here's a picture of Seonaid and Dolly, at the start of our walk. 

The dogs have to start out on the lead, just  to have a bit of discipline before they are let go; once the leads come off then they're off like the wind, racing each other over the expanses of grass.  It's a pleasure to watch.

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My DD arrived 2 weeks ago, and there hasn't been time for any sewing or blog-related activites ever since.  It's wonderful to see her, after 4 years apart, I'm so enjoying her company.  Her neat freak tendencies are a blessing, she's organised my kitchen and bedroom, and is eyeing off my ofice area now.  So long as she shows me where everything is I don't care what she does; I'll just go along with the new system.

My sewing area is overwhelming though, so she's not tempted to touch that; with any luck I can spend a few hours in there this weekend and sort out the stacks of fabric and things that have no home.  I've been working non-stop just lately, and I need a good rummage through my things to restore my sanity.

We wondered how Dolly would react to DD Seonaid (we pronounce it Shonnad, which isn't the Gaelic pronunciation, but she's named after a friend of mine and that's how her name was pronounced).  From the moment Seonaid got out of the car Dolly was in love.  I'm just background noise now, it's all about sitting with Seonaid on the couch, or at her feet, or trying to get on her lap.  When we go for walks Dolly trots next to Seonaid, gazing up adoringly. What makes this astonishing is that Dolly is not friendly to anyone normally; after a long acquaintance she might wag her tail for other people, but she won't let anyone touch her.  She just doesn't trust other people; but Seonaid is instant family.  Tha's so cute!

I was going to add a picture or two, but it will have to wait.  I'd forgotten what it was like to have kids around; my internet usage tripled and used up all the monthly quota in a week, which means my service is slowed down, so it's taking forever to load an image; I give up.  I've gone to a higher plan, but it will only take effect from midnight tonight.  Oh well, I will spend today in the sewing room and taking photos, and tomorrow I may actually be able to load them.

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 Isn't Mother's Day wonderful, with all the crysanthemums in the shops? 

I went mad this year, and bought 6 pots of glorious colours.  They are only $3.99, so why wouldn't I?  I also got lots of cut flowers, locally grown, 5 huge bunches for the price of one supermarket arrangement.  My table is full of vases, I admire the flowers every time I walk past.

It's been a quiet weekend, just putting things to rights and trying to make some sort of sense of the stacks of fabric in the sewing room. 

After hours and hours of decisions I'm finally starting to see progress;  even though you might think this is still horribly messy, at least I can see blank spaces on the table so I know I'm getting somewhere.  All my trial blocks and half finished projects have been filed away in drawers, with the cutting instructions and graph paper diagrams; when I pull them out in three months time I should know exactly where to start.

I couldn't understand why I felt so driven to keep cutting projects these last few days, without stopping to sew and actually enjoy myself.  Then I realised why I'm stockpiling; my DD is coming to stay for a few weeks, and my subconcious was obviously in charge, making sure that I will have a heap of piecing that I can just pick up and put down easily.  I'm glad someone is on the ball around here.

Today I want to cut up all my 3.5" strips, so that I can actually get the drawer shut easily.  They will make those simple plaid blocks that were on my design wall a while ago.  Once I've done that, I will have completely emptied my 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5"strip drawers, cutting them into pieces for kits.  Quite an achievement, I feel.  As soon as I sew all those kitted projects together I'll feel even better.

On Friday Mereth and I ran away to a neighbouring town and investigated the Op-shop there.  I found all this vintage ric-rac for 20 cents each, so I bought the oldest ones.  I have no idea what I'll do with it, but I can feel an applique project coming on,  I'll have to preshrink all this, it's pretty poor quality, but at least it's all guaranteed colour fast. 

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My design wall is still as haphazard as ever, and I think I've started even more projects.  I need to stop looking at blogs and being inspired by new ideas, and just settle down for some long sewing sessions.  I just can't seem to make myself do that though.

I've been cutting out the simple diagonal blocks in spare moments, and then sewing them together in other odd moments.  They go together so quickly, it takes longer to cut them than to sew them up.  I have a fair idea of what I need to add to this to make it work, so I'll stockpile the pieces and start using them as leader-enders.  Then I can move onto another project with a relatively clear conscience.  I'd like to say I can see a dent in the drawers that all these reproduction fabrics came from, but not a chance.  What I'd like is to be able to fit them all in 3 drawers instead of 4, so I intend to donate a lot to Mereth in a stunning act of goodwill.  The way I see it, it's just passing the problem onto her, so it's not really fair, but she will treasure these far more than me.  I have guilt over having so much, so I'm not really enjoying them as I should.

I fell in love with Lucy's quilt, and gave in to the impulse to make a couple of blocks, just to see how they look together. 

Of course they look good, so now I want to abandon all the other things I'm working on, and pull fabrics for about 63 of these blocks.  I'm fighting the urge to do that, but I can tell it's a losing battle.

The container of 1.5"squares and triangles was providing leader-enders, and I have a few of these little blocks put together.  I have no idea where they're going, but they're cute.  Some idea will come to me once I have a pile of them.

I'm getting more familiar with my big camera, and it really does a good job of capturing the amazing cloudscapes at sunset. It's a pleasure to go walking with such skies overhead.

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Every weekend should be five days long.  I'm having a lovely time just pottering in the sewing room and the garden, it would be wonderful if life was like this all the time.  But it's back to work tomorrow, and we'll be running to try and catch up.  But it's totally worth it.

I've quilted all the donation tops that were given to me, just have to bind them sometime during the week.

Check out that vintage print, very nice!

It would have been nice to load one of my personal tops, but Millhouse was busy the whole time.  Maybe next long weekend.  I want to do one of my 'best' quilts, and really do some special quilting, but that will take a lot of time and planning.  It's frustrating to have the machine and not be able to do our own quilts.


I am still working to rationalise my stash; much as I love my Judie Rothermel fabrics that came in the fabric club, I find them overwhelming as a group.  I have four drawers full of them, and I never seem to use them.  It's been three years since I got them, and it's time to start cutting them up.  I devised a couple of projects that use massive amounts of fabric, not just a measly strip or two. I'm cutting a 5.5" and 6.5" strip from a fat quarter, and there's not much left after that, especially if it's been nibbled at already.

I intend to give Mereth the leftovers, which she will be so happy about.  Then whatever is left will go into my regular stash drawers, to be used like normal fabric.  No more "Too good to cut up" rubbish.

The blocks I'm making will end up 5"square, and I'll need well over 100 to make a decent size quilt, which is all good.  I want to have a huge amount of blocks to diffuse the oddity of some of these reproduction prints.  There's no way I would have bought them on their own, they were just part of the collection, and authenticity aside, some are downright ugly.  Hopefully they will get lost amongst the crowd of other prints.

 Yesterday I drove down to Adelaide to pick up Mereth from the aiport, and managed to fit in a little trip to Bunnings, our huge hardware chain.  I adore that place so much, but I never have enough time to go through the whole place, I just run in and grab a few things and race off again.  It's a serious limitation going alone, no-one to help load gear onto the trolley.  I should have bought all the bulky stuff first, loaded it into Wilson and gone back for the fun stuff.  I managed to get some wood and melamine shelving that I needed, plus some plants, so that will keep me happy for a while.

It was fun to have both dogs for the weekend, they had a ball together.  Dolly is still sleeping it off, and enjoying having my undivided attention.  But in about an hour I reckon she'll be up for a visit, and some more fun times.

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 I have the Drab blocks in one piece, with the leftover strips used as piano key borders top and bottom.  It doesn't look too bad, but I still think the best thing to say about it is that it won't show the dirt, being so dingy already.  Hilary was right to say in the comments that it would be a good 'bloke' quilt, so I think it will get quilted and donated.

I quilted a second donation quilt today, but don't have a photo yet.  A friend made three tops and we're quilting and binding them, and then we'll move on to the stack of tops we've made.

This one was done yesterday, and it too will be good for a guy. It feels great to be getting quilts done and ready to donate; we've been so busy that there just wasn't time to tackle them.

 It's easier for me to stay at Mereth's place while I'm looking after both dogs, so I've taken over her sewing room.

She will have a fit at the messy photo, but I'll clean it up before she gets back.  I'm cutting up the Antique Fair jellyroll, and playing about with different blocks.  I think I'll have to add in fabrics from the stash, I don't like working entirely within a range; it's just too limiting.  These are lovely fabrics, and I want to combine them with other favourites.

  I lent Mereth my little Canon camera, which means I have to lug about my big Nikon, and try to remember how to take decent photos.  It's far superior to the point-and-shoot one, so I should get serious about using it all the time.  Every evening on our walks the sky and clouds are glorious, and the little camera is hopeless at capturing the display.  Hopefully the big camera will do a better job, once I figure out how to work it.

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We're having a long, long, long weekend here in Australia, 5 days off because of Easter and Anzac day.  Mereth took advantage of the time off to go to Newcastle to see her No2 son and his family.  I'm sure she is cuddling little Logan right this moment, lucky thing.

We drove down to Adelaide yesterday to stay the night with No1 son, and we managed to fit in a trip to a little Indian grocery that we've been to before, where we stocked up on a few necessities, like Indian snack food, prepackaged meals, bulk spices and curry paste. 

 I just love wandering through the aisles looking at all the foods that are so different to ours, with strange packaging and exotic ingredients.  It was a fun way to spend an hour.  Then this morning I dropped Mereth at the airport at 5am and drove home through light rain and lines of holiday traffic.  A lot of people were getting an early start, and I felt envious to see convoys of 4-wheel drives lined up at the side of  the road, mysterious and important in the pre-dawn light, drivers congregating to chat and share coffee.  It would be so fun to be setting off with a group of friends for a camping adventure, but I have duties here.

As soon as I arrived home I set Millhouse to stitching on a donation quilt, and went and picked up the dogs.  I have instructions to give Pippi lots of cuddles while her Mum is away, but Dolly doesn't approve of that.  Little bit of sibling rivalry happening I think.

My plans for the rest of the day are to keep working on the donation quilts in the background, while I sew my Drab blocks together.

Mereth said she was sick of them on my design wall, she lost the will to live everytime she caught sight of them.  They are a bit depressing, so I'll get them in one piece pronto and move on to something more cheerful and pretty.

Right after I give Pippi a cuddle....

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My design wall is in utter chaos today.  One minute I'm working on the last of the framed cross blocks ( must find out their real name) and the next thing I know there are four new blocks pinned up there, waiting to become new projects. 

I was hoping to rationalise my sewing room, but I think I've actually tipped it over the edge into outright bedlam.

I may have to put these blocks aside until I can decide which way to set them; I like both ways, and I have enough to do either.  I just can't choose right now.  Hence the need for a new project. 

I will have to sit down with a cup of coffee and write a list of all the new blocks, their sizes and colour schemes and what I want to do with them, or I'll forget by tomorrow.  At least if I've jotted down a few notes it will jog my memory, hopefully.  Future Self will be most grateful.

My idea while I was cutting these blocks was that I wanted to be able to clear out the strip drawers, starting with the 2.5" ones, seeing as there are 4 of them.  One is enough, I don't know how I managed to accumulate enough strips for four.  An added bonus is that I can use jellyrolls too, and I have four of them somehow.  Don't know how that happened, but they need to be dealt with. 

I made three cross blocks to see which proprtions I liked best; the middle size won, and the other two will go into the Orphan stash.  All the cross blocks use 2.5"strips, so I can just cut a heap of the rectangles and put them aside for these blocks.

I love the stripe from the Civil War Reunion collection  in this block; it's a great way to use stripes to give the effect of more complex piecing.  That little idea will go into the files for later use. Ignore that tiny cross block, it was just an experiment.

These big blocks are using up a pile of terribly dull FQs that I weeded out of the stash ages ago.  I was going to just make a backing, but I thought I'd see what sort of a quilt they made; if it's too ugly it will be a backing anyway.  I like all these fabrics, but they are just dreary when put with anything else.  They can all be  dreary together here.

These little blocks form a cute plaid arrangement, and they're so simple to make.  They will use up a pile of 3.5" squares that were leftover from other projects, and be a useful leader-ender.  I'll be making heaps of these.


To make matters worse, there are lots of boxes of fourpatches and strip-pieced scraps, and leftovers from various charity quilts that I don't want anymore.  I don't have unlimited space in my sewing room, so I need to cut down the amount of things I store in here, and only have things that are current and useful.  Everything else can go into storage out the back.



I want to make a list of all the size strips and patches I consistently use, and what I use them for, and eliminate the rest that are odd sizes or that I'm not likely to use up soon.  I'll cut them into other sizes, for projects that I'm working on, and get rid of them that way.

Once upon a time, when I was much younger, I could keep all the varied threads of life in my head and not get muddled, or confused, or lost, or late.  But now, inside my head is like a shambolic, overcrowded, bent-out-of-shape filing cabinet.  I should be able to remember where I filed important information, but I can't.  Not on demand, anyway; I might come up with the goods at 2am when it's too late, but that is part of the problem, not the solution.

I know that from now on I will have to keep notes and records to trigger my memory, if I want to avoid total chaos.  It's just that I like working the way I used to, and it will take a while to put the new paper-trail method of organising into practise.  But the blog can be really helpful, if I can just find the time to post more often. 

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 It's a beautiful autumn day today, and all I can hear is birds singing in the early morning sunshine.  Sundays are so quiet here, not like when I lived on the main street.  Everyone popped into the supermarket next door, so there were traffic noises and  chatter. I didn't mind, but I love the peace and bird songs here.  My neighbour has lots of aviaries, and those bird voices are especially lovely.

There has been time for nothing else except work lately, and I'm so weary of it all.  I would love to jump in the car and go visit friends in Sydney, but that won't happen for a while.  So I'll make the most of my Sunday, and try not to do anything work related.  It's so easy to just open a file to check something, and then three hours go by and I feel hard done by because it's turned into another work day.  So after I hit Publish, I'm going to plant my seedlings and then make bread, and maybe have a cup of tea in the garden. 

 I stayed up late last night sewing, so there is a bit of progress on this set of cross blocks, but I'm not feeling drawn to finish them into a top.  They aren't inspiring me yet, so I'll pack them back in the drawer and let them mature a while longer, like cheese.  Then maybe that cheddar sashing will seem like a good idea...

I'm having fun with these cross in a frame blocks, cut from scraps as well as the Civil War Reunion jellyroll I bought.  I have the absolute perfect setting fabric, just have to decide on a layout.  Onpoint with alternate squares is looking good, but I also like it set straight with alternate blocks.  I'll make the final call after I have a heap more blocks finished.

 In my other house I could sew while my machines were printing orders, but the sewing room is nowhere near the office here.  So while I'm babysitting the printers I practice my recorder.  The acoustics in the hall are great; I can play as loud as I like and it can't be heard outside, which is reassuring when I don't quite hit the note, which is often.  Poor Mereth and Dolly still hate it, but it keeps me amused.   And I think it's beneficial to learn a new skill every now and then, keeps the brain cells active.  Or tortured, or something.

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Every now and then I get the urge to make crumb blocks, and I cover every surface of the sewing room with little strings and snippets and scraps.  I sew together all the little shreds that I've saved in various containers, and I'm happy, happy, happy.

Blocks start to materialise on the design wall.  I love the way the tiny pieces look next to each other.  I plan to make lots of crumb quilts, and to keep sewing until all the containers are empty.

Then suddenly there are no more nice pieces to sew; everything left in the boxes is dull, the wrong shape, the wrong colour, not big enough.  I get grumpier and more disillusioned.  I hate crumb piecing.

It's harder and harder to finish a block.  I just don't have the  right size or colour strips.  I start putting bits in the bin, instead of trying to fit them into the jigsaw of my blocks.  I HATE all the mess!!

At that point it's time to pack it all away and let it sit in the cupboard for a while.  I know that I will accumulate another pile of interesting scraps, and then I'll be able to finish the blocks I started, and make a whole new stack of them.  You can't rush crumb piecing, it's a progression, not a straightforward process.  My quilt will be all the more interesting if I take longer to make it.  It's definitely not a quilt-in-a-day.

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Autumn weather has arrived, for which we are very grateful.  It's cool and rainy and grey today, perfect for quilting and messing about in the sewing room.  Which is what I am doing.Yesterday we shifted all Mereth's potplants from our brother's place to hers, so today is a day to take it easy.  Some of those potplants weigh a lot!
I hope to get some quilting done later on.  The dogs like to dig around in the quilts that are protecting the lounge, and end up sitting on the lounge fabric with the quilts all rucked up beside them.  I want to make a BIG cover for the lounge out of these old twill pieces, something that can be tied in place.  It won't be pretty, but it should keep all the pawprints off the furniture.

That's Dolly's inscrutable camera face there; one moment she's looking at me, all eager and happy, tail thumping and ears pricked.  As soon as she sees the camera she freezes and looks away; too many flash photos have made her wary.  I've only ever accidentally 'flashed' her, but she doesn't forget things like that.

My Square In A Square quilt is finished.  It wouldn't have a pieced border, even though I tried to give it one.  I left everything pinned up on the design wall all week, and it just kept saying NO.  So I went with simple, and I like it like that.  The green toile is really old, a backing length from the stash,and a much prettier colour than the washed out photo. I love being able to find what I need in the stash; even when I think there's nothing that will do, I can usually dig up something.

So I get to cross another UFO off the list, and choose the next one to work on.  I like seeing an empty box and a finished quilt, it inspires me to keep working on these older projects.

Have you read this post on Bonny's blog?....
I think most of us serious quilters, at some time or another, have  felt overwhelmed by our fabric and books and projects and finished quilts.  It can be paralysing to think 'What do I need another quilt for?', and so you don't start another project, or even finish an old one.  The thing that  keeps me sewing is knowing, from past experience, that I always feel better after a sewing session.  It puts my world to rights, when I sit at the sewing machine and feed the little pieces through, and build them into a useful product.  There is always a place for a quilt, but it may involve being selfless enough to give it away.  The collection of quilts for Japan, and for the flood victims in Australia, is a wonderful way to reach out and touch people who's lives have been shaken into a new and terrible pattern.  I love having spare quilts to give away at times like this; no need to start sewing from scratch, I can just pull something suitable from the shelf and it's ready to go to a person who needs it.

If I get overwhelmed by my stash I put some of it on Ebay, or give it away.  When I sell the vintage fabric in my collection it's always for more than I paid, so that offsets part of the loss I make on the modern fabric.  I feel better for having lightened the stash, and I get something back, even if it's not the full price.  And it's a warning to me, when I want to buy more fabric online -  I don't want to be selling a 'must-have' fabric for cents on the dollar in a few years time.  I have had some wonderful emails from the people who buy my fabric, thanking me for making vintage fabric available to them, or for pricing new fabric so that it's affordable for them.

If buying fabric is a form of self-medication then you have to look at it like any medication.  It does it's job at the time.  There's no refund on a bottle of pills, no selling it on to get your money back.  I think getting 'a  fair price' for stash just doesn't happen.  Getting the money back shouldn't be the concern; getting your life in control is more important.


My sewing stuff is my comfort, my past-time, my medicine, my connection to my ancestors and to so many other women who also love the same things I do.  I could never contemplate getting rid of it all.  But I've learned to stop the impulse buying, and to appreciate what I have as an asset, and that is so much better than living with guilt because I've blown the budget, again, on something I really didn't need to have.

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We have a 3-day weekend here in South Australia (Adelaide Cup day - who needs a holiday for a horse race???) and I intend to make the most of my time off.  I want to get the UFO blocks set together, and the pieced borders done.  I'm pretty sure that I have nothing suitable for a final border, so it may get put back in the cupboard until I can go shopping at a real live shop.

I found a suitable green fabric in the stash, a bit lighter and a lot brighter than the other green.  In every spare moment this week I cut and sewed blue and green fabric together, and I'm now up to this stage.

I have a few more units to sew, and then I can start sewing rows.  The squares in the pieced border have been my leader-enders, so I have a stockpile of those already.  I'm a bit worried that I'll run out of blue fabric, but I'll deal with that problem when/if it happens.  I'm all about the sewing right now.

I still haven't decided on a spacer border to separate the body of the quilt and the pieced border.  Every time I walk past the design wall I hang up a different coloured strip, to see what takes my fancy.  Haven't chanced upon the right one yet, but I'll keep working on that while I put all the pieces together.  It makes good sense to me to let my subconcious deal with that problem while I'm feeding more pieces through the sewing machine; most times the solution will occur to me without a lot of concious effort, and that's always a bonus.

It's a lovely autumn day, a little bit cloudy and not too warm, so I hope to get into the garden later on, and take the dogs for a walk too.  And make some soup, and cook a chicken curry for tonight, and sort through my knitting supplies, and tidy up the kitchen cupboards, and .......

That's a good list of things to concentrate on for today; tomorow there will be a whole new lot of priorities, and then there's still another free day after that. I love long weekends!

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Alas, not much sewing was achieved over the weekend but I did get other things done so I can't complain.  I had a scrabble around in the UFO boxes, and pulled out these paper pieced Square in Square blocks, and decided they needed to be finished.

They are about 7 years old, and it's high time I dealt with them.  I love the strange navy prints in the blocks, but I only ever had a few FQs, so it can't be a big quilt. I have 18 blocks made, and it will have to be enough.  It took me two and a half hours to take all the paper out, so the idea of making any more with that method doesn't thrill me.

I had a quick play in EQ7, and I think I'll be going with this idea.

I'll make a few of the setting triangles to see if I like how they look in reality, and I'll try and find a suitable green for the sashing in the stash, but.....  I don't think there's anything there.   I made a trial of the triple sashing with something I thought might work, but it's too strong a colour.  Need more greens!  I may have to go shopping.

The other day we were driving out to visit Mereth's DS at Bowmans Park and saw this fellow walking down the road ahead.

He made a quick skedaddle up the nearest tree, and then froze, obviously thinking his camouflage was pretty good.  Shame his stripes are running the wrong way while he's upright on the tree, he's designed to blend into the twigs and dappled light of the ground under the gum trees.  He's a Lace Monitor, and his spots and dots and stripes are just gorgeous.

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I seem to have no spare time lately, so there hasn't been much sewing happening.  Yesterday I was working on loading things onto my site, but the connection was so slow I gave up and sewed these UFO blocks together.  It was supposed to be a single bed size, but it kept asking to be bigger, so I made another 15 blocks.  It's wonderful to see something come together so quickly, and with no effort on my part.  Squares and rectangles are a delight after hundreds of itty-bitty triangles.

I made these blocks from 2 very old charm packs, and used nearly all them.  I had to add in some light strips from my stash, which helped the colours look a little less drab.  I don't know why I ever bought these cahrm packs in such drab country colours, they are so not my usual choice.  But the gold/brown setting fabric makes them look a lot better.

I'm mulling over ideas for a border; something quick, as this is supposed to be a donation quilt.  I'm thinking a simple triple border would be best, but no fabrics are springing to mind.  I haven't got time to rummage through the stash drawers;  I'll probably grab the first red or brown print that I see and throw it together.  This isn't how I like to sew, but I don't have a choice right now.  I need more time in the day.

I'm already trying to decide what the next UFO project should be.  I need to pull out an old project, something over the 5 year mark.  That's a long time to store a pile of blocks and fabrics, and it would be great to see some of them completed at last.  It's years since my last big clean out, so I'll have to get ruthless.  This weekend should be a good time to give all the project boxes a good shake-up!

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