In July 2015 I finished my blue Split 9-patch.

I had a lot of HSTs left over, a whole box of them, and they've been cluttering up my table ever since. I thought it might be cute if I made a little quilt using the same layout as the Split 9-patch, so that's what I did.  

 It only took a couple of nights to finish, and now that box of leftovers has been dealt with. The Wild Goose Chase blocks above it are on my design wall to see if I'm inspired to make more of them.  I'm not reallly.  I think they're destined for an Orphan quilt.

But I'm away from my sewing room for a few weeks, helping with an especially busy start to the school year.  There have been a lot of doctor's appoinments, school committments, trips to the hairdresser, and a hens party for a family wedding. I babysit whichever boy doesn't need to go out, so Shonny isn't dragging reluctant, screaming children all over the city, and I minded all three of them the weekend of the hens party.  As Thomas said, "Nanny, you got angry eyes!" after he'd run around shrieking with excitement for 15 minutes. A movie marathon fixed him, Frozen 2 calms them all down.

 Finn turns 1 next week, there is a birthday party this weekend at a kindergym.  He is going to love it, he's a born climber.  He gets onto everything, and will go and fetch a box or chair if he can't reach something.  

He's heart-attack material.

It's a good thing he can get himself down from these positions, he's much more careful than Thomas ever was, but I still stop him climbing whenever I can. I don't want any accidents.

This is what happens when Nan changes the baby without turning the light on.  Sigh.

I came out of the kitchen to investigate all the noise and found them doing this.

Amazingly they all survived without injury, but Nan put her angry eyes on again.

So no sewing, but lots of fun and games.

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Where to start?  The last three weeks are just a blur, so many family events, so much work, and hardly any sewing.  I'm a little bit unhinged from all the activity, we had a great time of course, but I need a little bit of solitude this week.  I hope I haven't jinxed anything by saying that.

I intend to get some sewing time in this afternoon, after I see to the necessary work, and I will be sewing on the units for the Cracker border.  I came home one night, after a long day of social stuff, and sewed 100 HSTs all at once, then ironed them.  That was nice, mindless, busywork. 

Now I'm ready to make them into Broken Dishes blocks and join them to the quilt, and then I will be able to write that into the stash report.  WooHoo!

I also started another project as a leader-ender.  I've been admiring Bonnie's Split 9-patch, and suddenly decided to make it in blues and yellow-creams, to use up the huge amount of scraps I've been generating with my blue quilts. 

It's such an easy block, and even easier if the triangles are cut with the AccuQuilt.

I'm going to have fun laying the blocks out in different patterns, I'm a long way from having to make a decision so it's pure fun to finish each block and put it on the design wall.

I also made a couple of blocks to see if they were suitable for a scrap reduction project, and I quite like them.

I like the dark grey backgrounds, and they are super easy, so I might kit up a few more.  I don't have the time right now, but the blocks can just sit there until I do.

In other news, I am back sewing on my Beloved, my Singer 538.  I managed to source another power cord for her, not an exact match, but it works. I answered an ad on Gumtree, a local online sales site, and went round to see two sewing machines.  I was really surprised to see that the seller was a young man, and he showed me his collection of vintage machines that he restores himself.  It was so interesting to meet a fellow enthusiast; when I told him how many machines I owned he called out to his Mum in the next room 'There's someone here with more machines than me!', and she came out to have a chat, and also showed me a chevron quilt he'd made and quilted on his Singer 201.  He'd done a great job, how wonderful to be quilting so early in life.

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