No Strings Attached

Here’s part of the string quilt I’m making for a little girl in New York State.  I’m rather pleased with it.

I’ll show another photo later in the week once I’ve got the borders on.

We don’t normally celebrate Hallowe’en over here, but Alex got a call from a friend of hers asking if she wanted to go trick or treating yesterday.  I don’t think Amandine knew exactly what it meant, but they did it anyway and got soaked.

It hasn’t stopped raining for about 3 days and the forecast for the rest of the week is c**p!

Thursday Catch Up

Trying to juggle umpteen UFO’s, deciding what to do next and getting side tracked has been the name of the game this last week.

Finn’s New Year’s Eve Challenge has been giving me nightmares as I know I’m not going to achieve even 50% of my goals.   I’m:

1. quilting the Pink Stars quilt (sister is in hospital as I type this about to give birth to the quilt’s recipient);
2. piecing together another Q4L quilt (No. 14).  Wanda at Exuberant Colour sent me a whole lot of strips which are brilliant for strings so I’m creating lots of red and white strings and having great fun sewing them together on this. She came home last week and apart from a slight hiccup in threading the bobbins and altering the tension to suit the fabric, she sews like a dream!  I love the dual speed button.  We found a 1/4 inch and quilting foot combined on EBay and that is now winging its way here from the US.  So once that arrives there’ll be no stopping me!
3. I’ve also restarted Ab Fab in between quilting Stars.  I seem to have gone off it.  It doesn’t hold the same excitement as it did before.  Hummmmmm.  Perhaps it will come back.

Last, but by no means least, look what arrived in the mail yesterday.

Oodles and oodles of fabric in all shapes and sizes.

I signed up for Quilt Pixies December Swap. By some flook I managed to get teamed up with Donna and wow did she come up trumps. Thank you so much Donna. I’m itching to get started, but my new no new projects rule is stopping that!

Quilts 4 Leukaemia

Boy is this getting big or what!

Right now the total number of quilts made is 11, with the help of Finn and Mary, and there are requests for another 4, with more requests coming in.

The web site is now up and running and if you click on the How to Help link at the top, you will find a Pay Pal Donate button at the bottom of the page.  There is also one on the side bar of the blog.  The money will be used for sashing fabric and postage.

Thanks to everyone who has already contributed blocks, donated batting, backing fabric, gift certificates via Quilter’s Quarter (Quilter’s Quarter have stopped doing these) and no end of support.

More Goodies and a Woooo Hoooo

This lot recently arrived in the mail from my friend Megs in Texas.

Aren’t those batiks yummy?

Now for the woo hoo.

I’ve been a bit busy over the last few weeks. Hence my silence and lack of quilty content (soon to be put right).

Take a look at this.

Goodies in the Mail and Street Theatre

Lots of envelopes arriving again.  Some for Quilts 4 Leukaemia and some for me!

Mum found a bagful of paper pieced hexagons at a jumble sale recently and thought I’d like them.  I know it’s not really my sort of thing, but their original owner obviously put a lot of work into them so I thought I’d have a go at finishing them off!  Don’t know if I can put up with all that hand sewing – these are beautifully done – but, hey, worth a try I think.

Nicolette and I did a private swap recently.  I sent her lots of flowery fabric (forgot to take a photo before I posted it off) and she sent me a metre of gorgeous orange batik.

The flowery and yellow FQ’s were sent to me by non-blogger, Irene, who lives in the UK and has contributed lots of gorgeous red and white blocks.

Thanks Nicolette and Irene.

The weather is horribly hot.  I mean horribly horribly hot.  Feels like 100% humidity.  Too hot for sewing or doing anything quilty, but I have managed to do another couple of stars.  I rejected the 2 smaller ones (orphan bin ) and made another couple of big ones!

I like the spikey look.

On Wednesday DH had another check up with his heart surgeon.  I took the opportunity to go in with him on our own, have a wander round Périgueux marche (some stunning colours, but alas no photos – too many people) and see if we could catch some of Mimos.

Mimos is an international mime festival held every year.  It is now in its 26th year and this year’s theme is the “corps animés”.

Mimos Off is the best bit – street theatre at it’s best.

We only managed to catch one act as it was getting far too hot and we needed to get home.

Right, must get going – gite to clean and house to sort out – only a week to go and 25 people descending for the day !

Yet another Red and White Challenge

I’ve finished Quilt No. 9 and Quilt No. 10 is already on the wall.

While I was going through the block bin I had another Challenge idea.  I Spy red and white blocks!  Most of the quilts go to small children – aged 3 upwards.  What better than red and white I Spy quilts.  Yes or no?