"I stitched and stitched some more, that is the way to get things done!"

Hello,

Well I can hardly believe that time has flown so quickly. Lots of lovely things going on. We had Jude and Jacob back in January for a time. Lots of visits to the Library,walks around the river and park. They especially enjoyed the new skate park in town. Then the next week I was able to watch on TV the Australian Open, you would never have guessed at the start of the tournament who was going to be the winners. Celebrated Australia Day in the Park and went to the new Aquatic Centre the next day for a swim. It has been many years since I have been swimming in a public pool. Then in February we celebrated Jacob's 6th Birthday. All during this I decided to stitch and stitch on the circle quilt when I could. It is now hanging out on the line after giving it a wash. It has been dragged around the place and thrown across the floor to see where to quilt next time. I put in a few sheets of those colourwash things, they just came out a bit dirty. No colours bled which was good, as there were a few red fabrics I was wary off.

I was really happy to finish this quilt. It started as a 365 circle quilt but ended up being less circles.

 There was hours and hours of hand stitching the circles on then I hand quilted around each circle. I did start to hand quilt around the border but it would take far to long and the stripes on the blue fabric would have sent me silly.

 I already hand the multi coloured thread in my stash. Many years ago I purchased it intending to crochet a doiley but as it only had the weight of the yarn and not the length I didn't want to take the chance of running out of thread. I purchased the pink and green from the local craft shop. The pink was much easier to sew with, the green one was made in China and not such a good quality thread. It tended to fray easier and was harder to pull through while quilting. It is the first time I have used this larger thread on a quilt, I think it adds a bit of dimension rather than using say a ecru thread.

 I found the perfect backing in my stash. Just the right length and width and the stitches didn't really show up at all. Perfectly camouflaged. This backing fabric came all the way from New Zealand. A few years ago I hand quilted a quilt for my Sister's friend Lisa and she sent me some fabrics as a thank you.
When I started this quilt I was imagining that my stash would magically disappear. Of course it seems just the same.

Back in January I opened my big sewing fabric cupboard and this lovely blue fabric fell to the floor. It had already been cut out. How many years ago I don't know. I thought it was a sign to make them up into the serviettes. These will be gifted along with the quilt to one of my children.

 
Of course after making one lot of serviettes I had a look through and found this length of cherry fabric that was probably meant to be used in patchwork blocks. I am a sucker for pink so made a set of serviettes for us to use. Most of my serviettes are white which isn't really practical so having these on hand is wonderful.

Every now and again my sister Chris gets asked "Your sister sews doesn't she?" Of course she replies
" Yes but she hasn't done much sewing for a while". So when Chris visited from New Zealand late last year she came with bags of fabric for me to make something. The fabric all comes from t-shirts from the Surfline Factory in Ruakaka in New Zealand. I have divided the fabric into different projects. I have some cushions partially made and blocks that will be made into a quilt. I have found some fabric in my stash that will be made into scarfs, just need to applique on the logo's. I made this table runner with marine images to go with the Surfline logo's. So project number one is done. Oh and the shells in the photo come from New Zealand. Part of Lucy's collection of shells gathered while she lived in New Zealand.

I will have a bit of a break from crafting this week as Lucy and I are off on a road trip tomorrow. Which I know will be memorable to say the least!

Whatever you are doing have fun this week. Please tell me what you are working on, I would love to hear all about it.

Oh and exciting news, WE HAD RAIN this week a whole 8.5mls. it was so lovely to wake to the sound of rain on the roof.

Happy days.
Bev C