We had quite a few family commitments on the long weekend, so not as much got done as I thought. But playing card games with the crew and going for walks on the beach with all the dogs was great fun and much more important anyway. 

 I managed to get the Sawtooth Star blocks in one piece, and I'm still trying to find something for the borders, preferably from stash. The hard work is done though, and I want to quilt this one very soon, if I can.

I also began sewing the backing together. I had three leftover stars, so I added bits to make them 10" too and I'm incorporating them into the squares. This goes together so quickly; after sewing piles of 2" pieces these large blocks seem to be finished at the speed of light.

Yesterday was the wettest day we've had this year, it rained all day without stop. I took this as a sign that I needed to stay inside and sew for as long as I could stand it. At her usual walk time Pippi started to get excited, but I explained to her that it was too wet, we'd have to skip the walk today. I continued laying the 4 patches on the design wall, but when I turned around this is what I saw....

Pleeese!!!

I had to actually lift her head up to get the next block out, and then she immediately laid on the pile again..."Want to go for a Walk!!"

"Now?"

After about five minutes of this I gave in and got my coat and we went for a spin down the road. She was so excited to be out in the wet grass, and everything smelled so good she didn't know where to go next. It only took fifteen minutes and I was glad that we went  out- I used to love walking in the rain, but perhaps I'm getting old and like being warm and dry better!

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Woohoo!! It's a long weekend here in Australia and the second lot of washing is spinning in the machine and I've been sewing since seven this morning. I have the first half of the Sawtooth stars in one piece, and various chunks of the second half are on the design wall waiting to be sewn. I want this top finished by the end of today if possible.

I was going to buy two metres of fabric to use as the setting fabric, but I realised I wasn't really in love with this set of blocks. Well, not enough to spend $50 on them! I used the pinky apricot background fabrics because I wanted them out of my stash, not because I liked them, so I probably wasn't starting from a good place anyway. In the spirit of frugality I hunted through my collection of browns and found this ancient piece of material, bought in the very early '80's I think. It was marked down and I bought everything on the roll because I loved it so much.Hmm.... could this be the place to finally use it?

The blocks said "Yes", and the more I thought about it, the more appropriate it seemed. While I still love the fabric, it's very dated and there was certainly enough of it, once I'd raided Keryn's stash and pinched back the metre that I'd given her. I had nibbled away at my piece over the years, but now I've got plenty for the block settings and maybe the border as well. It's a lovely feeling to finally choose a place to use a special fabric, especially one I've been saving for, *gulp* thirty years.

I was so happy to be sewing away with purpose that I started to think about backing fabric, and I remembered these giant four-patches that I started in 2010. They were inspired by an antique quilt backing and used quite a few of my expendable brown pieces when I sewed this lot.

 I pulled them from the drawer and counted them- 52, and I roughly estimated I need 76 for this top. I need more!! So that was a great excuse to cut even more browns up , and now I've got some super mindless sewing to do.

My short attention span coupled with the whole sewing room being covered in nothing but BROWN (even the bloomin' leader ender was brown!) made me unearth a set of little red cross blocks, and I'm setting them together in between sewing  the rows of stars. The red is proving a nice lift to my spirits, and I'm getting another little top together, so I feel doubly virtuous. I haven't started another project yet, but I make no promises that by the end of the holiday Monday there won't  be something new on the design wall.....

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  I've been diligent and sewn together 65 sawtooth stars so far, and I'm Bored!! I want to start something else, but  I'm making myself stick with this project.

I'm soo tempted to relegate these to leader-enders and begin some fascinating new quilt, but I know I'd reach the same stage as this one and want something different. Can we say "short attention span"? So I'll plod on, but I'm looking at magazines and saved photos.....

This is the last piece of the blue leaf fabric, which is so old it's been in my stash forever. I still have it in brown, but the blue is now officially gone.

Likewise this brown repro. These fabrics were so precious when I got them, I only ever nibbled away at them and rationed them out- how awful to use them up entirely! Well I have none left now, although there may be a few bits hiding in the pre cut shapes containers.

 I have enough  points for another ten or so stars, and then I can start setting them together. I was going to make it bigger, but now I think I need to finish this before Total Revolt sets in. I certainly don't need another set of blocks lingering in the cupboard.

 And the tin won't close on these so it's best if I just get the top in one piece...

Here's Pippi in full wrap-up mode. Her head is closest to the bottom of the photo and she's got the blanket tucked well in around her. She's as warm as toast and usually snoring contentedly. The only worry is that she'll hear a car pull up outside or someone knocks at the door. Then she blindly  leaps off the bed barking and shouting warnings, and trailing the blanket out into the hallway. Sometimes with it still over her head...She's clever in some ways and not in others!

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 I've started sewing my sawtooth stars together and I'm having fun choosing the centres for them. Rather than cutting strips from my fat quarters, which would give me about five squares of the same fabric, I went through my smaller pieces and scraps and cut one or two 3 1/2" squares. I've exhausted the possibilities of that so now I'm going to cut just one square from my fat quarters to give me  lots of variety. I've got nearly eighty sets of star points and if I really like a certain fabric I'll cut more than one, but I should have a nice range of material once I'm done.

I've studied the rather blurry photo in the book and decided that I can have warm browns to cheddars, dull reds, stripes, greys tending to blue or mauve, but definitely no green or bright yellows. It's amazing how many fabrics suddenly looked green when I put them next to the apricot backgrounds or the madder star points.

I haven't decided whether this is the setting fabric of not, but it's very nice and gives me an idea of where I'm going.

 Unless I try a lighter tone, or something completely different....I do hate to commit myself to one plan of action !

Pippi is feeling the cold now and puts herself to bed under her blanket. It's so funny to watch her do this, she finds an edge and sticks her nose under it until she can flip it over her head, then she gradually tosses it over her whole body. If she's feeling extra cold she'll then turn round a couple of times, so that the blanket winds around her legs, and collapse in a heap, completely covered and looking like a fat round donut.

But if she wants a bit of a cooling effect, or just to keep an eye on things, she leaves her nose and paws sticking out- I think she's so clever to do this on her own. And cute too.

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When I was going through my Whitman's tins I opened this one and discovered some cut hexagons,of mostly vintage fabric. Sue Garman did a post recently about the wonder of hexagon quilts, and I decided to dig this project out and photograph it.

 (I blogged about it in July of 2008, and showed a photo of the pattern of the seam allowances on the back.)   It took me a while to remember where the rest of it was, and to my astonishment there was a lot more done than I thought. This measure about four feet across and covers nearly half of a single bed.

 If asked, I would have ventured to say I'd sewn together about half of this large piece, and probably about six more rosettes completed. But there was an absolute pile of them, thirty two to be exact.

 When this happens I say the "quilting fairies" have been at work, because I really can't remember sewing this many. The trouble is, I just sew and sew and never stop to count; then the box gets put away and I've got no idea where I am with the project. It's always a nice surprise to find I'm further along than I thought, but disturbing too because the memory is going....

 Pretty, aren't they?

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We had a very social weekend catching up with family, so I've only been able to sew bits here and there. I'm working on about four seperate projects, and I'm getting sick of it, I think I need to concentrate on one or two and really see some progress.

I've been sewing these strips into pairs, and they're mounting up satisfactorily. I probably need to sew them to the length I want and then calculate how many more I need. These are supposed to be my Leader Enders, but there are two other projects I use too- I need to pick one and put the others away.

These are 1 1/2" HST for an old set of blocks I started about seven years ago. I need hundreds more and  they also make good Leader enders, but I think I want to see a lot more progress on these.

And then there are the brown evening star blocks I'm making sets of flying geese for; I'm up to 75 now so I need to choose the centres and get going on them. Talk about all over the shop! We have more visitors this weekend, so I'll have to squeeze in some time to sort all this out, or I'll be running in circles.

Pippi must be feeling energetic again, I had dug over this raised garden bed and smoothed it ready for planting, but this is what it looks like now.

 I'm just so glad she's better that I don't mind, but I think I'll be putting a fence around it when the plants go in.

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 Pippi is almost completely recovered now , and back to her happy goofy self. She spent a lot of time resting in the sunshine on the back verandah, reclining on her cane lounge like a proper invalid, but that's enough of that! The only things to remind her of her horrible experience are sore feet, an occasional tendency to stumble and a voracious appetite. She stands at her bowl wagging her tail back and forth- she's just so happy to be eating again!

It's coming up to Mother's Day and the chrysanthemums are flowering beautifully. I bought a heap last year, and have plans to get more next week , as long as they're not hideous colours or too shaggy and overblown.

 Usually they only flower once a year, but some of them kept blooming at odd times. They don't take much looking after, and I have plans for a big garden bed devoted solely to them. They make wonderful cut flowers, this weekend I'm going to fill the house with them.

I got  a parcel of fabric from America today, some gorgeous repros to keep me happy for a while.

No plans in particular for any of them, but I just couldn't go past this Jo Morton piece, and then I had to fill up the rest of the package...

And now it's nearly the weekend, after I finish a customer quilt, and my dog's happy again and I've got new fabric and I should be able to get some sewing done...things are looking up here!

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