Back With A Mixed Bag!

To misquote a movie slightly ... "I'm BAAAAAAAAACK!" :0) Sorry to be absent from blogland for so long ... we had to make a quick trip to Melbourne for a family event that kind of knocked the stuffing out of me. We spent quite a lot of last week travelling ... cars, planes, trains, buses ... we spent hours on 'em all! Boy were we happy to stay home for a couple of days this weekend! :0)

So although I haven't been popping in for many visits and I hadn't sewn a stitch for a fortnight until Friday night when I joined my stitchin' sistas for Friday Night Sit N Sew at The Quilters Angel, I DO have a few bits to show you.

In between tackling the mammoth task of dealing with "Mount Dirty Washing", I headed into my sewing room, not to sew, but to ...

... wield cutter and ruler to ...

... cut squares ... LOTS of squares!!! There were actually more than this, but I sent one batch home with my Mum. :0) The 240 eight inch squares will soon be three new patchwork tiered skirts for yours truly. Given time, I may just end up with a patchwork skirt for every day of the week! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Now, my Friday night stitching was binding sewing. I'm happy to say that my "Holiday In Paris" quilt is ... FINISHED! YAY!! :0) It's only taken two ... er ... maybe three?? ... years! In fact, it's been so long that I've forgotten. :0) But I'm happy to say I'm still in love with this design, so I thought I'd share a few pics with you to see if you love it too ...

... red giant rick-rack and red binding frame the quilt ... one of my fave 'have a cuppa and a browse' books there. :0)

... ready to curl up for a read in my sewing room ...

Ta Da! The full quilt. It's a little hard to see in this photo ... sorry! It was an icky day outside, so it was taken indoors and the lighting is a bit dodgy. In case you can't see it, the centre block of each square is a sepia toned stitchery of a holiday 'snapshot', complete with a caption ... like you'd find in someone's holiday photo album. When I had it quilted by the clever Rosalie of Rose Quilting, I wasn't sure what design to go with, so she suggested a separate design for each block reflecting the 'snapshot'. It worked pretty well, so I thought I'd show you a few ...

... A stylised Eiffel Tower ... it's a bit like me ... short and podgy! Tee! Hee! Hee!

The Arc de Triumph ...

... fashion fixin's ... Paris is tray chick after all! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Now, of course, it's the dreaded instruction writing phase ... BLECH!! :0)

Still working on some Secret Squirrel projects that are waiting for me to feel inspired to hit the machine instead of the hand stitching ... still waiting!! :0)

In the meantime, I think I'm going to play Polly and put the kettle for a cuppa before I head off to bed ... still trying to catch up on some sleep after our busy couple of weeks. I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend and that there's been some stitchy stuff happening at your place. Don't forget to check in with Sweet Peg to see if you were one of the winners of the February OPAM draw! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS