Glad to be back

I cannot believe that it has been so long (5 months!!!), since I last posted a blog. My artistic friend has posted at least 2, possibly more, in that time, and I am not quite sure why I have been so silent. I have started and finished 6 quilts during that period, so that may account for my silence, and I became addicted to MasterChef on the television, and time that I would have previously spent composing my blog (yes, it normally takes that long), was instead spent sitting on my bum watching very talented amateurs cook amazing dishes.

I have also been making treasure and dilly bags to sell, but this venture is going through a very quiet period at the moment. To be truthful, it has never been a very busy period for these bags, but I think they are great, and am very happy to make them to order. A big thank you to Silv who has bought 14 dilly bags for Christmas presents for her 14 nieces and nephews.

There have been some milestones since my last blog - my niece has turned 21 (her quilt is pictured), a workmate from my PDL days turned 90 (his quilt is pictured), and my sister's sister in law now has a grand daughter. My eldest nephew's 21st is in a couple of years and my sister has chosen the fabric and the pattern for that quilt. The big question now is whether I can get that fabric and pattern to look absolutely fabulous. Since we have never had much in common, this may be an interesting experience.

I have started organising all my fabric scraps into Bonnie Hunter's scrap user system. This involves cutting all your scraps into particular sizes and then storing each size in a plastic box/tub to be used in future quilts. All this really means is that the fabric scraps, instead of being shoved shelves in the cupboard, are just shoved into boxes on shelves in the cupboard. I have great plans to make quilts from these scraps, but don't feel the need to do this just yet. I am quite happy just cutting up fabric to fill the boxes.

I also need to learn how to put spiders on to a bug quilt - do I applique the spiders, or embroider them on? Both options seem a little fiddly, and yes, I have looked on the web for iron-on spider motifs, but cannot find any.

I think this is all from me for now, but don't worry, I will try and post another blog shortly.