Sewing saves my sanity

Its raining again and we still don't have all our new gutters on, the roof is leaking, both my kids are sick, DH is sick and my spine has decided to rebel this week.  AND its football season again! Whinge, whine, blah, blah blah. 

OK, now I have got that OFF my chest, please don't take it on board, I am sure you are looking for something NICE in your day, so here is a bit of eye candy.

I made this cot size top in a few hours last week - honest it was that easy! 

I think it needs a final red border, what do you think? 

I am all out of boys cot quilts, but DS1 thinks it should go to one of his male cousins.  If my spine recovers sufficiently  I am going to continue to ignore the housework and see if I can replicate this, but make it bigger eg. single bed size.  All this fabric came out of my stash.  I have been officially distracted from UFO's (cannot quilt with a sore spine) and now focusing on stash busting instead!

I had a weekend away with 3 girl friends from high school recently, all of whom are non quilters.  I gave up my annual patchwork camp in order to spend time with these ladies but luckily for me we went to Robe for the weekend.  Robe is a small fishing village in the south east of South Australia and a very popular holiday spot AND it has a patchwork shop!

These are my purchases, very restrained don't you think!  Oops just remembered that I also brought 2 x 1 metre lengths of flannel, one with lions and one with whales for baby rugs. 

 These are going into my hexagon quilt.  The one that is going to take me 10 years to make, but that's OK, because I planned on it being my hand piecing project for carting around.  I didn't get a chance to do any sewing on my weekend away, because we were too busy shopping, talking, eating out, walking on the beach and wine tasting!  Now I just have to decide how I am going to break it to DH (when he is well) that next year I want my annual weekend off at patchwork camp PLUS a weekend away with the girls!   Hmm perhaps I might have to go back to work (the paying sort) before I ask!

A final bit of eye candy to make up for the whining and the boasting about child free weekend!  These three quilts and another 8 (I swear I thought I had packed 12 but can only find 11 photos) are on their way to Carisbrook in Central Victoria.  Carisbrook was flooded earlier in the year and it is now getting very cold overnight.  You can find out more about donating quilts to Victorians and Queenslanders affected by floods at the Vic Quilters website.

These quilts were made by the charity group I belong to, Quilts from the Heart, at Westbourne Park Uniting Church, South Australia.  We wouldn't exist or finish so many wonderful warm quilts if we didn't have the support of long arm quilter, Elaine Kennedy. 

 I am fairly sure Chris made this Disappearing 9 patch. Chris is a quilter, most of our group are not.  Chris loves black prints, which we had lots of, LOTS more then I thought, once I started digging into the cupboard.

 I am not sure who made this one, but I love its cheerful colours.  We only use donated fabrics.  Our biggest problem is that we get too much fabric (sigh!), our storage space is overflowing.  Those unsuitable fabrics (eg non cotton) we put on the honesty table and gets snapped up by the other craft groups or goes to a local op shop.

Lots of our quilts are someone else's UFO's, this quilt I suspect was exactly that - four blocks that probably came in and got joined with some string pieced blocks, which I guess either Ann or Bev made.  Bev likes UFO's (other peoples) and brights.  Ann is the queen of string blocks, last year she was producing TWO a WEEK for more weeks then I could count!  This year she has had the cheek to travel to France for six weeks to visit her daughter and grand daughter... and she went last year as well!

I hope everyone at your house is well in body and spirit, happy quilting Sue.