Bugs, starts and some gifted treasures

What I haven't told you is that DH and the kids have been away for a few days, hence I have the house to myself!  Well I did have to work (another thing I hadn't told you) but I had a day and a half ALONE!  I started by sewing the bottom strip on the Bugs in a bottle.  And auditioned a few fabrics for borders...but I didn't like any of them.

 So then I got out all the pieces of my charm pack star quilt, the one I started in February and haven't touched since.  The idea was to have a pretty, pink quilt, but the red really jumps out, I am wondering if I should take them out?  According to the book the finished size is 32.5" x 32.5", which is way too small for my needs.  But the pattern cleverly requires you to purchase 2 charm packs of which you only use a bit of the second pack.  So I spent some time cutting and stitching until I had enough units to make the quilt larger.  The problem with this pattern is that you sew it in rows, not units so I need to be sure of the layout before I start sewing it together.  So it is still on the floor, because the family came home and I had to revert to domestic reality and go and cook some dinner.

 Today I was able to dig out the cot quit flimsy that my mother gifted to me over Easter.  You can see the fabric behind it is the same that I was auditioning for the Bugs in a Bottle....a butterfly print.  So colour and theme wise it matches perfectly with this little top.  Ironically Mum had also given me the butterfly print as she hadn't wanted it, but I hadn't found a use for it, until now!

 Mum also gave me the bit of blue that she had left over so I put a border on, which I think finished it off nicely.  Of course it was then too wide for the backing, but I managed to find a nice fabric to match and extended the backing.  That's as much as I got done, now that domestic bliss is back in full swing!

 My mother also gifted me these three big rectangle wonky blocks, I folded them in half so I could show them all together.  I think they will make a nice table runner.  The table the blocks are on came from the folks as well, so a new table runner is appropriate.

 I visited my friend Lisa over Easter.  She gifted me with these cute panels - she was given them by another quilty friend, Kaye.  There are lots of different designs, plenty to make a childs large lap quilt.  I will have to play with them awhile to work out how to incorporate the small blocks with the larger ones.

 We had a really social Easter and caught up with another friend of mine, Chris, who gifted me this ant print!  I am now auditioning it as a border for the Bugs in the bottle top.  Still contemplating how I can make the top bigger without buying more fabric!  Mainly because I found a perfect blue star print for the back of my novelty star quilt...and it was already in my stash....so the digger backing I brought is now surplus to requirements! Well I am sure I will think of something, just not straight away!

 That then made me determined to get out my cowboy fabric and see how it went with the backing print I brought.  And it does match nicely, except there isn't enough to make a cot quilt! : (  I was sure I had cow and horse fabric, but couldn't find any fat quarters, but think they have been reduced to 6.5" squares, from when I was cutting novelty fabric up last year.  I now have a lovely mess in the sewing room, but at least I have made some progress and certainly enjoyed myself!
Happy quilting, Sue SA.