Slow week here

Sooooo, I managed to get Block #11 for the Skill Builder QAL done. The tutorial went up a little bit later than normal and so I didn't get the usual quiet start as everyone was up and at'em - including one very grumpy, teething baby.
The block is called Beacon Light. There was also some 'fabric making' involved to make the centre squares and 1/4 square triangles. That felt fun and useful as I got to use up scraps from the other blocks - I like how all the colours play together.

I am such a COLOUR girl. My favourite has always been blue, pretty much any old blue but I particularly love the aquamarine of a coral sea and the ridiculous bright blue of the Aussie sky in summer. A close second is the green family. I'm a cool colour kind of girl that's for sure. About the only colour I haven't quite got my head around is purple, not sure why. I'm sure my purple time will come, I have recently got into yellow (although I can't wear yellow - YUCK) and orange.


One basted BIG ORANGEY quilt for hubby. I am a quarter way through quilting this sucker. It's bigger than my vision and is proving a tough little cookie to quilt. I am quilting diagonal parallel lines, one way only, painstakingly marked onto the quilt top over a couple of days worth of nap times. I thought the quilting would go wayyyyyyy quicker.

I am having all types of dramas with the trusty Janome workhorse -top thread knotting and breaking, top thread just breaking for no apparent reason and skipping stitches. I have played around with the tension and improved the knotting business but it's still skipping. I am using a Mettler cotton quilting thread (first time) and thought this might be the problemo. I pieced the QAL block with my regular Gutermann thread on the same machine and the same thing was happening, which is R.U.B.B.I.S.H.Arrrgggghhh! Lucky for me I have my 'old girl' (she's 40+) Janome back, which has just been serviced. Looks like she'll be put back to work!

I got loads of quilty, sewy things for my birthday which deserve a post of their own. I am still waiting on a couple of fabric bundles from the US so will wait until they're all together. I have BIG plans for this stuff. B.I.G!

Today I took the Jbug to the Brooklyn Spring Fair, a fundraiser for the Hawkesbury River Childcare Centre. Hot. Dusty. Hot. Too hot for this Mummy bubby combo. We lasted an hour. I'd love to have a stall at the fair and just see how it went. My Mama makes fantastic jams, mustards and preserves so I'm going to try and con her into a shared stall with all manner of homemade goodness. Just so it's written down.