Like many I suspect, I'm not sure what happened to 2011 - it was so busy!  I kept meaning to update my blog with

things I'd been doing and experiencing but I guess I was too busy doing and experiencing!

Back in the spring I made a new quilt for our bed.  I love batiks and had bought a Bali Pop while at the the Festival

of Quilts the previous Augist and Irish Coffee is the result. In many ways Irish Chain sums up patchwork for me -

a simple construction which creates something that looks more complex and interesting than would be expected.

After that I did a fair amount of overseas travel for my day job.  I find hand sewing projects help to while away

the hours on planes and in hotels as welll as providing some relaxation!  For sometime I've had a Cathedral Windows

project on the go - it started as what to do with 3 fat quarters of Japanese fabric and desire to have something

to take to quilt groups.  Over several years the design of a cross emerged with the purple centres representing the Passion.

Mary Magdelene meeting the risen Christ and mistaking him for the gardener on the first Easter morning has always

been powerful for me so the fact the centre fabrics were all florals seemed fitting and led to the title of Garden

Passion

I also started working on another hand project of Dreden Plates and hand quilting but that's still work in progress!

In the sunner the Little Waltham quilt group invited Amanda Hall from Monkey Buttons to run a Sasturday workshop.

I chose to do her Sea Horses.  It was great fun (as well as quite scary to find how many turquoise scraps I had!).  Although

quite a time consuming project, it was very enjoyable. I simplified the background and then echoed the light and dark

of the seahorses in the border.  I quilted a very smallmeander on the background so the sea horses come to the

foreground even more.

While at the Festival of Quilts this year, I attended a couple of workshops and lectures to balance out the retail therapy.

The workshop with Katherine Guerrier was great.  I'm not sure if it was because it was on the Sunday but there were only 8 of us

so we gots lots of 1 to 1 time.  I thoroughly enjoyed the combination of using traditional techniques with curves and wonkiness,

the organic development of the quilt and playing with colour. It was a great day

Of course I hoped to do more of these when I returned but making up kits and designing new stock has taken up most of

my spare time this autumn. But a New Year starts tomorrow and I'm full of ideas and plans for not just new quilts for the

website but some projects of my own.

Ever since I started Patchkits, I've had a cutting table made from 2 kitchen units and an MDF top.  It's been great.

And then I wondered why the top needed to only by 24" wide and wished there was some where to put all the
stuff like scissors and cutters and rulers other than on the surface which has limited the space for cutting.

So hey presto a new top for my kitchen units which is now 36" wide,  a "window box" screwed to the front of
one of the drawers to put all my scissors, scrap fabric bits, pins etc and a side rack for my rulers.  It's fantastic!

And the two newly purchased extra large cutting mats fitted perfecty.

Over the last 6 weeks or so I've been quilting my latest scrap quilt.

It's based on a pattern in Lynne Edwards book "Scrap Quilts to Use it Up"which I adapted to suit a single bed. As
usual I mainly made the quilt along side the rest of my sewing, putting together the 16 patch blocks as pairs and
then strips using the leaders and enders approach suggested by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville -
http://www.quiltville.com/leadersenders.shtml.  I find that as a result it grows with out becoming a project in
itself - every now and then I would put together a row of blocks, not least because I had no idea how many
blocks I needed to make!

I am very pleased with how the quilting has turned out.  As I used different threads and designs for the borders,
blocks and background it certainly gave me lots of practice at adjusting the tension and pulling the bobbin
thread to the front!  I think I've cracked the basics of free motion feathers, which are on the border.
Obviously it has made minimal impact on my scrap mountain so the next one beckons!

Suddenly Christmas is on the horizon and I need to make some gifts!  I spent the weekend making bags based
on the workshop I attened earlier in tha autumn.  I have to say I was delighted with the results and most
relieved that all that remains is to hand sew the facings onto the linings.