Hopscotch

I picked up my Hopscotch quilt from Karen at stitching last week.  I love the orange peel quilting - it feels wonderful.  The quilt is 66-1/4" x 87-1/4".

Stitched down the binding while watching tv on Sunday night.

Had a pretty busy weekend preparing the verandahs for Christmas lights, re-arranging furniture in the loungeroom for the Christmas tree and taking the decorations, lights etc out of the cupboard.  The little sweethearts are coming for Mum's birthday lunch on 4 December and I thought they could decorate the tree with Mum so it will be nice to have most of the other decorations up as well.

I also went out for lunch on Saturday with the Schoolgirls and on Sunday with other very dear friends followed by the basketball - great game and the Hawks won by 31 points!  Lynell, Robyn and I called in at the shops on the way home because they insisted I buy some of the Christmas Disney character musicians.  The musicians are fun but little ChaCha doesn't think so - she stayed over last night and each time I started the music she kept saying "bye bye duck" and didn't want anything to do with them.

This little cheeky chops has discovered the shopping centre rides - had to ride in the Batman car.

Another busy week and weekend coming up - Schools Spectacular on Saturday with Mum and the annual Christmas trek to IKEA on Sunday.  Wonder if we'll get home earlier than last year?

The Crown

I was able to spend a fair bit of time with Miss ChaCha last week and she came for a sleepover on Friday night - always fun especially when Jenni is also home for a visit.

ChaCha and I had a busy Saturday morning shopping and visiting friends.  I bought a new smart tv for the sewing room.  At the moment it is set up in the bedroom until an antenna point is installed in the sewing room.  Such a luxury sitting up on the bed watching episodes of "The Crown" - fabulous show.  Even had Mum watching a few episodes on Sunday afternoon.

I've spent my sewing time pinning "Colorway" block sections

sewing a few sections together

 and making a few flowers for the next "Medley" border.

Received a photo from Karen  showing quilting progress on "Hopscotch" - hoping to pick this up tonight.  I love Orange Peel quilting.

Last night Tania, a work colleague, and I went to the Rob Guest Endowment grand final concert at the Lyric Theatre - such a great night showcasing new talent and wonderful guest artists.

Thought I was really clever - the finalists performed "I Hope I Get It" from "A Chorus Line" as the opening to the concert and I picked the winner before I'd even heard him sing on his own.  Paulini sang "I Have Nothing", Whitney Houston's song from the new show "The Bodyguard" - absolutely stunning.

Stitching tonight, a few other things on this week and a busy weekend coming up - lunch with The Schoolgirls on Saturday, lunch with other friends on Sunday plus a basketball game.  Need to find some time to start my secret Christmas sewing.

Fig Tree Diamonds

The Stitching Girls came over for lunch on Sunday and Karen brought FigTree Diamonds with her.  I sewed the binding on after basketball and spent a couple of nights stitching it down.  This is a pretty big quilt at 97.5" square and has made a bit of dent in my FigTree stash.

 

I've cut out 2 more quilts:  "Colorway" (I have trouble typing that name without the "u")

and "Cakewalk"

Looking forward to starting Cakewalk - some easy and quick piecing.

"Medley" is progressing.  All the friendship star blocks and few more borders have been added

and I'm slowly working on the flower blocks for the next border - lots of tiny pieces in these blocks.  I wish I had more of the yellow Fig Tree fabrics - they are so lovely.

Swell 2

The last stitch went into Swell on Sunday night.  This is the second time I've made this quilt and used many of the same fabrics.  It's a great scrappy quilt.

I love the swirly snail quilting design

 and this wideback backing.

Making 36 Friendship Stars for the next round of Medley is a slow process

so I made the rest of the scalloped borders instead.

The weekend was great - basketball on Friday night, visits with my two sweethearts on Saturday, friends over for dinner on Sunday followed by another basketball game.