Alphabet Soup

Alphabet Soup is finished (54-1/4" square plus prairie points).

I can't take any credit for the design of this quilt - I saw it on a website advertising Holly Holderman's Alphabet Panel and decided to have a go at working out the maths for the star blocks.  The only fabrics I bought were the alphabet panel and the turquoise/white stripe for the border - all the rest, including the backing fabrics, came out of the cupboard (which happened to contain some of the lovely Holly Holderman cherry, check and baby rabbit fabrics).

Also in one of my cupboards is a stack of hexagons my Mum stitched a few years ago - these are for Bouquet Garden from Homespun No 21.  The hexagons form a central medallion which is surrounded by 9 borders.  All the borders were also cut out years ago.  This will be the next quilt for me to finish off as well as continuing with Tail Feathers.  Haven't touched The Wish Quilt for a good few weeks and think it will again be on the back-burner for quite a while.

Jenni and I had a lovely day out yesterday - she bought everything on her list and a bit more.  Guess what?  I have to go back - fell in love with an office chair that I thought would look so pretty in my sewing room, brought it home and found I'd picked up the wrong box - same style, wrong colour.

Easter Sewing

Over the Easter break I added the borders to Alphabet Soup

made the backing (the dark spot is the shadow from the peg basket)

and quilted it

Prairie points and binding are now attached.  It's looking very sweet - just waiting for a baby to be born.

Also made the next block in our on-line group's 12-1/2" BOM - Annie's New Year's Eve Star - Peg chose well - everyone has loved making this block.

Progress on the next Tail Feathers block has been slow.

Day off work tomorrow - Jenni and I are going to Ikea.

Holiday

I am on holidays and last night returned from a fantastic 6 day stay in Queensland with my dear friend Diann.  On Friday we travelled to Kingaroy (via visiting my brother and a couple of other stops) and spent the weekend with Helen, Jenny, Teresa and Tereasa at The Quilter's Rest.  Teresa and Tereasa have some great photos on their blogs of The Quilter's Rest and what they were making.  So relaxing to be able to sew or do whatever you feel like without having to worry about cooking, housework etc and have such a great time with friends.

Diann, Jenny and Helen concentrating on their work.  Jenny quilted 3 quilts over the weekend! I have a fun video of Jenny dancing but can't work out how to upload it to blogger without putting it on You Tube.  Diann was working out block placement for her Bear Paw Quilt, which she finished putting together on Saturday night.

She was so enthusiastic she put the borders on the quilt below.

Helen was cutting, cutting, cutting then sewing, sewing, sewing - hundreds of half-square triangles and flying geese.  Her quilt will be so pretty when it's finished - the fabrics are beautiful.

What did I sew?  I spent Friday night and all of Saturday sewing together my Girls Day Out blocks.  I've borrowed this photo from Teresa because I didn't take one of the finished quilt top.  It's now ready for the roses to be appliqued then I can think about the quilting - won't be for a little while because I have a couple of other deadlines coming up.

Monday and Tuesday Diann and I continued our own retreat and I completed the centre of Alphabet Soup - borders next and finished off with prairie points.

Managed to fit in a bit of shopping at Thread and Ginger and The Quilter's Rest.

So all up it was a fantastic holiday and I don't go back to work till next Monday.  I hope to have finished all the blocks for the bright green string-pieced quilt (Bullseye) - I'm about halfway.  The circles will be appliqued on when the quilt top is together.