Life in the Sewing room!

Here it is already a week into Feb. , and it's been almost a month since I "blogged" - time flies when one gets the 'quilt bug'! With the cold and snow of the last month, "hibernation" in the room has provided a welcome retreat.

My "strata" of fabric strips on the design wall, finally got to me and I have finally sewn them together and chopped them up! Sounds a little odd, I know, but such is the technique in a book I bought last year by Louisa Smith , called "Strips & Curves" which takes the old 'standard' quilt block "Drunkard's Path", to whole new level. I had also invested in her plexiglass templates, which made the whole procedure go along quite smooth.

Before: strips on left lined up for sewing.............after: sewn together, cut and re-sewn !

This is mainly constructed from a lot of batiks I've collected, or remnants I have from previous projects. The colours are vibrant and earthy so I have started calling my creation: "Drunk in the Jungle"! Still is on the design wall and waiting to be quilted - meanwhile I've started another quilt project!

The online site I "subcribe" to "The Quilt Show", has yearly BOM (block of the month for you non-quilters!) and I really liked the 2009 quilt design they have started and as a result have started work on that also.It is also looking like a great project to use my never ending pile of batik fabrics:

"Stars for a New Day", starts with a 'paper-pieced' centre and builds out from there. I have paper-pieced before, and it is a little more complicated process, but the final result is a very 'sharp' design with many small pieces that otherwise would've been impossible to combine! This quilt will be a great learning process and help me learn and improve a lot of my quilt "skills - mainly self-taught over the yearsand should prove a fun quilting journey.

On the not so fun side, I have a couple upcoming surgeries - cataract later this month and another "knee" replacement for early Apr. It takes some "planning" for appts, etc and I also want to be mobile and hopefully "healed" in time to go with Bill this May to the ISF conference in Turkey - exactly 7 wks. after the surgery , as I passed up on Prague last year due to the other knee surgery. We've taken some flight insurance out, just in case we have to change my travel plans.

Everyone seems to be travelling right now in the family , except me! Daughter, Sarah, had a training week in Montreal for her meteorology internship with Environment Canada last week, and has since found out her job "placement" starting May will be in the same city (she's currently living in Halifax) - ironically many years ago (74), Montreal was where I also started my first real job out of university! Bill headed off to Paris last Sat. for his usual meetings, returning yesterday (also away for our 29th anniversary!) and son, Greg, is currently in St. Louis, MO at a conference for his job, returning home tomorrow - definitely a challenge keeping track of everyone!

Meanwhile I keep busy on the home front with the above projects among other things!