A blog post at last!

Yes long overdue I know and I am not going to bore you with any excuses!  Funnily enough my last blog post was about our October Sew Along Retreat - well we are off again this weekend for our first Sew Along Retreat this weekend at the wonderful Avalon Homestead.

I am really looking forward to spending three days up in picturesque Toodyay sewing up a storm with the 24 ladies who will be joining us for jam packed days of inspiration, fun and best of all - no cooking! It is wonderful to be with lots of creative women and see all the projects they will be getting up to.  We are running our Spring Carnival Quilt Workshop and these are such lovely quilts to see evolve in so many different colour combinations.

While I have had a big break over Christmas and into the beginning of this year - I have actually made a large sum of quilts and blankets.  I currently have 5 quilts or crochet blankets that I have finished but can't show you just yet as they have not gone to their owners.  As they head out for birthdays and gifts I will show you.  

Here is one special blanket that I had been working on for quite a while.  My mum celebrated her 60th Birthday in February and I spent most of last year trying to think of the perfect gift for such a special person in my life.  I decided that as mum quilts, I would crochet her a blanket.  Knowing that not any type of wool was going to be needed I settled on the Noro Taiyo yarn.  Well 18 balls of this beautiful silk/cotton/wool later this is the result.

This yarn is a variegated yarn -  the balls were all the same colour and I love how different each square is regardless of the ball being the same.  I settled on the Granny squares to showcase this colouring rather than going with a more complex design.  I then put a simple scallop around the border of the 16 squares.  I hope mum loves it as much as I loved making it.

On the quilting front I have firmly established my love for Liberty Fabrics - I had been collecting for a little white the Liberty Lifestyle range and had a total of 32 fabrics that were my favourite.  Wanting to make a quilt that would show  off this large assortment of fabrics I decided on this block to make the quilt.

This quilt has been named "Under the Umbrellas" and will be the feature workshop at the Sew Along July Retreat.  It has become one of my most favourite quits I have made and so worth the time spent to make it.

Still on Liberty Fabric - these Hello Kitty Liberty Tana Lawns are another fabric I have been collecting for a few months.  My youngest daughter has claimed these and I am cutting into these as we speak. I have decided to cut the fabrics into squares as I did not want to loose any of the print to a complicated design.  So far it is looking like an eye spy of Kitty's all over.