First Free Day

Today was my first free day of the holidays, if you don't count taking all three sons to their three respective jobs, at different starting times and at different locations.

So of course I had to visit my two favourite patchwork shops along the way.

Patchwork on Central Park were just unpacking bolts of Kaffe Fassett shot cottons. They have a huge range now. I love the shots. They are so much more interesting than the plains and seem to fit into a lot of the things I am working on like this:

This is not the final layout. I am just trying to make enough blocks to join together to fit the back of this tablecloth so it can be double sided.

I also visited Amitie to get some more perle cotton (they have every colour you can imagine there) because I finally decided how I was going to quilt this:

The fabric on the right is the backing I bought from Spotlight.

I guess I am very lucky to have so many places to go shopping when I need some fabric but after taking stock of what I have got going on at the moment I have realised that I have to stop spending, and start finishing so that is the plan for my holidays.

End of Year Prezzies

School is over for the kids and I just have 3 official days left. These days have been filled for me with a Math's professional development day with my favourite guru Michael Ymer,  an anaphylaxis course and a full day first aid course. I am not sure when they expect me to clean out the classroom so I guess I will be working for a few extra days but it's all good because in my head I am already on holiday.
I made a few end of year presents for my co workers. We are not big on giving presents at school as we would have to buy so many but as I already had a few bits and pieces made, I thought I would.

I decorated t-towels with hexies.

Put together some little Pocket Purses made from scrappy strips.

The fabulous fasteners come from Nikki at You Sew Girl .

They are really easy to put in and super strong.

Lastly I made some Xmas decorations for our amazing secretary who works for a dragon (almost) and still finds a way to do everything and have a smile on her face.

She said her tree was going to be blue and silver this year. Apparently she changes the theme every year.

Today is Sunday but that did not stop my special order from Japan arriving this morning.

It's called All my thanks and Love to Quilts by Goke Keiko.

I first saw this book at Cathy's house and just had to get my own copy.

I know it's all in Japanese but the pictures are brilliant and I do have the advantage of having a son who speaks and reads Japanese but the book seems to be mainly photos.

My camera is not the best to show off these amazing quilts. They are embroidered and quilted and totally wild. I will try to borrow my son's camera to give you some better shots.

Lastly I have been experimenting with some shot cottons. I am building on all of these blocks and will rearrange them a 1000 times but I am enjoying this new project.

Disappearing Nine Patch

I think I just wanted a quick fix when I put this together because this design is so easy to make but in the end I was disappointed with the finish. I cut really big squares and made 5 giant 9 patches from some fat quarters I had bought earlier.

I then chopped them all in quarters and sewed them up again after rearranging the new squares.

I am working on so many long term projects at the moment, I haven't had the satisfaction of finishing anything.

One week to go and school for my students finish and then another week of cleaning, a first aid refresher and more cleaning and I am free for 6 whole weeks. Ah the wonder of it all.