Now where did the past five months go?

I just can't believe it is over five months since I last posted

I haven't been totally idle in that time

I've done precious little machine sewing - the twins' baby quilts are still to be quilted (and the babes arrived ages ago)

But I have been industrious with a trusty needle and thread

A friend of a friend promised me an assortment of Liberty Tana Lawn fabrics when we were away together on a weekend in Budapest almost six years ago

It transpires she used to work for them in the dim and distant past and had bought loads of their remnants for little money

I thought she'd forgotten all about it as they never materialised

However we were at a party for a mutual friend back in May and from the boot of her car she produced two bin liners of crammed full of the promised fabric

What treasure!!!

So I have been very busy since then playing with little teeny hexagons

They measure 1" from point to point

The cerise fabric was the only solid in the bags so I used it for the diamond centres and found some lovely ivory on line to use for the background (that was my birthday money well and truly spent!)

Here is the progress so far - Louise is 5'2" and is stretching to hold it fully extended so that gives you an idea of scale

I must credit Libby for the design layout as I pinched the idea from her blog but can't find the relevant post to show you her picture

Another reason for little non-hexagon production was the state of my sewing room - it was so messy I couldn't bear to sew in there so the alternative was handwork elsewhere in the house - hence the hexagons

I am naturally a messy worker and tend to push the clutter to the sides of the work surface and create in the little oasis of calm centred round the sewing machine

Unfortunately two or three years of detritus were doing a great job of overwhelming the oasis - I know it has been that long because Nigel has been nagging me to clear it each school holiday for easily that length of time and I've always been 'getting around to it'

We're currently hamster-sitting for 'Tiger-Lily' who belongs to a friend - thank goodness she didn't escape - if she'd ventured into the sewing room who knows when we'd have found her again!

So the onslaught to clear the mess started with Nigel rummaging through and putting away the countless bobbins of thread that were intermingled - how ever did I think I had no blue thread - I now have a small drawer full. I guess he thought if he made a start it would encourage me to continue - he knows me so well it was just the catalyst I needed

This was enough to spur me on and it took me a full three days to methodically go through everything and put it into its relevant home - none of this 'shove it into a container full on indiscriminate contents and stuff it away out of sight' Every one of those containers, and there were many, many of them were gone through and all contents distilled into their correct locations

These are the before photos - and this was after Nigel's initial trawl through

And - proud quilter moment - here are the afters

I've even prepared a basket of 2 1/2" squares to use as 'Bonnie' style 'Leaders and Enders' to keep the production line flowing (the picture was taken in very poor light so apologies for the yellowing)

My UFOs are all bagged, labelled and placed in labelled containers so now I know where everything is and can choose to work on whichever takes my fancy

From the UFO's stored neatly away the set of blocks Sarah made for her Duke of Edinburgh Award have shouted loudest to me from their tidy home in the cupboard so that's what I'm working on at present

Along with those teeny hexagons of course

And yesterday Louise and I spent a little crafty time together making a birthday present for her friend - amazing what you can make with a little leftover curtaining, some wadding, some heavy duty string and a few pearl buttons