Not much blogging..................

............... but plenty of sewing and also a bit of joinery construction but in this case not by me

You caught a glimpse of some celtic knotwork I've been working on a post or two ago - using a bright orange bias on a dark blue background

In order to do this type of work this I have to mark the initial pattern onto the background fabric which is all fine and dandy if I'm using a light coloured fabric - I just tape it to the window and use the daylight as a light box for tracing the pattern.

However this isn't quite so easy on a dark background - you need a very sunny day - something we're not always blessed with in this part of the world

So I thought I'd improvise and use a glass topped coffee table with an old lamp underneath it

This worked okay for the first of the four sections but was nowhere near ideal - I just couldn't seem to get the lamp in the right place to get a clear image through the dark fabric so it took a fair bit of faffing about to just trace the one and rather put me off doing the other three

I was chatting to my wonderful handy husband about it later in the day. He looked thoughtful and wandered off out into the garage for a while

He returned with a set of spotlights we'd bought at very little cost a while ago thinking they might come in handy for an unspecified future project - we have a garage full of this sort of 'it'll come in handy sometime' stuff

I agreed that they'd be ideal mounted in a board that I could put under the glass table

So off he went back to the garage and a wee while later after lots of sawing and banging .........

Voila!!! My wonderful new light box. It shines so brightly we have to make sure the curtains are closed or we might have incoming aircraft landing on the roof.

It should make very short work of tracing the other three motifs on that deep blue fabric.............

and I can feel an idea for a design on a black background germinating in the back of my mind

On another note is it only me or do other quilters procrastinate when it comes to adding borders to their work?

I really dislike this job and often work will sit in the cupboard stalling while waiting for this especially on big quilts. I hate manhandling and cutting large lengths of fabric

However the other day I took myself firmly by the hand and made myself do some border cutting and adding

This little cot quilt already had two of the sides added and was only waiting for me to make two more to finish it off - I've no idea whatever there was to stall on for so long - now it's in the completed tops pile ready for sandwiching

This batik jewel box was a much bigger fish to fry and I find cutting and adding the long and wide borders to this size of quilt a real pain and very easy to procrastinate about - but it's done now and is sitting waiting for inspiration to strike with an applique design to finish it off

Of course having cleared these borders from the 'to-do' list it seems only right that I should create something else that will need borders

and these scrappy 'log cabin/courthouse steps' style blocks are going together a treat - I've made more progress since I took this photo and the centre is completed at 4 by 6 x 8" blocks with 3" sashing giving a nice single sized quilt once I only..............

...................... add on those dratted borders of course!!!