What a treat.................

........... Sarah was home for a few days last weekend

Since she graduated and started work on the other side of the country last year we get precious little time with her

So this weekend was extra special

She drove home on the Friday night and as he had a gig with his band on the Saturday night her boyfriend James followed her on the train on Sunday morning

They then stayed with us until their return to Essex on the Tuesday evening

Fortunately it is school half term holidays this week so we could all spend some lovely time together

Nigel is working on a long term contract for Honda in Swindon about 90 miles from home - work is work and although the commute is a pig the work is well paid and interesting.  From next week he will lodge up there for part of the week to ease the travelling.  This week the plant is closed for a scheduled shut-down so he has also been at home all week - a full house - lovely!

On Saturday the weather was absolutely vile - solid heavy rain all day

So what's a girl - or girls - to do.........

........ but quilt!

Sarah has a colleague who's expecting a baby in July

So we worked together on a quilt for her

I cut the confetti blocks

She assembled them

And then for the rest of her stay I stitched them together to make the quilt top, and then sandwiched, quilted and bound it

Et voila!!!!

All done and dusted in time for her to take back with her on the Tuesday teatime

I don't think she's necessarily a total convert - apart from anything else her life is way too busy for quilting to sneak in on it to any great extent - but it was great fun working on this project together - and she can proudly say she did some of the work when she hands it over to her friend

As for me - I have a bonus pile of opposite blocks with white triangles and batik backgrounds - another quilt in the making methinks

Thankfully................

............ the hand got better really quickly

I took my daughter's professional advice, rested it and sure enough after a couple of days it was good as new

Since then I've been sewing up a storm - lots of baby quilts all finished and done

This is the first to go to it's new home for a Slimming World friend's new baby grandson

Love the cat fabric in the centre of the sawtooth stars

A new project for a commission well under way - does anyone else have an old favourite design they revert back to time and time again - Jewel Box does it every time for me - I never tire of that 3D faceted effect where the 4 triangles meet - lovely in subtle greys and white - very in at the moment - hope it doesn't date too much - need to make 16 of these units for the centre of a SuperKing sized bed quilt - then am thinking of an appliqued floral border and then she want's a drift of electric blue butterflies floating across the quilt - that'll keep me busy for a while but she's in no real hurry for the finished article

And a quick diversion courtesy of a little distraction from Kate - never really had much of a thing for log cabin blocks but I really enjoyed making these black and white ones with bright batik centres - this will probably have a mix of a thin bright border and then a checked black and white outer border eventually

Busy busy busy...................