Bits and Pieces

I went to my first Quilt Guild meeting this week, having finally joined. It was good, although I didn't know anyone except the LQS staff (suprise, surprise!), but I would have enjoyed it more without the nasty headache. To be honest, if it weren't for the fact that I had to take Evening Indulgence to have it valued by their panel the following day, I probably would've taken the easy option and stayed home! They have a quilt shop at each meeting, and of course I couldn't leave empty-handed:
I'd been somewhat nervous about handing my quilt over to be scruntinised, but the valuation came back around what I'd thought, which was reassuring. They also proivided a 'condensed critique' of the quilt, using the ratings excellent, good, satisfactory and needs improvement to cover 10 aspects. This was useful (positive in some aspects, and not in others, but that's ok, and again, they largely agree with my own thoughts).


Finally today, Simon hung Eleanor's Quilt in the nursery. The hanger needed moving from when James was in there, as his quilt was a different size and shape (at least that got hung in his new room straight away!)

I've been procrastinating at the sewing table for the last few days. Despite having about 130 different greens (and for the record, most were only 25cm cuts to start with), I don't have enough in the right shades for my next quilt! Yes, I can hear you all laughing - and see your eyes rolling! So I've been working through a few more tubs and cutting 2.5in squares for my one-day quilt using everything from my stash. Any new fabrics lose the square before they're put away, and I'm systematically working through a tub at a time, making sure I have one of everything, then marking the tub with a sticker as 'done'. Then nothing can go in there without me being sure I have cut a square of it already. I've been doing the greens, since I was looking through them anyway, and that's how I realised just how many I have.

Being the weird counting freak that I am, I store them in marked snap-lock bags of 100. So far I have 1200. I've done 5 tubs, and have another 5 plus the big blanket-box to go! Then eventually, I'm going to have to sort through the lot and remove any duplicates from moving fabrics around!

I volunteered to buy and send out single-sheets of printable fabric to some of the girls participating in the EBDQS2 who are fairly new to quilting, and not sure they wanted a whole pack of the expensive sheets. But my favourite LQS was out of stock, and I'd run out and needed to do a few labels myself, so Eleanor and I visited another. Of course, a pack of printable fabric sheets grew - into 8m of fabric and 3 rolls of quilting thread as well! Eleanor (supposedly sick, and therefore home from childcare) repeated her usual quilt-shop escapades of giggling, running around, and knocking over the bolts. The shop owner gave me 3 spare (empty) bolts for her to play with at home!

Half-metre cuts of these 8 Prints Charming fabrics to go with yesterday's spots...
Some greens and pinks for the next quilt (but I wasn't looking for the right greens!)...
And just because I can't resist pandas, stripes and snowflakes...
Stash = 919m

Tonight I should start sewing on some of the 5 labels I printed today. My friend has finally had her baby girl (only 12 days late!) - and I have photos already, so I can finish her quilt at last! Or maybe I'll cut some more 2.5in squares?