Can you hear me yelling in excitement?
I've finished the second of 2 quilts for the year.  That's started and finished.  Amazed?
Well, the first was only 12" square, the second is 17" square.

This little sweetie is Mourning Crosses , part of a 12 month quilt along with Kathleen Tracy of A Sentimental Quilter.
I loved choosing the fabrics for this one.  In fact, I've used some new to me fabrics that were part of a scrap bag.  Some had 2001 on the selvage, so almost vintage!  The centre square, purplish sashing and the outer green were in the bag.  I just felt I had to use them.  I think they came up pretty well.
Off to sewing in Castlemaine tonight.  Haven't seen these ladies since November, it'll be good to catch up.

Well, back from a great week away sewing to my heart's content.
As expected, a lot of talking, eating, drinking, talking, eating, sewing happened.  I'm now set up with 3 new projects to keep me occupied for the next 12 months.
 Rather than do a little of my 3 chosen projects over the 5 days, I spent a lot of time on preparation of just 1.
I find the prep side can be very tedious, so I chose fabrics, cut hexagons and basted to my hearts content.  All whilst listening to fabulous conversations and talking to friends.
I actually stitched these hexagon flowers on the first day of this project.  These will go around a central feature piece of fabric.

The individual hexagons are 1".  Felt rather large, as I've been sewing 1/2" and 3/4" lately.  The fabrics are from the lovely Pom Pom de Paris by French General.

A lot of basic preparation happened.
The quilt will finish about 70"square, I prepped nearly all the hexagons for the whole quilt.  Now for the stitching.

On Retreat...

Having a lovely quiet, yet productive time away at a stitching week in the Blue Mountains.
I've run away from home with all my supplies, and left the family at home to look after the dog!
More than a little time has been spent  eating and talking, so not as much sewing has occured as you might think. LOL.
In 2 days, I've achieved...

 And of course, the obligatory support of the attending shop.

Those 2 greyish blue fabrics are so soft.  I initially thought they were from the same range, they go together so well.  But no, 2 entirely different ranges and  manufacturers.
The panel is from the John Hewson Winterthur Museum range that has been recently reproduced.  I was very happy to be able to purchase this piece.

More sewing tomorrow.

Well, look at my blocks now.
Such sweet little things.  Glad I decided to sew just 4 blocks, instead of the 9 in the pattern.

 And now auditioning sashing fabric.

I'm thinking that this will look quite good.
The little quilt is then finished off with a floral on black border.  May need to buy a little of that, I know there's none in the cupboard.

What a difference a day can make.
I've been desperately trying to get along with my Orca Bay quilt, so I've only been working on that one.  I couldn't let myself sew on anything else, even when I didn't feel like stitching on it anymore.  Silly, I know.
Well, this morning I finally thought "Enough"!  LOL.  I'm leaving Orca for a while- I need a break.
Soooo, look at what I've been creating.....

It came together so quickly.

TADA!

A whole quilt finished in a day.  Patting myself on my back quite vigorously.
I've been wanting to make a small quilt for quite a while, opportunity beckoned recently when Jo of Jo's Country Junction announced a "Quilt Square" quilt along.
Using a Quilt Square pattern from Lori Smith of From my heart to your Hands ,we are creating a 12" square quilt each month.  I needed to order my pattern from the extremely lovely Lori before I could commence.  It was certainly a lovely day yesterday when it arrived.
Lori runs her pattern business herself.  I ordered my patterns over the Christmas period, so I wasn't expecting to see them quickly.  Lori emailed me with apologies that she was spending time with her family, but my patterns wouldn't be too far away. I was very pleasantly surprised that  she included one of her other patterns for me for being patient!  I was amazed by such good and thoughtful service.  (For those of us not in the USA, she also caps her postage at $4).  I'll certainly be looking again at her other lovely patterns.

 Seems I'm on a roll with small quilts!  LOL.
Kathleen Tracy of A Sentimental Quilter is also hosting a quilt-along with her blog and  her Yahoo group- "Small Quilt Talk".  The first quilt off the mark, is her Crosses Mourning Quilt from her second book- Prairie Children and their Quilts.
I also had to wait for this book to arrive before I could look at starting this quilt.  I am taking the option of creating the quilt in 4 blocks only, instead of the 9 in the book.

So, here is my start.  A little more cutting, and I might make a start on this tonight!  Oh my, what have I started?
I can't tell you how good this feels.

I've been working along on my Bonnie K. Hunter mystery quilt - "Orca Bay".
I'm quite the tortoise on this quilt, slowly moving through each of the steps.  I'm currently up to Step 7 of 8, so I'm nearing the finish line.
There was quite a bit of string piecing onto a paper foundation, I got quite good at tearing paper strips off!  These blocks are looking very nice now, all trimmed up to size.

These red string blocks were sliced in half on the diagonal, then trimmed to look neat and lovely.

 Onwards to lots of triangles!These look OK from a distance, but I always have trouble with keeping everything nice and square.  A little judicious trimming helped a lot.

String pieced flying geese.  Don't these look nice and tidy?

And don't these Ohio Star blocks look very elegant?
I love the colour combination, although I'm not a big user of black in my quilts.
I'm enjoying this quilt, I did have huge doubts earlier on in the process, but I'm loving it now.
More Sewing is in my future tonight!