Yesterday, I had one of the best sewing classes ever!
I left nice and early for my 1 hour trek up the highway to Millrose Cottage in Ballan.  The traffic travelling out of Melbourne was thankfully fairly light, so it was a very pleasant journey.
Once I'd unpacked, the very friendly owner of Millrose (so embarrassed here- I've got a mental block on her name- ? Sue I think), encouraged us to pick a fat quarter from a selection on the table.  What a welcome.
I chose this lovely pumpkin coloured  William Morris piece.

The class was run by Michelle Yeo , a very lovely and talented local quilt designer and maker.  We had the opportunity to make any of Michelle's designs.  I chose California Star, whilst the other friendly ladies in the class chose  her "Victorian Lace" and "Giant Dahlia" patterns to sew.

Unfortunately, not a very good photo, but you get the idea.
Michelle has her own method of paper piecing with freezer paper that doesn't involve picking the paper out of the block once finished- I'm a convert.  Very quick and easy.

A nice up close pic of the block.
I'm fooling myself by thinking there are only 4 large blocks in this quilt- how hard will that be to finish?  LOL.
Anyway, we worked away quite well, with morning cappucino's all around, until lunch time.  Then the next fantastic part of the day- Mill rose Cottage has a cafe attached.  The smell when we went in was delicious.  Lunch was included in the day!
I had delicious Pumpkin and Leek soup with house made bread.

Back to work and much more sewing ensued.  I really surprised myself with the amount of sewing I actually got done.

This all came home with me, multiple copies of each part to make up the one large block.  I still need to add a large pink triangle on to the pieces with the pumpkin colour.  It may not look like much, but lots of cutting, sewing and ironing for each piece.

All that hard work deserves a reward, in this case one of the best vanilla slices I've ever tasted for afternoon tea.
Sewing is such hard work.

All too soon, the day came to an end.  I never even had a browse around- I was so intent on my sewing.  Glad to say I'll be returning for another day to this wonderful shop.

I'm still working away industriously at my Robin's Nest Block of the Month. 
The next part hasn't arrived yet, so I'm still ahead.  I just need to applique a border around the centre block and I'm done.   The border is fussy cut from this fabric- "Civil War Journals" by Judie Rothermel.

Two and a bit sides basted, only one and a bit to go!

I was going to just cut and sew these borders, but I decided that the shapes were a bit tricky so I'd baste them first.  Oh my, such fiddly work.  My poor fingers have never been so pricked.  The edge I've left to turn under isn't quite 1/4".  It better look good when I applique it down!

I love getting parcels in the post.
This last week I received some wonderful things that were not fabric!

The unwrapping was almost as much fun as finding what was inside.

I really love well made scissors.
These little beauties came all the way from Silent Stitches in Massachusetts.  I've never seen such attention to detail in packaging things.  I had to fight off youngest DD who thought it was her job to open the little parcels.  Along with the Gingher scissors, I ordered  a matching tassel/ scissor dingle dangle with a little daisy charm on it to match the scissors.  Too cute.
The little bronze coloured scissors have become my new sewing scissors.  Fantastic fine points that cut right to the end.

My next little present came from Country Stitches in Iowa.  So far away, so easy to buy online and have things sent in the post.
A couple of lovely little scissor keeps, and one larger pendant. 

Looking online, I found it hard to believe that these were actually stitched little pieces of fabric.  They really looked like  scanned pictures.  However, once they arrived.....

Just look at these from the back, tiny little paper pieced blocks.  I'm still gasping at the mere thought of piecing these.
So, I guess my birthday came a little early this year!

It's been a very wintery start to out school holidays, but perfect weather to sit inside and sew.
As usual, I left my little 12" quilt for June until the last minute.  Luckily, a small quilt doesn't take that long to sew together- even though I did make a couple of mistakes.

It's certainly been a pleasure to stitch along with Jo of Jo's Country Junction every month on a new 12" square quilt.  I did toss up whether or not to just go scrappy, but decided to have controlled scrappy.  I do love blue and neutrals in a quilt.