Gearing down

This weekend always feels like a bonus holiday. You think it's Saturday and actually it's Friday and so on. So now on Monday I'm not sure what day it feels like. I'm trying to gear down not gear up for the following week. I'm very lucky not to be travelling in to work next week although I will be doing some work - at a gentle pace, interspersed with stitching and painting.

We 'lose' an hour this weekend.  How does that work? An hour less sleep and an hour extra during the day. An hour longer in the evening and lo and behold it's dark again to get up.  To counteract this I decided to make an hour-glass quilt. To be specific a dotty hour-glass quilt.

 First half-square triangles

 Cutting off a million bunny ears to reduce bulk

 Re-layering the half-square triangles

To make the hour glass block.

I have 47 blocks -  I changed my mind on the size of the block and need more fabric.  I'm not sure whether to make this a 7 x 7 block which makes a  52" square quilt (only needing two more blocks) or to go further and make a 10 x 7 block quilt measuring 73" x 52", needing 23 more blocks. It took ages to stitch and trim all the blocks so another 23 blocks is quite an undertaking.  Also I don't like the method I've used - drawing a line diagonally across one of the squares and stitching 1/4" either side of the line, then cutting on the line. I don't think it was any more accurate than cutting triangles and stitching along the diagonal (which is the bias and can stretch). Drawing all those lines is quite tedious.  Since I've made most of them with the first method I'll feel obliged to make the remaining blocks in the same way. Tsk.

This stitching was done in between prepping lunch - a mini Christmas lunch with John, Steph and the boys. Will is away in Edinburgh for the Easter weekend with his lovely girlfriend, Alex.

Meanwhile I'm quilting away at the Dancing Squares quilt and loving it. I've got five of the eight rows finished and should have six done by tonight.  This is going to be a hard one to part with. I won't take any more pix until it's finished though.

I babysat last night and took my slow moving ripple blanket - I don't know why it's taking me so long.

The worrying thing is that Lucy from Attic 24 has been working up a stripe blanket in a design I love with some gorgeous spring colours.

(Photo uploaded from Attic 24 blog)

Will I be tempted before I have finished or will I be able to restrain myself?

The light has improved considerably since this morning so I'm going back to the quilt. Tomorrow I will be starting to gather together some ideas and samples for a class I'm doing at our Open Day on 9th April - a Shabby Chic workshop. I shall be quietly enjoying myself and working at the same time! How good is that?