My brother is a keen woodworker and while I was in Western Australia I got to help with his latest project, somewhat unimaginatively named Harry the Horse. Doug had already built a smaller rocking horse which turned out beautifully, (even though it was made with the timber from packing cases) and making a full sized one was the next step.

We spent some companionable hours in his workshop sanding and applying the first of many coats of size and gesso. And as all the joints needed to be covered with strips of a fine fabric scrim, I even got to use my rotary cutter on this project.

When Keryn and I were little we loved to be with Dad in his shed if he was building something. We would decorate our hair with the long golden curls the plane shaved off, or make dangling earrings that bumped elegantly against the neck. We must have been a bit of a trial, always peering over the edge of the bench and asking "What are you making now?" If he didn't want to bother with explanations he said "A wigwam", which made me cross- even I could see it wasn't a wigwam. I still have many of his tools and I treasure the memory of his patience with us; he could have got things done a lot quicker without two little helpers. (A bit like Keryn's cats!)

Now that the computer is behaving better I'm wasting a lot more time catching up on everyone's news, and not sewing as much. It doesn't feel right, I've spent practically every night at the machine and miss those hours of productivity. I was looking at the blocks and wondering how many I'd made since the computer troubles drove me to the machine at night.

Then I wondered how much actual fabric I'd cut up to make this pile, so I weighed a one metre length, which was 200g, and my stack of blocks weighs ......

One whole kilo! That's 5 metres you know! I'm pretty impressed, 5 metres gone from the stash. We won't mention the teensy bag of material from Western Australia that despite it's skimpiness still added at least twice that metreage to the general fabric pool.

Oh well, 5 metres is not to be sneezed at and when I find setting and backing fabric for this lot then we'll be talking big numbers used up.

Jo asked in the comments if I'd based a block on Karen Cunningham's designs. I know the one she means, but my inspiration came from this old quilt on ebay, like so many of my projects. The setting will be quite different, this pink does nothing for the blocks and I'm itching to sew mine together. Wouldn't you know it, I only have a fat quarter of the fabric I want to use, so I think I'll wait until Keryn and I are in Sydney next week and try to find more of it.

It's a great block to sew, it really seems to fly out of the machine, and I've used the last of some precious fabrics to make it special. I'm thoroughly enjoying this block and don't want to stop making them.


Where's my puppy gone?

Sigh.