It's at least five weeks since I had a day at home to myself, and I'm loving it. I've been back from NSW for two weeks, but there was the hassle of shifting Keryn back into the hall and tearing apart the workshop in the process, so I feel like I haven't really reconnected yet with 'home'. It's not quite over yet, we now have to paint the shed inside and then move the Statler down there, along with all the tables and shelves and fabric.....It will be thrilling when we have it all set up, but then I'll have to start churning the customer quilts out so I won't be able to rest for a while.

Before I went away I set together these blocks, a very old project from the nineties. The Devil's Claw quilt was a Bernice McCoy Stone pattern in Quilters Newsletter magazine, and I immediately set to and began cutting the blocks out, all from scraps.

 They are handsewn, and my rule was that I couldn't cut into yardage, ever. So they took a few years, but were great fun to do, and many a soccer game was watched while I sewed away in the car.
I think I was put off all those years ago when I realised that it was going to be quite large, and square to boot. But now I just want it finished and off the list, no matter what.

 The design wall looked chaotic, but there was no way I could spread everything out properly. I just put the blocks up overlapping to see if the distribution of colours would work, and then sewed the top in four sections.This was a very easy way to do it as there were far fewer long seams to handle. I think I'll sew my next top like that too.

Keryn thinks some of the fabric combinations are downright ugly, but I was using what I had, and they all hold memories for me.

 I used some fabric for the setting blocks that had been on the shelves even longer than the project box, so I was glad to find a use for that too. I didn't have quite enough, so there are a few different pieces  in there, but the top is in one piece, and that's the main thing.

Some of those eighties pinks were really a disgusting dirty mauve, but that's what was available at the time. If I made this now I would have some lovely reproductions to use, but they weren't even thought up when I started this.

This is a wonderful graphic block and I think I'll probably do another variation one day, I'm not finished with it yet. This photo makes me feel quite triumphant, I'm so close to having this done!

I'm trying to find the magazine so I can see what the border was, just plain shirting if my memory  is right. It's not as big as I feared, now that matresses are so much deeper and the beds higher, so I might even add a pieced border yet.

Hmm, now what to work on.....