Years ago I saved this photo of an antique quilt from an online seller. I was intrigued by the cross shape that appeared because of  the different colouring of the double nine patch blocks. One block has yellow setting squares and four of the nine patch blocks

 and the other has five nine patches and red setting blocks.

I seem to remember that some famous designer released this as a pattern at some stage but the name escapes me now.

So I started my own version but quickly realised that it all looked too harsh and I didn't like the yellow blocks and it was not turning out the way I wanted. It was banished to a drawer until earlier this year when I dragged it out, ripped out the blocks I wssn't happy with and substituted some softer reds and blues and golds.

 I put the three borders on and called it done. It was never going to have that clunky oversized piano key border which seems to totally diminish the centre. 

It's not the original effect but I like it much better now.

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Busy Spring

 Hello again! It's spring in Australia and I've been super busy outside. I have to try and control half an acre of garden and block next door and I've been mowing, spraying and cutting down trees to keep up with everything before it gets totally out of control. Or it gets too hot to do anything outside. Keryn kept asking if I'd sewed anything interesting, and was disappointed when it was just some old long term projects I was working on.

But now I've mostly done what I needed to, and I'm back in the sewing room and wanting to try out some new ideas, like this Windmill block from a recent Quilted Forest video. 

I made it with 2 1/2" strips, which worked out to be 8" finished, and also with 2" strips, finishing at 6". That one's awful cute, but I like both.

I succumbed to this potato chip variation,( 3 1/2" centre and 2" by 3 1/2" chips around it) which I saw on Becky's Quilted Twins blog. I have worked out I will probably need 140 blocks to make a bed size top. Lots of cutting for that one.

Here's a photo of an adorable little echidna that Matt picked  up while on the job.He didn't know how old it was, but he said it was very prickly!

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