Holiday sewing and catch up time

Now to catch up ......

I'm just back from two delicious weeks in the lovely hot Turkey sunshine.  Boy, oh boy, is it chilly here in comparison ....

Well, whilst away I made fantastic progress with the New Kona Colour charm square pack, which I received from Debbie, (here).  As usual though my original project ideas wouldn't work out - there just wasn't enough colours in the pack to do lovely long strips.  So whilst sitting in the shade by the pool, I had to rethink the whole thing.

In the end I decided to group colour ways together, as originally planned, and create 3 short stacks in each colour way using Kona Pepper as the main background colour.  I plan to join each of these strips together with a thin strip of contrasting fabric - I was hoping to use Slate, but since returning home I'm having problems finding a UK stockist of this shade.

Once each stack is sewn together I'll probably add a wide piece of the Pepper to make a complete block which should be about 18" wide or square - we'll see.  The whole thing is developing and mutating in my head each time I pull out the strips.  I am however seriously considering working these blocks up into a quilt by using the quilt as you go techniques.  Once the fabrics to complete everything are in I'll keep you up to date with the whole process.

In addition, over the next few weeks I've GOT to 

• get Nicolette's Free Bee block sewn and posted off 
• decide on a design, dye fabrics and sew/quilt a panel for the Spinners, Weavers and Dyers 2012 challenge
• start work on the Threave Quilters 'Under the Sea' challenge block (needs to be done by December)
• and get back to my QCR batik stack quilt

and soon the October Free Bee block details will be posted, so there will be more challenges and fun ahead - which reminds me I want to get some more blocks made for my own Free Bee quilt - maybe I'll keep these as a Christmas holiday project. 

So until next time....