While he's away......

For over a year now, I've been wanting to make my hubby a quilt.  I acquired a layer cake and a charm pack of the Aussie prints that are so fabulous, and I knew I wanted to make it out of them!

But what pattern!?!

I needed something that would show off the fabulous prints, and not cut them into a gazillion pieces, as I usually like to do!  These prints are just too wonderful to not show off in a large block!

So for the last year, I've been copying pics from blogs and pinterest, and looking through books and mags, looking for the perfect pattern to use!  And I found a few that I kindof liked, but nothing was really grabbing me as THE one!

Until last week!!!!

Kathie, from Inspired by Antique Quilts blog, had posted about a new book she just acquired called Simple Retro by Camille Roskelley.  And the book is really done up in newer, modern fabrics, so I just skimmed the pics quickly, because we all know that I really am all about the repros.  But the last pic on her blog stopped me in my tracks!

PERFECT!!!!!  It was instantly in my head to do that pattern for the Aussie prints!

Yippee!!!!

AND.......it just so happens that hubby is on his 'crazy golf weekend' with #1 son and friends, so he was going to be gone all weekend long!  Woohoo!

Time to get busy!

And I did!

I cut the fabric up on Thursday night, while the guys were watching a movie, and even though John came into the sewing room a couple times, I had enough shirt plaids, fabric stacks and tubs full of scraps strategically placed so he never saw any of the Aussie prints!  Ha!

And I started piecing it that night, as well!

Friday, my friend Pat and I went to NH for a quilt show (more about that later), so we were gone the whole day, and I never got to sew.  But yesterday......that's all I did!  And the top is done!!!!!

Don't you just love those prints!  Totally yummy!

I think I might add a 4" black border to it, and then it will be ready to quilt up.  Hubby will be gone all day this Tuesday, so I might just be able to get it done!  Woot!

I loved making this!  The pattern worked up VERY fast, and because I was just going from the pic, I did my own size of block, and it lends itself to any size block you could want!  Easy!

I cut my layer cake pieces into 7" squares, and that gave me enough left over to get more of the sashing pieces, which were cut 2" x 4.5".  I had very little waste, and just a smidge left over, but I'll use it up on the back of the quilt!

Why the odd sizes you might ask????  Well, silly me washed my fabric (cuz there was so much black and red in the prints) and these things shrank up like CRAZY!  So.......I'll never do THAT again with precuts!  I'll just buy extra boxes of color catchers!  Lesson learned!  lol

So, even though I don't have Camille's book.......I'm recommending it!  Ha!  And big thanks to Kathie for posting the pic that I really needed to see!  :o)

Ok.......so about the quilt show.  We went to the Quilter's Sampler in Nashua, and even though it's affiliated with the Quilter's Gathering, it is NOTHING like it!  We were thoroughly disappointed!  It is really just a bunch of vendors (and only a dozen or so!), and there were maybe 30 quilts, mostly wall hangings, and they were mostly from challenges on a theme.  It was NOT a show!  It was geared around the classes that they were giving, and if we had known sooner, we definitely would have taken a class, cuz they looked like fun!  But it was NOT worth the 3 hour drive to see it!  The only saving grace (and the only reason I was not screaming when we left!) was that there was no admission fee......totally free!  Whew!  Good thing!  Cuz if I had paid to get in.......oh!.......someone would be hearing about it!  lol

But the day was not a total wash out, cuz we had the best dang salad ever at Panera Bread (try the Strawberry Chicken Poppy Seed Salad.....AWESOME!), and then we decided to drive a bit further and go to Keene, NH to check out Pickering Farm Quilt Shop.  We've seen her vendor booth at many shows in the past, and we were so glad we made the trip to her shop.  It was awesome!  Check her out if you are ever in the SW New Hampshire area!  It made the day!

Ok........time for another popsicle.......yesterday it was 94 degrees when I looked, and loaded with humidity!  Last night, at 10:00, it was still in the 80's!  Cripes!  I'm dying here!  We don't have air conditioning, and I'm drenched just typing this!  Ugh!  Maybe I'll take a drive and sit in the cool, air conditioned car for a bit!  lol

regan