I remember a while back I was going to show you my latest project.

I’m happy to show you, it’s just that I seem to have lost my way with it.

I started with gusto, mmmmm should’ve been alarmed right there, before I went to NZ in June ~ wanting/needing something to sew in the evenings.

I spent a day in the studio, firstly doing a paper cut of a tree.

I really got into papercutting shapes while doing the Maltaville Album Quilt blocks.

It’s a quick and easy way to create shapes, sometimes it’s easier to let the scissors do the work instead of the pencil.

Having already chosen my fabrics I started the marking and then glueing the tree to the background.

Those stems were very flimsy and had a life of their own,

but I got there and took this to NZ for pleasant evenings of stitching whilst catching up with family.

I did get a lot of the sewing done while I was away

and finished the last of it in Sydney the following week.

And then I just lost interest in it.

Backing up a bit, several months ago I was invited to create a new design for publication in a quilt magazine.

I won’t tell you which one because the publication date for the issue is soooo far away. Light years almost.

I’ll tell you closer to the time.

But of course the quilt will need to be done and delivered by end October

I think for some people, pressure spurs them on but for me ~ my creative drive just bombed

I had plenty of ideas but mostly they bombed as well before I could get going on them.

That tree quilt was one that I had thought would be a possibility for the magazine, but then …

as I say, it just sort of went nowhere.

I’ll probably resurrect it again, but it’s just been put on the back-burner for now.

But that’s not going to help me for this deadline is it.

It’s my first time for this magazine and I want to start with something that says ‘me’, I’m not sure what that is but I guess I felt that tree wasn’t it.

So today I took the day as a Design Day, up early, heater on over in the studio in advance so no excuses.

A couple of days ago I had assembled a few fabrics in readiness for an applique centre block.

I love that Margo Krager Dargate Indigo at the bottom of the pile.  I’ve managed to accumulate meterage of most of the range over recent months, even though the range is several years old now.

Some of the above fabrics are ones I picked up in the US, just Fat 1/4s of useful prints and colours.

I knew I wanted an urn, almost undersized for the height and spread of the foliage so as to give the block a naive style.

And I liked the idea of a rope or cable centre stem.

Years ago I did a Celtic knot quilt class, LOL that over/under mantra is stuck in my head so that’s how I did this stem.

I haven’t really marked any of the background, only a tiny pencil mark where the bottom of the urn will sit and another where I want the top flower to start.  I just decided to start weaving the rope stem to look reasonably even.  It’s fusible bias stem so after each cable I ironed it in place.

I haven’t yet even got much of a pattern just a few reference points so that I don’t extend beyond 18″.

By late afternoon I was pleased with my progress.  I didn’t agonise over the fabrics, but there were a couple of flowers that were discarded. And the flower shapes were paper cut and then trimmed if I felt the size was not quite right, so in that way I was able to work quite quickly.

There’s plenty more flowers and leaves to go on of course but I’m ready to sew this lot down before adding more.

I’m kind of making it up as I go along.

The beauty of having my own space is that I can walk away at the end of the day and not worry about the mess, yay.

And just quickly, a very close friend is moving away next month.  I’ll miss her big time but we know she’ll only be an email or skype call away.

But a little of her will remain in Central Victoria, she needed to off-load some surplus furniture and some of it has made its way in to my studio.  Yippee

A tiered table now doing duty as my cutting station, perfect height.

And her very gorgeous cupboard from her sewing studio, now filled with my fabric.

What fun I had filling this

The studio is starting to look lived in.

Don’t forget the giveaway coming up at the end of this week, it’s from this blog post here

http://www.quiltstation.com.au/new-zealand-then-sydney-and-a-give-away

Leave a comment on the above blog post by Friday the 13th, there are currently only 14 contenders for four prizes.

And I’ll have a poke around in that fabric cupboard for a bit extra to go in too.

til soon

Happy Stitching

Margaret