A weekend away and plans for 2014 rainbow scrap blocks

This last weekend Lucy and I went away to the New Forest,- Lyndhurst Hampshire to be exact.  The event was a training weekend for our guide county which takes place every two years. The event is held at Foxlease which is a beautiful old house set in 65 acres that was gifted to the Girl Guides in 1922. You can read some of the history here  The house is called the Princess Mary House.

This was the view looking away from the house. As you can see the leaves are now turning to the glorious autumn shades.

The weekend was fun with lots of laughter, friendship and chocolate. I took some stitching with me and managed to get some hand work finished. Last year I had started the final block for the Rainbow scrap challenge 2014 but had never finished it. I got on with the hand stitching over the weekend and once home again I finished the block off. The block finishes at 16 inches.

I now have 12 of these blocks ready to turn into a quilt top but first I need to get some fabric for the sashing. Last year I also made some nine patch blocks for the rainbow scrap challenge. These also need to be turned into a quilt top. I see a trip to a quilt shop in my future. Here are the black and grey 9 patch blocks I made

I'm excited about getting on and putting these tops together. My plan is to shop for the sashing fabric saturday morning and to start sewing in the afternoon. I'm thinking that the nine patch blocks would look good set on point.

This weekend I'm going to sort out my stash. I seem to have fabric and bits everywhere. In the corner of our dining room I have a large wooden chest. This is full of fabric and work in progress. On top I've got stash and scraps and also paperwork piled up. It needs to be sorted and organised. I also have fabric stashed away in my bedroom. The golden gnome beside the box was given to me last christmas as a joke. He gets moved around the house and you can never tell where he'll turn up next.

My other plan is to go through all the projects I have in progress. I tried to do this a while back but got side tracked. I know I have some projects that I've forgotten about so I want to make a definitive list and then I can work on reducing the number. Maybe I could start on that now as I still have a little time before bedtime ... or maybe I could do some hand stitching?

Lyndsey