April goal

This month I am too late to join Patty from Elm Street Quilts for her One Monthly Goal but that doesn't mean I can't set myself a goal. I have 2 weeks leave and so I have more time to work on my various projects. I stand a good chance of completing my goal this month.

The most urgent project to finish is the Noah Ark baby quilt. Here's what I've completed so far plus Noah and the giraffes. Noah needs to be completed but there isn't much stitching to do on this block.

Here are the blocks to be completed. I should be able to get these done. I just need to keep my fingers crossed that Katy's pregnancy goes to full term. Completing this quilt will be my April goal.

There is one other block but that just joins up with the rainbow on the cow block and goes across the top of the set of blocks. As I have enlarged the blocks and haven't fully planned out how they will go together on the quilt, I haven't drawn that one out yet. 

I also need to work on the butterfly quilt but this isn't so urgent. This I can work on during the day as it involves machine sewing and the 9 patch blocks will go together really fast. I had considered hand appliqueing the butterflies but I think I will do it on the machine. I'll keep my hand stitching for evenings.

Today was a wallpapering day. We need to repaper the hall, stairway and landing. Richard was helping me and we got a good bit of the hall done before we both felt tired. The paper we are putting up is lining paper and will be painted once it is all done. The house is approximately 140 years old and so the walls aren't all perfectly flat and the lining paper gives a better surface to paint .

Having stopped papering for the day I made a loaf of country grain bread and then set up the machine. I decided I would sew the 9 patch blocks together and then sort out the butterfly blocks. Taking care to keep all the patches as I sorted them I first sewed the square into rows and then pressed the seams before sewing the rows together. When I stopped to prepare dinner I had completed 11 blocks leaving 7  to do.

The next time I get my machine out, which I'm hoping will be tomorrow, I will be finishing off these blocks and pressing them and then if I have time, I will be quilting a couple of blocks on the Austen Family quilt.  Having finished the machine sewing for the day I took some time out to make some chocolate nests once dinner was in the oven. On Wednesday we made these with our guide units. We had more ingredients than we needed because many of the girls had already gone away on their Easter holidays, so I decided to use them up. I used crushed up shredded wheat and melted milk chocolate to make the nests and finished them with mini eggs. The bright orange eggs are mini chocolate orange eggs and they are very tasty. 

Later this evening I will finish off Noah and make a start on another block. I'm slowly re-watching all of the Midsomer Murder episodes. These are perfect to watch whilst slow stitching as I've seen them all before and most of them more than once. I can concentrate on my stitching rather than worry about missing an important part of the plot.

Take care

Lyndsey