Goodbye to April.

April has been a good month for me. As I was on sick leave I managed to work on several of my projects and finally I started the quilting on the dinosaur quilt but I didn't achieve as much as I would have liked. I'll take a photo tomorrow to share with you. I've been very tired and need several naps in a day (and a good nights sleep). What has been very good is the weather here in the UK. Since I've been off sick we've had very little rain, and the sun has been out most days. At the moment we are having very warm weather.

So what have I been up to in April? I have finished two projects, the crocheted blanket and the churn dash quilt.

I've cut out and almost finished sewing a dress. That will get finished over the weekend. At the same time I also cut out a blouse pattern but I haven't started it yet. Today I had a Teams link up with a colleague who I've known and worked with for a long time but I never knew she liked sewing. Having talked through the problem we were trying to solve we then switched to the interesting topic of our love of sewing. It made a very pleasant interlude in the day.

My challenge for this month was to start the Japanese quilt but I couldn't make up my mind how I wanted to do it. I knew I wanted to use sashiko to make the quilt but my brain just couldn't get to a decision. However this morning whilst enjoying a cup of tea sat in the sun in our small back garden, an idea finally came into my head. It still needs some refining but I like it. I'll make a start on the quilt during May.

I've also been challenging myself to improve my skills when it comes to sewing curves. Having found an apple core quilt I started I have been adding more rows to it. This is to make a child/baby quilt. I need to cut a few more apple cores but that will help reduce my scrap fabric.

Scrap taming has become a bit of a sport as I try to reduce my scraps to a civilised level. I've made some string blocks and I'm very pleased with them. I also have two or three other good scrap busting blocks to make.

Both my daughters have birthdays in April, one on the 13th and the other on 18th. That meant presents and family dinners as well as Easter. There were quite a lot of Easter eggs in our house at one point and it was hard work stopping myself from eating too much chocolate. Somehow I managed to curb my need for the chocolate and I didn't gain any additional weight over the festive period.

I'm looking forward to finding out what the Chookshed challenge number is for May. That should be released tomorrow. We also have an invitation to a 60th wedding anniversary this month and a planned trip bird watching in Lincolnshire. I'm due to go back to work on 12 May but I have annual leave booked for the last week of May so I wont be working many days.

Take care

Lyndsey