Busy busy weekend

Life has once again resumed at the normal setting after all the excitement of the weekend.  Exciting for me because I got to abandon my family and enjoy the company of likeminded quilting friends while we sewed up a storm on our annual retreat.  Exciting for my family because they had dinner at a restaurant as well as fish and chips, McDonalds hotcakes and it seems a cheeseburger meal slipped in somewhere?  As long as everyone was still alive at the end of the weekend - I don't really mind what they got up to!

Right, photos taken... here we go...

Does anybody remember about two years ago when I went to my first retreat and started a cat quilt?  This is a Buggy Barn pattern which is basically stack n whack style - cats and flowers.  To cut a long story short, I started, and actually finished piecing all the cats and flowers before we moved house.  Due to the random nature of my quilt layout - I needed to have it layed out and visible while I did the final applique and piecing... so it has sat in the cupboard in a very neglected, rolled up ball.  This was the end result:



Once again, too large to fit comfortably in a single shot.  The weather is
LOUSY - far too windy for an outside shoot, and the rain has just started
up again.





This one may just be my favourite

  

I knew this spot would come in handy for something...


I had a lot of fun adding to the initial fabric bundle which started off as a Grandmothers Garden fat quarter special, then deciding what colours to use for the applique swirls, leaves and stems on the flowers.  Each cat seems to have it's own personality, and just need some little close set eyes (buttons) to finish them off - apart from the two flowers which I discovered do not have their swirls on.  Then the quilting process will begin...

I also made some progress with my "pretty" basket applique - and made some applique flowers with leaves using a pressing mat so that I can just apply the finished unit to my border.  Strangely while they look like flowers with leaves when there are three leaves, they seem to resemble piglet when there are only two leaves... I shall leave you pondering this for a while, and reveal the final quilt in the goodness of time.