Phew! I'm glad that week's over!

I have had such a busy week and it's been coupled with an awful virus that I, my sister and my brother-in-law have all caught. I am so glad it's over and I can get back to normal.

Last weekend we threw a hen night at big sister's house for one of her best friends. It was going to be Bollywood themed so we went to a Sari shop and bought some fabric to decorate the house. Who would have thought that a few yards of fabric and some printer paper are all you need to turn a conservatory into the Taj Mahal!

It was a fabulous evening but it took a day to recover - much too much tequila! 

Today is another friend's wedding and my mum has been working on making her a quilt for a wedding present for the past 6 months. Unfortunately a couple of stints in hospital and a terribly bad back prevented her from finishing it so I promised I would get it done. There were 6 blocks left to finish but I've managed to get it all sewn together and quilted in 3 days!

Colette and Damien (the lucky couple) live in New Zealand by the beach and mum designed this using beautiful batiks to go on their porch swing. I hope they enjoy it and spend plenty of evenings snuggled under it watching the sunset.

So between hen nights, weddings, viruses and job interviews I am pretty exhausted and ready for a nap. But you know what they say about idle hands... I'm going to get started on my fishy tea cosy!

I gave in to temptation

I've been digging through my stash, pulling out fabrics to attempt my fish and monkey but this afternoon I had to drive my mum to the LQS to buy some batting for a rush job (that's another story!). I just couldn't resist rifling through the fabrics and found these beauties:

The scale fabric jumped out at me as being perfect for the fish's body and most of the others are from the same range. I just had to buy them. I hope it turns out as well as it looks in my head.

WIP Wednesday

All the little half-square triangles have been matched up with their central squares to make 42 beautiful anvil blocks. 

I'm just debating how to put them together now. I spent a good hour laying them out on the living room floor last night and playing around with them. I originally planned to sash them and seeing them all together like this shows me that they're a little busy to be next to each other.

Due to the wonders of modern technology I've come up with a couple of layouts. The first is the above layout with 2" sashing between all the blocks. This was the original plan but I'm still not entirely happy. I think it's the lack of symmetry in the design. The second layout shows the same sashing but rotating every other block. For some reason this is a lot more pleasing to my eye so I think this is the one I'll go for. What do you think?

Other projects:

• Neutral jelly roll bear paws - Still waiting to be basted and quilted. 
• It's a hoot - Debating layout. Maybe I'll have to come up with something completely different
• Hex-a-long - Fabric ordered, can't wait to start
• Frosted window panes - Found the pattern, more to come!

Do fish have lips?

Another day, another 5 CVs sent out. Job hunting really is mind numbingly boring. I'm glad I have my quilting to keep me sane.

I finished all the blocks for the Strawberry Patch quilt this afternoon. It turns out the pressing wasn't so bad. The trimming, however, was an absolute nightmare! I spent hours and hours bent over the cutting board as you can probably tell by the large pile of trimmings left over.

I've laid all the blocks out on the floor (I really wish I had a design wall) and balanced all the different values of the prints but I'm going to have a little play on the computer to make some final decisions. Sashing or no? All blocks in the same direction or alternating? Border or no border?

On a completely different theme, I've had tea cosies on my mind for a while now. Remember this one I made for my mum for Christmas?

I kind of copied this one from a cosy I saw in a shop window but it got me thinking about other animals that might work. I did a little doodling in front of the TV, which leads me back to my random blog title: Do fish have lips?

Because that doesn't look quite right!

My first keeper!

I am so happy to finally have a quilt of my own. Don't get me wrong, I love giving away my quilts but there's something thrilling about making one just for yourself. I finished my Verna quilt a week ago but I was delaying unpacking my uni boxes as long as possible and I didn't want to put in my room until I was done.

It came to the point when I realised I had to bite the bullet before Tiger claimed it for good.

A good 6 hours of tidying later and I felt I had a room fit for my lovely new quilt so here it is in all it's bed-adorning beauty.

I'm really glad that I went with the quilted motif instead of attempting FMQ. I need a lot more practice and I think I would have ruined my little pretty.

I can't wait to climb into bed tonight but I have 100 more half-square triangles to trim before that's allowed :( Back to the cutting board!

I've finally succumbed to the beautiful hexagon craze. I don't know whether I'll have the patience to do it all by myself so I'm joining in with Lily's Quilt's HEX-A-LONG.

I don't know which fabrics I'll use yet. I have this palette of Kaffe Fassett spots that I'm tempted to crack open.

I think I'll need some solids to go with them though otherwise it will be pretty migraine-tastic and that's the last thing I need at the moment! Hope you join in, the more the merrier.