As I sit writing this..........

......there is a blue sky and a little sunshine peeking through here and there.  The birds are flitting hither and thither. I love that word.. thither...it makes my tongue tickle when I say it.  Go on try it and see...  Go on ...  See it does doesn't it?  And, in my head, it conjures up times gone by, Jane Austen, Elizabeth and Darcy *sigh* ... anyway.. the garden is beginning to throw up shoots and there is that promise of better days to come.  Spring... I am really longing for it this year! I am thoroughly tired of Winter and will be very pleased to see the end of it!! And I'm sure I'm not alone.

We had a pretty busy January working on the house.  Apart from doing a little in my sewing room Ralph tore out dodgy fitted wardrobes in the guest room and sorted out wiring, took out a sink and built a lovely roomy airing cupboard. He redecorated and I made curtains from some vintage Laura Ashley fabric I'd had for ages. We bought a new carpet and  now that the furniture is in and I've added the finishing touches we are really pleased with it. ......Ha...I just read that back and it sounds like we worked like a team doesn't it?  In truth, we don't that often.  He likes everything to be his idea and I know that I couldn't possibly agree with him...or we'd both be wrong..  I'm not sure who coined that phrase but it perfectly describes us.  Our tastes seem poles apart and we have to spend a ridiculous amount of time getting to a compromise.  But we usually do, fortunately. :-) Just a couple of photos of the finished room for you. 
Before...

Airing cupboard before

...and after airing cupboard.

Close up of the Curtains and tie backs

The finished room!

Finished room 

On the proper sewing front, as opposed to boring sewing, I've started a few things and have been working on the WIP's for the finish along with Katy. Unfortunately, I haven't done as much as I had hoped to.  The lurgy that I mentioned Ralph had come down with, in my last post, developed into some awful Noro type virus that made him more ill than he has ever been in the over thirty years I've known him.  He even stayed home for two weeks which is unheard of....And spent one and a half of them in bed apart from two hourly crawls to the loo.  I know I can hear you saying it "TMI",Yvonne way more information than you needed!!!!   Matron would have been so pleased with me though, my hands are still stinging from all the antic bac rub, anti bac soap, Milton, bleach and anti bac wipes that I scoured everything with all day.  I tell you, I even anti bac wiped the bleach bottle!!!!!

So, to my projects.... I made a quilt top and backing for Mackinlay's birthday and started something for a newly 17 year old too.  Both have been abandoned until I regain my energy levels as they are at almost zero now and both projects are machine made and I can't face that at the mo. So I'll tell you about those another time.

But I have done quite a bit to the quilt that I'm making with my 2011 Fresh Modern Bee 2 blocks.   
I have used Cindy Lammon's  book 'Gathered from the Garden' as my inspiration.

 The fabric is Oasis by 3 Sisters for Moda. Really like their fabrics designs.  each of the bee blocks were 12" squares with flowers either appliqued or pieced onto them. Most particularly I'm using Cindy's quilt 'My Secret Garden' as a focus.

I'm placing the bee blocks throughout the quilt and building in elements to connect them all together. Some of it is from the book and some of it is improv and it's a combination of piecing and applique. 

It's very liberating to have no pre planned ideas and I'm forcing myself to NOT overthink every piece.   Way out of my comfort zone but I am thoroughly enjoying it....surprisingly..... 

Close up right

Close up left

I'm almost a third of the way through it, I would think, so I'm beginning to believe that it might be a quilt top by the end of the year!!  

I love that I'm connecting the others ladies work into something for me and am so grateful to all of them for the blocks and for inviting me to join in their bee. I'm really pleased with it thus far, what do you think?

Hopefully, I'll feel up to adding a little more this week even if it's only some applique.  We'll see.

So that's me for today.  Thank you so much for stopping by and keeping me company.  Hope you have a good week.

Take good care of yourselves.

 Happy sewing. Xxx