End of March and still no where near finished.

I laid it out on the table to see how much is done. I am so disappointed. I do as much as I can but it is so slow.

Then I turned it over to cheer myself up, it does look good where it is done.

I have done the petals on all the pink flowers but I am waiting for some dark red Invisafil to do the others. I also have some dark green on order for the darker leaves and have some Khaki for the lighter ones. I tried one of the red flowers in the border with some dark red Bottom Line thread, but it is so much thicker than the Invisafil, I wasn't happy with the result.

   It was like taking a little holiday from that grid doing some of the flowers. So much easier than that grid. Don't get me wrong, I love that grid, but I so wish I had saved it for the outer border.

  I even let myself have a tiny little play with the infill on the next border.

 Perhaps I should reward myself more often by doing little bits of this border. I cannot wait until it has all the water soluble thread washed out.

 And the Di Ford Mystery stars are all appliqued down. I have given myself a little pat on the back.

And this is the mystery revealed of what it looks like on the back when the papers are removed.

I hope by next time I post there will be more to show. Thanks for staying with me, I need you guys!

Progress update

I would love to say I got loads done but that would be a lie. Having said that I have put in more hours than it looks like.....
I did have an interuption, my husband had eye surgery this week and that went well for him (brave man) but I didn't sleep for more than two and a half hours in an hotel the night before and that has knocked me out until today.
We had a partial eclipse in the UK and Europe today. My photos were not wonderful so I shall not bore you with them.
So I have two and a half rows of the stars stitched.

And I am surprised with how little difference there is between my last blog photo of the back and this one. It should look like so much more with so many hours....

 I could have done something just as effective but so much easier to stitch in tight spaces. Lesson learned.
And just because we feel the spring in the air, some lovely tulips.

Don't you love the jug? A little treasure I got in an antique shop. On the route to not having stuff which is neither useful or loved, I made a pact with myself to throw out vases of the same volume in the cupboard. And I did.

OOPS

I have finished piecing all the stars on the Di Ford Mystery quilt.I have 5 1/2 appliqued down, only another 30 1/2 to go..... But they do look pretty don't they.  (They are not as bright as they show in this photo).

And as hard as I might try to rush this along, it just will take as long as it takes. I am guessing/hoping it will move along a lot faster when this centre square is finished. I think it is just over 40" square. And even when I have finished all the little filled in grid, I will still have the leaves and flowers to do. INSANE amount of quilting. I hope the 7.5K of the cream thread will be enough.... I had planned on sending it to Qults UK in May but it seems I have missed the entry deadline. In a way I feel relieved, I cannot rush it.

George is getting more than a little fed up with me moving him around and off the quilt I am working on and has taken himself of to this little one mounted on a canvas. I don't know why he gets a devilish look when the camera is arround....

Scarily slow.

I meant to show you this mistake I found whilst I was pinning the top. I had carefully (or not so carefully) stitched round the applque and every trapunto motif with water soluble thread and cut away the excess batting. Somehow this flower got missed out. I discovered it half way through pinning. There was no way I was going to un pin and restitch all over again. The solution was to cut a piece of batting in the same shape, apply a bit of glue stitch to it and slide it underneath to position it. As this quilt will be thoroughly washed in the machine to remove both the marking and the water soluble thread, the glue will be removed at the same time.

And here's a peek at the back. That little bit of infil took about 2 or 3 hours.  I wanted to use this infil but stupidly it would have been so much easier to use it somewhere other on the quilt. Somewhere which didn't have so many interruptions to stop and start. On the upside there is a route through the diagonal of the squares to get from one place to the next without cutting the thread.