Designing and prepping

 Part Five of the Di Ford Mystery quilt has arrived. I have the first four ellipses stitched down. I am managing to get a little faster, now I think I have got it to 20-30 stitches per inch instead of the stupidly high number I was doing before.

 They are all prepped and ready to go. All 56 of the ellipse shape plus the four circles for the corners.

 Meanwhile I have started to design the final border for the machine appliqué quilt. I thought swags might be the way to go with the same flower from the rest of the quilt between the swags. But I want loads of room for fancy quilting..... The tools of my trade for designing these was a calculator to work out what width to go for and my acrylic rings. Except I needed a bigger ring. I could have got out my beam compass and drawn a larger circle but the point of the compass would have been way off the paper. I just wanted (needed) a bigger round thing. I had the lid of a frying pan but that was in use (feed us tonight or get the design finished?). I went round the house looking for large circles. Then I found the huge chocolate box lid. Perfect (I swear when I bought my husband those chocolates it was not to add another design tool to my kit.)

Perfect.
BUT after working it all out, I am thinking I might like to go round the inside and the outside of this border just with some sort of dogtooth triangle arrangement. Then I could do loads of big feathers with trapunto...... Procrastination rules.

 I am lucky I got anything done this week at all. I went to the dentist on Friday for the next stage in my dental treatments. Three more extractions and five (that's right FIVE) implants. I had not realised they have to drill into the bone to insert each implant. I had tried not to think about it but if pushed I would have thought something like a self tapping screw. It is odd the way my mind works in such times. I imagined my body being found on a beach and the police identifying me by the serial numbers of the implants. (note to self: stop reading crime thrillers on going to bed) There is more to come and the treatment will not end until shortly before Christmas. I am back this Friday to have the stitches out.

By the skin of my teeth.

Part Five of the mystery is coming any day now and I finished Part Four today, with the exception of the little hexagons to go into the corner blocks. I will do those after Part Five as I find it better to centre them afterwards.

It will only take another few minutes to have them ready to appliqué.

The flowers in the garden are having a last fling before the autumn is here completely. It hasn't been cold or wet, but it has been grey. And it is dark by 8pm.
On the up side cold nights are better for sleeping.....

Moving on with the Di Ford Mystery Quilt and my new favourite tool

I haven't changed it as much as I thought I would. Mainly because I have been a bit lazy and it was easier to go with what has been given. So this round is finished except for appliquéing the hexagons in the corners of round 2.

I have no idea where this came from. I thought I might have bought it at one of the Maltings sales but it has an Australian sticker on the end so it might have come from one of my friends who lived out there. I haven't used it before this last week or two. Heaven knows why, it is wonderful. The side with the green sticker is slightly lower than the other side. And the ruler doesn't move, not even a tiny bit. I was using a 36" ruler here, the sort that is normally guaranteed to slip, but it doesn't and I didn't even have to reposition it.

I just wish I had started using it years ago....