Son Off and Weekend Away

Late Thursday afternoon P and I took M to the airport for his unlimited sojourn in London with serious mixed feelings, glad for him that he is spreading his wings, envious that he is doing so.   Have spoken to him on Skype since so not feeling so sad now.

 

On Friday went on the quilting retreat at Goedgedacht, this is the Barn in which the 24 of us, each with our own trestle table, sewed up a storm!  I know my phone camera doesn't take great photos, so only took a couple of photos over the weekend.

I took a few projects that needed next steps, the first was easy, a border on this one, and it's ready to be quilted.  These scrappy trip blocks were made last Goedgedacht (not by me):

 

 Next was to add sashing to one more of these blocks and put them together (now to find a border):

The third project was to put the neon green borders on these 12 blocks.  I thought I would join them with some black-on-white prints, but that didn't pan out, so will wait to discuss what next with Mum.

This is block number one of about 100 4.5" scrappy-pieced beautiful made-by-Mum blocks.  Actually, ALL the scrappy blocks in this post were made-by-Mum!  My intention was to cut 4.5" strips of tone-on-tone fabrics to border each one, but forgot and cut 3.5"!  But actually think it is better.  Have about 50-60 strips cut and sub-cut, ready to sew.

 

And because there were lengths left over, I used them to add to one side of these Flying Geese Blocks I won last year from Block Lotto.  The blocks are sewn in columns, so not quite complete yet.

I did some sewing on Celtic Solstice, and a number of the Split 9-Patch in-between blocks, but not enough to warrant a photo!  But you do need to see my sleepy photographic assistant:

Too long between posts!

Life.Has.Been.Busy.  Let's see ...
... nearly four weeks with "the rat" as P calls her, she has grown considerably... and the other cat Does.Not.Want.Her.Here.  Lots of bad language!

....the builders are off-site as from Friday last  
...the gates are installed, only a two week wait whilst they fixed the size, were too big - and the maker did the measuring!   Electric fence to be extended soon.
... Guild AGM over two weeks ago (my first financial report presented!) and over 200 members renewed or joined!   ...same day as our wedding anniverary... came home to these beautiful proteas:

... formally handed over the Guild web-site to the new webmaster, sad but relieved that someone else is in charge!   For the other geeks reading this, it's now being created with Serif WebPlus X6 instead of Joomla!  We both had to learn from scratch!
.... made blocks for the May Lotto...

... Creative Quilters monthly meeting in which four of us each did a detailed presentation to a quarter of the group on how to make 8-in-one half square triangles - self-imposed teaching practice for...
...the SAGQ-Teachers Accreditation Course, which we are now one third of the way through, and yay!  very happy with the marks of my first 5 assignments.  And in fact, still on a high about that!  Need to seriously start on the next section!
.... daughter C now home after 6/7 weeks working at Afrika Burn - loads of laundry, two washes for each load, to get the ingrained Karoo sand out!  She had a great time, lost weight and got a great tan.
....son M is leaving for London tomorrow night, packing, sorting, one-way ticket... it's the right time for him to go and have the experience of not living at home.

....and the best is still to come, a weekend away with 23 other quilters at tranquil Goedgedacht, only 2 days to go!  Two solid days of sewing and laughter!  Have the UFO projects picked out, plenty of piecing.