A "Recovery" Retreat..........

This weekend has been the first in a long time that I have had nothing planned, no visitors coming  and no function to attend. And it is also the first time since I have returned that I actually felt motivated to do anything. The medication seems to be doing it's job, and I have hardly needed any panadol all weekend, so that's good news. Thankyou to those who have done some shopping, or collected my mail, and filled the wood box for me. I did manage to get some allover quilting done during the week, as well as a fair bit of nothing, sitting by the fire. It was even an effort to concentrate on reading a book, which tells you something.

 On Saturday, I worked on another couple of the mystery cases, as I have a deadline coming up for them. And then spent the afternoon by the fire, watching the Royal wedding. But this morning, I decided that I would have my own sewing retreat day, and got out the Stonehenge "Stitch in Time" range of fabrics. There was this panel......

.............and this panel...........................

.................and I had purchased these coordinating pieces, not really knowing how much I would need, or even what I was going to do.

 In case I needed more, I found a few more in my "stash".

I started by cutting these into squares, and after I began, I thought it might have been easier to leave them joined, and just cut rows, but too late!

 They needed a frame, and I decided on a red, which was one of my own fabrics, as I only purchased small amounts of the others and I would need a fair bit of red to frame all the blocks. A bit of strip piecing made things much quicker.

The sides are on, now to trim, before adding the top and bottom frames.

Amazing how much better they look with a little trim!

I was very happy with how they looked when joined with the stripe fabric. I sort of had a plan by now, to add these blocks all around the centre, but was still unsure about the borders around the centre panel before those blocks were added.

You can see that 4 blocks was too wide for the centre, so...............

 ..............I trimmed the cream border from the centre, and added the button fabric first, then the cream, and then the blue..............

...........and now the 4 blocks fit perfectly, and the 6 on each side, but I goofed the corners!!

I forgot about the striped fabric between the blocks, and those corners won't fit. And this is where I have left it for tonight. I will unpick the red frames from 4 blocks, and add a different colour, (maybe blue??) so that it will fit, or maybe the stripe??, but a narrower width????

After all that, maybe not the blue, as I was thinking another blue to frame those blocks? And after that, I am still thinking, probably not a lot as I don't need it to be huge, but we will see. It might just depend on the amount of each fabric I have left.  Stay tuned, to be continued!

Time for bed, I need my "beauty" sleep as I need to work tomorrow.

Blessings, From Jude