No more sneaky peeks...

... for now!!

This afternoon sees me a little jaded but happy! The lovely quiltshop I work at (The Country Yard), has just had its New Year's Launch. We always have a lot of fun with this, the planning of new projects, cutting into brand new fabric, trying new ideas, and of course the frantic sewing of block of the months, kits, class samples, shop samples 'for inspiration' and so on.
Somehow we always seem to get everything made and the day before the launch is spent turning the shop upside down and inside out and putting it all back together again.

Partway through the day!

 We pull down our 'old' displays and we reorganise shelves. We move fabric. (Actually we move everything!) We hunt out the 'back shed' for fresh display units and props. We bring out the ladders for the hanging of new quilts. We stand in the middle of the shop wondering where everything will go, but as the day progresses, it all falls into place. We spend the last hour or so finding homes for the little gift items or extra kits that appear homeless. Of course there is the paperwork; newsletters, class list, sign-in sheets, signage and so on.

Ahh, it's all worth it in the end!! —

And then launch-day dawns and we have a fabulous time with our customers who come and visit. There's lots of excitement; often we feel like we are welcoming old friends. Did I mention the baking and the cups of tea in the marquee out in the parklike grounds? As well as 'us girls behind the counter' we have a wonderful band of helpers who meet and greet, pour the tea and help the day tick over smoothly.

So that was this morning, and now it means I can share some quilts I have been working on here at home.
The sneak peek (in the first photo of this post) which I shared last post morphed into this quilt below —

"Paint box" by Laundry Basket Quilts.

I absolutely love this quilt. It was fun to make and was the first time I had really used batik fabrics. Edyta Sitar has a wonderful knack of combining batiks and the prints and this range is testimony to this.

Quilting was 'swirls and twirls, Raewyn-style'. It worked to help the
baskets shine; the baskets just needed a bit of straightline quilting to
stabilise them.

I also finished this quilt by 'The Buggy Barn' which I started last year. It was for a class we decided to delay holding so it got put on the bottom of the pile for a while. One of the things that slowed down the finishing on it was my indecision as to how to finish quilting it. It is mostly straightline quilting around/within each star but I really didn't know what to do in the border. Finally, very simple, wide 'piano keys' won the day and I was pleased that they didn't distract from the 'stars of the quilt'.

Another finish that I really love!

The Buggy Barn quilts are fun as you layer the fabrics, lay a freezer-paper template on top, cut along the lines of the template, then (in an orderly fashion) shuffle the piles. By the time you have sewn it all together you have lots of unique blocks.

I've done several smaller projects as well but I think I will save them for another time. I love the photo below so will leave that with you for now :-)

When photo-shoots go wrong!

Happy stitching, have a great day!
And thank you for stopping by,