This is my first quilt of my quilting "renaissance" ie my first quilt after about a ten year break. It is called "New Beginnings" both because I have started quilting again and because I made it for my nephew and his new wife as a wedding present. The design brief I was given called for lots of dark red and it went like this: Friday - decided to make a quilt for the wedding; chose suitable fabrics from my stash in conjunction with my sister and niece (mother and sister of the groom); Saturday - started designing; Sunday - started cutting; Monday to Thursday - piecing (and buying more fabrics to add in); Friday - took the finished top to my friend Julie's house for help to pin the layers together; Saturday to Monday - quilting (very badly, but this was the first one for many years and no time to practise for more than a few minutes) + sewing on the binding; Tuesday to Friday - flew to Perth for the wedding (oh how I wished I could have handsewn on the plane), sightseeing; Saturday 30th September 2006 - wedding followed by hand stitching the back of the binding with my daughter Tegan assisting, made the label; Sunday morning - up early to finish stitching the binding and sew on the label; Sunday lunchtime - presented the finished quilt at the after wedding barbecue. Very well received. There are many little technical faults, most of which only a quilter would notice, but some of the quilting is very wonky. I had no time to unpick. Oh well, it is meant to be an everyday lap quilt which will take hard wear with two young boys in the house. I will do better next time with the benefit of experience from this one, with more experience on my new Bernina 440QE machine and with more time to complete the next quilt (hopefully).

Hi everyone, I have finally taken the plunge and created a blog to chronicle some of my doings, especially crafty ones. I have a lot to learn about blogging and blogs - please be patient and feel free to make constructive suggestions. At the moment I am having to pack up my craft room to make way for renovations. The next few months will be very interesting as I try to access my stuff in the garage and make a space in the house to work in without cluttering up our living space too much. I just realised that I forgot to take a "before" photo - silly me. Oh well - the "after" will be well worth it with our big new living and dining room being created from my craftroom, some of the study and hallways. Much better use of space. My new craft room will be the present living/dining room (less space than I had before the pack-up) until we can add another huge room at the back. That will house my new, even bigger studio and Max's computer with a new laundry and hot tub room off one end. What bliss. Talk to you soon.