Not aiming for any gold medals (or even bronze or plastic)

You may have noticed by now that I'm a total slacker. I've done very little on the quilting front for the last couple of months. Unlike others who shall remain nameless, who are trying to be the equivalent of the teachers pet and get as many finishes as possible before the end of the year, I've preferred sitting in the naughty corner and playing up. It's been fun but not what you would call productive.
I kind of felt a teensy weensy bit guilty that I had lots of WIP's and hadn't really tried to finish any of them, and also the whole of the universe was making Christmas presents except for me. So last week, I got my A into G and made the First Aid bag for my dad. Saturday morning I went to the LQS and picked up some cord and ta dah, it's all finished.

First Aid Bag

I've also had another go at the "OMG, what on earth was she thinking quilt".  Remember this, hideous block.

I was determined to make it work so after a bit of a re-think and some help from the  goody two shoes "teacher's pet" (hint - starts with Sh and is a four letter word) who was very helpful, even though she's trying to win the award for  the most finishes in the universe for 2011, I came up with this.

This pile sat on my dining table for a very long time, was then stuffed placed gently and lovingly into a project bag when Julie my organising fairy came to stay.
I finally pulled them out and cut all the bits.
Last week I finally started sewing the bits together.

There are another 46 of these.

So far I've sewn up about 18 blocks.

Here's two, I'm really happy with these. I've still left a little of the browns in the mix but all in all I think it's much more harmonious. I also didn't choose eight of the wildest coloured and patterned prints to put in a block together. That was a smart move.


Also, should I say,

minor miracle,

I finished another WIP, the first hexagons I attempted and was going to make into a cushion, which would probably never be used, so made it into a mini quilt to hang on the wall.

It looks really wonky, especially the first border, it's not. In fact the first border is straight. Next time I should probably flatten it out before I snap some pics.
It's made with some scraps of Rural Jardin left over from the quilt I made earlier this year. A really yummy stripe that I had in my stash, unfortunately I only had a fat quarter and have no idea what it is. I had to raid my jelly roll of Rouenneries that I have been saving, for the binding. It matched perfectly the two Rural Jardin charm squares that I could use for the corners, win!  The backing is a fat quarter of Hometown left over from the Urban Stars quilt.
I've hand quilted around the inner row of hexies in pale blue, which you can't see in this pic, then burgundy around the outside of the hexies. Finally another round of hand quilting in the first border.

I used this tutorial from A Girl In Paradise blog for an idea on how to hang it using corner pockets. How could I not use it with a blog name like that!

Today the Floral Bouquet went to my other fairy friend, Fiona The Quilting Fairy. It won't be finished until next year, but that's ok, I'll just go back and sit and have a drink in the naughty corner.