Catching up; baskets, candle mats

It's been in interesting few days. I've been going a wee bit nuts trying to figure out exactly what I'm going to do for the show coming up. I had a whack of ideas; but felt like a one-eyed cat watching 10 mouseholes. ;) I think it was just a case of nerves and just needing to settle on what items I was going to start on first.

I did find some really neat patterns and ideas on Freepatterns.com - it was just a matter of settling on what to do first. I found a really neat quilted basket there called Mexican Star Basket. It's the neatest thing - it's basically a 9 patch style 12" block that is folded and tucked at the sides to create a basket. I found a neat pattern called fancy flowers that is a traditional block so i am free to use it according to her terms and conditions. I cut out enough pieces for 5 blocks and rather outsmarted myself as I was going to cut them all out at once .. I made notes in the margin and ended up cutting wayyy more than I needed .. ah well .. I gots lots of pieces now :S I put the first one together and it looked really great.. so I started on the second one ... I realized that this was a 5 patch block - bloody hell! Well I had them cut, I was going to piece them .. i had all the sections of one block ready to put together and then I took a look and wondered how would this look without the sashings??? - welp i put it together and it looked great .. and what do you know .. i got my 9 patch block back :D :D :D I have 4 others like this but in different colourways waiting to be basted and quilted.

I decided to get going on my candle mats and pot holders to meet a challenge that one of my lists is holding. I need to have my mats done by Thursday at midnite. Well since my machine is still sick, I needed to use mum's. I've asked my friends to pray for me with this. I didn't care of they prayed, danced naked in the moonlight, or waved burning feathers .. I needed all the help I could get .. well I cleaned and oiled it this AM. heh .. only jammed once and broke a needle. I'm off to a GREAT start!!! I let it sit for the rest of the day so I could finish piecing the blocks for the baskets. I pulled it out and needed to make a bobbin .. heh .. you got it .. jammed on me again .. *Hellasigh Well I redid the bobbin again, double-checked to be sure that it was all in good working order and tried again .. so far so good .. i managed to piece 6 fans and it didn't jam again. I need to use this machine for the applique part of these fans. It's going to be a pain to have to swap machines around, but I don't have a walking foot for this machine and the speed is a wee bit tetchy for me to be wanting to quilt on it.

My house isn't as odorous, but Reg is sick and managed to get me sick as well .. oh well .. I started to hack and cough this am. I've got the itchy inside of the ear and the raw-ish throat. I'm hoping he and I start to feel better soon .. it's hard to concentrate and my temper gets frazzled more quickly right now.

But starting was the key - i'm not feeling so overwhelmed right now - matter of fact I can't wait to get a few things to the point where I can quilt them so I can see actually how they will work out. I'll be quilting stuff tomorrow .. it'll be busy for me tomorrow .. I have to go pay for my table at the show, reg's quarter finals for his bball team are tomorrow nite so I'm going - not been all year - would be nice if the coaches wife showed up .. I went to a lot of games last winter. Then that will leave me tomorrow nite and Thursday to get the candle mats done :D .. I can't wait to see how they'll turn out