The count down

Do you remember playing as a child in whatever sort of game required counting down, and whoever you were playing with had clearly peeked and noticed that you weren't ready so your count down ran "5, 4, 3, 2, 1 3/4, 1 1/2, 1 1/4, 1, ...." until you were ready.  It's a bit like that waiting for this baby.  I still feel very pregnant but not particularly imminent although I know that's no real indication of how things could pan out, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week, or we could go all the way to the middle of September.

Happily, being of the crafty persuasion, and having a house which while not show-home tidy, could happily accommodate a little bear, I'm finally spending some part of my day being utterly indulgent and catching up on a few projects.  Don't read this next bit if you went to work today, but yesterday I spent the morning at Kenilworth Knit and Natter and the afternoon redeeming a birthday present and having the most blissful, wonderful, Mother-to-be Spa treatment (back massage, bump massage, facial, hands and feet), and today I've snoozed, knit, watched Poirot DVDs and had a bath.  Totally sickening isn't it.

For my plea in mitigation (it isn't strong enough to amount to a defence) I have also cooked H a series of yummy home made suppers, made him his morning coffee, and when, through circumstances entirely outside his control, Wednesday turned into a bit of a nightmare day, I drove him to the pub to meet a friend of ours and promised faithfully not to go into labour so that he could have a pint or two (for medicinal purposes you understand!).
And as for that catching up; well it's been a while since this blog showed any mention of the block a month quilt that I've been making at Quilter's Den in Warwick, and there's a very good reason for that, namely that for the last few months my blocks in progress have come home and sat in the quilting bag, exactly as I left them, for the whole month until the next class.  Call it pregnancy tiredness or (more accurately) I couldn't get to my desk to set the sewing machine up.

All this has now been remedied, and so I have a little parade of blocks:

According to my notes, this one is called Flowerhead, although as it is the June block I have no idea whether I made that up or not.  It's one of those blocks that's very pretty, but I'm glad to have finished it, and I can't ever see myself making a full quilt of these crazy pom pom flowers, no matter how much I love the Dahlia they remind me of.

July's block, Roman Stripe, on the other hand may well be my favourite so far and it makes me start to eye up some of the other fabrics in the stash.  Sized appropriately, it could be the very thing to combine a charm pack or two and a jelly roll.  Hmm, must concentrate on finishing the things already on the go; you can't wrap up in an idea when it gets chilly.

And last, but not least, August's Rocky Road to Kansas.  I really enjoyed the foundation piecing, and even with only three colours in the rocks or roads or whatever they're meant to be, it's surprisingly effective, and reminds me of ice-cream for some reason.  I think I mostly liked the not thinking just sewing attitude to each stripe and I can see how it would look wonderful as a scrap quilt with just a few consistent elements (the background and the centre squares) to make it all come together.

Having been working with these fabrics for the past 8 months I'll admit to looking at them with utter exhaustion from time to time, and wondering why on earth I veered away from my tradition of making blue quilts, but then I get to lay all the finished blocks out on my bed, and suddenly it all starts to come together:

This crazy, red, pink and cream quilt.  Just four blocks, a little bit of quilting, sashing and binding and the bear and I will be tucked up under it before winter releases us into spring.  Famous last words, I know!