Miss September

In actual fact it should be Mrs September and don't expect to see any sashes draped across my ample chest because this girls beauty queen days are long over with - never actually happened if you want to split hairs. About the same moment that baby number one came into being I lost every photogenic cell from my body as if she sucked them from me as she exited.

No, this Mrs September refers to 'my month' in my very first ever online (or offline) quilting bee. I have bravely gone where I have never gone before. Over the next year myself and eleven women who I have never met - and never actually heard of before this weekend - are going to diligently make blocks for each other and at the end of the year we will each have 12 or 24 blocks to sew together into a quilt. Each person provides the fabric for their month and posts it out to each participant with some instructions to the type of block they would like to receive and then the blocks are returned to her before the month ends. Simple!

This bee came to be because Lynne over at Lily's Quilts set up a Flickr group for British quilters. You may have seen a button appear in the upper left hand corner of my blog page that says Brit Quilt. Things just grew very quickly from there and before I knew it I was putting my name down to be in the first Brit Quilt Brit Bee - hence the other button on the right hand side. Confused. Not as much as I will be when I get my first packet of fabric and instructions. Some of these women I will be in the bee with are seriously intimidating because I have had a look at their Flickr photos and blog pages. They make my quilting look - well let's just use the word simple here.

I can say that we have been sending messages and information back and forth, and though they may be intimidatingly good at quilting every last one of them seems very nice and like they have a good sense of humour. They may need it when they get my blocks!!

But all that aside - I am very excited and hope to learn a lot, make some new friends and also get to play with some fabric that I didn't have to pay for. How good is that?!

Meanwhile, back in my offline life, there is another tummy bug doing the rounds with my two. I would like to blame the warm, ,melted chocolate they sampled so copiously on Thursday but have no proof what-so-ever. I just know that this has been our winter of germs. This one isn't too bad in terms of seriousness. Therefore I chucked them out doors into the sunshine today thinking that atrophying in front of the telly wasn't going to do them as much good as fresh air. I learned something.

Tummy bugs, ten year olds and trampolines should not be mixed.

As we couldn't wander off into town or do anything exciting today - I sewed. I finished turning 2" squares into little blocks and started sewing them together into what will be a fairly small quilt eventually.

Small - yes, but I think I will like it. And a lot of work has gone into this 'let's use up some scraps' quilt.

In the evenings my crocheting moves on slowly but surely. I am over halfway into joining up the granny squares. It is not taking me long because there are not many of them. There are not many of them because I am so crap at buying enough yarn and I buy it on sale whenever possible so when I change my mind and want more of the same they no longer have it in stock. I am hoping that at some point in my life my needs/wants shall match my budget. That would be great!

I can't decide whether I should return to my sewing now or have a good cyber stalk on my bee partners so that I can try and guess what kind of blocks they would like. Though I may have to feed my beasties - tummy bugs or no tummy bugs there seems to be very little loss of appetite in this household.

Susan