There are lots of things I should be doing ...

I have spent the last two afternoons in my little sewing room, playing with fabrics and making a right mess stitching the first block of Butterfly Garden.

I am really enjoying working with these lovely Spring colours. To the lemons, pinks, lilacs, and greens I had originally pulled...

I decided to add some blues...

and while rummaging, I came across this perfect fabric...

The first Block went together really quickly, I have decided to machine buttonhole stitch the applique, which goes a lot faster than needleturn :D

It is such a fun quilt, there is some lovely little embroidery detail...

And lots of opportunity for fussy cutting...

I decided to replace the embroidered butterflies with some applique...

Planning ahead, I don't think I will quilt this one, I am sure it will work as a pretty summer coverlet for the spare room.

Starting something new ...

It has taken me a long time to give myself permission to hibernate a project that I am not enjoying working on. This is meant to be a hobby and if it isn't fun then I am doing something wrong! I started Sue Garman's 'Friends of Baltimore' at the end of last year, but I did not really enjoy the amount of small pieces in the first block! I had not appliqued anything in a while and doubted my ability to get the result I wanted. I soon stopped work on this quilt and started Birds of a Feather and Vintage Valentine, both of which I am really enjoying working on. I will come back to FOB once I have finished these two.

This morning I finally decided to hibernate it for a while and bundled all my chosen fabrics into ziplock bags for storage. I know I will come back to this quilt and will probably love working on it next year, when I hope my applique has improved. I don't want these fabrics to be appropriated for something else in the meantime :D

All of which means I now have an empty WIP basket, which is against the rules right? So inspired by the lovely (finally arrived!) spring weather and the sight of my first butterfly of the season. I decided to start this quilt - a combination of piecing, applique and embroidery. I have had the pattern for several years, it is 'Butterfly Garden' by Leanne Beasley

The pattern calls for 50cm of a large scale floral which can be fussy cut for some of the squares, but in my hunt through the stash for a suitable fabric I came across this...

How fun will this quilt be with fairies and flowers and butterflies?! I also found a couple of fabrics that might work for borders. The top one is 'Quilter's Shadow Style' by Stof.dk and the other is from the 'Fleur d'Paris' range by Michelle Blackhurst of Morning Glories for Henry Glass.

I bought a yard of this floral fabric along with a Fat Quarter bundle of the entire collection online thinking the colours were more muted :( They have been sitting in my stash every since. Most of the quilts I make are soft antique style. These are way out of my comfort zone! but inspired by my success with the colours I picked for Birds of a Feather, I have decided to go for it! I pulled the FQ bundle and some other scraps and came up with this...

They look a bit washed out in this photo, but I have lemon, green, pink and purple/lilac as my basic pallette. I need to subtract a couple and add a couple of fabrics but overall I think this will be a fun happy summer quilt project. Now if the weather would only cooperate, I could even stitch in the garden :D