Miscellany "Square in There" quilt top

Michelle from Cloud9 Fabrics (who, by the way, is running a fantastic giveaway here at the moment) was kind enough to send me a bundle of Julia Rothman's Miscellany fabric last year. They're different from what I usually use... darker... more sophisticated, but I've loved having a play with them (I've finally started to quilt again - yay!)

I decided to use my There's a Square in There pattern, but this time pair them with a black background. I was really nervous because I've never used black before, especially not big chunks of solid black. But I needn't have worried, I think the black's a striking contast to Julia's beautiful fabrics (although I found the black difficult to photograph without washing out the other colours) . I felt so grown up working with these fabrics!

It was nice using a pattern this time, rather than writing a new one- much faster - especially since it was one of my 'stack and slash' ones.

So, now I'm trying to decide whether to quilt it like my last one, with the double hand quilted squares, or whether to follow the design and quilt around each fabric square. The double quilted squares were a pain in the butt to do, but look really effective.

Speaking of writing new patterns, I have a couple of quilt patterns almost ready for release. It's quite a process writing a new pattern and I would appreciate a fresh set of eyes . Is anyone interested in proof reading a pattern for me? Thanks for the great response - I think I have enough now!

I'm starting a new quilt

Rock Garden by Umbrella Prints

Echo by Lotta Jansdotter

Miscellany by Julia Rothman

Avalon by Jay-Cyn Designs

Reunion by Sweetwater

Can you guess which one of these absolutely scrumptious stacks I'm going to use?

Pros and Cons of Camping

Thanks for the great suggestions for books on my last post.  I love finding great books and was able to find some of the books at my local library. We've been enjoying reading "Just So Stories" by Rudyard Kipling and some of the "Tashi" books. I plan on tracking down the rest of the books too.

We went camping at Innes National Park last weekend and had an amazing time. However, camping with three young children is not always easy. Let me share with you some of the highs and lows. 

Pro - Spectacularly beautiful beaches with soft white sand

Con - Fine black sand that gets into every nook and cranny

Pro - Inquisitive wildlife visiting every morning and evening

Con - Inquisitive wildlife ripping through our rubbish and scratching at our tent in the middle of the night wanting our food (they kept coming back so we had to put the food in the car)

Pro - Letting the kids run and play with the other camping kids
Con - Trying to stop the kids from kicking up huge dust balls into other people's tents (and making 'snow angels' in the dirt)

Con - Long drop toilets
Pro - Amazingly they didn't smell!

Pro - Discovering an amazing cave that opened up into a magical rockpool.  The sand in the rockpools was incredibly soft and billowy and we could have stayed all day!

Con - We brought soap to try to bathe, but the soap just wouldn't lather in the salt water and turned into wax!

Pro - Enjoying the simple joys of camping - discovery walks, card games, telling stories in the tent.

Con - Being up half the night with a baby, so she wouldn't wake the rest of the camp ground.

It was tiring but definitely worth it.

And for those of you living in Australia - two things ...

I'm so excited to be attending the "Power of Moms" Sydney Conference on March 16th and 17th. You can win a free pass over at Seven Cherubs and Retromummy!  The retreat is going to be fantastic and I can't wait! I'm even making a list of questions... its getting long.

And I've joined the One Million Kilo Challenge. It's going really well (except for the chocolate cake with chocolate ganache last night). One week down, 9 to go.  My scales are broken, so I'm not sure if I've lost any weight, but my stomach felt flatter this morning, so I'm taking that as a good sign. I'm not really following it properly, just trying to exercise everyday and have healthy snacks instead of chocolate. Anyone else taking part?