Has It Only Been A Week?...

Apparently it's only a week since last Sunday but it feels more like a month...I've debated whether to blog about the week we've had here...it's not been a fun week by any stretch...Mother Nature threw the same stunt on our district as the same weekend in 2009 - just for the record Mother Nature, so not funny! Two of us were standing in the engine room last Sunday saying we had a really strong sense of deja vue and then it happened....again!...this time it roared up from the south, to the west and onwards north...I received two evacuation recommendations on my phone - I'd already come home and evacuated Jindi, she was with me being lead around in the fire station as part of the comms team - could really have done with some of that snow the other side of the world is having way too much of...it's still not declared "safe" but it is now considered "under control" so now the recovery begins, a long haul.

Today, vegging around at home, I looked to getting back to my Small Quilt Talk challenge for February...this month rather than one of Kathleen Tracy's quilts it is a sweet little spool/heart block from a group member to do with what we wanted.  When the pattern was announced I got to with pencil and paper and came up with a lovely little design I was very excited about and played about in the fabric boxes (although that part wasn't really chatting too loudly to me in the pick-me pick-me department). Well, you know the saying When Life Gives You Lemons Make Lemonade? In that spirit...When Blocks Go Wrong Make A Pincushion!...

After a couple of hours of non-inspiration with various fabric concepts I settled on scraps of Rocky Mountain (the first range).  Starting with one block as a tester, I ever so carefully cut and laid out my patches in accordance with the picture tutorial...only I didn't did I?...I didn't lay it out in accordance with the picture tutorial and when it came to putting on the sides, nope they didn't fit...and of course that was the last of that fabric which I'd used for the heart so tossing and remaking this block wasn't on the cards...so chuck the dud bits in the bin, chop out two rectangles to make sides, abandon the spool design of the block and make a pincushion.  For now I'm calling the February challenge done.  I don't know how much time I'll have for stitching in the next few weeks as I have to spend a lot of time at work including patches of staying in Shepparton (that's the 120km drive) to be close to that work site as we have to do long days with late finishes but having to come home on the days when I work 10 minutes away from home. Just another unscheduled thing to add into last week's mix, organising that!...Oh, I didn't mention the great endo debacle - destroyed my temporary filling right when the dentist couldn't get in to keep appointments, fabulous, that will be sorted Tuesday...has it really only been a week???

Here's to a better week with all fires in Victoria finally going out - enough already...

Happy Stitching...