Too ill to sew :(

Isn't it horrid when you are ill, you don't want to leave your bed and you can't climb the loft ladder and sit in your lovely sewing room and sew all day ... even though you really want to? I am sooooooooo unwell - it's only gastronenteritis (I know I will recover soon) but it's been 3 days now and I could have done so much sewing on my latest WIPs ('USA #4', an Ireland trip themed quilt, a christening quilt, my sister's V-shaped cushion cover ... the list goes on!!!) Fingers crossed, tomorrow will bring some recovery.

'USA #3' arrived safely in Towson, MD on Friday and my dear cousin Facebooked a great photo of her holding it up. She is so cute. And she has an amazing group of friends who follow her so her post got 40 likes and 15 comments ... yay I'm a little bit famous - well, in Maryland anyway!!

I love that we all "rescued" her grandma's fabric (which is over 20 years old) and I feel honoured to be turning it into quilts for my five cousins. So far, that's one daughter and two grand-daughters who have received their quilts and now I have two daughters-in-law to make for.

I started 'USA #4' at the beginning of the week. It is getting trickier (because of my self-imposed rule of only using my Great-Aunt's fabric to make these quilts) to decide on a pattern and pick the fabrics that will then 'stretch' to that design and I may have to improvise (again) as the blocks get made because I don't think there's quite enough of this background fabric to make the whole quilt as per the pattern (I had to choose it as it was the largest piece of 'light' fabric in the stash and it's pretty).

I was curious about the label - Montgomery Ward - so I Googled it and found it to have quite a history. It led me to conclude (I may be wrong) that my Great-Aunt probably ordered some of her fabric from them. I bet she would have loved internet shopping!!

Here it is:

The pattern I am using is called 'Super Stars' which I found in one of my quilting books, Fresh Fabric Treats. The talented designer (Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts) has a great post showing off her quilts and the fact you can nicely blend together a lot of different fabrics is what drew me to her pattern.

These are the complimenting fabrics I have chosen - I picked 4 different pinks, blues and greens to match the little flowers:

and here is one of the blocks:

Only 8 more blocks to make (plus sashing and a border) so we'll have to see how it will all end up if (when?) I run out of the background fabric. I love it when I don't know if a plan is actually going to come together ... don't you??