I'm making a quilt!

I am!  I'm making a quilt!  But before we get onto that, I wanted to show you the kindness of my blogging buddies in Canada.  After meeting these two lovely ladies through our blogs, we've struck up a real friendship and they generously sent me a Christmas parcel each!

From the lovely Sandra I got:

A set of pouches in the fabbest (is that a word, or would most fab be better?) fabric!  It's travel fabric so suits me down to the ground.  Each pouch had a little present inside.

 Embroideries including a sewing basket and lots of lovely bunnies!

Tiger jingle bells (which were a bit shy, they didn't want their photo taken and kept rolling away) and little mother-of-pearl bunnies, both in these lovely little draw-string bags.

The equally-lovely Nancy sent me a mountain of crafty goodies, all wrapped up in freezer paper!

FQs from Petit Ecole, Rounneries and Pom Pom de Paris!  She knows my taste so well.

A fabric panel, some horsey fabric and a thread-snipper ring!  Ingenious - wonder if I can take that on the plane?  I'm going to Tunisia with work in January (I really am going, this isn't like the whole China debacle, I have tickets and everything!) and want to take some crochet on the plane but don't know the rules...

Scrap booking goodies (including embellishments by Amy Butler - who knew?) and ribbon.

Amy Butler ribbon, a hardanger kit and a kit to make a beaded notebook.  How fabulous are my fabuloso mates?  Thanks ladies, I'm overwhelmed with your generosity - as ever!

So, want to see the quilt I'm making?

I found a pattern, not the original one I was going to do as that was too complicated, but an easier one.  Then I laid out my selection of Sunkissed charm squares.  That took ages.  I hope I got the right balance in the end.

I cut out all the sashing pieces and the edge triangles and started sewing the rows.

I was going really slowly and carefully as I so want to get this right.  This is for my little nephew who's to be born in February and so has to be perfect!

This is the last photo I took, but I've actually got a bit further.  All the rows are sewn and half the columns.  I stopped as I got a pucker and so unpicked but thought I was too tired to carry on.  So far, my sashing matches up!!  Oh no, I've just jinxed the rest of it, haven't I?  I did debate deleting that sentence, but it's too late, the jinx has been cast.... I'll let you know how I get on!!