I have used some mindless sewing on the road to recovery to occupy myself over the last few weeks.
I sewed some more bow ties, about 300, I guess: I can't wait to start putting these together, but I must finish the sets I have kitted up, so I have maximum variety-this is a sample I made earlier to try a layout. There will be about 1200 when I'm done, all finishing at 3". I think there are about 900 done already, the double quilt will need 1000 or so.
Most of the knots don't match the bows exactly: I had all the squares cut and waiting, I refused to cut more fabric so I raided the 1 1/2" strip bin for most of the bow tie 'knots'.
I have sewn some strips for the rainbow hexie
........and the Darwins Flower garden now has-almost-all the corners done-red, orange, blue, green, so just the border paths on the four 'corners' and the green 'hedge' edging to do, the end is in sight.
Centre....
..before I sewed the orange up...
....and the blue corner almost done.
The blues are really vibrant, I have a new phone with a truly rubbish camera, this picture is adjusted for white balance! I have a new camera too, but its barely out of the box, I will have to get familiar with it.
Over Christmas I lost myself in making the nine patches for the black and white quilt 'Morphine', about 100 of them. I will be cutting triangles next for this quilt.
I have plans for a design wall, I will definitely need to to lay this one out.
I got really bored with black and white, and started sewing randomly coloured mis-matched nine patches as leaders and enders, from pre-cut 2" squares, taking care to use up all the uglies. They took over and I made about 200! I haven't decided what to do with them yet.
I have not been working on the random hexie, though I know I only have about 5 more sets to sew before I have enough for a double quilt, this seems to have grown faster than anything else. The top will definitely be done this year. Not hand quilted though, there are others in the queue before this!
I can remember roughly when and how I acquired all these random fabrics! Why can't I remember where I put the car keys!!!
This year needs to be about machine quilting- I have a bout 10 tops ready to go. I keep putting it off as 'I'm not good enough'. Things will get out of hand with the number I have to quilt soon-as if it's not already out of hand!
I have decided on the next leader-ender project, it will keep me busy for the next two years at least, it's Bonnie Hunters Perkiomen day dreams, each little square finishes at 1 inch.
This is the basic unit......
Pale blue, yellow , red, and dark blue.
About 10,000 squares in a double. Gulp.
Summary for 2014
1. Two projects started!! (Random nine patch, black and white 'Morphine' nine patch)
2. Significant progress on Darwin's flower garden, bow ties and rainbow hexie.
3. Another project planned.
4. Promises of finishes!
I have been reading this book for about a month now, I'm 2/3 of the way through, its a 1,200 page trilogy. I thought I wasn't going to like this SF classic at the beginning, as it's not overly 'scientific'. Themes of planetary evolution and inter species war are addressed then after a while the SF angle comes in (no spoilers!). Aldiss is a wonderfully imaginative and articulate author, I highly recommend this work. It is half the price on Kindle! I bought the heavy hard-copy, which was still reasonable priced, as I want to lend it to my son. 
