Hello again to my lovely quilting friends at BellaOnline. I’ve been absent for a few weeks, but back to the computer and busy planning all sorts of fun and learning for 2009.

My darling and I went up to the Sunshine Coast for a two week holiday. He put his mountain bike in the car and had some lovely bike rides up and down the coast. Lots of reading and watching DVD’s. Unfortunately, our cyclone season is in full swing and we did have about a week of very unpredictable weather, when a cyclone menaced the coastal areas, lots of wind and rain. But we didn’t let that get us down. Just spending time together is a great holiday.

I managed to fall down some wet slippery stairs in the first week, and bruised pretty effectively my entire left side. Two weeks on and the bruising is settling, but I managed to spend a few nights in hospital with an unidentified infection, probably caused by the internal bruising flaking off into the blood stream. Not the holiday I envisaged!! But I still kept on quilting and stitching and managed to almost finish a UFO I’ve had sitting around for a few years. It is a block of the month that I purchased about three years ago with lots of stitching and button-hole appliqué. It’s going to be gorgeous when it’s finished, and I only need to finish off the borders. So it was a successful holiday after all!!

I really missed being in touch with you all – two weeks really is a long time for a quilt fix, don’t you agree? So what’s been happening on the Quilting site whilst I was away?

I posted three articles on each Sunday of my absence – the first on the Alzheimer’s Quilt Initiative, the second on purchasing and accessing eBooks via the internet and the final article was the State Block of Washington.

Here’s the links to those articles: http://www.bellaonline.com/site/Quilting .

Whilst I was away I planned my Bellaonline year ahead, and some of the ideas I have are starting to be developed and ready for putting in place. One of my intentions is to present a Mystery Quilt for you to have fun with. It will be available every two weeks over 8 lessons. I’ll give you plenty of time to get your requirements together and I’m sure you’ll love the result.

I’m also going to source lots more free patterns for you, focusing on particular themes. To this end, I’d really love to hear from you with your suggestions for the themes of free patterns you may be interested in. I’d also love to hear about any ideas you have for projects that I can present for you. So pop over to the forum area and give me your suggestions. I’m here to serve you, so give me some ideas how I can best do that. Here’s the link to that forum: http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=505051&#Post505051

If you don’t wish to participate in the forum, just send me an email and I’ll respond personally. So, finally, onto my little gift to you this week.

I was surfing the web the other day and came across this very clever blog - http://www.selvageblog.blogspot.com/ Have you ever wondered what do to with all those selvedge edges we discard whilst quilting. This blog is all about how we can use the selvedge edges from our patchwork fabrics. An absolutely intriguing web site – and I spent a long time have a good read. I hope you enjoy it.

Just for a bit of fun, I’m going to post the question “What other ideas do you have for the use of selvedges from our patchwork fabric?” Please pop over to the forum site and offer your suggestions. http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=505052&#Post505052

So, my dear quilting friends, it’s great to be back on deck again, and I look forward to having a very happy busy quilting year with you all.

Take care and have fun quilting. Cheerio for now
Judie Bellingham, Quilting Editor
http://Quilting.bellaonline.com

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