Hi everyone, it’s the first of April and it’s a Wednesday, so it’s newsletter day. I hope this newsletter finds you well and happy no matter where you are situated on our globe.

It’s been a pretty quiet week for me, now that I’ve completed my Leaf quilt. It’s laying face down on my spare bed, in readiness to be delivered to my quilting consultant next week, who will turn it into a masterpiece. I’ve got it spread out to avoid any unnecessary wrinkles. I spent just on two hours cleaning up the wrong side of the quilt, from all the messy threads, and making sure the seams were ironed correctly. With all that handling, especially with Needleturn appliqué, lots of little stray threads appear. This can’t be helped, but they must be neatened off before quilting. I wrote an article about how to prepare your quilt-top for quilting, here’s the link for you: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art10163.asp

I attended a Trivia Night last Saturday night, with my sister Lyn, who is my darling nephew Nicholas’s mum. The primary school that Nicholas attends was raising funds. We had a ball. Both my sister and I are rather competitive when we play games – anything really, tennis, cards, and board games, we love to play and we love to win!! So we combined forces and prepared ourselves to storm through the questions and outdo all others. There were 17 tables represented, and we came….. Seventeenth!! Not sure what happened there, we were so confident!!!. I’d better stick with quilting I think!! We did laugh a lot and really did enjoy ourselves. I love quizzes of all kinds, and I think I might write a quilt quiz for my Bellaonline readers. It would cover all manner of subjects to do with quilting. What do you think? Would you like to participate in a quilt quiz? Let me know on the forum – I’ll post the subject there. Here’s the link: http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=507387&#Post507387

So onto my gift for you this week. In the Christian world Easter is just about here, so I’ve found a lovely little pattern for Easter eggs. They’re made of fabric and absolutely gorgeous. They could probably stay on your table centre the whole year. Here’s the link to the instructions and the template. http://retro-mama.blogspot.com/2009/03/easter-is-in-air.html and http://www.retro-mama.com/easter_egg_pattern.pdf

For those who don’t celebrate Easter, I’ve sourced a delightful apple pincushion made purely from felt. It’s so pretty and would look lovely on your table centre, especially in numbers. Have fun with this one. Here’s the link to the instructions: http://www.livingcreatively.com.au/projects/create_now_project.php?v=80


Well, my dear quilters, that’s all from me for this week. Thanks to all of you for your kind messages and best wishes to me for a speedy recovery after my fall. I’m just about back together again, like Humpty Dumpty, but I must admit my confidence has been rattled a little. A very steady Judie goes up and down the stairs these days.
Love to all, speak with you next week. Cheerio for now, and have fun quilting




Judie Bellingham, Quilting Editor
http://Quilting.bellaonline.com

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