Hello happy quilters, how has your week been? We’ve had some lovely Spring weather here in Brisbane and we even had our first storm of the season; it was absolutely fantastic to hear the rain on the roof.

The warm weather has brought the wildlife out of hibernation. There are loads of butterflies, native bees, and lizards. Our nutty neighbour has been chasing snakes all week, so I suppose they are awake too LoL. Dave the scrub turkey is still tending to, and increasing the size of his nest; we also had three blue tongue lizards come say hello.

The blue tongues have a real attitude problem. This guy was about 30cm (12in) long and was really cranky. He took a swipe at Martin, nipped Rem, and chased Kate. They open their mouths and hiss like crazy. They are super fast too.

My favourites though are the water dragons. They live in abundance in the creek behind our house. They climb the trees, sun themselves on our patio, and lay their eggs in the gardens. They crash through the bush making a heck of a noise and frequently scare the living daylights out of me when I nearly step on them. This photo was taken last year, he’s sitting on the branch of a tree a good seven metres from the ground.

I’ve been working on the templates for the gnome quilt (in between chasing lizards and neighbours) adjusting them here and there, getting them just right.

The first gnomes weren’t quite right. They were cute, but they didn’t fit in with Esmerelda and she is too sweet not to use.

I think I’ve got them right now, which means I can finally get cracking on finishing the quilt and pattern. So much of this job is trial and error, false starts and frustrations, followed by the pure joy of creating something that makes people happy.

Don’t forget to download the latest instalment in the piggy BOM. You can find the patterns by clicking on the “This Little Piggy” tab in the menu at the top of the page. Have a fun weekend everyone, I hope you get some time to work on something special. toni xx