Challenge Accepted

Some of you are probably wondering where on earth I have disappeared to so apologies for falling off the radar but I have been ever so busy. Some events are too personal to discuss on a public forum and are not happy events, others were extended family committments and much happier moments.....my husbands niece got engaged so a trip to Melbourne was in order. Miss M and I went a day earlier and enjoyed a full day exploring the city and surrounds.

Beach huts at Brighton Beach, Victoria

Sticking to the beach theme, the other big thing that has kept me head down, tail up and occupied for a couple of weeks has been the Apatchy Quilt Challenge for 2013.  The theme was "Holiday" and even though, as you would of read recently, I have had some amazing holidays in the UK, Paris and quite a number of other places in my life time, but I opted for something a little closer to home and holiday times spent with my little family at the Beach.

I got the inspiration from a birthday card my hubby received from his sister for his birthday back in October. I just loved the bright coloured flip flops and thought I could somehow use them in a quilt.

 My first idea was to just do appliqued blocks with the flip flops and then I started to think about building a beach scene with the flip flops representing the different members of my family.

An idea was born and I started to build the layers of my beach scene.

It took me longer than expected to applique all five pairs of flip flops on to the foreground of the beach and with a week and a half to go I thought "no problem" because even though I had a weekend in Melbourne to get through, I had 3 whole days the following week before the deadline to get it finished.

And that is when the panic started to set in.  I was called into work on Wednesday (day 1 of planning to get quilt finished), Thursday, I was suffering from exhaustion and spent the day in bed - asleep! (there goes day 2) which left Friday! 

I got up early and put on the air conditioner and got stuck into the idea of having to finish it from sewing on borders to quilting and binding in one day......tall order, I know.

close up of my quilting of the sand

close up of the quilting for the wave foam

at 3:00pm, I thought I was doing well.......HA!

I stayed up until 1:30am to finish sewing on the binding and required hanging sleeve.  Up again at 6 to create and attach a label and by 10am, I was off to the quilt show.  All applicants are annonymous so it was lovely to stand close and listen to people discuss my efforts. And here it is

Tomorrow I will tell you the results and share the other quilts with you.......hope you can wait that long!