My first blog - day 2

One thing I love about the blogosphere is that you never know where it will take you. You start off at one blog, click on another then another, and before you know it you’re trying to decipher a language you can’t read because the photos are so interesting.

Now you know what I’ve been doing all day - reading the blogs of my new online friends. Thank you all for your kind welcome messages. I feel right at home already.

I better make sure I don’t neglect my existing partners in the Inchy Hexagon Flower Swap. Every month I have a mad dash at the end to make my flowers for my swap-mates. I was so sure I’d meet the deadline this month as I made one flower in the first week of July … but (no surprise) I haven’t made the other yet!

I love that this is an international swap. It was started by a fellow Australian, QuiltJane (also known as the Inchy Hexagon Gal), but so far I’ve received hexagon flowers from the US and Canada, the UK and Europe, Scandinavia and Iceland, oh, and Australia of course. There are lots of hex-mad people out there!

I must tell you a little about QuiltJane as her Want It, Need It, Quilt blog was the first blog I ever started reading on a regular basis. Her designs have been featured in the Moda Bake Shop, she has written tutorials for other blogs as well as her own, and I especially like that there’s so much colour and variety in her projects.

QuiltJane introduced me to fussy-cutting and my hexagons have never been the same since. I fussy-cut the blocks in the first picture below from the same piece of fabric (from Fandango by Kate Spain for Moda). Fussy-cutting really adds an extra dimension, don't you think. (Oh dear, I really need to improve my photo-taking skills though.)

The other thing I like about QuiltJane is her Want It, Need It, Quilt store. To be specific, I like the prices in her store. I haven’t found anywhere else in Australia that sells Moda charm packs and layer cakes as cheap as she does. It’s significantly cheaper, even better than buying from overseas.

Her shop has other stuff too. My latest purchase is Frosted Donut 2, 36 new colours of Masterpiece thread (100% Egyptian cotton). As soon as I saw this I snapped it up ASAP because I knew it would go quickly. And I snapped up Frosted Donut 1 as well because I missed out last time.

It will be so great to have a whole rainbow of thread (72 colours!) to choose from for my hexagons. I can't wait!