Two finished quilts and two pairs of mitts!

My Row-by-row quilt is done! I finally got around to doing the binding... I bought the American Jane kit online last year. The fabric is from their 'Punctuation' range.

The Quilted Crow girls have (again) done a wonderful job with the machine quilting.

In the end, the binding only took around 5 hours from cutting and piecing the strips to hand-finishing it on the wrong side. In my head the binding had become a bigger-than-Ben-Hur task and I've been procrastinating for quite a few weeks. It feels good to have it done. I can move on to new projects and not feel quite so guilty about the unfinished ones!

And here's my finished April mini-quilt from Kathleen Tracy's quilt-a-long. I emailed her the finished photos and got a lovely reply - thank you Kathleen!

Here's the back. I really enjoyed making this little quilt and am looking forward to participating again in the future.

These fingerless mitts are for my oldest nephew, Marcel, and are knitted from some very gorgeous Zara merino in my stash, and were posted to Melbourne yesterday. I love this yarn. It's so soft and machine washes beautifully. I have a cardigan knitted in the stuff and it still hasn't pilled after 2 years of almost constant wear.

And these mitts are for Alice - knitted in Jo Sharp tweeds also from my stash. I hope she likes them. We went for a walk on the mountain on the weekend, in the mist and the cold. Gosh it was beautiful! But by 5pm we were all feeling the need for extra layers and scarves and mitts!

I have so many more plans for things I want to make (and things I need to finish!). Making things keeps me content and gives me so much joy. I watched a documentary on the weekend about how we see colour, and I imagined what life might be like without colour - a whole lot less rich, that's for sure. It made me realise how much of the pleasure of making comes from the colour of the yarns and fabrics I choose.

Wishing you all a gorgeous Autumn - enjoy the changing colours and the crispness in the air - it's the perfect time for knitting and quilting!