Loop? What loop?

I'm well out of the quilty/fabric loop, I have absolutely no idea what fabric is new/cool/'on trend' (I hate that phrase!) or indeed what is going on in terms of quilt alongs, swaps or anything these days.  My head (and life) have been full of many other things for so long that I feel like a total newbie again.

But I do a a couple of very good reasons to get back on that horse, get back into the loop.  One obviously my delectable little girl

(I'm so not over looking/taking photos of her yet!)

And secondly I was in the fortunately position a few months ago to be able to upgrade my sewing machine
so treated myself to this lovely beauty - a Janome XL 601

There are quite a few things I love about it - it's so much quieter than my old Janome, it has a top loading bobbin, it has a larger choice of stitches than my old machine (even though I'll probably only use the same 3-4!) but by far my favourite, bestest thing about it is the start/stop button!  I can't say enough about how much I love the ability to sew without using a foot pedal. It means I can sew in small spaces (handy when our office/craft roof is now a nursery) and I just find it so much easier.  Love, love, love that little button and what it can allow me to do :)

Although I have been out of the loop, one thing I have picked up on is the scrappy round the world that is doing the rounds at the moment, I think there is also a flickr group too, and to be honest I think I might have joined it but I can't actually remember.  (Yes my memory is THAT bad these days)  When I started my maternity leave I decided I would attempt to start a quilt so I went through my stash and came up with a fairly decent scrappy bundle of fabrics.  So I've made a start but that was 4/5 weeks ago, not much has been done lately but once Little Miss gets into a bit of routine at nights then maybe I'll have the odd hour or two across a week to pick it up again.

Quick things I need to tackle are a quilt for my son which only needs the binding done.  Just need to decide what fabric to go for - decisions, decisions!