Last post before Christmas

I've been sidetracked with my quilting due

to the news a week ago that a darling friend of 39 years

has been undergoing treatment for cancer - first thought

was  -  she needs a quilt!

Lots hanging in the closet for quilting but I wanted to make a start

on one especially made with her in mind.

Looking for something simple I had a look through the

Freddy Moran and Gwen Marston collaborative books and

yes, pyramid shape would be perfect. One had a border the other not.

I was thinking of the layout above at first, then

remembered a quilt in a Sarah Fielke book,

the quilt below is named

Love Beads

love the layout but not wanting to deal with the hexagons

centred in the large diamonds.

So still playing on the design wall with this layout below

going with the Love Bead style but using

a mix of fabrics, two different pieces in each diamond.

Side tracked also watching the young blackbirds coming
along to feed, at first they were screeching for Mum to feed  them

but now they're good to go on their own

here is one of the latest three, just about two feet away from me.

I've been feeding birds for a long time, two blackbirds, male and female, have been

visiting me for a few years and raise their chicks in the

trees in the garden, poor old chap is now looking rather

old!!

He comes and sits right outside the window where my cosy chair is

and lets me know he would like food!

Christmas Day tomorrow and I'm wishing

you all a very Merry Christmas, and see you in a few days.

 Oops orientation of book shots going across when they should be going down!

Maureen

Refreshed and ready to quilt!!

My three weeks enforced leave of absence

 seems

to have had the desired results, but

hardly any quilting has been done apart from binding my

Tula Pink quilt

I used up a variety of the striped fabric in the her collection 

for the binding, luckily they all seem to work well.

the quilting lines actually go across the quilt, I just forgot

to rotate!

measurements 58" x 68"

quilted by Leeanne at

Quilt Me Kiwi

I haven't been wasting my time, I have been

spending some sitting in the garden here, especially in the early morning

and late afternoon

with a good book

which arrived only one week ago and is a treasure! I'm limiting

myself to reading about one quilter each day, I definitely recommend this one

and what a Christmas gift it would make!

Quite a lot of the featured quilters are new to me, which is good,

lots of variety in the use of colour and design.

The good side of having a rest is that the mind quietens and ideas

come steadily and clearly, I have found that I'm forming

a way forward with my quilting next year.

Scrap quilts are definitely on the agenda, colour with Kaffe Collective

as usual and I'm waiting for May when the new range

from Anna Maria Horner hits the stores, lots of brights!

Time out has also made me realise that I have bought fabric on  a whim

sometimes, fabric which really is "not me" so I am going to sell these.

Also I'm definitely not going to 'follow the trend' with regard to quilt patterns,

these too have been collected with gay abandon and

I realise now that I will never make them!

More on the above next year, but below I have snaps of three of

my hydrangeas which are performing nicely and along with

the other flowers in the garden gave me such pleasure

over the last little while.

Another benefit I have found is the time to really look, not just pass

by and glance fleetingly but really see what beauty there is in

the smallest gift from the garden

will you just look at the colour and detail in these

tiny wee seed capsules from the Japanese Maple lying on the

old table on our deck. I also enjoy seeing all the clumps of

lichen taking a hold.

Gosh, this has been a pretty long post but I hope you

made it through to the end!

Happy Quilting

Maureen