Getting Close

I snuck downstairs on Sunday after our service to see how things were progressing with the quilting of mom's Dresden Plate, and, by the looks of things, I will be sharing pics of the finished product with you very soon.

It's been rolled down to the last two rows and those are well on their way to being finished. I can't wait to see the entire thing and put the binding on it. You could spend hours just looking at the great collection of fabrics in it.

This one has taken much longer for the gals to do than the one they did for me last winter - I do hope that they aren't getting tired of it.

Almost looks a little dangerous, doesn't it? :)  For anyone who hasn't put a quilt up on frames like this, they use a knife to pry the tacks out of the side boards when the quilt is being rolled.

Soon, very soon....M

Quiet Time

This has been an incredibly busy, busy spring for appointments and family commitments, with this past week being no exception. I was seriously running out of steam so I finally dropped myself into the chair for some Minnie therapy.

There really is nothing like the steady rhythm of needle & thread through fabric to help me centre myself again. Who needs yoga?

Almost two new hexie diamonds to show for my efforts.

The one upside is that the weather has been spectacular. Happy long awaited spring!...M

Memory Lane

Linda asked an innocent question a few days ago and it's got me all excited about returning to a project that I worked on with mom around 2001, another lifetime ago. Did I have the pattern for Danuta's Garden? We made it for Anne's friend Danuta with a wonderful selection of florals on a yellow with lots of teenie tiny squares in the sashing. Jane also made a lovely green version of it.

I knew that I had fabrics set aside to do one for me using many of the leftovers because I came across them a little while ago while sorting through the sewing room; all I had to do was see if I could find the pattern that I had drafted. First to the fabric stash where I found not only the leftovers, but this baggie full of tiny squares ... some already assembled into 4-patches...

and a photo of the pattern. What luck! I knew the basic elements in it but was having a tough time remembering the layout.

Interestingly, it's really a Civil War quilt pattern. The  photo I have to work from is about 4 inches square, which is typical of me. I seem to find these postage stamp sized images and then want to recreate the pattern.

I guess we could have ordered it from Australia at the time but we were anxious to get started so I draft it - on a piece of cardboard from a box, for some reason. But that turned out to be a blessing, because I knew exactly what to look for in my files.

So I've copied it, including my hen-scratched instructions, and sent it off to Linda.

But that got me thinking. I have that lovely little baggie of squares all set to go...

and the stack of fabrics that have been patiently sitting together for 12 (!) years...

Maybe I should start my version?

I'd need to find the background fabric, but this soft yellow polka dot might work....

Do your fingers get itchy at the thought of starting something new?...M

Lush!

Jane and Betty were in for dinner on the weekend and Betty brought Fruit Salad - not for dessert, but the quilt that she started last spring. She's been adding yellows and pinks to the edges of the rows to create a transition to the border (whatever that will be) so they laid it out and we had a bit of a quilt therapy session.

This one is going to be so spectacular - words escape me every time I see it.

I love the occasional little triangle that's made up of 4 specs of colour - they are like little gems scattered throughout.

After much deliberation (actually, not really that much) she's decided to make the pink & yellow edges a couple of pieces wider for more impact. Then she'll trim it so that the edge is a straight line rather than following the picot that the triangle create, and she needs to make it a few rows longer.

The part that had us all delirious was when we decided that the border would be this red Philip Jacobs print called Waltzing Matilda that I had picked up last year. Isn't it just perfect?!

The border will be about 10 inches wide and she's thinking that when it comes time to quilt it she will quilt within the flow of the pattern.

Jane happened to be browsing through  Kaffe Fassett's Quilts of Provence as we were doing this and came across a profile of Philip and this particular print. This is how he describes it: "It has such movement I named it after the Australian song Waltzing Matilda since the flowers really dance to my eye". Enough said.






Of course Baylea had come to dinner too so, designer that she is, she needed to get in on the action too.















I think that she must be related to Picasso...M