Jodie is Loooovely!

Look at this lovely lot…

Jodie sent it to me, just because she’s lovely.

I won a competition that I didn’t even enter. Jodie said that a calendar was the prize – a calendar in which she is published!  See her February project up there? She sent me more than just a calendar – patterns for her clever creations were in the little package of goodness.

Thanks Jodie, you are lovely.

Four Years

Can you imagine that I started this blog four years ago?

That means that I have managed to sustain my attention and shown commitment for four whole years. For someone like me, with easily distracted syndrome, this is an amazing accomplishment.

I started this as a quilting blog, then somewhere along the way my whole life became involved. Recently I have moved back to my quilting. As my kids get older their lives are their own, not mine to share any more. (although I am sure they would dispute my alleged discretion)

I don’t think I’ve run out of things to say and things to share just yet. Can you imagine if I continued for another four years?

My Prince

Do you think that if I kissed this ambitious little guy chasing an enormous dragonfly…

he might whisk me away to here.

I’m sure that’s where all Frog Princes would take their lady friends…

Missed It By That Much

I had four seams left to finish a quilt top. A total of fifteen minutes of sewing was all that was needed when I found this…

My maths was wrong and I cut the white border half an inch too narrow.

After muttering more than one curse word I reassured myself that I have plenty more white fabric and I just need to cut another four borders.

Once I stop sulking I’ll do just that.

The Best Competition That I Never Entered

The very crafty and very sneaky Jodie had a competition on her blog.

She didn’t tell me she was having a competition. She didn’t tell anyone she was having a competition.

She drew her winner from her various entrants and I won.

I didn’t even know I had entered!

Now she’s sending me a crafty calendar for 2011…

and I haven’t even prepared my thank you speech.

Lucky, times one million

For the past five months I have been doing some consultancy work that involves, once a week, taking a fifteen minute flight on an eight-seater plane to a nearby island. Today as we took off the air was clean and clear. Imagine a sky so blue and an ocean so smooth and flat that you can’t quite see where one stops and the other begins. That was my vista this morning.

On the island the airport runway is bordered to one side with mangroves. A long wide expanse of glossy green leaves. This morning as we landed I could see thousands, literally thousands, of black and blue butterflies emerging out of the green mangroves into the impossibly blue sky.

After the plane had landed I stood outside the airport with my back to the sun and watched hundreds of butterflies fly over my head towards the northern side of the mountain. It was amazing. Sometimes they fluttered furiously, other times they spread their wings and floated on the air.

On the flight home I turned my gaze to the glassy ocean. As I watched the water broke and a large black shiny shape appeared momentarily, then slid back beneath the water. The whales are playing in the tropical waters for the winter.

Today I felt lucky. Lucky times one million. I only wish I had taken my camera…

Pond Life

I love the interplay of colours here…

Every pond should have water lilies.

Bargaining

IF I finish quilting feathers on a client quilt…

THEN I can play with appliqued birdies on my pond quilt.

Hurry up, me, hurry up!

Beside Myself

It has arrived..

My birthday present from my indulgent husband.

Thanks, my darling.

I love it. (and you too)

Tools for Quilting

The most useful tool I know for designing my own quilts is the multi-function printer attached to my computer. I have no idea how I worked in the times before this printer.

After piecing together a quilt top I start to draw the applique shapes I want to use.

This one will be a pond quilt.

Once I’ve drawn my shapes I make a copy of each one, roughly cut them out and audition them on the quilt top.

If the shapes are the wrong size for the quilt I just copy them again using the resize function. These dragonflies are copied at 80% of the size of my original drawing.

It’s brilliant!