Welcome 2013!

Wow the last few weeks have flown by.  I had a magical Christmas this year, I hope you did too.  I've been away for a couple of weeks staying with my mother in Victoria.  What a wonderful time we had.  It was a retreat for me.  Mum is a textile artist and has the most fantastic studio.  We worked together in the studio doing our separate things in blissful creative companionship.  I worked on some linocuts, a quilt, embroidery and knitted another Rowan hat.  I feel very inspired to work towards my goal of my own studio and time to spend in it.

I think Mum was thrilled with her Christmas gift - a quilt I've been working on for a while.  I took photos of it in her backyard.  Her ''plot'' is totally charming and rustic. I would photograph every quilt of mine there if it wasn't on the other side of the country! I think this one looks great in the setting of her backyard, strung over the washing line. It was exciting to see it on the bed in the room I had made it for too, but alas I forgot to take a photo of that - it really suited and enhanced the room (Mum's thoughts! but I agreed).

I have some more holiday snaps to share but for now I'll leave you with these of my version of Kaffe Fassett's Floral Parade Quilt, flapping happily away on mum's washing line. It's king size so it's tricky to get a great image of such a large quilt.

Back view

so you can see the quilt pattern.. and the lime green binding, which  I  feel finishes it perfectly...but that's my opinion :)

 I even took a short video of it.  (My daughters think I am so weird - I assured them that other members of quiltland would understand and "get it") But the birds were chirping and quilt was merrily blowing in the breeze which you can't capture in photos. Also the sunlight dappling through the trees was skipping around the quilt.  It was a lovely moment for me.

Russian Doll Quilt

I purchased the sashing fabric for my Russian Doll Quilt a week ago and had a quick play with it.  All the blocks are a different size as they have grown organically, so their "placement" will be random, not uniform, with different widths of sashing fabric between the blocks.  I'm inspired by all the modern quilts such as those in Block Party of which I am the proud owner of!

The fabric is linen blend which I thinks complements the organicness of the blocks.  The spots marry nicely with the doll's cheek (y) dots.  

Another one of my years-in-the-making quilts is a tiny step closer to being finished. 

I picked up three quilts from the machine quilter - I mentioned that already but here's a pic of my pile :)  I will reveal more as time goes by.  They are my black and white, kaffe fasset's floral parade and my flea market fancy quilts.