Too, too HOT!!

I probably should not complain, as I know there are areas that are having it far hotter, and for longer periods than we are here. But for this little black duck, (where did that saying come from??), it is very draining. Today is expected to be 45deg, which is 115deg F if you live in another part of this world.

I know it's summer, and I do have a very comfortable room to work in, but..........I say roll on winter, and even though I feel the cold, I much prefer it. I know I am so very blessed to have heating and cooling, and a house to live in, when there are so many living in far worse conditions. Well that's my gripe over with, and I do feel better now!

I thought it might be a good day for a quilt show, and there is only one, but lots of photos, and I shall talk about my thought process a bit.

This was made by Val, and friends, who made basket blocks for her, for a special birthday. Some of the blocks are dated, and say 1999, so that takes them back a few years. Val brought this quilt to me quite a few months ago, even though I said it would be awhile before I could do it. She was just happy to have finished it, and get it out of her house! It is a large quilt, and I hung it up on the wall and took a photo of most of it, so I could think about what to do.

The following pics are of the finished quilt, and I was quite happy with how it turned out.

Now, one of my dilemma's with this quilt, was the sashings between the blocks. If you had studied the first photo above, you might have noticed how they met at the cornerstones.  The picture below shows this closer. This was a challenge for the quilter. How could I quilt the sashes and camouflage where they met?

So I did continuous curves all the way through, and hoped that this worked??

Now that I had finished the centre blocks and sashing, I needed to do the border. I left this until last, hoping it would "talk" to me. I did think about crosshatching this, which would have tied in with the crossed sashings, but this would involve lots of stops and starts, and subsequent trimming of drag threads all the way around the border. To avoid having to trim threads, I decided to do what you can see is "doodled" on this drawing below. If I filled in the centre of the curved stems with freehand feathers, I could do the piano key border on both sides, with having to trim threads. I was very happy with this plan, and need to thank another Statler owner, for being my sounding board with this idea.

When Val came to pick up her quilt, she was very happy, and after the binding is done, will have finished an old WIP. It is a special memory for her of friends who made blocks, and some who are no longer with us.

I have been up early this morning, and watered all the garden, ready for a hot day. There was a lovely cool breeze earlier, so I had all the windows and doors open until about 9am, when it started to get hot. Now I am sitting at my desk, and will spend the day writing a few more words, so that I can put "stuff" away ready for the arrival of the Aussie day retreaters tomorrow. This story has sort of taken over my life, and I need to get my "head space" back to where it needs to be. But hopefully by the end of today I will have finished the first section of my story. So far I have done 12,860 words and 61 pages, with lots of photos. I keep remembering more and more to add, so I am glad I am not writing it all long hand, as it is easy to add, and shift things on the computer. And I feel great, that I have finally started something that I have wanted to do and thought about for a long time. Another occasion of "going with the flow", and doing something that had not been in the schedule.

Bye for now, stay cool if you are in the hot country, and maybe you need to stay warm those who are in the top part of this world.

Blessings, From Jude