Great day for sewing

A couple of years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska, I purchased the Lisa Moore pattern to make this quilt, Alaska with a Twist. I enlarged the quilt by adding extra borders, and by using a forget-me-not (state flower of Alaska) fabric for the corners. The various fabrics were purchased in Victoria, Canada, and in Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway and Fairbanks, and some were sent to me by my friend Terry in Juneau. I used the cool aquas and turquoises of the glacial waters; the bottom picture is the true colour. The various prints have seagulls, eagles, bears, moose, seals, wolves, orcas, trees, northern lights.......some of which we saw, and some we missed. But they are all there in Alaska. My dream is to see the Northern Lights before I leave this earth.
It is still a flimsy, not yet layered and quilted, because I am probably the world's most unconfident machine quilter. But I will get there. There are folks who do wonderful machine quilting for others but at a cost of between $200-$400 I can't justify it. So I will practice, and eventually gain more confidence, and quilt some of those tops, at last count I think there are eight or nine waiting their turn. It would be lovely to have them finished. Then if only that confidence would spill over into other areas of my life I would be ecstatic, but that's another story.

I have just made 14 blocks for the black and white (or is it white and black?) Winding Ways quilt, so now there are 23 finished. An odd number, but I will keep making more and when I decide that is enough I will join them together. Finished size is nearly nine inches square so perhaps 36 blocks might be a good stopping point. That would be 54 inches square, plus borders; I have a black and white fabric which has wobbly red and yellow stripes spaced along the length, for borders. Perhaps a red and yellow narrow striped fabric would then be good for the binding, but I'm sure the quilt will tell me as we go along.

Today is a great day for sewing because it's cool, and cloudy, and the workmen next door seem to have finished and packed up, so that beeping little digger has finally stopped beeping. It's like a toothache...very irritating while it's there, and a great relief when it stops.