The unloved project is finished

Finished and done, as you can see.  Last night the binding was finally sewn down and today the last stitch was taken on the hanging sleeve.  It is rectangular, just looks a bit distorted because it was laid on the floor for this pic.  

 I have decided that I don't love it because it is someone else's design.......my input was limited to fabric choices (unlike several of the workshop participants I chose not to buy the kit supplied by the teacher) and some of the quilting ideas.  But that's it, it's now out of my hair and I can get on with things I would rather be doing, such as the pinwheel quilt.

Have also been gathering together fabrics for this year's visiting tutor workshop, aren't they scrumptious?  All batiks; the pale leafy print is for the background and border, the stack of FQs in greens, blues, browns and golds is for the blocks, the lovely red print is for the side strip on each block and the brown is for the inner border and binding.  Somehow I think this will be more 'me', as making pieced blocks and playing with their colour and placement is great fun.  Thanks to my friends whose lovely fabric gifts will be part of this quilt!

 A few years ago I bought this luscious print to make a skirt and now its time has come to be made.  The top colour is lighter aqua than it appears in the pic, while it shades to almost midnight blue at the bottom and is overprinted in black.  It will be a pleated skirt on a narrow hip yoke, to make the most of the fabric.  Unfortunately I'm short and the fabric is 115cm wide so not all the colour will make it into the skirt......my skirts aren't that long......but the deep rich colours at the bottom will be in it, for sure.  Not sure of the fabric composition but going by the way it behaved when washed, it is probably some sort of polyester.

 This week's weather pics.....last Monday afternoon the heavens opened and we had 28 mls of rain (to give you the idea, 25 mls is an inch) in about 15 minutes.  The hill behind us was very misty.

And the view over the roofs across the road disappeared again.  Normally we can see for miles and miles.

While this was happening in our street, some parts of town had no rain at all!  There is a low hill between here and the rest of the town which seems to be the dividing line, rain falls on one side of the hill but not the other.  On Monday it was obviously our turn, while a couple of days ago the other side of the hill had their turn.  In yesterday afternoon's storm quite a bit of hail fell here - I wonder what they had in town?  We are only a few kilometres away from the centre of town, but there is that hill.......

While local gardens are loving the rain, the damp plants have become havens for unpleasant insects like mosquitoes.  A few nights ago I decided to tidy up some of the garden and pull out a few weeds....a very easy task, as the ground is soft after so much rain.......and am now suffering from bites, probably mosquito bites.  On my arms I can understand, as they were bare - but even allowing for the fact that I was wearing shorts, how ever did I get bitten on the hip?

The other day at quilt group the conversation turned to the current rash of reality cooking shows, where people try to put on a good meal but are eliminated week by week.  Now I don't know how you all feel, but I find shows like that are nasty; they are not about the recipes and cooking, but more about "who can we get rid of this week?  If we chuck off so-and-so we might lose viewers because they are on the side of the poor dear, but on the other hand we can't chuck off those two nice young blokes because they give the females in our audience something to watch and we don't want to lose our female audience" etc.  As you may have gathered if you have read this far - I don't watch them.  Give me a good murder/mystery story any day, I don't mind a bit of gore.  To judge by the murder rate there can't be many people left alive now in some of those little English villages, can there?

"Speaking one's mind.
Certain honest but unthinking people often commit the grievous mistake of "speaking their mind" on all occasions and under all circumstances, and oftentimes to the great mortification of their hearers.  And especially do they take credit to themselves for their courage, if their freedom of speech happens to give offence to any of them.  A little reflection ought to show how cruel and unjust this is.  The law restrains us from inflicting bodily injury upon those with whom we disagree, yet there is no legal preventive against this wounding of the feeling of others."

You may hold your own opinion of the aforementioned reality cooking shows, and I reserve the right to my opinion.  Should it differ to yours, we can agree to hold a civilised discussion on the matter without hurt feelings on either side.  I would not inflict bodily injury to put across my point of view.

Enjoy your days!