And - it's done!

My quilt top is finished!

You can count the full and half tumblers if you wish, or you can take my word that there are 792.  Add the eight border strips, and there are exactly 800 pieces in this quilt.

The narrow dark stripe ws placed along the inner edge of the outer border, and the inner border fabric will also be used for binding.

One of the four mitred borders.  I don't want to fritter away mitred borders on a quilt which is unworthy of them; however, I think this quilt is worthy.  It was taken to quilt group yesterday for show and tell......when I unfolded it and held it up with Kate's help there were gasps of "oh, Jennifer!" which I am taking as a compliment.

It's difficult to find somewhere in our house to photograph a large quilt but pelmet brackets at the top of the window meant there was somewhere to prop the pinned-to-a-sheet top for a picture......so that's where it had to be.  Both inner and outer blinds were closed behind the quilt, but light still comes in unless it's night.

A name popped into my head this morning almost as a joke: "Why Not?"  I couldn't begin to count the number of people who asked me why I was sewing by hand, to which my reply was inevitably  - "why not?"  The more I think about it, the more I like it.

No houses were made this week as it has been quite busy, but I have hopes of doing better next week.  Some of the leftover tumblers have been joined for the backing.  That's about it.

We have had a small piece of excitement in our miserable lives.  Last night we actually went to a concert, a real concert with real musicians playing on a real stage for us!  Audience numbers were limited, we had to sit stay (like well-trained dogs) unless we were going for food, drink or bathroom, no singing along or jigging around.  Everyone behaved as they should, and it was a fun night.

Here's your piece of useless information for the week:  did you know that if you forget about a large tin of apricot halves in your pantry for goodness knows how long, there's a chance it may explode?  We found that out recently.  One evening we were sitting quietly when we heard a really loud bang.  We couldn't find the cause; there were no storms so it wasn't thunder, and we forgot about it.  Last Sunday night I reached into the pantry for a jar of olives (I like olives on my home-made salmon pizza) and noticed it was dripping as I took it to the bench.  Olives were decanted to another container, glass jar was checked......no, no cracks.  Check pantry and......woops.  The ring pull lid on the tin of fruit was half open, obviously the cause of the explosion.  Fermented apricot juice on the wall, on the shelf......not good......it has now been cleaned, but the pantry needs to be emptied, de-cluttered and re-organised, a task long overdue.  Needless to say, 'use by' dates on cans, bottles and packets will be checked in the process.

It was, as far as explosions go, quite an almighty one.

More on table manners, continuing from our last.

"Even when persons habitually eat alone, they should pay due regard to the rules of etiquette, for by so doing they form habits of ease and gracefulness which are requisite in refined circles; otherwise they speedily acquire rude and awkward habits which they cannot shake off without great difficulty, and which are at times embarrassing to themselves and their friends."

Hopefully while you are not embarrassing your friends, they in turn are not embarrassing you.

Enjoy your days!