Journey to the hinterland

This weekend was a long weekend for most and we took the opportunity to travel and see family.  The journey took us thru the Free State flats and the Cosmos was in flower - what a site!

..the bees were having a field day. This one is covered in pollen.

There were long stretches of Cosmos running alongside the road, along river beads, alongside farm roads and also surrounding fields of mealies and these wonderful fields of sunflowers.

We did a quick detour before hand thru Ladysmith for business for the other half and at both entrances/exits to the town they have these wonderful large 'pots' and below metal cut outs, I think, of  Mandela.

Having fun on my machine !!

I am giving a demo/talk at one of our guilds on designing your own Celtic inspired piece.  In putting all the examples together I came across this one which I has fused onto the fabric but needed stitching & quilting.  

Lesson:  Do not hold onto these examples for long, at all, and particularly in there flimsy state (the design cut out but not ironed in place).  They do stretch and distort, hence this piece is not absolutely perfect but it does give an idea of playing with a number of colours.

The whole piece

a close up.

I used a thread which for the quilting which I had bought in the UK at the Festival of Quilts - no name.  it really gave me a hard time getting the tension right - which I never did but in the long run I quite liked the effect.  I also managed to finish the top with about 2 meters left.

WHAT THE RAINS HAVE BROUGHT

This time of year, after some lovely soaking rain, the bromeliads give a lovely showing.

Here they are just starting to push their brilliant red heads up ... some further than others.

The flowers are quite stunning .....

....... and a top view.

Ruffling through my workshop samples!

My priorities over the last couple of weeks have been on things other than sitting at the machine.  One of them has been putting together a talk on borders and bindings for our local guild and has meant a visit to the cupboard for my samples and quilts.

Feathered Star has been one of those workshops that I have taught in the past and each time I did so I ended up with a completed 'star' which was then turned into a complete quilt.  Here are three examples .... all quite different.

This has been a real trip down memory lane!