Sunshine . . .

. . . in the sky again, thank goodness, and in a cyberfriend's generosity.  Mandy of Crazy Daisy blog has given me, along with 11 others, a Sunshine Award!  Read all about it on her blog, February 6th and the previous post.  Mandy is a great knitter and also does some unusual bits of embroidery.  And she has a nice cat!  Thank you very much, Mandy!

And at long last I am getting together a patchwork quilt for a granddaughter, and you could say there is something sunshiney about the middle section.  She likes yellow apparently.  Ok, I'm stretching things a bit!

It is pegged up on curtains over the shelves in my workroom.  It is quite a while since I did some straightforward patchwork, or made something bed-sized.

Today I got a border round it, made the backing, layered it all up on the table (useful 5 foot square, made by DH from 2 old doors) and tacked it.  So just the quilting to do now (by machine), and some edging which will probably be some facing strips.

Pinks and greens . . .

Each time a new baby arrives in our family I make him/her (mostly her) a small quilt for lying on the floor under the baby gym. The latest one, Leila, arrived in July but I forgot all about the quilt. We're visiting them soon so hurriedly this one was put together. it has bunnies and things in sleepsuits in the centre squares. And in the search for interesting colour combinations which I sometimes indulge in, this grabbed my attention - green peppers and sort of pinky-red onions being stir-fried.

P & Q

There's a patchwork and quilting group meets monthly in the village hall up the road and I have joined it. It is the Crooked Boro' Quilters, of Wimborne. I remember years ago when I was first getting into quilting going to their exhibitions in Wimborne and being very impressed. The group is smaller now, but very open and welcoming. A Rebecca Collins pattern for a bag is being worked on currently, so I joined in: It has a big pocket on the front (above) behind the pieced block, and another big one on the back (below) with 2 smaller ones. Don't quite know why the fastening flap is on the back??? I'm sure I followed the instructions!

Patchwork from Thailand

I found this small bag - probably intended for a makeup bag - a lovely example of this folded patchwork done in Thailand. Those folded triangles are so small, less than half a centimetre. The vertical strips are folded too.