Stashbusters are having a stay-at-home retreat this weekend, and I have been busy in the workroom. This morning I bound this quilt; I lost the binding last week and discovered it this morning behind a trunk while I was vacuuming. Sometimes it pays to do housework. Most times it doesn't.

I finished quilting the Night and Noon yesterday, and had fun with it. I put lots of different patterns on it, just experimenting, and because that's how I always intended to hand quilt it all those years ago. It's hard to believe it's done at last.20 years ago my daughter had just turned 1, and I was already 6 months pregnant with my son. I had endured 5 months of awful morning sickness with her, and 5 months with the second baby. I was not feeling particularly wonderful, which was tuff luck as far as DD was concerned. She was a bundle of energy, and I spent my days dragging my pregnant self around and keeping her out of trouble.

It was Australia Day, and we had planned to go to a fair in the park, where DD could run off some energy and I wouldn't have to cook lunch or tea for anyone. I was holding my darling child, who had been fed breakfast and was ready for anything that involved movement; being restrained made her yell, and yelling made her bring up her breakfast.

I don't take well to being vomited on at the best of times, but it was a low spot that day. I don't think I moved for a whole minute, just continued to hold the child and wonder how in heaven's name my life had come to this. Then I cleaned her up, changed my clothes,washed the floor, made myself coffee and informed my husband that I would not be available that day. I locked myself in the back bedroom, which was my sewing room, and cut out this quilt.

I made templates and traced them onto the fabric and cut it all out by hand. I laid out the pieces for each block on a tray, covered them with a piece of paper and built another block on top. It took all day, and lots of coffee, and I enjoyed every bit of it. There were only a few moments each day when I could sew, and having it all prepared was vital. I knew I was building myself a little emergency kit with those pieces; when the other baby arrived there would be even less time to sew.
I deliberately chose every bright, clear colour I had in the stash (which wasn't as large as it is now). I wanted this quilt to be the antidote to everything in my life that was dragging me down. And it was. It was pieced in the busiest time of my life, when often there wasn't even time to finish a seam before something else needed doing. But this quilt has always made me feel happy and grateful; what on earth would I have done if I hadn't had my fabric and patchwork to rescue me.


On our trip to Jamestown the other day I took photos of this memorial in the main street; I love that hand holding a bunch of Forget-Me-Nots. I have several images of hands, I must put them into a collage one day.
I'd best get back to the sewing room, it's a quilting retreat after all, not a computer retreat. I'll just look at some blogs while I have another coffee, and some of these Swedish almond cookies.....Yumm!