I'm settled in at Kaye's after a nightmare day of travelling on Thursday. The airport at Sydney was experiencing such high winds that only one runway was operating, and rather than have planes circling waiting to land in such bad conditions the Sydney bound planes were given a strict time slot to take off. Which meant huge delays and cancellations all through the day. I ended up being re-routed through Melbourne, with three cancelled Sydney flights; I think I'm lucky to have got here at all.

And it's not nice to be warned that there will be extreme turbulence on landing; they always say calming things like 'minor turbulence, some disturbance' to put your mind at rest, but not this time. As luck would have it, we landed without even a twitch, for which I was mightly thankful. With perfect timing I walked straight onto my connecting train, and was soon in bed snuggled up with MY quilt.

I spent yesterday catching up with friends and playing around on a spare machine, but nothing too demanding. I'm on holiday till Monday, when the brain has to go into gear again, so I'm just relaxing right now. And taking my time to do a little housework on the computer, that there never seems time to do at home. It's a luxury to be able to play around. I send calming thoughts to Mereth, home with the stack of customer quilts.....

There are always new quilts to admire at Kaye's; this is her copy of an antique quilt, Remember Me, and it won a judges commendation at the Sydney show this year. She does such a wonderful job on her quilts, and has a great collection. This workshop is Quilt Heaven!

Everyone has gone off to the Rydges hotel for the conference, so it's peaceful and quiet and I'm enjoying the solitude. Once I get my work done I'll have a look around and see what's new in the antique quilt cupboard; I wish I had as many as this.
And I did see a hexagon top that I fancied; I would hand quilt this and get to know each fabric. There are some delicious double pinks and mourning greys. I adore this sort of 'farm' quilt, made for utilitarian use. If I had lived in those times I'm sure I wouldn't have been swanning around Baltimore in a hoop skirt; more like barefoot on the prairie. Which is how I would want it.