Open Letter to Old. Old Dear Friends

Dear Pratima, Sheila, Pip, and Theresa, and of course anyone who still drops by,

I’m in Booleroo and it is my time for catching up: reflecting, relaxing, refocusing and play.

It is pretty hot but I am thinking of you in Adelaide Pip and Sheila, with those horrible bush fires and hoping the conditions stay OK for the next couple of days until hopefully a cold change on Thursday.

Well my intention to blog last year failed miserably. I just haven’t felt that I have had much to say for the last couple of years.

The difference now is that although I still don’t feel I have much to say I think i will try anyway just to stay in touch with faithful neglected blogging friends. Thanks to you Pratima for getting me started again by encouraging me to do some Instagram posting.

In the last 2 years I have dabbled a tiny bit with social media things and I am now a little all over the place!  Freud would have had something to say had he examined my fragmented i-net identity.

For the moment I have

• a slightly active, but I can see that it is quite easy and maybe very addictive Instagram account PIECE_PLAY
•  a very slightly active Facebook page. I started this page mainly because it was the way the  wonderful riding school and club where I learn to ride, stays in touch with its members. Consequently other members of the club are the main people I have contact with on the page and I tend to post animal videos and pics! Please ‘friend’ me if you would like the odd animal snap!
•  Pinterest. A couple of boards!
• PiecePlay Flickr, my old friend.  I did have a big disaster with Flickr (long story but i tried to set up a group board for a large group of friends) this year and I think the platform is a bit more complicated and glitchy than it was..but  I am going to try again because I loved it so much in the past.

I don’t want to duplicate things too much and I do want to stay in touch with the couple of very lovely web friends I have made so we’ll see…

The main thing I have really been trying to do over the last two and a half years has been as I alluded to before, is to learn to horse ride and I’ll post a little about this later.

I have found it is something that I really love and with the support of Phil we bought Chloe. a gorgeous, maddening, mercurial, ageing at 18 years young, horsey drama queen and I absolutely adore her.

Now just a bit about the little bit of sewing I have done

• I have finished piecing my crazy Medallion Quilt. I haven’t taken pictures yet and I don’t have it here but I’ll take some when I get home. Quilting it is my challenge and deciding how I will do it. I have searched for ages and chosen a beautiful pieced back
• I made this little whole cloth quilt for a friend’s baby. I just followed the stripes on the back for quilting and used the gorgeous Megumi Sakikibara linen for the top.

• Another baby quilt for the grandchild of a friend. Now i loved this but it took me too long and the child was too old by the time I gave the gift. It was so late that the gift didn’t work!

My only consolation is that my friend’s daughter has recently had another baby. Eek.

Well I hope i have learned the lesson well and I will be more realistic with my plans or will adapt something I have been making for someone else (!) for example, so that I am able to deliver a timely celebration gift!

little crazy owl quilt

I am happy with the way the quilting turned out.

I made up strips of backing and piecing and ‘quilted as i went’ and then added some crazy flight paths by hand.

• I finished the crazy, ugly, super bright green, Kaffe Fasset pin wheel quilt for my sister. i didn’t take photos because it looked so unlike the way I do quilts. In fact I searched and I have deleted all pics of this top from everything! However…finished..it looks fantastic in her room. Never give up 🙂
• I made a very quick improvised log cabinny quilt. It was really a delight to do. No problem, quick, and I really like it.

I started with the idea of making it quite pink, for friend who really loves pinks but it turned into a baby quilt ( see

above !) and it became more pastel.

I machine quilted it and it was my best effort so far (don’t laugh too much Sheila).

• I haven’t finished this quilt but again the quilt top came together quite quickly and easily.

The inspiration is the lovely lion print designed by Sarah Watts for Cotton and Steel.

This is an attempt to show the fabrics and the colours. The yellow is really really bright.

• Now I am working on a quilt top that has not been easy ….I’ll post about it this week. In the Booleroo quiet i have made some progress. Phew.

For the moment Bella is looking at me and wondering what we are going to do with the apricots.

The crisper is full and another bucket on the porch.

PS for the moment i will duplicate these photos all over the place.xx