Double Delight of a different kind

Bonnie Hunter’s Double Delight Mystery Quilt is gradually taking shape on my sewing table.  I’ve chopped, sliced and diced my fabric, and now I’ve begun to stitch it back together.  Surrounded by tiny piles of tiny blocks created from tiny pieces, I’m at the point of no return!

I’m using up as many of my accumulated fat quarters as I can – but unfortunately adding other unwanted ‘fat quarters’!!!  So yesterday morning, armed with my camera and ipod, I took a brisk walk down to the shore of our glorious harbour.   The sun shone, there was a cooling breeze wafting off the water, and this was my vista…

And the water was crystal clear…

What a delight!

A Day at the Cricket

Make a Smilebox postcard

A good friend gave us tickets for the new Victor Trumper Stand at the SCG where we had the most amazing view of Australia V South Africa. The sky over the city changed hour by hour (which I found as interesting as the cricket) and dark storm clouds came up in the afternoon - but amazingly passed us by, allowing us the time to win the Test!

Lots of hexagons pieced too!

Double Delight update

Not much delight here so far, I'm afraid. In fact, I'm still chopping and stitching my 'uglies' for Part 1
It was simply too mind-numbingly boring to rotary cut 120 blue squares, 360 light triangles and 120 gold triangles. So I'm doing a little cutting, a little stitching, a little pressing, a little cutting....you get the picture!

I'm confident that these little square in a square blocks will look much more cheery once they have their gold/yellow triangles incorporated.

The only thing sadder than a silver reindeer on Twelfth Night

... is a pair of silver reindeer. Yes, it's that time when the glitz and tinsel of Christmas must be packed away for another year.

Here is my entrance hall tonight, baubles all packed up in cartons to be stacked away in the storeroom, and the weary Christmas tree ready for the 'little men' to come and take it away.

What a difference between that and our entrance a couple of weeks ago!

Three Wise Men?

Twelfth Night, 6th January. is traditionally associated by Christians with the visit of the Magi, or Wise Men, to the baby Jesus.

But did you know this probably occurred a couple of years later, and not 2 weeks after his birth when we celebrate it? What's more, nowhere in the Bible does it say there were three of these characters. Could have been two, could have been five!

My friend Andrew even goes so far as to speculate that they never existed at all! What do you think?

I need a good talking to!

I don't know what's possessed me. While I should be devoting all my attention to completing The English Quilt, with its gorgeous roses and scrappy blues.....

...I find myself dividing my time between The English Quilt and Bonnie Hunter's Double Delight Mystery Quilt, an opportunity to use up some of my oldest and ugliest fabrics by chopping them up into tiny snippets and hiding them in a quilt of thousands of pieces!

Bonnie's been posting each step of the Mystery on her Quiltville website since New Year's Eve, but only the most determined quilters - and those not given to such frivolous diversions as eating and sleeping - could have kept up with her.

Here are some of my fabrics ready for sewing part 1. Not my favourites at all, but Bonnie's website holds out the delicious promise of creating a silk purse out of a sow's ear (so to speak)!

Am I being ever-so-sensible and budget-conscious in clearing out these useless over-stayers from my stash?

Or have I just been swept up in the enthusiasm of hundreds (thousands?) of quilters world-wide, all working on Double Delight at the same time?!?!

(Lynda, Marilyn, La Vella, Pennie, Jane, Prue, Gail, Stephanie, Julie, Jeannie and Pamela are doing it too! - to name just a handfull!)

Back to my sewing machine....

Taking the ozone cure

Is anyone else, like me, feeling totally lacking in 'oomph'? My get-up-and-go has left town and I'm sadly in need of a boost. January, much is expected of you!

Today was spent with friends at my favourite beach beside the cool, clear waters of Sydney Harbour, breathing on the ozone and soaking up vitamin D. Can't do any harm.