Thursday 7 January 2016

Allietare

My very first Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt!! I have thought about doing Bonnies mystery for many years but there was always something which got in the way.

When I saw it this year on Bonnie Hunters blog I knew had to do it. The clincher was seeing that the inspiration was Bonnies trip to Italy, in particular, Florence and Pisa.

We had just returned from a wedding anniversary trip to Florence and Pisa so that swung it for me.

I decided not to make s full size quilt, all my quilts go to Project Linus so I decided just to make half the clues up.I had a fair amount of the requisite blacks and reds in my stash, I added some Karen Lewis blueberry park to the mix. My main grey was blueberry park. I think my golds were a bit too yellow but I like them and am happy with the he way they play with the others. I mostly kept up with the clues, got a little bit behind at the end but I got there eventually. The Christmas break gave me plenty time to catch up for the final reveal. I love it, absolutely love it.

I adore this top, it does indeed gladden me to see the fun bright and bold colours, thank you Bonnie for such a fun end to 2015 and fun start to 2016.

 


 

Friday 1 January 2016

Never mind the bollocks


I was going to apologise the the (sort of) bad language, but then I thought 'nah'
I have been choosing a word instead of doing new year resolutions for years! Way before it became popular. Last year I chose fear-less, because I wanted to be strong and also to fear ... Less.
Did it work? I'm not sure? I had a dreadful end to the year and was feeling a bit bleak and thought goodness what was 2015 like??
Then I remembered what I had actually DONE, blimey, I only went to America!! To Paducah!! And had the best time ever!!
I went to Florence and Pisa with my amazing husband who I love more than anything. I ate great food with fabulous friends, drank fine wines with fabulous friends! I went on a quilt retreat to Cullen and made the Tula Pink butterfly quilt, did the stitch gathering, went to FOQ on my own which was fun but not as good as with my good chum Irene, but still an adventure.
So what did I learn? I learned by looking back that I had been fearless and had feared less too, but I had let the everyday *STUFF* cloud my vision of that.
So this is going to be the year of "Never mind the bollocks" if you are not sure what that means it can translate as 'don't sweat the small stuff' but I like this version better.
So I start 2016 working on the Bonnie Hunter 2015 mystery quilt, which is called Allietare, to gladden or rejoice.
So that is precisely what I am going to do, and never mind the bollocks.