Always a Pleasant Surprise

This morning's post brought another parcel from eQuilter containing fabric: 7 batik fat quarters (quarter yards). It is always such a lift to have this parcel drop through the front door letterbox. I can't wait to open it and see what delights are enclosed each month. June and July brought blues and oranges. This morning's parcel brought exotic prints. Thanks again to eldest daughter Shara who selected this most perfect Christmas/Channukah/birthday gift.

It remains cool but today is a bit brighter than the two previous days. It gets down into the low 50s or high 40s at night which makes for great sleeping.

Don is away playing with the St Fillans Seniors as usual and I will be playing in my studio. I'm working on a set of quilt blocks devised by my late friend Melinda Brown, a terrific quilt artist and a mathematical whiz. She saw the quilt in a Japanese quilt exhibit, took a photo, and pored over it until she had worked out the pattern for herself. She was in the process of trying to finish the quilt as she was dying. Eventually, friends and even her teen-aged son took over finishing blocks for her. (They had to be done by hand--although she somehow was able to put them together by machine--because each block was made up of 17 curved pieces.) The blocks got put together and hung in her room just before she died although the quilt was by no means finished. It made a beautiful backdrop behind the lecturn at her memorial service even though it wasn't finished, especially with the light coming through the windows behind it. Without batting and a backing fabric, the effect was stunningly like stained glass.

I kept the templates because the pattern intrigued me and have been working on hand-cutting and hand-sewing the 9-inch blocks off and on for 5 years now. I have sped up production lately because I am thinking of making this quilt into a roll-up curtain to hang in the hallway, over the entryway opening, so as to keep the early morning light a bit more subdued. Even with our bedroom door closed, the bright light pours in, starting as early as 3:30 in the brightest days of June. On overcast days it isn't so bad but we haven't had many of those this summer. I haven't figured out how I'll construct this shade but I'm sure it can be done. I'll put photos up later on in the process. Anyway, that is what I'll be working on this morning as I listen to my French tapes.

Bonjour.