The other things keeping us busy...

The weeks have flown by since school ended on the 26th of June. D and I have been keeping a calendar to remember the things we've accomplished since. After a week of day
camp for the boys, we have done lots to keep them busy and ourselves from going stir-crazy.

Friends of ours think our boys will become little euro-snobs what with the tennis, golf, horseback riding and picknicking in the bois that we've done this week and last...I don't think so, as I listen to the AC/DC and James Brown that D is playing along with to the accompanyment of his dad.


We've had a few nights out, a few people in and we're trying to teach the kids how to cook with us for dinners...it is so important for them to feel comfortable in the kitchen since we'll not be serving them forever...and who wants to have as a partner someone who won't/can't cook? We've decided it's not selfish for us to want them to do this but a duty for their future mates! Here's a pic of a recent meal (eaten on the deck) that the boys helped concoct: lentil salad, peanut sauce with saute'd chicken in a thai marinade, along side a bombe of basmati rice. To round out the meal: wine, cheese and fresh cherries picked locally this weekend.

now renamed the quiltblog...

Okay, okay, I know there are better things to write about...but when one is in the "zone", one must indulge in a bit of navel-gazing...hence another pic of the progress of the progressing quilt.

The top is more than 1/3 done, and I am still obsessed with finishing more and more each day. The last several days has only been piecing, not cutting, and for some reason this seems much slower a process. Perhaps it is because I'm not playing with new fabric pieces, only those I've already cut.

As you can see here, I've reached the edging on the lower right corner *(the pic above has not been rotated, I didn't think it mattered) and the next task is the lower left. I'm more than 2/3rds the way across the vertical axis and the next corner will be very quick, relative to this first one.

Wish me luck. I'm off to Corsica for a holiday starting Saturday, and I know I'm going to dream of this project while I'm away from it!

An update

Here's the latest pic of the quilt...slowly but surely coming together...

design folder--inspirational pics

Here's a collection of images I've taken that are an inspiration to my quilting right now...in no particular order...

Return of the quilting

Ah, the feeling of satisfaction working on a UFO (unfinished object)! I'm creatively alive, obsessed. I have itchy fingers. I take long moments of staring into space working out colours, positioning, pattern placement of textures, values, and hue in my mind.

Every time I come back to sewing or handicrafts after a hiatus, this feeling of completeness washes over me--the absence is only felt after I commence a new or newly remembered project--this is after all what I did for four years in University!

So you are first to see the work in progress--the colours, the shapes, the contrasts--here are two pics of my quilt at its beginning stage, called "third weekend in October". It reminds me of walks along the cottage road during Thanksgiving weekends of many years ago, when the cottage was still a cottage.


This second picture is of all the colours and fabrics I've collected since coming to Brussels. A few of them are remants of the quilt I made for Sevie, so there'll be little bits of Elanore in my quilt when it is done (see the yellow-orange in the lower right corner of the image above and the third from the right in the lower row, below.