Tulips

In 2 weeks we will have all of Laurence's siblings and families here for grandma's 90th birthday.This means a lot of cleaning up and getting ready.Yesterday I took a stack of quilts of one of the spare beds and I realized that I have used a lot of flowers and plants in my quilts. This one "Tulips" I made about 6 years ago. It shows the life cycle of the tulip. The blue fabric in the border I love and every scrap has been used up. The center piece I dyed myself, the rest are fabrics I bought. The flowers and leaves have been fused to the back ground.I machine quilted all around the flowers and leaves. The roots are twisted, silk ribbon, fastened with a few stitches. The back ground and border are machine quilted. Up to now it has been stored with the rest of my quilts,but it will be displayed for the next few months. The weather has been very, very hot and will be even hotter tomorrow, up to 37C. We are not used to that here up in Canada. And we could use some rain. The wheat is almost ready to combine and the fields are looking very good. We were gone up to Algonquin Park for a few days and coming back on Monday we saw field after field of wheat. One more small kimono piece. This will be the last one for a while. The small pieces to the sides are left overs from my pot with tulips quilt, still a work in progress, and are vintage pieces of Japanese fabrics.

I also finished my last "smile" quilt. This one is meant for an older child. I found the center fabric a few years ago and I combined it with strips of fabric I had dyed myself. It is displayed on the spinning wheel I have from my mother. One of my goals is to learn how to spin and maybe weave. But that means less time for quilting and that is goin g slow enough right now as it is.