Day Three of the Challenge

Well, it's been such a wintery day here on the farm

that I thought I would select some wintery things for my three pieces.

This first one represents a couple of firsts.  I remember finding the pattern.  I don't think we had a computer here yet, or, if we did, I only used it for typing Parish Council meeting minutes.  I had gone over to my sister's for the day and I think she must have said "there's stuff on the internet about quilting - go and have a look on the computer".  I asked my nephew Sam how I should do it and he went into yahoo and put in "free patchwork patterns".  I was astounded at all the stuff there was to see, and printed off the pattern for this.  I came back home and over the next few days, made this hanging:

I really love it, and it hangs in the workshop every winter so everyone else is probably sick of it!

So by now I was using my mother's ancient singer to piece my quilts, and then hand quilting them.  After a few quilts for family, I decided I wanted to make one for our blue guest room.  Off to Sandra's shop to buy the fabric, and then I worked really hard to make this one - which was quite a challenge:

 

So many little triangles all put together very carefully.  And really tiny hand quilting which I was extremely proud of.  And then my mother said "all that work"  to which I agreed, "but why didn't you take more care to line up the blue strips?"  To which I also had to agree.  Why didn't I?  If Lynne Johnson had been around then I know there would have been a lot of unpicking resulting in a lovely quilt.  Oh well.

Lastly this small quilt hangs over a radiator at the top of the stairs.  It was for my quilt group Christmas Challenge (something about stars)  but I didn't read the measurements right so it was too big and didn't count.  I do love it though -  it always reminds me of when Jonathan wintered the cattle in the barn at the bottom of our drive and I used to look out the window in the middle of the night and see him going along with his torch checking everything is okay.  And then in the summer when harvest goes on after sundown and I can see the light on in the drier barn as Jonathan finishes up.

 

Of course - our farm isn't quite like this!