"Seasons of" completed!

There's lots to report from my whirlwind trip to Melbourne last weekend, but right now I just want to show off my latest finish, the 2012 BoM from Sew It's Finished:

'artfully' draped across the swimming pool fence (note the scooter in the background...)

 - and from the back; it is actually upside down, but I wanted you to see the feather

with DH at work I did not want to enlist the help of my DSs so I pinned it back up on the design wall

some of the details: April and May up top, July and August underneath

see the flowers on the border? I had to hide something :-)

and here is the feather at the top!

You might recall that I started on this last year; all SiF members received the instructions to a block every month they finished one of their UFOs. Using QAYG I slowly worked my way through them. Eventually I put them all together and started quilting diamonds in the sashing. As my vertical sashing didn't line up perfectly I decided to use circles in the horizontal sashing. For both of them I marked the 'straight' lines and then fmqed them (as well as microstipple, pebbles and wavy lines). I had gotten a bit ahead of myself and quilted a big fmq feather up the top, but it did not seem to fit the rest of the rather 'architectural' quilting design so I started unpicking (...) from both sides. When Suz came over on Friday, we decided that I would keep the feather  in the middle of the top after all (I am quite proud how it had turned out and it was a $%##*@ hard job to even unpick those 5" on either side!). For some unknown reason I ended up with a little cut in the border bottom left so I ended up appliqueing a few flowers on the border. Last night I had it all put together and while watching TV managed to bury a gazillion thread ends. I have to admit I yet have to finish stitching down three sides of the binding on the back but that will happen tonight and with work starting up again tomorrow who knows when I will get to post next! Finished size is approx 43"x55" and I am mightly proud of it! And just look how many labels this covers... Linking up with Leah Day's FMS Friday Saturday!

Otherwise it's the school holidays and today the boys have been little ----- (starts with s, but it's not 'sunshines'!). I have no leave as we have a big overseas trip planned this winter so I am working from home. The weather has been very kind (not that the boys would note much, right now they're watching DVDs). I'll be back with a report from my Melbourne visit soon (I hope)!

Happy Sewing!