One day in the fall, when out for a walk, I turned a corner and there were trees and sidewalk covered in golden leaves. The very air seemed golden. So I tried to capture that in paint.  The trees overhung a bus shelter, so I put that in too. I am not entirely satisfied with the results because I couldn’t instill the sense of golden into the painting. That takes more experience and skill than I have. But the painting does bring back the beauty of the memory for me, so in that sense it is a success.

The painting is done in acrylic on stretched canvas, 11×14 inches.

Quilting

Table Runner

This table runner pattern is called Gathering Friends by PineRose Designs, downloaded from Connecting Threads. It measures 16×40 inches and is all machine quilted and bound. The pattern was listed as an easy pattern but it was not easy! It was more a intermediate or advanced pattern. The half-square triangles that make up the stars blocks, which are called Friendship Star, are difficult to get precise.  The directions were not always clear. But I did take the opportunity to practice a new to me method of attaching the binding.

It is called a flange binding and is done all by machine, rather than the hand sewing necessary to attach binding in a more usual way. The photo below shows a close-up of the flange binding. A strip of a contrasting colour, the flange, is sewn into the binding before it is applied to the quilt. Then the binding is attached to the back of the quilt by a line of machine sewing. The binding is folded over to the front of the quilt and is fastened down by a seam sewn in the joint between the flange and the binding strip. It takes a while to carefully do the sewing, but much less time than fastening it down by hand.

Mystery Quilt

Friday’s clue was to make these hourglass blocks using the dark colours, blues for me, and the neutrals, in my case whites and creams. We have to make a lot of them. I intend to get caught up with the clues this week since I have finally finished all my Christmas sewing.