Finding Colour In The Dark

Helloooo! I hope you can see me, peering through the gloom. I had hoped that it would be another frosty sunny start to the day so that I could take photos of my quilt outside, but instead it is gloomy, grey and drizzling. I do however, have a foolproof method to combat the dullness of the rain...my rainbow umbrella!!! It was a Christmas present from The Mother after I spotted it in Tiger and it makes me very happy. I couldn't wait for it to rain the first time so that I could have my own personal rainbow.

I suppose all this rain will do some good, watering the little shoots which will be bursting through the soil and flowering in the next couple of months. Oh I can't wait for there to be flowers in the garden again!

I think the plant below is the only in the garden to actually currently have flowers on, and even they are starting to turn into these petrol coloured berries.

I do have a colourful mini ta-daah to show you. You already know all about this project but I am absolutely thrilled to be able to say...the top is finished!!!

I couldn't decide how best to show it to you so that you can visualise the size and scale and enormity of this quilt top. The colours and patterns, textures and combinations. In the end I went with draping it over The Parent's king size(!!!) bed.

It even goes surprisingly well with my crochet hexagon blanket. I love hexagons!

Love, love, love.

The back is looking pretty spectacular too. I have taken all of the paper pieces out apart from those at the very edge as I don't know when I can get to the next stage of basting it all together and don't want my ends fraying at a crucial moment.

It is sort of a more pastel version of the front.

So, I can now reveal that there are 752 hexagons in this quilt. All hand cut, hand tacked, hand stitched and hand de-tacked. There are 47 rows of 16, and it has taken me just under 4 months from start to finish. (You remember I began the majority of it on my canal boat holiday in September last year?) So now I have to decide between starting something else- The Mother bought me some other paper piece shapes for Christmas, triangles and apple core shapes- or finishing this one first. I'm thinking maybe start a new one as a portable project at work, and then continuing this one at home now it's grown so big. Good plan. Tee hee, I think I'm turning into a quilting addict!