Work on Wednesday

A double good day. WOW and the 15th of the month so wonderful new blocks from Esther to work on.
Have been working away at my bamboo hanging during the week.

All the leaves are in place, yesterday I worked on the calligraphy which I decided was going to be too hard to stitch directly onto the top.
Thinking about my oriental bed quilt, which is the reason for making this wallhanging ( we are going to redo our bedroom in an oriental theme) I came up with this.

Being able to work with small squares was so much easier.
Still tricky to stitch the smallest areas, but found my default satin stitch worked perfectly.
I was going to frame them individually but when I decided to run them horizontally instead of vertically as in the original, a panel seemed a better option.

In approximate position, adjusted and sewn down this morning, but I forgot to take photo.

Monday morning I relaxed watching the closing ceremony of the Olympic's, a wonderful few hours, but part way through I thought I know what I could be doing.
When my sewing room shifted I found a quilt I made a few years ago with it's binding  attached but not sewn down. My thumbs hated it, but it is now on my sewing room wall.

My first and so far only Bargello quilt. Pattern was from an APQ magazine but this is nothing like the original. It was a comedy of errors!!!

I was meant to make 16 identical blocks, the 3rd one I made in mirror image!!
Had not enough spare fabric and didn't want to unpick, so made 8 originals and 8 mirror image, played with the placement and this looked good - until I sewed them together.
My first 4 blocks ended up in the center and so did my lack of understanding of the art to bargello pressing and stitching at the beginning, it was all I could see.
Practise makes perfect - or at least better - so they say.

The final layout reminded me of butterflies and I had a pattern for a mosaic one and thought now is the time.

I had fabric scraps from the quilt and with a slight size adjustment it covered my sins.
But it didn't look right on it's own, so I found 2 other butterflies, 1 foundation pieced and 1 applique.

I now had butterflies everywhere, I had looked at hydrangeas for my original colour palette so the butterflies seem in keeping. Borders added and I was happy, but the final act was still to come.
My border is synthetic silk and my iron was too hot!!!
A hole in my border - so one more butterfly - escaping!!
You can just see it in the top right corner.

And this morning, Esther's new blocks
Magnolia is one of my favorite flowers and I couln't wait to start.

This is as far as I have got this morning, back to work tomorrow so will be slow progress till next week.
Cheers everyone, Jenny
PS. I am viewing your blogs, but am finding it very difficult to post comments.
I write them, but most won't publish!!