New Year

I got 12 more squares made before it was time to put sewing aside for a few hours to enjoy New Year's Eve with Sam. That makes 48 of the 72 that I need. We had calls from three of the four grown kids in the course of the evening and heard from the fourth one this morning. I behaved myself today and resisted sewing, in favour of taking down my tree and other decorations. It took all day, but at least I can go back to work on Tuesday without worrying about finding time to do it. I hope to get back to my quilt squares tomorrow. Sam says he will clean house for me Wednesday while I am at work, so the house will be in good shape for my kindred group visitors Wednesday evening.

Since I didn't take time to lay out my squares for a picture yet, I will show off what I call my African wall hanging. It was inspired by a quilt show in London, Ontario a few years back (Quilts of East Africa), where I purchased the native embelishments, that I placed in the middle of some of the squares. The original design was from October 2009 American Patchwork Quilting, called Stepping Stones by Mabeth Oxenreider (same designer as my rail fence quilt). I made everything bigger to end up with a 40" x 56" hanging. The bottom right hand square doesn't show up very well, but is a map of Africa.

I had been saving what I felt were African type prints for a while, wanting to do something with giraffes for my youngest daughter and finally found the orange & brown fabric to tie everything together. This is the second one I made, as my daughter got the first one. Sam liked it so much, that I made this one for him, a reminder of the year he spent in Kenya long ago.
I think I might just have time to make a few squares tonight before my bed calls me...this blog is starting to do exactly what I want it to do, keep me working steadily on my projects!