I think the whole of Australia is in shock over the bushfires in Victoria. I was appalled when the death toll was 14, but it now stands at over 180. I keep thinking "This can't be happening" but it is, and the toll will get worse as the clean up takes place. And the very worst thing is it's not over, the fires are still going. Keryn and I will put our names down to donate blood, and Victorian Textiles are providing a roll of free batting for donation quilts, so we'll organise to quilt some of our tops and those of the local patchwork group. There's nothing to be done at the moment, except perhaps donate money to the Red Cross, but it's hard to feel so helpless.


Quilting does seem a bit irrelevant, but that's what we do, so here are some of the tops I was working on when it was so hot and I was confined to my sewing room.
This was four finished blocks, and the rest of the pinwheels that had languished for some obscure reason. It took very little time to complete the other 5 blocks and add sashes and border. Small top done.

This was a leader-ender project that finally demanded to be put together.
The four patches were so easy to whizz through the machine, and the blocks were done before I knew it. The colour in this photo is very dodgy, it looks so washed out but it's not in real life. I used an old ebay quilt for my inspiration, and the original had a final peachy-pink border. I have chosen the fabric, but am in two minds about whether to add it or not. It's such a different colour to the double pinks in the blocks, and yet I love the old quilt so I can't really see why I'm hesitating. It will be the work of half an hour to sew it on, so in my mind it's finished already.

Here's the original, a much brighter yellow sashing, but I'm not quite that brave.

I have a customer quilt to take off the frame this morning, and another to go on, so I'm back in business. It was nice to sew for all those days, but now I've got to earn some money!