I decided to start with something Japanese because I love their fabrics.

I incorpor-ated origami, temari balls and a fan hoping that would provide sufficient inspiration to the person receiving it.

Inspired by Japanese fabrics, asymmetry, circles, buttons. Started with gold lotus-
like flower (image not copyright) floating in
blue pool and developed design as I went – not
my usual
style but I really enjoyed it. Machine applique, piecing and quilting. Spirals Bonda-webbed on. Edge finish – front turned over back, herringbone stitched.

Church windows: I received a quilt with geometric shapes and small butterflies and insects - this inspired me to make frames from stained glass windows with creatures in. Experi- mented with iron on bias for the first time

I received an image with animals from Africa in the blocks, so it made me think of Australia, 2014, where I toured for 6 weeks and saw many Aussie animals, so the two most famous are included in this foundations pieced quilt.

Having received an Australian panel I started thinking about the most recog- nisable features of Australia. I decided on Ayres Rock and the Great Barrier Reef but didn’t have suitable fabrics for the Barrier Reef but did have a perfect piece of batik for Ayres Rock – a huge red rock in a desolate landscape.

My starting point was the front cover of the Parish magazine as it showed a view seen on a favourite local walk.I went that way so often that I watched the crop grow!!

I tried to recreate the different tones of the fields by varying the fabrics and the textures by hand and machine stitching.

The lovely embroidered landscape picture that I received
from Gill, immediately reminded me of a sketch
that I had made in the Tweed valley when our car broke down and some waiting was involved. I photocopied the sketch
and chose a section that I could re- produce and enhance for textile work.
I used bonded appliqué, machine free quilting and embellish- ment.

When I received the third quilt I loved the straight lines throughout and wanted to highlight them. So keeping the shapes and colours of the mountains I outlined them all with black thread, Mondrian style.

Jan Volcanic rock - Beading, & Gutta decoration

I love Elephants and when my daughter’s friend sent her a photograph he had taken I thought it would be the perfect picture to start my mini quilts off. I also wanted to try thread painting, so this is what I did.

October: African Elephant — free stitch

Brenda N‘s beautiful depiction of an African elephant crossing
the road made me want to also use an African animal but in a diff-erent way.
I have a large collection of African fabrics and decided to make a bright machine pieced back-ground. I then found an African depiction of a lizard similar to the ones tribes print on lengths of cloth. I copied this in onto contrasting dark charcoal fabric and machine appliquéd it over the back-ground. Its tail was quite intricate to cut out!

My sons nickname is Gecko so I was excited to do this and just made the lizard the multi-coloured star on a black back ground

January. I decided it was a step too far to continue the strippy theme! The feet captured my attention and I thought they looked like flowers. I used machine appliqué and some free motion stitching. Although the subject is totally different, this quilt is probably more like it’s predecessor than any of my others!!!