Cream Block Nine in Detail

It seems as if 2008, 2009 and 2010 were taken up with working on other things such as sane quilting, knitting for the grandkids, dressing dolls and making all the grandkids a quillow each as well as working on my cream-on-cream blocks.  I wrote about each block in detail including close-up photos - for instance, here is what I blogged about Block Nine.  It is strange that I mentioned a cyclone because right now we are having cloudy weather and forecast rain because of Cyclone Christine which crossed the north coast of Western Australia yesterday.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Block 9 Completed

I have finished block 9 which started out with no particular theme and finished up being one of the main blocks in the quilt.  When I'd finished adding an elephant, a heart, a butterfly and a bouquet of Roses plus embroidery, the block was suffering an identity crisis but then my husband suggested that I turn the heart into a "cartouche".  A what?  "A Cartouche!" says he again.  He loves watching Antique Roadshow on TV and often in the jewellery section, Victorian watches, lockets, trinket boxes, serviette rings and cuff-links have a shape such as a heart, circle, oval etc in the gold or silver where people could get initials or names engraved.  So, I added my own initials VMG and the year 2011 in the blank section of the heart shape, in my own cartouche. I'm a bit disappointed that the heart edging has a "bulge" in it, it isn't straight. I tried to fix it but it's the way the motif was stitched originally and I can't do much about it. Suddenly though, the block felt complete, it looks happy again........I keep saying and it's true, these blocks develop a personality after awhile!!

Yesterday was actually a horrible day for doing anything, including stitching.  The temperature reached 40 degrees celsius which is 104 degrees farenheit and the humidity was revolting.  Everything felt hot and sticky until about 3.30pm when I decided that I really would have to brave the yucky weather and go shopping. The Heavens opened and heavy rain bucketed down accompanied by rolling thunder then just as suddenly, it stopped and it was still as hot and stickier than ever.  Today we were supposed to be hit by Cyclone Bianca but thankfully it has now been down-graded to just a heavy storm which hopefully will cool things down a bit.