May

This month our calendar picture is of a house on the island of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon.  Note the chimneys.  They are built like this in Venice so that the sparks from them do not immediately fall on the roofs and set the houses on fire.  This house stands on a canal that runs across the island and takes you to the famous Venetian-Byzantine cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta.  The best thing about this church are the mosaics but I am afraid I was not skilled enough to try photographing them.

I suddenly see that this blog has almost died.  a quick catch up is in order.  I spent a lot of April working on the quilt top for my bed and I am pleased to say that it is now almost finished.  The top is done

and I then spent some time finding suitable fabric for the border. Unfortunately it appears that people who stock pre-cut Bali fabrics do not also have the same ones by the metre but in the end I found a Hoffman fabric that tones well.

At that point the gardening took over and I have still not made the border.  I have a mattress which is ten inches deep.  It is extremely comfortable but it does mean the quilt is even larger than a normal king-size.  I have decided I shall have to piece it on the straight as otherwise there will be too much wastage.

I now reckon I have enough fabric for a second top if I add cream batiks to the leftover from this one and alos add a charm pack that I bought in order to check the colour for the border fabric.  Something to think of next winter perhaps although I am running out of people to make quilts for, don't like doing full-size ones and really want to get back to art quilting.