Florida Christmas '09

Last day before break

The stages of my quilt.

I first bought many books of upholstery samples of the same red and gold color scheme from The Scrap Exchange in Durham, NC for $4.

Then I laboriously cut/tore them out removing very large staples. Then I peeled the paper off that was glued to the back of each one. 5 days and some very sore fingers later, I finally had each square more or less 'clean.' I laid them out on the floor to plan the pattern.

Then I sewed them together like a puzzle- filling in each little gap while I ensured I matched the color scheme. (This was the only stage I was able to use a sewing machine. About 30% was done by machine, the rest had to be by hand.)

Here you can see the bits of paper I was unable to completely get off. This took about a month to do this.

Then I 'sandwiched' this top layer with some stuffing in the middle and a gold colored sheet on the bottom and then I 'traced' (by sewing) all the major lines- outlining every square and every major design of each square- sewing it all by hand. This took about 3 months.

Finally, I sewed the excess edges of the sheet up over the sides to make a nice edge. (Took about 4 hours.)

I've finally finished this very satisfying project. The quilt is very thin but wonderfully warm.

I won't be attempting another quilt anytime soon.

My first quilt!

Finally finished after 4 months and 1 week.

And my new lamp from Morocco..

Nude Cafe

Dutch boys party

Turkish Tea Leaves Reading

Marrakech, Morocco

The first movie is from on top of a restaurant near the Medina in the center of Marrakech.

In the 2nd movie here, you can hear the humming and droning of the praying in the background. This would happen 5 times a day as it is a Muslim country- starting at 5:30AM. The praying was coming from not one single source, but from all surrounding our riad (hotel).

In the last movie is from the center square (Medina), locals gather around to listen to a story teller.