My garden quilt is finished

I have just finished my "garden quilt" and taken a picture of it in the garden, thanks to DD who stood on a set of steps to hold it up. The cute feature panels were given to me by my DDIL and DS, who really know how to bring my two favourite things -quilting and gardening-together. It is now in the washing machine, with three colour catchers! I always wash my quilts when they are finished. I bung them into the clothes dryer on warm afterwards -what I want is that very slight shrinkage (about 4%) of the cotton wadding, which helps to create that soft, crinkled look which I think is so much better than completely flat. 

It is a happy day when I finish a quilt. I always have another in mind -sometimes many more than one in mind, to start almost straight away. I also know that in order to finish the quilt I have had to overcome a number of obstacles -making decisions on colour and shape, recovering when things don't go the way I thought they would, overcoming performance anxiety about some stage or another. This time I was rewarded -finally-with a binding that went on first time- I have had some issues with the past couple of quilts about this -so it is good to have that little problem behind me.

Many people wonder what I am going to do with each quilt that I make. Some are so special I will keep them with me, and display them around my house. Some are just for snuggling under, and draping over the backs of chairs. Some get given away to family and friends. Some I give to the WAQA community quilt group. I don't know what the final destination of this one will be. I will wait and see.

Yesterday was Father's Day here in Australia. We had a lovely day with our son and daughter in law and grandchildren here for lunch. Then we went to a performance of METSO ( the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra) doing some wonderful Beethoven. Our son was playing violin. So lovely to be able to enjoy live music again! The audience is 'socially distanced' to mean that we don't sit in every row, so the concert hall is roughly half full. We can do this because our state of Western Australia has not had any community transmission of COVID 19 for a very long time. 

Apart from all this fun, our lives continue as we like to live them. I spend as much time in the garden as possible. DH makes useful things for us in his 'shed'. We read library books - I have just found the Sulari Gentill series of crime mysteries about her character "Rowland Sinclair" - a good read.I went on a mini 'shop hop' with some quilting friends last week- we are trying to support our LQSs (local quilting shops).

We bought a whistling kettle when our electric kettle died. In Australia we commonly have plug in electric kettles to boil water for beverages, but now I have my induction cook top, I can boil this whole kettle full (2.5litres) in 2 minutes. It takes me back to my childhood! There is something quite comforting about the gentle whistle as the steam announces that the water is boiling. 

Well, that is all for this week. Thanks for staying with this to the end! How was your week?