And introducing Bashka...

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you the newest addition to our family - Bashka.

Bashka is four weeks old and will be coming to join us in late January or thereabouts. He is a Bengal kitten and will be a most beautiful cat. I think I'm in love all over again :)

Here he is with his mum, who is a brown spotted Bengal.

Baskha is a silver rosetted boy.

And boy he's beautiful! Here he is with his dark silver sister.

Awwwww!

Animal at the zoo

I took Romily to the National Zoo and Aquarium on Sunday - we both needed to get out of the house, it was a glorious day and she's suddenly showing great interest in animals.

She was pretty good, but now that she's a big girl and walks everywhere it was a bit of an effort to convince her to stay in her pram! After a couple of tumbles on uneven ground, she was a little happier to be pushed around by mum. But only a little.

She was very excited watching the monkeys - they were pretty easy to spot as they move so much - and she also couldn't get enough of a turtle that was swimming around in a tank in the aquarium. We had a good time together over a couple of hours. I took some photos, but when I got home I realised the only animal I had photographed was Romily!!


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Thank you everyone for your very encouraging comments on my quilting! I am very happy with how it's turned out. Unfortunately my machine quilting skills are nowhere near as good! When I am finished Alexandra's quilt I'll post some photos and then you'll be convinced I am in fact a first, no, second-timer!! Yegads. I wish I could sew in straight lines when quilting!

Phew! Romy's quilt nearly finished...

Once you see these photos you'll see why it took so long for me to finish hand quilting Romy's quilt. The 'rows' are about a 1/4" apart. I did the first one by mistake too close to the other and then decided I really liked the effect! I stipple quilted around the friendship stars and across the floral fabric and I did a wave pattern in the fat border. I love it!

It was so relaxing and I really got a great sense of satisfaction when I put the last stitch in. I felt like I found a rhythm and didn't miss too many stitches going all the way through to the back. I also discovered that using flannel backing 'swallows' a lot of the back of your stitches so that although the stitches are definately there it sometimes doesn't look like it. But who's going to be looking at the back anyway! You can still see some of the chalk marks - let's hope they all wash out at the end!

All that's left to do now is to trim, bind and attach the 'made by me' label to the back. I am proud of myself getting this far...just in time for summer! Of course, I say just in time for summer, but we're in the middle of a cold snap here and there was actually some snow on the ground yesterday here in Canberra! And it's only two weeks till summer starts. Crazy weather gods!!

(Please excuse the very average photos. I need some tips on how to photograph quilts obviously!)

Four-patches stitched

Slowly but surely I'm getting there. Wherever 'there' may be!

The quilt top is shaping up nicely - I have stitched all the four-patches and feature blocks together. I really like the colour combination. I have bought some yellow homespun for the border (same as the yellow squares), which I hope will help tone down the 'blueness' and bring out the yellow and green a bit more. I've also bought some hot pink homespun for the binding, which I think will bring it all together.

Must get some time this week/weekend to try to get the whole thing assembled, if not finished! Nothing like being ambitious is there?