Growing Old Isn't So Bad After All

I recently had a birthday, one of those big ones. Fortunately the Queen has a birthday in June too and as she gets a public holiday I make the most of the long weekend.  We traveled to Ballarat along with grandchildren and their parents to celebrate the event (my birthday that is, not the Queen's).

I knew something secret was being organised.  No one had asked me, what do you want for your birthday, and when I did offer some suggestions I was told my input was not required.  What was being planned, and would I like it? I just had to wait and be patient.

All my guesses were wrong, this was my amazing birthday present.  A signature quilt from my family.

This is truly a labour of love, a quilt made by people that don't normally make quilts.  It was about five months in the planning and involved choosing fabrics in my favourite colours and sending them around the world.  The process involved grandchildren drawing pictures that could be translated to material; hidden blocks in a shared suitcase on an unexpected trip to the USA; missing seam allowances: a move to Switzerland and back with the materials chasing the signer; patchwork novices who thought, how hard can it be? and discovering the answer; whether some imaginative spelling should be fixed or left as a humility block (it was left); and contacting the Two Bits Patches webmaster to get a download of the central block from the Chester Criswell Quilt without mum finding out.

I am still overwhelmed, each time I look at it I think of the giver, truly an example of the sentiment:

Remember Me When This You See.

 

 

While the family was at Ballarat we took the opportunity to visit Sovereign Hill, a reconstructed gold mining town built on the original gold mines.  

Sovereign Hill, Ballarat

Quilters don't take the same photos as other people, do we?

A brick form to make wagon wheels

Door lock

Church detail, Ballarat

This week's CCCQ Revisited block is Block 31 John and Martha Dickey.