Its 4.15 pm and I don't normally write this late in the afternoon but its been a busy day.

The weather is definitely wintery, the rain sleeted sideways today and the umbrellas turned inside out as people in the city crossed the street. It was grey, wet and windy everything you imagine a winter day should be, I mentally made illustrations in my mind.!!!

I've been a little tardy with the blog because when I'm staying in hotels I inevitably have slow internet and it takes a long time to load photos and files so I use the web page its much  faster.

Now, back home, I need to get back into the swing of everyday life. Shopping, babysitting, cleaning, washing, cooking, blog……!!!

It all comes as a bit of a shock to the system really.

I was able to sit in my beloved studio yesterday and  work on a quilt… Sometimes I just have to push myself to concentrate when I get home from  a trip and working on something entirely new is  the way to get back into the swing of things and capture the creative spirit.

Travel always features in my quilts and many of you have been aware that I was in New Zealand last week for their  Symposium.

I had a relaxing few days after teaching and I really need that time to wind down. I sat in my apartment, high on the hill and had  a wonderful view across Lake Taupo.

So I had time to create some illustrations for small quilts. This one began with the inspiration of these mountains, the lake  and the metal fish on the grates in the street.

So with poetic license I drew the image first in my sketch book and then on the computer.

The computer image.

Yesterday morning, about 6.00 am, I began. I printed out the colored pattern to the size I needed.

The proportions were correct and it was small enough to complete in the day.

I had also been exploring  plain complimentary colors.

These pieces were fused to a dark background color. There needed to be a base to form the theme of the quilt over. I left about 6" of base fabric around the picture.

I wanted to experiment with plain fabrics so these are  the wonderful Cherrywood fabrics.

Backing and batting added, I stitched the applique through the three layers. I used a tiny blanket stitch on my Janome. Its a 2/1 blanket stitch, I really like that its fine and doesn't take over the applique.

So to  the quilting.

I began with the mountains and continued the quilting out into the border. This was done free motion with the sweet 16.

I followed with each layer of color. I used the Janome with the accufeed and open toed accufeed foot. It gives me clear vision and keeps the project flat by feeding the three layers through together. In fact its a dream to work with.

I changed to the sweet 16 and created the palm fronds. I drew the basic shape on with a white marker and filled them in with thread.

The fish is a bit crazy, but its my fish!!!

So I have a quilt with the images I loved in Taupo and probably another class to teach.