A handsome guy, a lazy girl and a flower

It's been a long time from my last post, but as I told, blogging is not my favorite activity. If I'm blogging, I'm not sewing, so what will I blog about?

Among other projects, I've finished and sent the blocks for two of my partners in Star of Africa bee.
Jen, our Queen Mum of August, and who blogs at Quilter in the closet asked for animal themed blocks, because she wants to make a quilted book for her young children. As the main proposal of the bee is to share representative things from our countries, I sent her nothing less than our beautiful, awesome national bird, the Quetzal.

Don't you think he's a very handsome guy? Lovely, they are. Quetzals live in the tropical rain forest of Central and South America. They are in danger of extintion, and it's told that can't live in captivity.

Males have a long, beautiful tail, that looks majestic when flying. They live in tall trees and trunks with holes deeply enough to stay inside, but leaving the long tail outside to prevent it from hurt. If you want to know them better, click here:

There is also another animal in my country that I really love: turtles. They are not representative from here, but we have two or three refuges in the Pacific shore where they are protected in order to let them grow up enough to live by themselves.

The staff of these refuges helped by some volunteers, watch at night for the adult turtles when they come out from the sea to spawn in the beach sand. Carefully, they pick up the eggs and have them kept at the refuge in a similar and properly environment, where the breeding is safe until they are born and grow up enough to be released in the sea.

At that time, these refuges organizes a funny activity: people can be the sponsor of a small turtle, and at sunset they form in a row at the beach for a race. At the voice of "Ready, Set, Go" the tiny turtles are placed on the sand and everyone cheers while they are running to the sea... No prizes, no medals... just the freedom!

Here, my tribute to these kindly, beautiful, tiny creatures:

Slightly delayed -after all, she's a turtle- this cute girl was ready to be sent to Jen. By mail, not swimming...

It was then time to work in the block for Benta, our Quenn mum of september, who blogs at SLIKstitches. She asked for five blocks: a central one, with anything we like to represent our culture, and four blocks to form a wonky star on a gray background. She's going to make a quilt for her silver wedding anniversary, so I decided to send her a white flower, one of the most beautiful flowers in the world. Our Monja Blanca (White Nun), a stunning orchid that grows in the same environment as the Quetzal, the tropical rain forest. Let me introduce the Lycaste skinneri alba:

Copyright of this picture: http://forum.theorchidsource.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/264178.html

And this is the block I made:

Antigua Guatemala, my first "bee block"

Here is my first patchwork block, for the Star of Africa bee. In this block, I tried to represent a street of Antigua Guatemala, one of the most iconic touristic places of my country.
The streets of this wonderful city are straight, with a traditional stone pavement, as it has been since the Colonial age. On both sides of the street, the houses are all of similar construction, all of them respecting the codes of the Colonial architecture. Is almost a tradition to put flower pots in the window sills, and also is very common to see large bouganvileas falling by the outer walls, spreading its perennial, bright purple flowers, to your eye's delight.
The blue peak at the end of the street, represents the "Volcan de Agua" (Water Volcano) which is named like this because is a non-active volcano, with a large pond of water in its top. Very close to it, are the "Fire" and "Acatenango" volcanoes. Contrasting with the calm of Volcan de Agua, the Fuego is always in activity.
Searching for more information and pictures to share, I found an excellent website, owned by Rudy Giron,a photographer who has posted hundreds of photos, and explained Antigua life in a very clear and amusing way. I truly recommend you to make a tour by his site, Antigua Daily Photo.

http://antiguadailyphoto.com/


I'm sure you'll be delighted.

Story of my (until now) best quilting artwork

When a friend of mine  received a bag made and quilted by me, she asked me to make a Quilt for her Mom.  Some years ago, she had bought some fabrics with the proposal of making the Quilt by herself, but with no idea of how to do it, and also, with no time to learn.

So, she gave me the fabrics and asked me to do "what I could" with'em. OMG! what a surprise...

That's what I got!  A bag full of  pre-cut pieces... snipped, not even, not accurate or the same size. I really couldn't imagine what was her mind, her idea,  but well... I had to do something, it was such a deal!

Mainly, because her mom is a truly beloved person for me!  She's also my daughter's piano teacher, so, I wanted to do my best work for her.

I began to sort  and set the pieces by groups of similar size... then I found that, with these square pieces 

I could make these 4 patchs: 

 Which were almost the same size of these pieces,

So, trimming them to the same size, and with some matching fabrics for sashing, I planned an outer border!  

maybe not the usual way to design a Quilt,but... that's the way it came out...Having measured the final size of the 4-patch border, and calculated an inner border, I decided the size of the center.  I marked my desk with tape to the appropiate size, and began to play with all the leftover odd pieces, to get a... puzzle?... That's how I named it!   What a funny time!     

Here, the steps:

Then, adding the inner border, the 4-patches, and another 3 borders, one of them with all the small leftover pieces, I got the final top:

After that, I spent some days thinking about the proper quilting.  I realized I only could hand-quilt it, and I needed a simple, not much time-consuming design.   One morning, I awoke with the clear idea:  The recipient lady is a loving mother, grandmother and...yes! great-grandmother of 2.  Nothing greater or more important for her, than her family, so... what about quilting her relatives' names in the borders?  I loved the idea, and immediately called a mutual friend who could give me all that names without telling her, or her daughter who ordered the quilt.  I wanted it to be a whole surprise for both!  

And of course, it was.  I needed almost a year to have it finished, but finally she had a very special, surprising Christmas gift.  Hope she now has warm, soft dreams, covered and well wrapped with "My family love" as I named it.

The finished quilt, and a detail of the quilted names: