I finished this one on a rainy day (rare occurrence here) and somehow it seems fitting, color-wise. And since there’s no sunshine today the photos are all taken indoors.

I thought I was being “clever” using that spotted black batik as the medallion, a bit of a FQ I’ve had for years but never knew where to put it. However after I’d put a few borders around it I wondered whether I made the right decision. Would I always regret starting a quilt with such a dark center? What kind of a statement was I making?

But then I remembered Mary Oliver’s quote – “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” — and I felt tiny bit justified.

I had the quilt lying on the floor (i.e. “design wall”) and when I stood back for some distance and perspective the center suddenly looked like a starlit sky through a window. Which brought to mind the memory of the incredible night we first arrived in Tansen, Nepal after a long, crowded, (and sometimes harrowing) bus journey from Kathmandu. The sky in Tansen was so full of stars I was almost overwhelmed with the brightness of it. I truly had never seen so many stars. Tansen is a small mountain town and thanks to very little electric light between the bazaar and the hospital guesthouse where we were headed, the night sky was literally glowing with starlight. It was shocking to me. But deeply inspiring as well.

So, instead of doing a lot of un-sewing to remove the center block to replace it with a different beginning “statement”, I kept going, keeping that vision in mind.

(Still, I wonder if I will always have a reservation or two.)

I think probably the most interesting event in creating these two Daylesford quilts was how often a certain strip of fabric was exactly the right length or width to fit my needs for a specific round, sometimes down to the exact half-inch. Or how often I had just the right amount of a shape, for example the first Sawtooth border needs 10 white HSTs and I had exactly that many cut, leftovers from another project and squirreled away in a baggie of other 2 1/2″ HSTs. Amazing! It was almost as if I wasn’t alone in my sewing room. And that reminded me of the same experience I had when I created my first Orphan Block quilt which included a little quilt block with the odd name of Swamp Angel. Perhaps the same angel showed up to help me with this quilt, too. In which case I am very grateful.

There’s not much more to say about this one except how satisfying it was to use up yet more more bits & pieces / odds & ends / leftovers & cast-offs. I just hope I didn’t go overboard in my use of shapes & colors,risking the creation of another “Clutterbuck Ganj” quilt… Seems I have a penchant for a little too much exuberance when it comes to color. For which I blame my childhood in India. I did manage to use up a goodly amount of my purples, but still have plenty left. Purples, anyone? I’d be thrilled to send the rest along to you.

I ordered wool batting for these two quilts which I’ve heard is a nice batting for hand-quilting. One expert hand-quilter I know called the experience of quilting with a wool batting, “like a knife through butter.” We shall see.

A few photos below. Notice the small piece of psychedelic daisies. !!! I was wrong last time about using my last Kaffe daisy! I was happy to unearth this scrap when digging through my box of greens. I didn’t want to cut the very last (I think!) remnant any smaller so unfortunately only one whole daisy can been; the rest are just peaking out of the seams.

This time toothless Mika decided to help with the last round. A first for her.

I am now ready to return Jen Kingwell’s book, Quilt Recipes, to the library, with thanks to her for this fun pattern.