new quilt under construction

Recently between the walks through wonderful woodlands, fields and aquatic gardens I finished up this border on a quilt block.

Add a border block "basket weave" completed with Seminole diamonds and navy blue stripes. 

close up of my added border to the "basket weave" block from the swap. 

This month the felt wall has been loaded up with bits and pieces of burgundy and navy blue, as a theme I picked up from a border added to a swap block from the "add a border" group on flickr.com. 

my first improvisational block using the three burgundy diamonds left over

Keith's garden bouquet in the woods surrounded by vines 

another bouquet image showing poison ivy to the extreme lower left... 

More blocks developed in the next several days because I caught a particularly bad case of poison ivy while out on a photo shoot with Keith in our local park which is over run with the stuff. The irony of that was, I made a point of showing a stranger we met walking outside the park what to watch out for if he walked his dog in the park on the newly restored trails. Ha ha ha the joke's on me because I got the bumps and hours of itching misery to prove I know what it looks like but maybe not the sense to know that you can't wear the same shoes exposed to poison ivy later bare foot after stepping on the ivy vines. Anyway the next several July like hot days I needed to be bare skinned and in the house with cool air conditioning just to cope with my reaction. I tried to put that time to good use making these new improvisational blocks.

It's almost complete now after my second bout of poison ivy attacked me from our trip to the Stuart Signal hill trail last Friday. I don't know if this set of red bumps was newly acquired or just more from the original poison ivy oils on my old shoes, either way I have kept busy to keep my mind occupied on good things.

This quilt is going to be hand quilted with navy and burgundy perle thread #8 and I am going to use a wool batting for the first time. It is full of heirloom fabrics and a few of my favorite shirts. In particular the big plaid summer shirt of burgundy, red, white, baby and navy blue and a little pale yellow. Maybe you see some of your fabrics donated in the Wash. DC modern quilt guild's scrap swap? Thanks for all the good energy and good fabric scraps it adds color and patterns to my palette I wouldn't have otherwise.

Preview of the top improvisation #2 in burgundy and navy blue