Congratulations

I don't have any textile progress of my own to report today. But I did get two emails yesterday which made me smile in completely different ways.

• The first was from my quilting buddy J. Her news? She's finished quilting the quilt. This is a chocolate box, queen sized quilt that she's been working on for seven years now. And when I say "working on", I really mean it. The entire quilt is hand-stitched and all the quilting is done by hand, so I can only imagine how she felt putting in the last bit of quilting. I remember when she brought the first fabrics to our quilting group after an outing with her mum to choose them. And I've seen the various stages and challenges she's gone through with it over the years. I'll try to get a picture to share on the blog, but a picture will never do justice to the incredible effort that's gone into that quilt.
• The second was from my spinning buddy, Teresa. Her news? Her team won the "sheep to shawl" challenge at the Royal Melbourne show. You can see a picture of the winning team here. The Sheep to Shawl is a race between teams of three spinners/knitters. The challenge is to make a shawl (size and pattern defined by the race organisers) from raw fleece in the shortest possible time. It took the three team members three hours and fifteen minutes to complete. Starting with a freshly shorn fleece, spinning and plying it into yarn and then knitting it up. It's a great activity for the Show because it helps to make a link between the fluffy sheep and the lovely hand crafted garments on display. And a lot of fun for participants and spectators. Spinning and knitting are usually fairly low key activities, so the fun of a race like this is so unusual. I really wanted to be there for the Sheep to Shawl, but I couldn't be in two places at once and my friends from Queensland's arrival at the airport took precedence.

So congratulations to my textile buddies!