Braids and curls

Phyllis McK brought me this sweet little quilt the other day.  It's prairie braids in pastels, and even DH said "That looks like a little girl!"  Phyllis is giving this to someone special as a thank you. 

I love prairie braids.  There's just something about them that reminds me of the French braids that my mother painstakingly put into my hair every day while I was growing up.  Oh, how I wanted to have the darling dancing curls of the other little girls, but my straight hair would not cooperate, so braids, or plaits as we called them, were in order to keep my hair out of my face.  Just as they were in my hair, the braids on this quilt are clean and smooth and bright.  Best of all, this is a scrappy quilt -- my favorite.

They gave me the opportunity of using a function on my IQ called Path Pattern.  You create the block, draw a line that becomes the path your pattern will follow, choose a pattern (in this case, I chose the petals of feathers), choose the number of repeats, and voila!  One side of the new path pattern is finished.  Use the copy function to repeat the pattern, flip the Y axis, and again -- there it is!  You have both halves.  Now combine the line and the two halves of the feathers, and the pattern is complete.    I chose feathers because of the upward direction of the braids. 

Phyllis wanted a soft vine-y design in the white strips.  And if you'll look closely at the border fabric, you'll see that it has curliques in it, so I used that as inspiration for the curls along the border.  All in all, it's a dear little quilt, and the recipient is going to love it, I'll bet.

Today I took the day off from quilting and just cleaned the house, paying particular attention to our study.  DH hasn't seen the top of his desk since we moved in three years ago, except for the annual spurt of exasperation that overcomes me and sets me to sorting out the two foot high mounds of paper, tools, glasses and what-have-you's that accumulate almost as if they procreate during the night.

So here it is, sorted, cleaned, polished, arranged logically, and ready for the next year of good intentions left by the wayside.  What?  You think I'm cynical?  Nah.  Just been there.  Done that.  Way too often.