Quilt Festival

So there is an online quilting festival and you are supposed to post your favourite quilt.  Not sure if your s'posed to post it now or later... but I figured now was OK.

Here's mine.  It's a present for my brother and his wife's baby (due fairly soon). I've only made 4 quilts so didn't have many to choose from!

I made it here (Sudan)- took it with us to the UK and then the US in a bag, then posted it from the US to where he lives in Japan.  Can't post it from here  as it would never make it to Japan, and US is cheaper than UK!

The animals were cut out from some IKEA fabric.

The surrounding fabric was whatever I could find that I thought would work.  A couple of shirts, T-shirts, jellabiya material (material you buy here to make a dress thing for guys here to wear), some fabric Matt got me when he went to Kenya, and various other bits and pieces bought in the US and UK.

Sandwiched in the middle is a white cotton sheet as you can't buy batting here.  Actually I like how flexible and 'comfy' it feels with no batting.

The backing is a sheet.

I 'handquilted' (sewed as i don't know how to 'handquilt' really)  around the animals/squares with different coloured embroidery threads.  I like how it looks on the back - but my photos of the back weren't very successful.

(In case you're wondering, the photos were taken on our washing line in our yard - and it's entirely normal to have a bed in your yard here.)

Back to Sudan

Well the last few days have been rather busy as we have been travelling back to Sudan.

We got here Tuesday morning, having left lunchtime on Sunday. So we have been trying to get some sleep - which can be quite challenging with a 1 and a 2 yr old.

This is a picture of our main/big room.

In Sudan it's really normal to have a bed (which is used like a sofa) in most rooms. The 'front door' is at the back in the middle. The metal shutters come right off the windows (there's no glass) which is really nice in the winter.

Karaama outside our house

A couple of months ago some of our neighbours held a (Sufi) Karaama (lots of LOUD DRUMS etc and kill a sheep type thing because someone's wife got well).

It was RIGHT outside our house.

Matt politely went and sat with some of our friends (neighbours).

I stayed inside and sang 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' very very loudly about a hundred times - attempting to keep Potspie and Chops asleep/get them back to sleep.

These are pictures taken looking back towards our house.

(The white 'cage' on the side of the house is for the car)

Things I've made..

Home in Sudan

This is our house in Sudan.

We took these photos 2 years ago when we first moved in.

It has changed a little - we have tallish trees in our yard now!

This shows the kitchen (on the left) and our front door (the white double doors a bit to the right).

So I have started a blog.

But what to write.

More importantly how do I do this (get blog looking reasonable)?

Hmm. It can't be that hard.