Roseville Album, Apricots, and Egypt

I finished my Roseville Album quilt top a few years ago.  I didn't do the border from the pattern because I had already spent a year appliqueing  and I was DONE.  I didn't want to do all the monkey hands that the border required.  

It is a beautiful quilt but it never felt finished,  When I was getting to the end of quilting the "Love Letters" quilt I wanted something else to work on when I wasn't at the quilt frames.  I decided to finally work on a border and after searching for ideas on the internet  I decided on scallops - 80 of them.

When I finished the scallops and the corner designs I looked at the overall quilt.  I found this little blue bird on the right that looked like it was absolutely lost among all the other colors.  

I replaced it with this golden feathery fabric.  I've given  all my bright fabrics away and this is what I could find in the stash.  I'm not sure I like it but I like it better than the ghost bird.

This is a picture of one side of the quilt to show the scalloped border.

  It looks finished now.

 I don't have a space to spread it all out and there's no one around to hold it up  The little bird gets lost in the rest of what is going on but you can see it above the chicken and to the left of the cat.

Now I need to figure out how it's going to be quilted.  If I hand quilt it that's another multi-month long project.  AND, after taking six months to quilt the last one I'm not sure I'm ready to dive in to another big quilt right now.  It measures about 92" square.  I have wondered about taking it to a machine quilter but I don't know what pattern I would like.  I know I don't just want echo quilting.  And the amount of quilting it would require would make a heavy quilt.   

Does anybody have any suggestions?  

It summer harvest season at my husband's farm (our yard).  The strawberries have finished, the raspberries have peaked but are continuing to look lovely and taste wonderful.  The apricot tree was full with beautiful orange fruit.

Many of the apricots have been picked in this picture.  But, there's still bushels left to pick.

Last Thursday my husband was picking and sorting and distributing.  The family was here for a dinner and one little guy became my husbands shadow. 

It was so cute to watch him trot back and forth with my husband from the tree to the shed.  Some of the apricots were even low enough for him to reach.  He helped pick up the ones that had fallen to the ground.

Finally he decided to taste one and was smitten.  He's our youngest grandchild and he's just delightful.

It has been hot enough that I put the crockpot outside last week instead of heating up the house all day.  I'm really good in the winter with soups, stews, casseroles, and cooking whole turkey breast etc.  But, when it comes to summer I'm not much of a salad maker so my husband suffers through a hot meal after working out in the 100 degree heat.  He doesn't complain, he's just hungry.

Egyptian blue just fascinates me.  I've been wondering how I could include it in a quilt somehow.  It's an elusive color.  I love to watch all the archeology shows on Egypt and am intrigued by the ancient Egyptian culture.  I love the scarabs too.

A shabti (above) is put in Egyptian tombs as servants for the deceased in the after life.  

A shabti can be 5 - 30cm and commonly made of blue or green glazed Egyptian faience, but can also consist of stone, wood, clay, metal or glass.

The color of Egyptian blue is kind of like "Haint Blue".  There's not one exact shade or color

 
 

I got four squares done for the S'Mores quilt by Jo Morton.  I love working with these fabrics.  Is anyone else working on this quilt with me?

I have company coming for a few days and have been doing some deep cleaning.  I sure love a clean house, I wish I would do it more often - ha!

Robin