The Couch Quilt Top

Well, Christmas is over - quite a pleasant day it was too. Not too hot which was a blessing, especially in the kitchen. Not that we had much hot food - in fact baked potatoes were the only things cooked on the day. All the family was there, with no dramas.

Here is the finished quilt top for the Couch Quilt, as it has come to be known. This project has been notoriously difficult to photograph. The light is bad during the day as it is overcast with showers, and at night the flash makes it look lighter than it is. The flash picks up the lightest parts of each fabric and accentuates them. Also my camera is far from great. I did put in a few lighter blocks, but made them less obvious by putting red in the centre rather than a dark brown fabric.

The most worrying block is the greyish one with the brown diagonal lines on it, with the pink centre. It is the experimental block I made before I started the quilt, and although it is brownish, it stands out a bit, not just in the photo. I have two other blocks I could replace it with, but I'm not too keen on undoing that area to put another block in.

I have been watching/listening to the cricket today. The Boxing Day Test Match is always popular, and Australia is playing India this year. In India they say that there is only one sport, and that cricket rivals religion in that country. There has also been a lot of talk about Australia's domination of the game worldwide, and what should be done about it. All the other cricketing nations ought to train harder - that's what ought to be done about it! Poor losers. However, I must admit that things looked a bit grim after the first day's play, with India's bowlers making a meal of the Australian side. But, today, Australia returned the favour, and we are now over 100 runs ahead. I know Tracey will be as relieved as I am. She is also a "cricket tragic". Then there is the sailing to look at.

Quite a cornucopia of sport, luckily, to distract me from the fact that everything you could want to buy in the shops is on sale. In fact it was reported on the news tonight that so much is being spent, mainly on the plastic, that inflation is tipped to rise to 4%, which could trigger an interest rate rise in February. Amazing, isn't it? Only 8 weeks or so ago people were crying poor because interest rates had gone up 0.25%, and now we (Australians) are spending billions of dollars in the shops. Hard to come to grips with at times. Anyway, I'm not there. I'd rather spend my limited funds on fabric - I've got my priorities right!