Partly to show I'm still around, and partly to show off that I can do things other than write, here is a work in progress for a mini quilt commission, featuring some of New Zealand's native birds. This is the 'flimsy', or top of the quilt. I have to add padding and a backing and baste/sew the three layers together before binding the edges and adding a hanging sleeve on the back. It is 24 x 24 inches (about 60 x 60 cm). I machine sew, not hand sew. Excluding the time taken to measure and cut the pieces, sewing this took about three and a half hours. The photo is also a little darker than it actually is -- blues seem to suffer a lot from lighting issues.