You may have noticed a distinct lack of quilty posts of late.  It is not, I assure you, lack of quiltiness!  In fact, the opposite is true, and I’ve been working on a number of gifts that were (and are!) under wraps until they are received.

There is a very special person in my life that I talk to almost every day. She has proofread my manuscript, tested my quilt patterns and helped keep me sane when I lost my book contract. She’s a guest designer on sewhooked, was a Crafty Witch with me when we both worked at Leaky, she’s a co-mod on twilight_crafts and is an all around awesome person that constantly gives of herself to her friends. She regularly sends my kids chocolate biscuits and keeps them in Phantom comic books. Most of all, she’s one of the most giving and selfless people I’ve met.

She lives on the opposite side of the world to me, and it doesn’t stop her from being one of my closests friends.  So, I made her a gift. It has finally arrived in her mailbox and I can now tell you about it.

quilt-in-progress, lots of colorful batiks from my stash

further progress…looks quilty, eh?

Well, at least Marie approves. She had something to say about this, too. “Well, you did say it was for Cat!”

I present Cat’s Quilt, “From Austin To Australia” made especially for her because she exudes Win and Awesome and most of all FRIEND.

Special “gift wrap” made from the backing fabric and main batik.

Empty “gift wrap”

The main batik in the quilt was a gift that Cat gave to me some months ago. She said she’d had it for years and thought perhaps I could use it.  I knew as soon as I received it that I wanted to make a quilt for her.

I fussy cut the flowers from the batik for the center of the Austin Block, found on Quilter’s Cache. The bright squares (seen in the first photo)s are all batiks I had in my stash. The black fabrics also came from my stash. The back and binding are a batik I bought just for this quilt, with the decisive help of my 14 year old daughter and my best friend, Jewells, who got to see the quilt in progress and pre-quilting when she was here in July. The sawtooth edge was made with all the triangles I cut off when trimming those blocks. It was quilted by my awesome bee friend Linda, on her long arm quilt machine. It was a labor of love and I’m extraordinarily proud of the way it turned out.

Happy Quilting!