Quilted leaves

All I see these days - in my waking hours and my dreams - are leaves.  Fabric leaves, scattered on the quilt, piled up on the arm of the sofa, under my needle, and drawn onto squares of fabric - waiting to be cut out.

But ten minutes ago, I finished.  The leaves are done.

I took the two pictures above at lunchtime today, when the sun was streaming through the windows and I was curled up in the armchair, with my lap full of quilt, stitching as fast as I could.  There were still a few leaves with pins in them, waiting to be stitched.

And below, here it is in it's full unfolded glory.  Taken with the flash, at nearly 11pm, but still looking damn fine.

Tomorrow I'll be adding some machine quilting to the green and brown borders.  Then over the weekend I am going to make and attach the binding.  I'm aiming to have it all done by Sunday night.  Wouldn't that be good?  That would make it five weeks from start to finish.  But I mustn't get carried away - I'm not quite there yet.

I counted the leaves.  Of course I did.  There are one hundred and thirty one, which represents true love on a major scale.  Very appropriate for his Valentine's Day birthday.