This quilt is the embodiment of the mad urge that all quilters and makers will recognise - when you get the scrap of an idea and you CANNOT rest until you have realised it! I started this quilt at Christmas. Not the relaxed lazy chilled out post chrissy bit, no it was the hectic, frantic, tearing your hair out pre christmas bit of the holiday. I have 3 young children, a new puppy and I was hosting 16 between Christmas eve and Boxing day, I obviously needed the relaxing properties of a complicated quilt project! I was browsing one of my quilt history books when i saw the most amazing version of this pattern. 
Now mine is nothing but a poor homage to the original which is ginormous and probably took years to make. Its a great windmill pattern ,made up entirely of half square triangles but arranged in alternate rows to make them flutter in both directions. This means in practical terms that the basic building blocks of the quilt are simple to make, but the layout and sewing together is a logistical nightmare ( ref 3 kids and the puppy!!). You need to make a big area to lay it all out and sew uninterrupted right alongside it. Now I do not have a large quiet unused room at home so I ended up sewing in the lounge with the sewing machine resting on a tray on my lap! Don't try this at home folks!
Its made entirely from scraps. I cut no new material for this apart from the white backing ( my usual much loved vintage white Kona Snow). I really have never seen a scrap quilt I didn't like, its a strange but true fact that in quilting more is more!! If you could have seen the mess that was my scrap bucket ( its actually more of a tin bath than a bucket!) you would have had no confidence that the mess of print and colour within it could create such a delicate balance of patchy loveliness - but that's the magic of patchwork, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts.
