today's almost FO

i set myself the holiday goal of finishing the 2 big quilts that are to go off at the end of the month for the first Southern Lands exhibition in Europe. one i still feel ambivalent about and may make a replacement but i am very happy with this one.

i started with a base of black linen, then some old blanket dyed with landscape dyes and a strip of eucalypt dyed blanket - then the usual array of synthetics, a double layer of black tulle pinned over the lot and hours and hours of quilting. i quilted for so long i felt sick!
luckily i had bought myself some quilting gloves ($5 at clegs - bargain) and found they made a huge difference. for me this was a big quilt (132x73 cm) and wearing the gloves meant i didn't have to wrestle with it to get it through the machine. as a result i am very pleased with the quilting.
so pleased that i almost decided not to burn it but it needed the texture so i hopped in with the heat gun and gave it a light toasting. i might do some handstitching on this and a little work over with the paintstik