Mataura Valley meets Ida Valley

Hello and welcome to my visitors from Kelly's Needle and Thread Thursday and AmandaJean's Finish It Up Friday! This is a finish from my goals list for the 2nd quarter of the 2016 FinishAlong.

While it is not summer at the moment (and the frost this morning confirmed that!), the vibrant colours of this quilt reminds me of the blue sky and summer heat of the Central Otago/Maniototo area that this quilt is destined for, and so I have named it 'Summer in the Ida Valley'.

We'd had a real Indian summer until about two weeks ago when it started raining and didn't seem to stop, so it's taken me a while to get the photos taken. With my cousin and I growing up in the Mataura River valley I thought it would be a good reason to head up to Mataura's 'cemetery hill' to get the photos.

My almost-as-tall-as-me-now son was my handy helper but still struggled a little to get the quilt high enough for a tidy, flat shot but you get the idea! I must say that the green of the Mataura Valley is very different to the brown-gold of the Ida Valley in the height of summer...

Photo taken a bit higher up the hill (where the top part of the hill was still keeping the look-out in shade).

This single-bed quilt is for my cousin's son, 15 year old Logan, and is made of his favourite colours of blue, orange and yellow.  I bought the batiks when in Sydney last year for the Netball World Champs and put it all together during the summer holidays, finally finishing off the quilting about a month ago.

The pattern is called 'Under the Sea' and is from Sue Pfau's book "Quilts From Sweet Jane' (Martingale); I've backed it with a deep blue spotty minky, making it very snuggly (which Logan will need in his sleep-out in winter!) and I've quilted it in simple diagonal lines.

My taller handy-helper-hubby was being silly when I asked for his help back at home...

...but I did manage to get a decent front-on shot!