Partnership block

Those of you who keep up with the quilting bloggers in Japan, must be familiar with the partnership quilts. Each year as the Tokyo Dome show kicks into gear, NHK announces the theme for the coming quilts and the details  for those wishing to contribute a block.

I think among my friends, I am the last to get my block together. With a week of camping looming, the deadline for submissions having been moved up a month,  and many unknowns down the road of life, I thought if I was going to do it at all, the time had come to bite the bullet and get it done.

This year the block size has gone from 20 x 20 cm. to 15 x 15 cm. The theme is "Garden".

 
This is what I came up with. The Cardinal is the Ohio state bird and he is perched on a trowel, planting a seed. I had planned in my sketch to put another plant to his back but this was a more difficult size to work with so I decided one flower is enough. I had also planned to use different yellow fabrics in the sunflower petals but gave up on that plan too.

All I need now is to put my name in the seam allowance ... though how well it will show up might be a problem ... and find a post card to enclose.
It will be interesting to see how the quilts with smaller blocks turn out. I watched the NHK program with suggested blocks and compared to other years, it was  rather uninspiring.

The internet company called my daughter to inform her I should wait another month to have my connection restored. I guess she handed the phone to my son-in-law to argue the point. Well, he managed to convince them to give me back my former phone number so we will see how this second argument goes. Anyway, it won't be before I leave for camp and there won't be much of the month left by the time I return. I heard the neighbor return as I was taking the photograph so decided to swap my bedtime for a post. Now Nikko is saying her evening walk is long overdue. Experience with hanger-on connections, however, was telling me "now or never".