March round up

As explained in my previous post here my 1st new project for March was cutting into the beautiful Oakshott cottons.....

Next up was the Small Quilt Challenge set by Kathy Tracy, to use our ugly fabrics to make a small quilt, I chose this drab repro fabric that I've never liked and added red, blue & yellow  to brighten things up

Still enjoying making these small quilts, especially the hand quilting part of it! Got carried away and made another one for fun.

This one is a gift for my Mum's birthday and is winging it's way to France, hope she likes it.......

March also saw the end of the log cabin blocks, I ended up making 80 in total and now have a completed top. I'm thinking about hand quilting this one with baptist fans, do you think that would look ok?

.........and finally, whilst i had all these repro scraps lying around, I just couldn't help myself and started making some scrappy stars, so this is my final new start for the New FO challenge for March, all in all, another busy month!

8.5" & 4.5" scrappy star blocks

Durrell News

We have a new arrival at work......

Meet Jantho, born on 1st April, the latest addition to our Sumatran Orang utang family.Baby & mum Annette are doing well :) To read all about it click here

........and then there were 5!

It's a real pleasure to go to work each morning and see images like this. Kahilli, one of our female Western Lowland gorillas, surprised her keepers by having given birth early yesterday morning..........they didn't think she was due until November!

Kahilli is a very caring Mum as can be seen in this video

Kahilli & baby

Yesterday also happened to be 1st time dad,  Badongo's 13th birthday! 

Last summer I was very privileged to have accompanied a gorilla transfer as a French interpreter when we transported our former silverback Ya Kwanza (who wasn't too interested in breeding) to a new gorilla bachelor group & brought a young bouncy Badongo back to Jersey, see the transfer video here

New dad Badongo

Kahilli & Kishka on the right

Kishka our eldest female is staying very close to Kahilli & the baby. You can often catch her trying to get a good look at the newborn.

She's even made it into the UK National headlines here

Congratulations Kahilli, we are all very proud of her at Durrell.

(Can you tell I have a little weakness for Gorillas? lol)

Home Again - Klosjes & Flowers

We're back in Jersey having had a lovely break visiting Mum in France. She lives in rural Brittany which is very quiet & relaxing with beautiful countryside as in Bon Repos above. This is where the Daoulas river joins the canal which runs from Nantes to Brest & in the background you can see the ruins of the abbey gradually being restored having been destroyed by fire centuries ago.

I managed to finish the Klosjes quilt just in time, Mum was thrilled & surprised with her gift.

I had taken it to work at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust before we left & made the most of our beautiful grounds & granite buildings around the Manor house to have a little photo shoot.

The white door at the top of the above picture is the entrance to my office.

As I had been spending most of my time focusing on finishing the Klosjes quilt, my hexi flowers had been neglected ........

.........but I managed to make a few whilst on holiday

5 more were added to the pile

and a few clamshells were stitched too!

More to be revealed at the end of the month!

Thank you! & the Winner is......

Thank you from all at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust for your amazing feedback on the site which has now gone live....check it out here.
They were so impressed with all your comments that copies were made & taken into the Board meeting for all the Directors to read through & one of the Directors popped up to my office to thank you all personally for your great comments.......needless to say they were well impressed :)
Now that the site is up & running, don't forget to forward it on to all your family & friends, the more people are made aware of the plight of these species in danger the better.

Now the bit you've been waiting for....... and the winner is..........drum roll here.........

Rebecca Holso !

A huge favour & a prize!

To all my blogging friends out there I have a huge favour to ask....... as you know I've recently started a new job at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, this Thursday the Trust is launching a brand new website, but would value some feedback prior the live launch.

If you could spare a few moments of your time to navigate around the site & should you find any difficulties or have any suggestions to ease the use of the site, please leave a comment either today Monday 17th or tomorrow Tues 18th, in order that Caron has time to make amendments before Thursday 20th Sept. Here's the link.

Now for the prize part......

For all you lovely people who leave feedback about the site, I will enter your names into a draw on the weekend to win a lovely goody package which will contain a selection of Paper Whimsy & Artchix Studio images, vintage lace, wonderful fibres, metal embellishments to name just a few things that will be in the box as well as the Gothic arch "Family" which I created for a challenge last week..........now how's that for an incentive!

Looking forward to hearing from you all.

New Work Colleagues

Meet Wolfgang & Barbara, a delightful pair of Andean bears who will sort of be my new work colleagues. I have just landed myself a new job working in Administration at the Durrell Wildlife Trust here in Jersey, woohoo, must have done something right to deserve this! OK...so I won't be working directly with the animals but will have the chance to see them on a daily basis during my lunch hour.

Above we have Ya Kwanza, our Silverback lowland gorilla & a photo of one of his many wives, then last but not least one of the Meerkats.....I love these creatures too & could just sit there for hours watching them get up to all their antics......... this one was on lookout duty.