Delft Baskets

I have been playing around with my favourite Dutch fabrics. I have been making so many unusual wall hangings for the Guild challenge, that I had the urge to go back to something traditional. I've never made a basket block before. I got the idea from a Gwen Marston book I found at City Lights a used book store, Twenty Little Amish Quilts (1993). I had a heck of a time, though, there was something off in the measurements and I had to cut down all my centre squares a half an inch. The instructions said add 1/4 inch seam to template, but by doing so it made the centre square too big for the little squares. weird. But these things don't phase me anymore and a trim here or there is no big deal, I added sashing where there wasn't any, and anyway this is the result, Delft Baskets, I call it:


Spring has finally arrived. I know this because I refuse to wear gloves and my boots anymore, and of course the Thames river has flooded because of rain and snow melt. This photo shows the park behind the HMCS Prevost. As you can see the bicycle path has been completely flooded up to the base of the hill.

I like to use this sewer pipe as a guide to river depth. The first photo shows one of the lowest depth of the river, this was January.


This was March 31st:

This was April 1st:


So what is that 10 feet, maybe more? egads! They say this is the highest it's been since 1977.(I have since found out it rose 13 feet!)