When I got my words in the draw I had no idea what to do with them first. I was given plenty of ideas and fabrics by my Conspiracy buddies, but it wasn't until I did a workshop with Cherilyn Martin that things started to fall in place. By chance, the surface embellishment techniques seemed to fit very well with the words I had.

CHAOS: I'm pretty unchaotic, as became clear in the first version, so I threw rice grains onto the fabric and marked where they fell with pins to show me where to do the bullion knots.

HOT: I was experimenting with fly stitch in several of these panels and there are so many funky yarns around in Austria at the moment...

EXPERIENCE: I'd already tried out using the foil in the course but when I came across the sentence "If only the baobabs could speak, I bet they'd know the answer to your question" in a book about a BBC correspondent in Africa, I knew my Greek temple wouldn't make it into the final design...

CONTENTED: circles are round and smooth - and I liked it the way it was first time

SPIRIT: zapping organza with a hot air gun is fun; there are more fly stitches and a dove quilted into the background fabric.

Now I need to use my birthday fabrics in a second quilt ?!?

Helen