INTRODUCING TGIFF!!!

A Gnome and a Quokka walk into a bar. The gnome says to the quokka "So have you finished any good quilts lately?"
Ok, so I'm going to have to work on that joke.

What do Gnome and a Quokka have in common? (What IS a quokka anyway?)

Well, as the WIPs were piling up and as those of you following my WIP Wednesday posts know, I was feeling rather ashamed. M-R from Quilt Matters suggested we team up and spur each other on to finish some WIPs. In Ottawa and Western Australia, we're about as far away from each other as you can get so we're going to have to do it virtually.

Sooo.... I'm VERY excited to be launching TGIF Friday - Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday! 
Each Friday, someone will be hosting a linky party (because you can't have enough linky parties) for finishes ONLY. First Friday of the month, it will be yours truly - if I have a finish. (If I don't, I will devise some suitable punishment for myself and tell you about it AND invite someone else to host it. I'd say if I don't get one done, I have to post M-R chocolate, but that could get expensive, and with the Australian summer coming up, messy). Second Friday of the month, M-R will host. Other Fridays are up for grabs - just email us if you want one or sign up on the TGIFF blog where the schedule will be.

So, without further ado, here's my FINISH!

 What, you want a full shot?

This is how it started out.

I deliberately used the thickest, puffiest batting I could find (YUCK) to try and make it play-mat friendly. Bah. You can see how puffy it is by the shadow in this shot.

Despite my whining about how puffy this stuff is and how annoying it was to quilt, I did have fun quilting this. As I quilted around each country, I thought of the people I knew there, or the things that had happened...

• My home for the last 30 years, Western Australia.
• The most significant other place in my life since 1989 - Indonesia - and home for a year of my uni life (I was dedicated and quilted around all those little islands!) and all the people I met and friends in Java, Bali, Lombok, Timor and Papua. 
• The Boxing Day Tsunami that wiped out Aceh and caused so much havoc elsewhere back in 2006.

• Japan, and my new blog friend Julie, the Tsunami there
• A visit to China and Macau and several to Hongkong and how I was made there (ok I didn't think about that and am trying to block the images out now dammit).
• The Filipino cooking class I took last year.

•  My friend Jemma who is living in the middle East.
• My trip around Italy last year. 
• My birthplace across the sea in England. 
• Trouble in the Middle East. 
• Friends from South Africa and my long time friend Ellie who is now living in Mauritius.

•  Trips to California, Arizona, Las Vegas, Tijuana, New York. Lobster tacos in San Diego, deciding to divorce in San Jose (weird, I know).
• Standing in a snow drift waiting to get into a club  on New Year's Eve in minus 14 degrees in Toronto. Raindrops freezing onto my jacket at Niagara.
• And hopes to get back to North America and all the other places I want to visit.

Wish I could say I'd thought of you as I sewed around Canada, M-R, but I didn't know you then! xxx.

So that's my significant finish. Wanna link up one of yours? You can do so below. And don't forget to pop over to the TGIFF blog if you want to enlist to host one. :)

Hope you enjoyed my trip around the world.

Happy finishing!
xxx Laura
PS - let me know if the linky isn't working!