Best of 2016 Linky Party

Cheryl from Meadow Mist Designs is holding the second annual 'Best of' blog party to share our own top 5 posts of the year and also to let us visit and read other peoples 'Best of 2016'. There's no rules about how the 'best posts' are chosen, it's just down to personal choice.

One of my favourite posts was back in May when I wrote about the quilt I made for Maria's baby. You can read the post here. The pattern was by Connie from Freemotion by the river and was great fun to make. 

I love the colours in the quilt and the backing fabric I found.

My second post was a Friday finish. I love seeing what others have finished but for me this year has been rather poor for finishes so it was great to be able to post about finishing up the scrappy nine patch quilt. I made the top over 2015 as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and eventually finished it up in November of this year.

I made a pieced backing for this quilt following the nine patch theme and I was really pleased with the results. I had to buy the orange fabric for the backing but everything else on this quilt was from scraps or stash. For some reason Picasso was fascinated with the backing.

In May I posted about a trip to the Royal Albert Hall for a Ralph McTell concert. We actually went to the Albert Hall twice in May as we also saw Gordon Lightfoot . I really enjoyed both evenings although unfortunately Gordon Lightfoot had a cold so his voice was a little scratchy. The trip gave me the opportunity to show some photos of the hall and surrounding buildings and memorials.

The Royal Albert Hall always looks beautiful in the evening sun. Opposite is the Albert Memorial

I love to share photos of London and I'm very proud to be living in a city with such a lot of history and fabulous old buildings. I love it when others post photos of their local area or trips as it lets me visit places I probably or possibly won't get to actually visit.

As a family we love walking and when I remember to take my camera I will try to post about our routes. In June we walked part of the Thames path. This path goes from the Thames estuary back to it's source and we are walking it in sections. When I post about our walks I always get very positive comments. This section of the walk was from Henley to Reading and along the way we walked over this walkway.

This went out from the river bank and around the weir and was to allow the horses pulling the barges to pull then over to the lock  to avoid the weir.

My final 'best of' is you, the readers of my blog. You are so suportive and encouraging. Because of you I get the support I need to finish my UFO's. My oldest UFO is my millennium sampler which I received as a present for Christmas 1999. It regularly appears in posts but my progress is slow. When preparing to write this post I spent some time thinking about why I don't complete this piece and I realised  that everytime I go to work on it I spend most of the time thinking about Mom. I think I've been deliberately working slowly and dragging it out to have these quiet times. Silly me I don't need to drag the stitching out because once it's finished it will be hung on the wall in our living room and I will see it all the time.

Thank you blogland friends and family for being so fantastic.

I'm linking this post with Cheryl for her Best of 2016 Linky Party.

Lyndsey