31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration in Real Life

Do you know what the picture above is?!

It’s a ripe quangdong. An Australian native fruit. I took this photo in Arkaroola (a desert oasis in South Australia) in early October, two years ago. Isn’t the fruit glorious looking? And doesn’t it scream Christmas?!!!

Quangdongs have a thin dry flesh surrounding a large dimpled seed.

The kernel inside the quangdong seed is known as a candle nut. The seed has a high enough oil content that  you can light it and it will burn like a candle. Candles also make me think of Christmas. Especially after spending last Christmas in Europe.

Quangdong flesh is awful to eat raw. However, if you dry quangdong, it magically becomes delicious. You can eat it just as it is, or turn it into jam or pie or whatever you desire. It tastes a little like rhubarb, but less sour. Mmmmm.

Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 28

I found my quangdong photos while still looking for the quilt photos I mentioned yesterday. It turns out that looking through old photos is a great way to find quilt inspiration. It happened to me yesterday as well! 

Finding these shots is fortuitous. I needed an easy post today, because I have spent all my blogging time playing with ideas for a new Christmas tree decoration instead! I am going to be joining in the Ornament Exchange blog hop in November and I’ve been trying a few things out. So it seems apt that I tell you about my Christmasy quangdong inspiration today.

How was I inspired by the quangdong?

The reason why I took a whole set of photos of quangdongs two years ago was because I thought they would make amazing quilted postcard designs to use as Christmas cards. Especially for my overseas friends.

Appliqué the fruit and leaf shapes onto postcard sized quilts and then do a stack of fun thread painting over them. Or maybe draw them with Inktense and then thread paint. Sadly I haven’t got around to making the postcards yet, but time has not diminished the desire too. Every time I see these photos I think I must do this project one day.

Do you make quilted postcards? Where do you find your inspiration for them?

Or have you accidentally been inspired to make a quilt while looking through old photos? I would love to hear your stories. 🙂

P..S. If you are new to the 31 Days of Finding Quilt Inspiration series you can now binge read it…. access it through the first post, or follow me on Bloglovin’ to catch up on 4 weeks of everyday quilt inspiration.

P.P..S. You’ll be glad to know, I finally found the quilt photos I was after. I hope to tell you about them tomorrow. Take care until then!