Wheel Complete!

 The flying geese outer ring was the Aves 'block' of the week this time around.

Fun to make.  You can see where I sewed lines (from behind, using the paper piecing lines) to show me where to sew it to the inner wheel and later to the rest of the quilt top.

I think that next time I'll do it without any thread, just leaving me the holes in the fabric to guide me.

 Here it is sewn to last weeks 'spokes' to form a complete roundel.

I should have pressed it before I took a photo really!

 More great wheels here at the Kempton Steam Museum which was in steam last weekend (and will be again for another five weekends or so during the year - if you can get to south west London to see it I'd recommend it!).

Magnificent and on a scale bigger than I'd realised.  This triple expansion steam engine is about 6 stories high - and the two fly wheels that you can see here are 32 tons each!  Apparently they were made in two halves, and the maximum weight that could be carried on the railway wagons of the time was 16 tons.  Fascinating stuff.

 Immense scale.  My photos don't really do it justice I'm afraid.  If you can, do go along and see it in steam.

 Alongside the steam museum is this separate attraction - Hampton and Kempton Waterworks Railway.  Cute little steam engine (working every Sunday afternoon and museum weekends from March until November).  They are using this to promote / provide experience for an exciting project, which is to relay track from here to Hampton following the old track which was laid in WW1 to provide easy access to coal brought up the Thames.
A laudable project and one that I'm fully in favour of!

Not mentioned in any leaflet that I've seen, my personal favourite on the day was an 'extra' trip on a diesel 'man mover' - something that I've never tried before.

We didn't spend a lot of time at these attractions, but I've come away inspired to try and use some of the aspects of them in a quilt design.