Spring in the Valley - Block 17

I live on the edge of the Swan River Valley, the main grape growing/wine producing area of Perth in Western Australia and every year we have a "Spring in the Valley Festival" to celebrate the produce of the valley.  All the wineries have wine tastings and sales, the Cheese Factory has cheese samples and sales, the Margaret River Chocolate Company has chocolate tastings and sales of chocolates, chocolate products, pickles and jams, the boutique breweries have beer tastings and sales and all of these places serve meals. Some of the wineries have live music and Art exhibitions - it's a big weekend and people arrive by the busload and by car - but you definitely need to have a designated non-drinking skipper to make sure that everybody arrives home again safely, LOL......

I had this piece of "grape-vine" lace edging which so far has not fitted in to any of my block themes so I figured that I would create a block around the lace instead and use it that way. My obvious theme then had to be "Spring in the Valley" - the original Swan Valley vineyards were set up by Italian migrants in late 1800s and early 1900s so there is an annual "Blessing of the Vintage" ceremony which still carries on the Italian tradition, hence my Angel blessing the grape charms below her with a smiling sun to spread sunshine. Spring means flowers and butterflies so they are there as well and that spider's web was a piece of damask that had the web woven into the fabric, I merely stitched over the existing web.

I had a lot of fun stitching this block although someone on the train one evening after work asked me if I was sewing a "Communion piece". I am finding that lots of people on the trains who have seen me beavering away for months are becoming interested in my sewing.  One lady actually asked to see my block because she thought I had been working on the same little piece of fabric the whole time. That made me chuckle!!  I'm not sure that I particularly like this block as it is getting a long way from my original warm Victorian/Edwardian cream blocks - is my style changing?  I think so but I hope not.