Moving forward

I had intended writing a post on Sunday morning but we awoke to find that we couldn't connect to the Internet, this has happened a few times before. My husband spent absolutely ages on the 'phone to the provider being passed from "level one" technician up to "level three" before he could get anywhere, then told it would three or four days before the problem could be looked into. So here we are five days later, problem fixed but now the 'phone line is dead!!! Another 'phone call on mobile and only after he (husband) explained about my Medical Lifelink Alarm did he get anywhere - guess they didn't want the responsibility for a bad outcome if I went into v.tach and couldn't use the alarm for the medics! So, they are now working on the land line and I just sat down to write this post - the internet went down again, you can guess what choice words I used, after tethering the mobile or whatever it is that he does, I can at least finish this, I hope.

I have decided not to add anything further to my NY Blooms above, just put on a pink binding after quilting. I had started on a pieced border same sort of thing as the blooms but just wasn't happy with it, I needed the blooms to be the focal point, so getting ready to quilt it next week. Something simple as because I just don't want to detract from the subway fabric.

A few more blocks finished on the quilt for my daughter, I laid them out on the deck yesterday to take a pic and Daisy promptly sauntered up and lay down in the sun on the blocks

I have more to write but as  my other half needs his mobile set up I will have to keep fingers crossed and post again on Saturday.

Happy quilting

New York Blooms

Yesterday I commented that I was disappointed with the colour of the photo of my New York Blooms, took another photo this morning in a different spot and mid-morning light directly on the piece and this time I have the true colour. I am also just playing around with ideas for borders, what you see is not going to be the finished piece!

Should be further along on my next post.

Maureen

Getting there!

Not the progress I had hoped for after having my 6 week post op. check on my hand. I have a problem with pain and extreme skin sensitivity over the scar site and along the inside of my wrist and lower arm (told it is referred to as pillar pain) so only able to work on quilting a little at a  time and working in the garden - not at all!! However with the exercises I have been given improvement should be pretty quick, back to hand therapy next week.

Golly - what a shock looking at this photo of my progress with the New York Blooms,  the colour was true when I downloaded and cropped etc. but here just looks dulled down. Only put on the side border in the pink so far, the top and bottom to go on tomorrow and then  think what to do next.


I put the four blocks together then added a border of one and a half inches of the subway fabric sent over to me by Helen and received yesterday, next a very narrow border which will be around 3/8ths of an inch finished and this is the part of the photo which has lost out - it is actually a very bright rich magenta/pink and looks gorgeous, brings out the colours in the subway fabric and the blooms. I'll take another pic in a day or two when I should also have more blocks stitched on the quilt for my daughter.


Speaking of colour the gardens here are a bit lacking in that department at the moment, at least mine is because the rain has ruined a lot of my camellia blooms, so to compensate I have a photo of one of my all time favourites in the flower department - paeonies, love them to bits. Sadly this is not grown in my garden but bought at the local florists around October/November last year.

Isn't it gorgeous??

On the subject of gardens although I said above that mine was lacking in colour  I did have a walk down the back garden earlier and the daphne bushes are just about breaking into flower, if you haven't been able to walk past a daphne in full flower you don't know what you're missing - the perfume from them is out of this world. There are also green leaves from the bluebells starting to show now, this is one of the things I miss about "home" (England) the drifts of bluebells in the woods in Springtime, it really is too warm for them here in Auckland but I usually manage to have half a dozen flowering!!! Gosh, roll on Spring.

Daisy is looking forward to Spring I imagine, she is old now and loves to be outside but doesn't seem to know when to get out of the way of the rain and so many times I have found her absolutely dripping wet. She has an old chair just outside the lounge and loves to sit and soak up the sun when it's shining, but still sits on the chair when it's wet so to solve the problem of having to repeatedly go out, dry her and bring her inside I have put an umbrella over the chair - most people think I'm slightly mad to do this but hey it works a treat, I can angle it away from her when it's a sunny day or if it looks like rain I straighten it and she sits there quite happily with the rain pouring off her umbrella.

Time for our evening meal - chicken with herbs and garlic tonight, the smell coming from the kitchen is making me quite hungry, so I will go and eat.

Have a good weekend and happy quilting to all.

Maureen

Enjoying the welcome sunshine!

What a glorious day we're having here in Auckland, cool early this morning but been sunny and warm until now, the cool evening is creeping up on us. It would have been a great day for gardening but our soil is still pretty wet although the weeds would have come out easily I should have thought, which is immaterial really as I didn't set foot in the garden, certainly not to work but I did take a photo of one of my roses "Heritage" (at least I think that's the name - lost label) it's a David Austin rose, most glorious perfume, real old fashioned. Still a few drops of very early morning rain on the petals.

Guess who came to visit again today?  

Yes - my old friend the magpie (see earlier posting on my aversion to these birds), hope we don't have 

many more visits!

In my post Tuesday I had a shot of strips of fabric ready to make a quilt for our daughter which got off to a slow start, however I did complete the sub-cutting of the strips and was able to get under way with the sewing yesterday. The photo below has the blocks just pressed up on my old flannel design wall, in total there will be 20 blocks so it will be a good size when the two narrow and one wide borders are added. Not sure about the fabric in a block on the left, this is the same as the centre squares and I think it stands out too much in comparison to the rest of the fabrics, maybe I will wait until tomorrow and make a few more blocks and decide whether to take it out or leave in, perhaps if I have it in another two or three blocks it might work.

The light was fading a little when I took this so it possibly looks a bit dull. Daughter saw the fabrics and said she would love a quilt, she thought it had a Pacific feel to it. 

Been looking at a few more blogs and found a lovely one from Tauranga, about a three hour drive from Auckland, lovely gardening and quilting so I have added that to my blog list - thank goodness not everyone posts on the same day or there would be no time left for my quilting and all the household chores.

Don't know how many of you are fans of Kaffe Fassett and friends fabrics but I love them now got a fantastic stash together, but if you are a fan of his have you seen his new stripes?? First saw them on the new blog from Glorious Colour and they really are lovely have a look if you are a "follower"of his fabrics!

Seamus (old Irish Setter doggie) will be needing his tea soon so better go and feed him, hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and happy quilting.

Maureen

Slow starts and a sunset

The past week has been a non-event for me  I have been down with a gastric bug,  not great timing there with all my sewing mounting up. Felt a little better yesterday so thought I could start sewing the quilt for my daughter, I knew that I had cut all the fabrics into correct width strips and sub-cut into lengths needed a month ago so all I had to do was open the stacker drawer, lay everything out on the table, start the machine and I would be away. Didn't quite work out like that - I had cut everything into strips but only sub-cut one of the sets!!! So had to start sub-cutting on the other twenty fabrics. They are Amy Butler patterns and I have quite a lot of left overs which can be used for cushions/bags as the fabric is a good weight. A few of the fabric scraps are pinned up on my wall, all going well I should have a few blocks for my next post. 

The quilt is sort of log cabin style, very very simple and quick ( I hope) as I have a few other things to work on.






Luckily I had put together another five blocks of my pineapple quilt  these are still just pinned on the design wall (not very straight either) one more to make today if possible then I can stitch the six together.

Still not sure how big to make this quilt but there is the annual Guild quilt show coming up in November and I really would like to have it ready to go in the show there - don't know how that will go as the blocks take some time to put together.

We had another lovely sunset last night quite a few 'planes heading into the Airport so got a shot of the headlight of one of them, at one point there were three coming in. I just love watching sunsets.

I was hoping like mad that my reading list on my dashboard would still be there this morning and it is thank goodness, I was able to get my daily fix reading the blog posts. After all the posting traffic about Reader going away there seemed to be differing views on what would happen to the Reading List on the left hand side of the Dashboard, but all seems well.

Thinking a lot recently about managing my time more efficiently in order to spend more time on my quilting and I've decided the best way for me to meet my deadlines is to make a "to do" list for the week, month and year, stops me getting side-tracked with other things - like checking out the fabrics on-line. I just put another order in for more fabrics from Glorious Color and that  must be my last one until next year.  I need ( guess want is a better way to describe this really) to get together a nice stash of solids again and I see that Kona have some really super colours, does anyone work with these regularly and can tell me if they are a good weight? I have used other  plains before but they were very fine and I need something more robust and preferably not easily frayed.

Better head off to the sewing machine and have something to show for my next post.

Happy Quilting!