Play time

Forgot to write a post yesterday, a busy week on the home front and not much achieved on the quilting front.

Cotton Candy

Four more rounds added to Cotton Candy and I know this is not the best photo, there are a few wrinkles there as I haven't smoothed the top down I'm trying to manoeuvre around an ironing board which is much to large for my small room, my new sewing cabinet and so on. Most important on the agenda over the next two days is to get myself a better working arrangement in this small room.

playtime

On my table I have a basket with the lovely dyed strips from Vicki Welsh and started playing around pulling any size string/colour and just cutting and stitching, throughly enjoyed and found it very therapeutic! This is a two block practice but I do intend to sit myself down one day just go for it and see how far I get.

Scrap Happy Cats

I thought this weekend was the last green one - I see that we have next week also and I've now made my allocated 10 cats for the month! Really should find something else to make quickly with green fabrics.

The cat on the RH side at the top actually has got a lime green pattern but sadly it's showing as almost a mustard, I'll try another photo tomorrow in a different position and on a different design board, I can see the grid showing through on my lime Fossil Fern. I confess  I'm not as happy with these four compared to the other cats I don't know why but maybe they are a little more subdues than my other, when they're all together in a quilt I'm sure they'll fit in beautifully.

Took delivery of my small Horn sewing cabinet Friday and just getting it organised, I'd love one of their larger ones but the price is quite prohibitive, certainly at the present time.

I found time to get out into the garden for a little while yesterday and today, the weather has been glorious, still cold but the sun beautifully warm.

Hadn't realised that these two plants were flowering and they're on the straggly side as I should have cut them back earlier than this, but I love their colour.

The thought has crossed my mind of two small mixed media pieces

using these two flowers as inspiration, dyes fabrics, beads etc. I love the centres of these, I think they're Arcotis.  The one on the right is by my apricot canna lilies and they're a pretty picture  both blooming together.

Time to link up now with the  ScrapHappy Saturday folk  do go along to see  what we're all doing over there, and enjoy your weekend.

Wednesday Words and WIP

Cotton Candy

Only three more rounds added to Cotton Candy this week I've been busy sorting through fabrics most of the time. I notice that Wanda over at Exuberant Color seems to have been doing the same thing !

I was amazed at how many yellows I have in my stash, an abundance of green also. Blue is pretty well represented, red and pastel also but not too many real darks. May have to remedy that before too long.


One good thing about reorganising is that you sometimes find fabrics you had forgotten about, I was over the moon to find a small piece of one KF or PJ fabric (can't remember which now) and a larger piece in a different colour way

Just remembered the colour way of the small dark piece "Oxblood" - correct me if I'm wrong, and wished I had bought more yardage of this, same with the yellow, turns out I had  - found a half yard of each in a different basket, goes to show that it's best  to put away first off with like colours!

I  went off today to have a  pre-admission  check prior to  knee surgery, the problem had improved somewhat but we had still planned on going ahead, however when I met with the Clinical Nurse Co-ordinator for a chat it was decided because of the long list of health problem I have they felt it was safer to see if things settle further over the next six months, boy was I happy with that!!!  As the hospital was really handy to a quilting store we couldn't miss a call there  and I came home with a few quite different pieces of fabric - shown left. They will be put in my stash in their proper place!

I have been looking out for a small sewing cabinet to fit a particular spot in the studio for some time and just what I was looking for was on a brochure on the counter in the store, a small Horn cabinet should be with me on Friday and my Bernina Virtuosa 155 will live in that. My Aurora 440QE is set into a larger table for machine quilting smaller pieces.

More cats need to be worked on now so I'd better get busy.

Wednesday Words and Work in Progress

   

Re-arranging my blog template and having great fun with colour combinations - a work still in progress  right now.

Pulling out a variety of greens to start off something new -  a pattern in The Quilt Life  (August edition) from Stephanie Serrano aka Venus de Hilo. Do go along and visit, colour just explodes from her quilts! More to be posted on this new project next week.

Red Sea Sunset

Busy pressing Red Sea Sunset as I stitch the diagonal seams

Next round of strips for Cotton Candy, love this Spot in Mint colour way
and had hoped to have added another three rounds to the quilt today but just didn't work out that way.

Such sad news yesterday that Robin Williams had passed away - a tragedy. What a brilliant guy, I have seen a number of his films but my favourite has just got to be the comedy Mrs Doubtfire, I could watch this movie over and over again and still fall on the floor laughing. Tonight we were told that Lauren Bacall had also passed, a great actress.

On that sad note I'm off to my bed as it's a very, very cold night here in Auckland, New Zealand and we have a King Tide about to hit the coast just around now!

Scrappy Cats and Ice Cream

First off in the post four more cats to add to my collection

and I'm linking this to all scrappy fans over at scrap happy Saturday

Two more seams to sew on my Red Sea Sunset, then I will  be putting the last border on Desert Rose and that will be two more for quilting. I have three more projects to work on but they will have to wait a while. Yesterday we had a sad visit to long time family friends of over thirty years,  the husband is terminally ill so we try to see them as often as possible. My intention had been to come back home and work on Red Sea but I felt so sad after our visit and decided I really wanted something very simple to work on, no matching of points required just back to basics. Naturally I started another project! I found this extremely therapeutic and the quilt will be a lovely memory of M. This is a keeper.

Cotton Candy

It's a Kaffe Fassett quilt pack which I bought possibly three or four years ago from Glorious Color, the original quilt is called Ice Cream and is in Quilt Romance, I've given it a different name.
 The simplicity and colour way attracted me and this has been sitting in a box with three other fabric packs from the same place collected over the past few years. It was a dream to sit and sew straight lines, read instructions for strip width and length and just go for it! Can't wait to sew more strips tomorrow.

I was hoping to get into the garden today but it's really cold out there so contented myself with just looking through a couple of gardening magazines, did a visit to the garden centre at the end of last week and more hellebores were in stock this one was particularly eye catching

didn't bring one home as they were quite pricey and I aim to have a look at the new Kaffe Fassett book "Quilts in Morocco" so I'll have to choose between plant or book!

Better go and do my link now, have a good week

Kitty Time with Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014

Very short post today, only put together two cats for RSC 2014 hosted by Angela  and realised how many WIP's I have waiting to be finished, more on those later in the week

The colour for the challenge this month is green but this time we're pulling out lights and brights. Looking through my fabrics I realised that I didn't have much at all in the way of light green but found enough for ten cats.

OK the cat on the right hand side  looks really spooky to me. I love this fabric but the way the veins of the leaf  have fallen  the cat seems to have the face of a lizard!  Had the fabric on the bottom RH side been placed where the face of the cat should be I think that would have been OK. Might have to redo this kitty!

Linking up now with everyone at RSC 2014
go and visit!