Sunset, Stars and Stitching

Sunset a few evenings ago

Six green stars - sadly showing on the dull side

I was going to try and re-photograph this morning but it's wet and grey again so

I stayed with these. The answer would be to move one of my design boards into

the living room when we have these dull winter days, only snag is they're pretty unwieldy

to move around.

Stitching - basting my H quilt

using the method demonstrated by Sharon Schamber using the boards. I had seen this

ages ago but then I had an email following my last post asking if

I was aware of the video on You Tube and that jogged my memory! Thank you Sherrill.

Now my quilt is considerably larger than the pieces of fabric

used in the demo so it took me slightly longer

to set myself up, the main reason for this was that my cutting table

is 80" long and the only option for following her method, my printer had to

be moved off plus my mini set of drawers holding sewing and quilting cottons,  a stack

of fabric pieces waiting to be sorted into scrap drawers, my container with bits and pieces

of sewing necessities.

You can guess where I'm going here - I had to make room for these items

elsewhere  - my large sewing table where I was set up for sewing strips as a break from basting.

I then realised in order for the basted section of quilt to drop down neatly onto

the floor I had to move a set of six cubbies butting up to the table!!

I need a serious rethink in here!

After all that I do think it's a great way of basting, especially when you have

really bad spinal issues, I just couldn't have done this on the floor.

My stitching is not as close nor as neat as that by Sharon but after all the

re-organisation I really didn't care.

Linking up with the last green Saturday for RSC 2015 here
June will be light blues going into blue greens.

Can you believe that we will be into June tomorrow??????

Cold, wet and windy - perfect quilting weather

Yes it's definitely good weather for being indoors surrounded by thread and fabric

and getting busy on the machine.

I'm still playing catch-up with my teapots and just about finished

up six green stars for this month, I'll post to RSC2015 on Saturday coming,

the last one for greens.

So caught up with a blue teapot

and I rectified the error with the sizing of the top spot fabric on my

green teapot which was posted here, the proportions are now correct.

I am about to wrestle with the H block quilt this week, I need to use
the floor in the lounge to baste this and I'm thinking Wednesday would be good, husband out all day
so I can crawl about the floor in peace!

In the meantime I have been pulling fabrics for a quilt for our
grand-daughter who's 10yrs and loves pinks, yet to decide which to keep and which
to put back in the basket, her favourite is the pink Guinea Flower
which she spotted in my stash a few weeks ago

and a few spotty fabrics

I've not decided yet on a pattern but favouring something strippy perhaps.
I was hunting in my stash for the china blue spot but I must have used it in a previous
project.

Back to the drawing board until Saturday post.

Practice makes ……..

I was going to head this post Practice makes Perfect - but it may not so better

not chance it!!

Six rows of my H quilt all sewn together with four more to go, sorry the bottom

two rows are missed off this picture, it's 90" long and I couldn't
get it all in one!  I see it is blurry, these

pics were taken early morning with my iPhone the next ones should be nice and clear.

Now below is where the practice comes in, I felt this quilt needed

something simple so as not to wipe out the lovely fabrics and I was

really pleased with my rolling waves quilting on

Sailing through Suez - see this post over at Cultural Fusion blog I decided to
do another larger version of that design, not so much overlapping
of quilting lines this time. The beige thread is just so I can
see how the design looks on a row of practice blocks.

The thread I'm going to use is the same as on Suez, it's an Aurifil variegated
- Marrakech or Marrakesh whichever you prefer!

I love this colour way because it just seems to blend in so well.

John and I went into the city yesterday and called in the most
beautiful small book store, an amazing selection of very special books, one of which
I had been trying to hunt down because I had read that colouring in
was the new therapy for stress relief - just what I needed and

as you can see it is sitting on my table runner at home, watch for a post later.

The next book was pure indulgence!!!

Truly glorious!!!
I now feel I should like to re-arrange furniture, make new covers for chairs and
hunt for paint - somehow I don't think that's going to happen!
Next post over the weekend when I hope to have six green stars ready and waiting.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Time for Tea - Green Tea!

I've been busy sewing my H blocks together this week

and my only contribution to RSC 2015

is below

again not yet appliquéd just fused at the moment.

You may or may not notice that the size of this block is

a little smaller than the first three - blame Downton Abbey!!

I have all the five series on DVD and whilst my husband's away

on a three day painting session I decided to have a relaxing time watching

Downton once again.

I had been through series one and two (no housework done of course)

and was keen to begin No 3, decided to quickly do one green tea pot

before viewing any more, obviously wasn't concentrating

and so we have the top green spotted piece one inch shorter than

it should be! I'm tempted to just reduce the depth of the

bottom half slightly to keep the balance rather than make another block and I

could then reduce the proportions of the first three as well. Just one more episode and then

I'll decide!

My garden is well into Autumn with things looking

tattered and torn but I had a package delivered yesterday with KF collective fabric, and I 

love the three pansy pieces above.

Linking up with fellow "greenies" for RSC 2015
and I should have six green stars to post next week.

A touch of green

This week I spent what sewing time I had

on the remaining few H blocks, they're

now all stacked in rows ready for machining, that's my

main task for this week.

Because of working on the above I didn't get around to

green stars or teapots! So bending the rules slightly I am posting this mostly

green H plus the last few blocks up on the wall

I had a lovely day yesterday, visits from all three of our children

plus our two youngest grandsons. Lunch made by our eldest son,

two beautiful new mugs from daughter and

a lovely bouquet of flowers from youngest son.

We were able to spend a few hours sitting around chatting

and reminiscing!

I hope all you mums out there had a happy day too.

See you later in the week I'm heading on over to 

Angela and friends at RSC 2015

see you later in the week.

Maureen

More Mountains and catch up teapots ..

Last week was pretty quiet on the quilting side of things, a visit to the doctor

confirmed I had extremely high blood pressure, ? kidney involvement.

A visit to the laboratory for tests and a visit to the chemist

for a another treat to add to my medication regime!!

However,

I have been able to catch up with yellow and pink teapots,
these two are joining the purple one to be machine appliqued.

My fingers and toes are crossed that I have enough variation in the spot fabric

to carry on through the next few months. I may have to force myself to

order more yardage in other colours - pity!!

Mountains in green this week and  an update from Angela that we should be aiming

for dark green so here goes

My H blocks for our grandson are up on the wall but I need another 14 so
that's a job for tomorrow. Both the H blocks and the Mountains are so quick
to cut and sew, really enjoying these.

We had an afternoon tea/family party today for the 2nd birthday of our
youngest grandson, a great time had by all especially when
the luscious chocolate birthday cake was placed on the table,
you should have seen the eyes of the two boys, they couldn't wait
to try some. Pity I didn't take a quick photo to post.

Linking up now with all the greenies at
superscrappy for RSC 2015

See you in the middle of the week, hope you have a good one.

Maureen