Definitely Spring and more on my Medallion

We have a very old orange tree in our front garden,

it sits at the beginning of the path to the front steps

and it may be a good age but my word we have great oranges

from it, husband makes the marmalade (which is delicious) and the blossom is just beginning to open.

The perfume is almost gloriously overpowering, I love it! Spring is definitely

here.

I have a few bluebells out so I must remember to take a photo of those

later this morning.

You might remember I made a start with the

Gwennie Inspired Medallion and  had reached the stage below,

 this was taken on a pretty dull day, it shows
in the colours here.

Anyway with lots of things going on I didn't keep up with
the monthly schedule so the Medallion was shelved.
Yesterday I decided I had to finish it but just doing my own thing.
I've  added a couple of sliced borders, patched in a couple of
places because I had only a smidgy strip of the dark fabric (top and bottom) left
which I intended to use all around. After all  improvisation
can add a bit of interest.

Oops I never cropped the photo!

Fortuitously an order of Moda Grunge fabric arrived yesterday afternoon
and without realising it I had ordered the perfect lime green, so I added
a very narrow border. The next round will be pieced, but as yet I have
no idea of a design - I'm really making it up as I go along.

Back quickly to the fabrics - these are gorgeous, there are well over 100
colours in the range, the ones I ordered are below.

I am guilty of having been on a spending spree lately with
books and fabrics,  come to think of it that's a silly thing for me to say
because I actually don't feel guilty! There are many things I don't or can't do,
 some due to health problems and these include
not taking expensive holidays, or sometimes any holidays,
 I can no longer enjoy a glass  (or two) of lovely
rich red wine - which I loved - and I'm not a big buyer of clothing. The
first two are out for health reasons, the last because I'd rather
have fabric, or buy plants for my garden.

So given  the above you may be seeing more fabric and a couple
more books over the next few weeks!

I'm linking up with
Kaja and Ann
At Ad Hoc Improv Quilters

Back to the machine for me - enjoy the last few days of the week
and happy quilting.

Maureen

Gypsy Wife and beautiful blooms

For two weeks I've been battling with two infections and coping with the

effects of the antibiotics to clear the infections!!

Not the best and no sewing was done for a good 10 days or so but Wednesday this week

I headed off to my machine. 

Gypsy Wife - now completed Section 6 - hooray!! Here I must say that it

was partially complete, I certainly didn't do the whole thing

in two days!

Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, the odd point missing etc.

this was a mammoth job and one I very much doubt I would do again.

Just four more sections to go and then the task of putting all

ten sections together - what fun!

Mine is quite a busy quilt, I guess some would say a bit of a jumble, but I

wanted to try and create the feel of the Gypsies of old and the ones we used

to come across in my childhood. Research on the colours they used show

that rich colours were favoured and mixed  happily together, especially
in their clothing - no co-ordinating required here!

Their traditional caravans were beautifully painted, once again using

rich, bright colours. 

Keeping with the subject of colour look what arrived for me yesterday

a feast for the senses!!

I intend to spend some quality time this coming weekend with my head

buried in the pages.

More blooms - but pastel this time. Tulips are up in the garden

just opening

second day

a peek into the centre

fading today

I think that's it from me until early next week, have a lovely weekend!

Maureen

Kaleidoscopes

It's an absolutely beautiful Spring day today, although extremely cold and yesterday

we actually had hail and horrific cold blasts.

Cherry blossom is out in the garden, guaranteed to lift the spirits,

regardless of whether they are in need of lifting or not.

A few more kaleidoscope blocks were added to the growing collection

yesterday. A few sets, mix of Kaffe Collective and batiks

then cut and sewn, with a few left over pieces just

to mix things up a bit.

So, progress is being made but I need to ramp things up a bit

with this project, in fact I need to ramp up on a lot of projects! 

Today I'm getting on with a few improvements - hopefully - to my working

set up in the studio. I have a large board to cover after I post 

which gives me a larger area

for ironing, this will sit on new cubes which we bought yesterday, 

they're 40cm square, four of them and stacked two together

gives me a good height for my padded new board.

The sturdy fabric boxes which fit inside give me a heck of a lot

of scope for fabric reorganisation.

That's me for Friday, have a good quilting weekend!

Maureen

Gypsy Wife blocks, fabrics, cats

There were a few things this week which interfered

with my quilting, sum of progress on 

Gypsy Wife only three blocks.

One of the above mentioned distractions was time spent stroking new fabrics,

all are from the Kaffe Fassett Collective guys.

I'm waiting patiently for the new range to be released.

Aboriginal Dot is a good one instead of

pure solid.

The ones below are half yard pieces, I used to buy

quarters but found they disappeared pretty quickly. 

I bought yardage of these ones below, I'm using a lot of the bottom

five fabrics in Gypsy Wife but was down to teeny pieces and

needed more.

The top piece is the green colour way of Dream, I realised

I didn't have any in my stash, remedied that now!

Not a chatty post I know but I have things to work on this weekend and

it's 9.30am Saturday here in NZ, almost time for a morning cup of tea

before it's head down to the machine.

One quick photo of Leila in a command position watching out for the huge

Maine Coon cat from next door who calls over now and again to

check her out - something she's not too comfortable about. 

We had one of the microchip cat doors installed when she began

to go into the big outdoors and she can hop back into the house

quickly.

Enjoy your weekend.

Maureen