Waiting In The Wings

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Thursday again

Well, I finished the 10 churn dash blocks today - not good!!
I have a photo and it's taken on a ridiculous angle, but that's all I
could manage today, reason why after the photo
with wavy blocks!


 I wouldn't want to size this to Xtra Large.
 I've had back/neck problems for ages
and at my review Monday of my CT scan and appt with the Spinal 
specialist they confirmed that basically my whole spine is in a
very bad way.
I won't bore you with the effect this is having on me, but it's enough to make
life very, very difficult in a number of ways and extremely painful.
Decreased sensation in my fingers is having an effect on
my patchwork piecing and that bugs me!!! Small pieces
are now a no go for me, as you can tell by looking
at the Churn Dash blocks above.

Whilst I'm mulling over some issues relating to the above I
had a wander around the garden,
the camellia below is superb, around 6" across


and look what's just opened in time
for the official start of Spring tomorrow here in
New Zealand - my special little violet "Freckles".


Time to head over to see what's happening
on
Sew Stitch Snap SHARE
with
Linda at Koka Quilts
and
Julie at JulieLou

see you there!
Maureen

Friday, August 25, 2017

A Brief Encounter .....

This will be brief due to a silly way of rushing to grab a hold
of the car door - thankfully no fingers trapped but I tore
one of my nails almost halfway down the nail bed!!
OUCH

This was on Monday and luckily we were almost right next to our
doctor's surgery so I hopped in there and the
ever so kind nurse trimmed of what she could, the saying
"hanging by a thread" now has a whole new
meaning for me!
Very difficult to sew/type, below is all I could manage
this week.









So here are four 6" Churn Dash blocks, these
will be in the next row of my Memory Quilt 1,
see the labels on the right for a past photo.

I foolishly thought I could try a little hand quilting (sore
finger left hand), the quilt - Paintbox - was already in the hoop
with three blocks quilted - but it was a no go!!


All my above efforts were closely watched over by my
faithful helper


who is obviously letting me know that she's not moving!
I'll be back in a few days, have a good weekend.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Projects - present and future - and a visit to sew stitch snap SHARE

We're still in Winter, at least officially, but this beauty
was flowering yesterday


and heaps more all ready to open, the scent is out of this world.

I've finished my Golden Strips top


I had to lay it on the floor to take the photo, not enough room
on my design wall and the morning light was brighter than
I would have liked for photographing.

Here's a close-up with one of my favourite fabrics with
the gorgeous roses in Yellow Floral Delight, a Philip Jacobs design.


I 'd decided there was no more room on my book shelves for any
more quilting books but then I succumbed to this one,
it arrived in the mail a few days ago


and it's another glorious publication!!

One of the first quilts which caught my attention was this one


and it really is brighter than it looks here.
I have lots of the KF  stripes and his shot cottons so
this is on my list, the best part is I don't need to think about spending
on fabrics.

My Little Bits blocks are coming along slowly, there's quite
a lot of cutting in this one. Placement is supposed to be random, it is a scrappy quilt
after all,


but I'll make all the blocks before putting them up on the wall
and play around with them.

Paying a visit to 
Linda and Julie
for
sew stitch snap SHARE



Thursday, August 10, 2017

Moving forward

My Golden Strips quilt only has 5 more strips to go up


this should be all sewn tomorrow.
I'm still getting the hang of my new computer and all the gadgets,
 this photo was taken with my iPad and the light was not
very good, it's not coming up as rich a golden as it truly is.

You all know how much I love the Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics,
one of the reason I enjoy working with strips from these guys
is the serendipity which can come from randomly sewing the strips, check out 


Shoal on the left hand side with a strip of Pastel Brocade next to it,
I love the way we almost have a secondary pattern where the centre of the 
Brocade flower meets up with the top of one of the fish - not cut and matched I have to say.

I had a new book arrive yesterday, I missed out on this at the first printing
and they went to a second print


and I'm looking forward to some practice over the next week.

Another project for next week is to gather my scraps from Gypsy Wife
and join in September with Ann  at Fret Not Yourself blog,
Ann thought it would be a good idea to make scrappy butterfly
blocks, I'm joining in with her 'cos there's
 no shortage of scraps at my place!!

I'm just going to post a photo of  lovely camellia -  Guilio Nuccio -
it's a practice run for adding text with a new editing system,
things may not work out too well on this first trial.
Here goes


well I can just about see the text bottom right,
a little more work needed methinks!

All for now, enjoy the rest of your week
and happy quilting.


Wednesday, August 2, 2017

sew stitch snap SHARE

And so another Wednesday has come around and
this week is another link up with
Linda and Julie
for
sew stitch snap SHARE.

Not a whole lot going on in my little sewing room,
just something easy and straight out of a book!


From a Kaffe Fassett book, pattern named Golden Strips!!
Pretty self explanatory.
I'm not too convinced about the Grey Brocade fabric, I'll sew up a few
more strips and see how I feel about it then.

The time since my post last week has been spent taking stock of
a few things, being up before dawn to look
at the planet Venus which is beautifully clear just before dawn
in the Eastern sky


just a tiny pinprick on this photo, but followed by


a beautiful sunrise.

Trying to walk on a very marshy lawn to see what's flowering in
the garden beds - one of my favourites is this


and if my memory serves me right this is a primula - correct
me if I'm wrong.
And that's it in this brief, barely quilting, post.
Don't forget to visit with Linda and Julie - links above
at the top.
I'll be back in a few days after upping my game with
the amount
of quilting projects I'm posting these days!

Maureen