Waiting In The Wings

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Phew - made it with a post after three weeks!

 I do not know what has happened to my blog postings,
can 't believe the number of posts I made prior to this year.
Methinks this could be due to the situation we all find ourselves in throughout
the world with Covid,  plus personal issues which also throw a spanner in the works 
and then of course various countries in the world
have their own crises to deal with.

All said, it's been a heck of a year for us all.
 So thank goodness for fabric and thread to keep us sane.

On the fabric and thread side things for me
have been a little slow but I now have only two more
rounds to add to Matt's quilt, latest photo below taken on a windy day
in the back garden


and hoping to have the top complete by the end of this week.
The next step will be the question of quilting. I don't see machine
quilting this with, for example, an edge to edge pattern, not good at all I
think it would ruin the simplicity of the design.

I see this as needing to be hand quilted, perhaps with a perle cotton and
big stitch style, I'm thinking keeping with the straight lines of the
fabric and possibly very four lines each round in the
direction of the lines, something like that, I'm drawing a
plan on paper. Any ideas/suggestions welcomed.

Did I mention that I was enrolled in  Colorwash 360
with
Wanda at Exuberant Color?
Am amazing course, fantastic detail on Colorwash quilts at which she is the maestro.
I decided to buy a small pack of Kaffe OOP fabrics from Wanda in readiness
for the course,  here are
three of my favourites


but what a delight to see all the fabrics in the pack!
Lots more fabric from my KF Collective stash needed to be cut into
2 and 1/2" squares, still not enough to give me the required effect
so it's on to the scrap boxes, that's gonna take an awful lot of time
so I've decided to leave this project until the New Year. I have three quilts
already on the the go and fabrics cut some time ago for more, the
occasional squirrel comes along to visit also.

I do have my blues pretty much sorted for the Colorwash,


a good range from light to dark but more needed for greater choice.
I like to check the value by editing


and I'm reasonably happy but as I said, a few extras needed.

I am as crazy about books as I am about my fabrics and have so many
waiting to be read, this is a minute stack which sits on my
bedside cabinet each one waiting in turn


presently this is the one I'm reading now


Freya Stark makes magic with her words, I'll tell you all about this
in a later post.

There is a book pictured below which has such memories
for me, this is on my list of 'unstealables'. I'd love to share
with you the reason it means so much to me, perhaps in my next post or
at the very least the one after that.


Time for me to prepare dinner but as usual I have something from
the garden to show.

Rosa Multiflora

She is a monster and will take over totally if left to her own devices,
we give her room because her scent is incredible, so sweet.

Another rambler is

Veilchenblau

again with a scent which covers the whole of the back garden.

Below is my favourite rose from David Austin.

Sharifa Asma

At the time I bought her he had stated she was his best rose,
again with an incredible scent.

That's all from me until next time, I know Thanksgiving is
almost here and I'm not sure whether most will have to miss the large family
gathering this year, but I do hope you can enjoy the day
no matter where you are and who you are with.

Take care and keep safe!

Maureen





Monday, November 2, 2020

Scraps and Secure Sites - https

Here we are in November, did anyone see the moon
on Halloween ?

I spent some time outside enjoying the sight of the clouds scudding
along and giving glimpses of the full moon - a blue moon I believe.
Suitably spooky!!!

This could possibly be a boring read today, nothing interesting to show I'm afraid
thanks to a hiccup with dental treatment involving more visits then
were envisaged and swallowing quite a lot of pain medication!!
An emergency pacemaker clinic visit,  a meeting with the cardiologist
involving blood tests and taking things at a slower pace
 also held up quilting progress.

So, dealing with scraps, lots and lots of scraps as you will see below

a flimsy red scrap bin - falling apart as you can see,
a 16" square bin into which I have just thrown scraps over the
past few years, however, I have three more bins larger than this one
also tightly packed with scrap pieces.

I thought it a good idea to empty this one onto the floor


and I had one heck of a shock at the amount
16" high, 28" wide and 36" in length!!!!
I hastily crammed them all back into the box and decided to
make a start on sorting this week, I think one box each week
will keep me occupied.

Shifting furniture around in my little studio came next and I
eventually found a use for an older sewing cabinet.
I enjoy having my computer in here but it is a small room and I needed
to think outside the box a little.

So here we have the cabinet closed up with computer sitting happily

but no room for my legs of course  and I have
the beautiful colourwash quilt by 
Wanda at Exuberant Color
above the screen.

On to the room for legs


door swings open with pens, glues, stickies, binder clips
and other fiddly bits, pus I have the large holder at the bottom
for patterns, notebooks and so on. I sit comfortably with legs tucked in!

When the computer is not in use it sits on my cutting table right up
against the wall, the top flap then opens to the left hand side giving me
an area of 51" long and I have a padded and covered piece of
board to sit on there, I then have a good size ironing area.
To do this I have to roll the cabinet more over to the right to meet up flush with
the cutting table.
Told you it could be a boring post didn't I?


However, I hope you will read what I have written below,  it's not boring, it is important.

A few of the blogs I visit and have visited for many years are
coming up with notice that they are not secure sites,
they have never switched to https, this is a simple matter of going into settings
and a quick tick solves the problem.

I am no expert and certainly would not have a clue of how to go into all the
details as to why it is so important for all of us but
Ann at Fret Not Yourself
whom I have followed for many years has written two
extremely informative posts with excellent information, she has kindly agreed
to my giving the link above to the latest post above on the subject and the link to her 
original information is given in there also.

I do hope you will visit.

I'll close with a photo of a stunning Clematis seen at the local Garden Centre

I'm wondering if I have room somewhere in my garden for this beauty.

Before I head off to make dinner I would just like to wish all my blogger friends
 in the USA a safe time in the days to come, sending my best to you all.
Please take care of yourselves.


Maureen