Four more sleeps until Christmas Day

 This post before Christmas has nothing at all relating to quilting!!

My one-patch is stalled right now as is my Lego quilt. The time just seems to fly by so I'm not pushing myself to try and finish one of them in the three days before Christmas, instead I'm going to sign off with a few photos from my garden, a riot of colour right now with first the rains and now the hot, hot weather, hope these will brighten your day.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas!

Maureen

How come it's December???

 Can't believe we're almost at the end of 2022 already with far less achieved on the quilting side of things than I had anticipated! 

My plan to take me to the end of this year is to be working on two quilts, this first one 
is the one patch, now to be called Willy Nilly with thanks to Julie who made the comment that she liked that I had just picked up the squares 'willy nilly'

WILLY NILLY

and the second is the Lego quilt, now to be named Mixed Bag as the strips were just pulled out of the bag  randomly - this was cropped, not very well, but all the blocks are now off the wall. Fifteen blocks finished and I'm thinking another 15 to give me 5 x 6, however at 50" x 60" it could be a little on the small size for a lap quilt. I see I made a start on this quilt in 2020 and just realised that it's looking quite dark, I think I photographed at the wrong time of the day.

MIXED BAG

My Slashed Squares top has been sent off for quilting, could be January before that's taken care of.

Next year I have a few projects in mind, one of them will include the Brandon Mably fabric below, in the store for basting pins but spotted this particular fabric on the KF racks, seems that it's his first designer fabric as the selvedge has it down as BM 001 - Casbah

I scored three half metre pieces too, top two are Martha Negley and the bottom is a Philip Jacobs - Gloriana.

The garden is full of colour again after the constant rain reduced my rose blooms to wet, brown lumps but the first dahlia is out, I just love the colour in this one.

A colourful way to end the post, more flowers should be out when I post next time, also more quilting!

Have a happy week

Maureen

Procrastination

Is anyone else out there guilty of the above?? I seem to have been in a state of procrastination for the best part of this year, however, over the past three weeks I've been tidying, deciding which quilts will be quilted in the coming year and I aim to finish a couple of projects, new ones are destined for 2023 also.

I came across a great article on the above subject, if anyone is interested here's the link https://jamesclear.com/procrastination - it's very long but fascinating.

One thing I didn't procrastinate about was this book, the courier delivered just now

I couldn't resist a quick peek - it's unbelievably stunning - guess what I'm reading tonight! On the stitching side of life not much has happened due to the above word in the heading of the post, but I do have a small stack of more 16 patch blocks

more will be sewn this coming weekend, husband is out on a painting  day Sunday so I can just sit and sew without any interruptions.

A few new Tula Pink fabrics arrived from the Moon Garden range, two of my favourites here

I just love the owls! The snakes are amazing but I didn't photograph those this time around, this post is top heavy enough with photos but I do have below some of the roses in the garden. First one is, I think, Princess Anne and second, just cannot remember, I'll check in my David Austin book later, third one is a modern rose and fourth is the rambler Veilchenblau growing along our back fence

My spacing seems to be playing up for me right now I'll work on that for the next post.

Back to my book!

Maureen

Stunning Surprise

 If you read my last post we were just heading across the road to visit son and family for a 5.00pm platter of goodies and what a surprise I had! Sunny day sitting out on the balcony, cool wind began to blow so I was asked would I like a jacket or quilt/blanket to keep myself warm, accepted.

Couldn't believe my eyes when out Matt came with this quilt  below draped over his arm

I may have shrieked - can't remember but what a thrill to see and handle this old quilt. All hand stitched apart from someone must have machined around the cream ?binding and stitched over the hand quilting.

It's quite large and I'll go back and measure. A friend of son and his then wife were given this quilt from a friend as their wedding present, I knew they had been gifted a quilt but I didn't realise that it was an old one. Its definitely hand stitched and quilted.

Doesn't seem to have any batting, if it originally did then it's become so thin  that it can't be felt. Just a cream backing. Cotton fabrics with the tiny tartan squares having a taffeta sort of feel, one is torn so I'll have a peek. You will notice that one block is stitched in upside down - I didn't until I came to begin this post. I have a few photos below of blocks.

sorry this one is upside down

The photo below shows a corner with the faded yellow border which is not even width at all, narrower in places then becoming wider further along.

 As mentioned above the hand stitching and the overstitching with machine can be seen clearly.  No makers name or any sort of label on the back. This was bought in Alabama, Matt's friend was working in America at the time, he will try and make contact  to establish where in Alabama she found it.

I love quilts, especially bright and bold as you well know, I look at older quilts in books and have never been very excited by them before but as I handled this quilt, thinking about the maker and the length of time she would have been stitching, using whatever pieces of fabric she could find, I was enormously moved and felt so privileged to gently handle it. I shall be 'visiting' said quilt again soon!!

If any of you have thoughts on the age of the quilt, or any other ideas, please do share them with me.

Back to my sewing haven right now, back soon.

Happy Quilting everyone.

Maureen

Slow and Steady

Well, I'm certainly slow and steady at the moment!  Three projects in the works right now but not getting along as quickly as I should like - better time management is called for I think.

Just two more rows of my Slashed Squares quilt need to be sewn together but instead of pressing on I decided to do a little more fabric arranging, not a good move in some respects but in others it's resulted in  finding a project from two years ago. 

Found hidden in the bottom of a box tucked away at the back of the cupboard was a container of 2 and1/2" squares, a number of squares stitched into fours and one 16 patch square.

Below we have a shockingly untidy collection of squares

a number of the four patch strips

and the 16 patch

 

I just couldn't remember cutting or stitching these but felt they must be reasonably recent. After sitting a while I did recall this was after seeing a post from quiltdivajulie and her quilt Bemused in January 2020,  the link will take you straight to the post. I fell in love with her quilt and decided there and then to make one - you can see I didn't actually get very far at the time.

 Taking the bull by the horns I headed straight to the machine and made a start but after a while realised not all the squares were equal, some were a smidgen out so the seams weren't always matching up. Thinking not good enough, begin again with new squares and perhaps Leila could use my efforts so far for her own quilt!!!

This isn't the traditional light square, dark square but just whatever came out of the box was stitched together. However, I love it anyway and I'm quite sad that I wasn't careful enough with my cutting.

In between sorting and sewing I made a start on ditch quilting long strips on Northern Lights. Next step will be hand quilting in the ombre patches.

A few more fabrics have been added to my stash

Bold Blooms from Kaffe Fassett

and Hibiscus below from Philip Jacobs

That's all from me for now, we've just had a message from our eldest son to pop across the road to his place, grand-daughter has put together a platter of tasty eats for 5.00pm, who could refuse that! See you soon and Happy Quilting.

Maureen

Slashed Squares - 25 blocks complete

Yes, at last all 25 blocks finished and up on the wall, the blocks were easy to cut and sew but the time spent on arranging and re-arranging has been phenomenal! No sooner would I think I had a good arrangement than I would return the next day and find that no, not quite happy and so another re-arrange.

Below was the 'finish' in the morning, blocks just pinned, not too tidily though

 I wasn't happy with the block on the fourth row third along from the left, so in the afternoon

after changing  the block I didn't care for and replacing,I  also just moved two others. Yes, it's busy, but I like a good mish-mash now and again! I could continue on with various permutations but I'm calling it finished but I am open to suggestions. It really wasn't too nice a day for photographing, the quilt is brighter than shown but we have a wet week on the cards so I knew the problem would be just the same the next day. There's a list of projects by my design wall and I just want to make a start on at least one of them.

New fabric arrived two days ago from the Kaffe Collection and four from Snow Leopard - Philip Jacobs 

this one is obviously Parrots, Snow Leopard range, bright and bold and that's what I like, but I find the fabric slightly heavy if that makes sense, just not as nice to handle as the KF printed ones. Washed and hung on the line in the rain to see if would soften, it didn't so I think this may go with my backing fabric collection, it may be a contender for using on the back of the Slashed Squares.

The other three from the range have a softer feel to them, the difference is noticeable when handling the new Brandon Mably fabrics.

Snow Leopard range

Brandon Mably

these ones from Brandon are a little out of my comfort zone but I loved the design and colours.
A few from Kaffe's new collection came along for the ride and needless to say I love them and can't wait to begin using them. I'm having to go with simpler patterns now and checking my Accuquilt dies it looks like there's no end to the projects on my list which will be do-able with the ones I have. They're so expensive here in New Zealand, even the mats which are needed.

The Spring weather, both sun and rain, have boosted the flowering and new leaves on trees, climbers and even a few of the roses, the Japanese Maple in the back garden has leaves just breaking out

and the purple Wisteria is beginning to put on a good show

A little re-arranging in my small studio has taken place slowly over the past few weeks, I think the present arrangement will be workable but I have more fabric to tidy and put in their respective containers.

One problem I can't seem to solve is whether to continue keeping fabric ranges separate as I do now, Kaffe, Anna Maria Horner, Tula Pink for example and there's an untold number of others but I find I'm hunting in quite a few baskets to find all the necessary blues or pinks or reds etc.  it would be easier if everything was just stored in colour regardless of designer, or solids, or patterned, something to think about but I'd be interested to know how you store your fabrics.

Time for me to decide on lunch, we're eating early today so I'll head to the kitchen. Before I go  I do hope you are all safe and well after the horrific weather happenings in the USA and Canada. Been thinking of you all.

Take care and Happy Quilting until next time

Maureen

End of an Era and quilt progress

Most of you will no doubt be aware that the 96yr old Queen Elizabeth ll died on September 8th at Balmoral in Scotland.  Being British born and bred and a royalist through and through this was the saddest news. 

70 years ago a little 5yr old girl on a sunny day was standing, with other pupils from the small four classroom school, all waving Union Jack flags, waiting for the new Queen Elizabeth to pass by with her husband Prince Philip. She had ascending the throne just a few weeks before and was touring parts of the country, much as King Charles will be doing shortly.  

After a long, long wait the cavalcade slowly approached and luckily the Queen was on our side of the
road, I can still see the scene so very clearly, she was wearing a stunning peacock green suit, I think silk, with matching hat, and had that wonderful smile for us all. She was crowned the year after and we were all glued to the television screen for a few hours.

Her smile was always a delight to see, especially when wearing her beautiful brightly coloured outfits
with those stunning hats.

Sadly this is the scene as I write now, she lies in state with the Imperial State Crown, the Sceptre and the Orb also placed there, sadly the photo with all regalia seem to have gone awol. The Crown is much, much brighter than I could get on this photo.

Now it is God Save The King.

OK, I will get onto quilting matters, I just had to get the above thoughts down on paper.

I haven't read blogs, not sent emails nor received them because my computer was not playing nicely, now fixed, thank goodness. 

Progress has been made with the quilt for grandson Charlie, he likes bright and bold and that's going to be what he gets. Blocks on the wall, no placement order of course I just wanted to put them up there as I stitched to check on colours used. The last quilt I made for him he was 6 years old, quite detailed, with medallion style borders, diamonds and so on, I had bought dyed fabric for the backing which was extremely bright, swirly and a mix of colours. He told me a couple of years ago that he still used his quilt even though it was now too small for his bed size, the interesting part was that he has never had his quilt right side uppermost and always had the back showing as he preferred all the colour!! I intended all along for this new quilt to be scrappy and busy looking, no definite pattern to it, I think it will work.

25 blocks in all are needed to make a 70" x 70" quilt, the design wall goes to the floor so plenty of room.

Still haven't been able to calibrate the colour settings on my screen due to the computer issues.

All for now, back to sewing all the pieces cut and ready to go through the machine. I can now read blogs again also!!

Maureen

A sweet Spring day

The first day of Spring arrived yesterday here in New Zealand. Such a beautiful sunny day, blue skies,  birds singing, the scent of freesias just blooming and I felt a true lightness of spirit and a return of energy. Isn't it amazing that each season has its special memories, mine are definitely of Springtime as a youngster in England.  

I took a few photos of the first Spring flowers in the garden, I'll show them at the end of the post.

Progress with Slashed Squares has been made thanks to another lighter splint, these were already cut as necessary before my fall. I have just four sewn up so far and the colours are somewhat brighter I feel in 'real life'. Something to deal with in my settings I think.

There are a few more on the wall whilst I play around to find combinations that I'm happy with, one that doesn't excite me is this one below, again the block is dulled down but I think the blue will have to go! This is still in four parts wth threads untrimmed

Whilst having to take a break from my quilting, housework, gardening and so on, I've had time to think!!
Gradually it dawned on me that I had too many thoughts racing along in my brain preventing me from  sleeping, I was constantly worrying about everything. Many quilting projects are whirling around, most are ones I'd really like to make a start on in the coming months  and also there are some which are languishing in their respective drawers. I've begun projects without truly thinking through  and which I actually now don't like and don't know why I began them, anyone else have these problems? My unwanted 5 large bags of scraps (I still have two tubs more which I'm keeping) and old books and projects are going to be given to the local school and hospice shop in the village. Boy do I feel better after making a decision!

On to my garden, the early flowers are just opening, wish you could smell the perfume from the freesias,

the forget-me-nots are white ones which suddenly appeared, they're now covering quite a large area, 

Clivias are blooming and providing fodder for the snails,

and where would we be without lemons freshly picked from the tree,

mustn't leave out one special garden inhabitant below

he visits every morning and sits on the decking rail by the dining area window driving poor Leila crazy, soon as he sees us put out the two apple halves he heads into the garden.

Oh, I forgot my two new pieces of fabric, the local shop still had these on their shelves and they've always been favourites of mine

so one metre of each came home with me.

That's all from me at the moment, enjoy the early days of Spring or Autumn and Happy Quilting.

Maureen