Lost for words .....

Most of my time over the past week has been taken up with listening to the updates, media updates from the Prime Minister and others following the horrific visit from Cyclone Gabrielle. I could write pages for a post on the devastation and loss, not for myself but for others throughout this country whose lives have changed forever. My post title  "Lost for words" is just that, I can't begin to put into words the happenings of the three days and more when Gabrielle caught up with us, suffice to say it still feels quite unbelievable.

This post will be about my achievements on the quilting side of life over the past week, which really are not much at all, but over the past two days I realised I needed to get back in my studio playing with colour and fabric and creating. I also haven't read any blogs in the past week, back to normal tomorrow.

So, the Maggie Pearl quilt with a few blocks sewn and shown in my last post. I wrote that I was finding it difficult working with the particular fabrics and it was a few words from Wanda that I could cut strips from my own fabrics  to add to the jelly roll that set in motion a new take on this quilt.

Thanks to my granddaughter tidying up my scraps I found treasured, long forgotten fabrics and an old Kaffe caught my eye so paired this with a fabric from the existing strips. I repeated the process and was pretty happy with the results. My habit of changing things up then came into play, out came more of my treasures and the softer coloured Maggie Pearl is morphing into something different, I have a few more blocks to sew and they'll be in my next post - hopefully.

My Slashed Squares quilt for eldest grandson came back from being quilted by Leeanne from Northland, I opted to go with the binding being attached also.

The backing showing the quilting design Mod Circles

and the binding - look at that super mitred corner

Oh, I bought three new fabrics and they aren't KF, quite the opposite in fact, these are by Morris & Co and are really brighter than shown here.

I found yesterday that cats are obviously pretty happy if they can find a $120 pure wool ironing mat on  cutting table, just waiting to be slept on! She was quite happy to cope with the old wooden top which is being replaced.

My garden was pretty wiped out in places but a potted hibiscus moved under the deck had a flower open, I love the scarlet feathered looking centre.

I'm off to sit and read a while but back on to Maggie Pearl tomorrow morning, back soon and Happy Quilting!

Maureen

Here we go again - Cyclone Gabrielle is heading for New Zealand

 Can you believe this?? From a category 2 it has now gone up to category 3 so Auckland, Northland (area further North than Auckland) and Coromandel a little further down and East from Auckland are directly in the firing line. We are once again in a State of Emergency for the next week, forecasts tell us that this will be a 100 yr event with 150kilometre winds,  power outage, trees down, waves up to 6 or 7 metres, and to have enough medications for one week, food for at least three days, a plan should evacuation be necessary, this would include pets of course.  The destruction will be huge as recovery is still underway from the one two weeks ago -  and still we have doubters on climate change and global warming!

Apologies for the rant, now on to quilting.

First of all a pull for a quilt pattern from  Rachaeldaisy - Across The Fields, I have a few more softer fabrics to add to these below, a few already chosen have been missed off this photo.

The quilt calls for 7 and 1/2" half square triangles and  tidying with grand-daughter earlier in the week I found a small cache of 8" already cut for some long forgotten project, perfect to trim down and use here.

Before I forget, remember Tiny Beasts  destined for Balderdash in my last post, not any more! The large squares of 9 and 1/2" were too large for the Tiny Beasts fabric, they didn't play happily at all. The small squares I had in my post were perfect so I'm going to save these for a future project.

I have another fabric pull ready for The Hannah Quilt from Erica Jackman - link takes you to her site
Kitchen Table Quilting.

I'm wanting to get on to this one asap! Lots of strips with fabrics by KF Collective, delicious colour, perfection!!

Now for something out of my comfort zone. I don't usually buy Jelly Rolls but one came up on a site here in New Zealand and the colours seemed to be nice and bright although not ones I would normally work with. These were going to be used for the Maggie Pearl quilt - link takes you to the site.

When I unrolled the fabrics they were a more subdued colour, what to do, decided to go with them. I have five blocks made and finding it hard going with a limited number of colours - 

see what I mean? It's not a huge quilt just 40" x 56" so I can hang on in there.

That's all my quilting news, with the cyclone on it's way and probably hitting fully on Sunday I may or may not be stitching, plus I have a steroid injection in my shoulder next week so it may be slow stitching for a a week or two following on from that. 

I can't end this post without mention of the horrific situation in Turkey and Syria, my thoughts and prayers are with all caught up in these tragedies who are suffering in so many, many ways.

Maureen