Waiting In The Wings

Sunday, August 27, 2023

Sunday sewing with Hannah

Almost finished up sewing block seams, more tomorrow and then, hopefully, a completed top on Tuesday

and then a full photo without the addition of my chair back and small ironing surface. Just click to enlarge the photo. Oh for a larger design wall. This was such an easy quilt to make, perfect for using up already cut 2 and1/2 "strips or a jelly roll.

Here I've used strips left over from other projects and also I cut into odd shaped large scraps, a few I also cut from favourite yardage. Two strips I particularly wanted to use were short of a 13" length but by scratching around in my very small scraps I found tiny pieces and stitched together, it is after all a scrappy quilt, here's a joined up strip, tiny piece LH side. 


I began with neat stacks of 13" strips, two of which are below, lots more not in the photo. The throw size is 60" x 72" and I gaily kept on going hunting strips, I only needed 120 but when counting up found that I had stacked 260, perhaps there will be a second Hannah quilt in the future.


Here's how they ended up after random pulling out of pieces


and there are more of these covering the cutting table. Guess what I'm going to be doing come Tuesday!

For a break last week kind husband drove me to the new premises of The Ribbon Rose, a well established store for many, many years here in Auckland. Recently they moved and what a treasure filled three storey building they now occupy. The fabric floor is amazing and it goes without saying that I found a few KF fabrics on sale, just a few quarters came home with me. Large bins had simply rolled up metre lengths of fabrics at good prices, I took a chance and bought this one


delighted when I came back home and unrolled, below is a small section of the full piece.


I just love this!!

Books are a passion of mine, all my life I have been a voracious reader but over the past few years this pleasure, for various reasons, seemed to have been left behind a little. I'm now back on board with books and there are quite a few on my bookshelves which I have never read, some have been read many times over  because they were so exciting, moving and so very interesting.

Two below, the cover of the first one is self-explanatory, having worked in a Pathology Lab for a number of years in long ago days, and also spent time in General Practice surgeries as receptionist, I was excited to find this book a little while ago. 


These Precious Days is a collection of essays  by Ann Patchett, each essay stands alone. I see myself keeping this one to read during quiet time in the evening, perhaps even when settled in bed with a nice hot drink!



Perhaps I could write a little about my thoughts on a particular essay after reading here on the blog.

Silly mistake made by me in my last post.  I spoke about making a quilt for our "soon to be grand-daughter" - the quilt will actually be for our great grand-daughter!

That's all from me for now, a rest day today after a family lunch here at home yesterday on my husband's 80th birthday, we had such a happy time but I was shattered by early evening and my bed called to me earlier than usual.

Maureen

Friday, August 11, 2023

Another new day

 A glorious sunrise yesterday morning 



I usually begin my day by heading out on the deck to watch the sunrise, never tire of the sight.

Life seems to have moved along slowly and in rather a muddle over the past few weeks, little to show but I'm working away steadily on the Hannah Quilt and Tussie Mussie, five rows now of the latter and five more to go, each row is folded in half and  pinned on the wall keeping me motivated. 


Come December I have two sales tables booked at the Guild Meeting, so slowly, slowly I'm going through older fabrics, different designers and a couple of my scrap bins to select goodies for my tables. I came to the decision to ditch some of the older fabrics saved for backings and use my favourites, I may as well enjoy them right now!

Always find a surprise as I hunt through, the one below, possibly a Hoffman from way back, was a huge favourite and I don't have much left now, this one I'm keeping.


Two new fabrics came to be added to my stash last week, first one I spotted online from a store further down the Island, this will be used in a quilt for our soon to be grand-daughter, still a couple of months away.


This was so difficult to photograph, the soft green background repeatedly looked almost grey on the first few tries. It's a gorgeous fabric with hummingbirds, beetles and all sorts of flowers the dragonfly seems to be missing in this particular photo. This is a Tamara Kate design - Anew.   

The second piece is a Heather Bailey fabric line - Local Honey



daughter will be sewing this up in a summer dress for me, she is a designer and after three years training here in NZ she flew off to England and worked a while for the British designer John Richmond, originally from Manchester, then to London and eventually to Milan. He was very much into the rock music fashion industry and dressed many of the stars, still does I guess and Sally would tell us of all the folk who came to have him make their clothes, she worked on one in particular which was a green suede suit for George Michael, this was around the early nineties.

Books are being sorted for the sale, I have far too many so one stack is ready 


thank goodness I have until the end of November to process everything!

Well, I began the post with a sunrise and I'm ending with a mid evening photo of the moon through the bare oak tree next door, this is my nightly ritual - moon gazing


see you all again soon!

Maureen