Planning, Surprises and Sunrise - heavy on photos!

I have a total finish!!

The quilt for Bea's 20th birthday has now been bound, she doesn't know

anything about this surprise at all, I hope she likes it!!

Photos taken on the old deck

Two more quilt tops are on their way to Leeanne

for her to work her magic with the quilting

Rainbow Blur below

and my Tula Pink top

I'm just about to bind one of my Memory Quilts - quick peek at a

smidgy bit of it below.

I need to get down down to some serious planning on quilts to be made,

size, fabrics chosen and so on. It's going to be a hard task to decide which to play with

over the next twelve months. I'm having a sale at our Auckland Quilt Guild

early August, with the results of a serious de-stash.

An echocardiogram a couple of weeks ago gave us a surprise,

I have a congenital heart defect, not picked up before.

My aortic valve did not form correctly, instead of having

three leaflets (tri-leaflet) which peel back fully in order to let the blood flow mine

is bicuspid, the valve only splits into two flaps, looks like a round emoji with just the smile!

This, as you can see, is a

slight problem!

The  valve thickens and becomes stiff  (stenosis) and is a disorder which is progressive - 

presently mild but progression rate is variable, hence my decision to take stock

of my proposed quilting and fabrics, hopefully prematurely!

However, life goes on and just look at this sunrise two days ago,

took my breath away.

You can just see a peep of soft turquoise streaking in through the trees.

Have a great weekend, see you soon.

Maureen

Saturday

Not a very inspiring post title I know, we've been having a heatwave all week

and it's been too hot for me to think of quilting, at least serious quilting.

This morning I'm rushing because I'm off to check out a new iPhone

I've been thinking of buying.

We did make a brief visit to a store to buy this bamboo quilt

ladder, $NZ 27, not bad. I just needed something to use for

hanging some of my quilt tops, it's presently sitting in the

entrance hall and providing some colour, goes pretty well with a

pastel art by my hubby and the old desk.

Wish I had bought two!

Side by side they would have hidden the wire you can see in the photo.

I had two quilts returned from

from Leeanne at quiltmekiwi

 shame about the sun on the RH side.

Backing is the KF wide fabric  below

just needs binding now but I'm waiting for a cooler day!

The other quilt I'll show soon.

The only other sewing was a few blocks for the

U&UQAL

with

 Sujatha Shah at Basket full of Scraps

two below

more to come later posted here and over on

Basket full of Scraps.

All for now, must get to the store.

Happy quilting!

Maureen

Snippets on Sunday

We're creeping ever closer to Christmas, how could the past 12 months have

moved along so very quickly!

First up before quilty photos see below. On the grocery shopping list 

was a bottle of a good, rich red wine for my pasta dish for the evening meal.

As soon as I spotted this one on the shelf,  I knew it had to come home with me!

A welcome addition to our meal.

I've been able to spend some time this week on my quilting,

first on my list was checking for stray threads

on two quilts ready to be sent off next week

for quilting.

First, with borders added, is Memory Quilt and you can see it was

a windy day. The story behind this quilt I will share in the New Year

when it's been quilted.

 A blip with the watermark, a practically non-existent 'z'.

Second quilt was made quite some time ago, around three years I think, from 

 Quilts in Morocco by Kaffe Fassett.

Blue Heaven

I thought the hydrangeas were a good match. 

A little more progress made with Mardi Gras

just pinned on the wall at the moment, 19 more blocks to make. I'll try different

settings when they're all finished. I'm loving playing

with strips and strings and as I have heaps I can see more string/strip quilts

in my future.

Something new now - I'm cutting solid 9" squares, 

the pattern is inspired by Sujata Shah and her

superb book Cultural Fusion Quilts. 

More squares to be cut this week. This is another in the

Memory Quilt category.

Time to go, a little time to spend on a few hexies and then

our two eldest grandchildren are coming for a meal with us.

Beatrice is the eldest at 19yrs and Charlie 17yrs.

Bea is training at a hair salon and Charlie heading off to

University in the New Year.

Doesn 't seem so long ago that we were sitting reading nursery rhymes

with them!!

Enjoy the coming week and hopefully not be too stressed

with preparations for Christmas. 

Maureen

2016 Finish-A-Long

The start of another year!

I apologise first off to those who  have seen 

most of the photos on my list of finish projects for the quarter.

Only one is in need of extra piecing work the remainder all
need quilting.

My list for the 1st Quarter:

High Flyer
Quilt for Daisy
Desert Rose
Blue Heaven
Scrap Rainbow
Alley Cats
Ice Cream

High Flyer

This needs quilting and quickly!!! This is for our youngest grand-daughter

who has a birthday on the 18th of this month, I need more hours in

my day. You can read the story about High Flyer HERE.

Quilt for Daisy
The story about this quilt is HERE

Desert Rose

 Desert Rose needs two more borders, she was part of the Midnight at the Oasis
Quilt-A-Long

Blue Heaven

Scrap Rainbow

Alley Cats

Ice Cream

Guess I'd better get on that machine!!

I'm off now to link up with
Leeanne at She Can Quilt
for the first quarter. 

A gathering of quilt tops - quite a few photographs

We had an absolutely beautiful spring day yesterday,

apple blossom

Rugosa "Alba"

everything in the garden is slowly coming back to life, scent from wisteria and our

Viburnum bush, orange blossom and the Rugosa rose above 

 pervades the whole back garden when all 

bushes are in full flower.

This was a good day to pull out my quilt tops from my very large

drawer in the chest in the bedroom. I keep them in there until I'm ready to sandwich

them and I also usually have a couple in there rolled up

ready to quilt, but they needed to see some fresh air so outside they went

under the apple tree.

Alley Cats - Rainbow Challenge 2014

Red Sea Sunset - Half Square Triangle Challenge

Ice Cream - going to be hand quilted

Blue Heaven

Rainbow Rag

I have two ready now for quilting, sandwiched yesterday

Northern Lights

Paintbox - before straightening the bottom left!




So nothing exciting achieved this week, once again. Oh, I have finished up the sewing
on High Flyer for my grand-daughter and playing with Scrap Vortex.

I have a provisional date of 12th November for my next hospital visit so
I'm trying to get a few loose ends tied up.

Thanks so much for all your good wishes and I should be posting
again during the week with progress on other projects!

Maureen