Ready for Red is a Neutral and quilts on doors

Dealing with Red is a Neutral first off.

This is the invitational with

AHIQ: Improvisational Utility Quilts

and the back story is on their blog.

I'm going with a Liberated Wedding Ring

inspired by Gwen Marston and Freddy Moran. 

Today I stitched four 7 and1/2" blocks using

a stack of reds, a heap of scraps and Vilene as the

foundation for the strips.

Four of the small blocks form the ring as below

but the effect of twenty of these larger blocks with all the red could

be a bit too much for the eye so I'm going to sash them

more of these are set down for tomorrow.

You might remember the two small quilts shown below.

It's pretty impossible to have quilts hanging in our living room,

we have two large sets of glass doors, but our entrance and

hallway is a good spot and  my two "top" ladders are in there

I came to the conclusion that small works would look good

hanging on the doors - laundry and the first bedroom

leading off the long hall.

Sailing Through Suez

Chinese Coins

The doors look as if they need a good clean, but I can assure

that's not the case, they're off-white and the

angle of my photograph throws shadows here and there.

Apologies to those who read this blog and also AHIQ

as I have a post over there as well! 

Happy Quilting

Maureen

One step forward, two steps back

If you read my last post from 29th October you might recall that I showed

my scrap vortex cut into strips along with two other fabrics.

deconstructed scrap vortex

aboriginal dot and kf stripe

I also said that before the end of that week I would have something to

show for my efforts as I was now off crutches.

They are now back with me, hence the wording of the title.

Dictionary definition of the post title:

If you take one step forward, two steps back, you make progress but then

experience events that cause you to be further behind than you were when you made

the progress.

In reality I have made al little progress in the past two days sewing a few seams and

buying new fabrics - necessary for therapy!

Below is the beginning of my take on a new Chinese Coins using the strips

shown above.

Strips sewn 3" x 11 and 1/2", yes a bit of a strange size.

You can see that the bright scrap strips seem to be taking second place

to the dark combination.

Here is one completed strip, there will be three in total

My husband looked at this and said I had killed the colour,

perhaps I have but I am happy with it. Yes, it has darker elements rather

than my usual all over bright colour, I think sometimes our quilts reflect

our mood at the time, mine wasn't that great!

But  here comes the colour starting with

the 2018 range of Moda Bella Solids - there a few moody darks

at the bottom of the bundle, I have plans for an Amish piece.

 The next two photos are Tula Pink Zuma and sadly 

these shots don't quite show the vibrancy of this range.

Don't ask what I have in mind for Zuma,I have a lot of ideas buzzing around.

The beauty of Tula Pink fabrics

is that they mix and match, especially when incorporating

her solids, stripes and dots.

Lunch time now - home baked savoury cheese muffins and a cuppa.

Fingers crossed for a little more sewing over the weekend.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

A sunny Sunday - a flimsy, flowers and a super sunrise

I began my day at 6.30am, I always try and catch
the sunrise

this one was a real beauty!

Since my last post I have a flimsy finish- Freshly Squeezed - but

I could only take a quick photo draped

across the old garden bench, I'll try and post another one later.

54" wide and 66" long, 6" finished blocks.

These pieces were left over from my Chinese Coin challenge, see below,

with AdHoc Improvisational Quilters.

A Taste Of The Orient

I still have heaps of strips left over, somewhere in the future

there will probably be another quilt in these colours.

I've been pondering on the present challenge with

AHIQ  -  Maps and Mappings  - 

you can read all about the challenge from Ann

HERE

or click on the sidebar button if you'd like to know more about the blog.

I had jotted down my ideas and a few days ago happened

to visit the local book store, I came home with this book.

I'll post a little more on this in a later post but for the moment I'll share

a few words from the author in her preface where she explains that this is not a 

textbook, nor the work of a scholar, but a book "that invites the reader

on a journey from map to map, to let their imagination run free ..."

The last six words decided me on which of my ideas was the

one calling to me 100%.

On to the flowers.
A wander in the garden as we head for September, the official
first month of Spring here in New Zealand, yielded a touch of white with this

Hellebore

and this arum lily just beginning to unfurl, I love the

movement here.

Don't you think the curves are just wonderful?

That's me for the day, almost lunchtime and then time to bury
my head in a book for a little while.

Back during the week - happy quilting until then.

Maureen

A very cold Saturday, de-stashing and Improv

I've just come back home after selling

excess books and fabrics at our monthly

Guild meeting.

It's very cold and grey outside but the

wonderful sunrise gave me a good start.

I've been really busy the past two weeks carrying out some

de-stashing of fabrics for my sale and the same with my books,

very little actual quilting has been going on.

Some of you might recall the start of an improv medallion

with AdHocImprovQuilters early 2017, I came to a

stop with the central portion and couldn't decide

on where to go next.

Due to the formation of a dedicated blog - please see the

button right hand sidebar and do go visit - it was suggested invited contributors

give an update on improv quilts made earlier.

My update was pretty sparse, just this unfinished piece
and my Chinese Coins.

I was stirred into action to work again on this piece following

a comment - a nice one.

Next round of borders going on, churn dash blocks re-purposed from my

parts box, I rejected these from an earlier quilt. Of course you can see 

I left the odd few threads in there - too much of hurry to

get this post off.

A finish with a lovely wee flower from my

back garden border, I believe it's some sort of creeping geranium,

do I love the colour!!

I'll be back during the week after some serious

quilting!

Maureen

18 in 2018 and other matters

First up my finish for January as part of

which is Chinese Coins below - finished yesterday and

measuring 27" by 35"

another photo with my all time favourite

bowl, just the perfect shade of jade green.

Each elongated triangle was quilted individually which made for 

a lot of swishing the quilt around!

After finishing CC yesterday I moved on to a totally unrelated

project, hopefully as part of the next AHIQ invitational.

Some of you may remember this from quite some time back! 

Corner triangles were planned but

I wasn't happy enough with it to carry on, into the unfinished

drawer it went. 

Yesterday I fished it out and did a little unpicking

and I have an idea for using this central piece which I love.

Due to my mishap with the machine needle and other happenings

I've had a pretty slow two weeks and desperately need to get some

order into my quilting life - after all my word for the year is

BALANCE

so I should put it into action.

I've set a few days aside to do this and I am behind with 

writing down my thoughts on the Kaffe Fassett lecture,

that will be done for my next post - definitely!!

To end this post I must show you  photograph of a decayed stem

and flowers from my orchid, I love the beauty to still be found at

this stage

just look at those soft pastel colours!! A quiet quilt in the making perhaps.

Happy quilting and do visit

  What a Hoot Quilts for 18 in 2018

for lots of January finshes.

Maureen

Ad Hoc Improv Quilters #29

Time to see what's happening with progress on my

Chinese Coins which was one of the invitationals

with Ad Hoc Improv Quilters last year.

This was going to be posted as a finished quilt but a fight four days ago

with a sewing machine needle threw a spanner in the works!

I'm quilting this very simply a 1/4" inside the seam lines.

Not good lighting in this photo below I'm afraid.

The quilting is clearer in this photo.

 I'm using Aurifil 40 weight thread, green, yellow and red.

For the backing I used my last piece of Lake Blossom in this rich colourway from

Kaffe Fassett

which means I can give myself permission to order more!!

I'm not writing about the Kaffe Fassett lecture in this post

but will do so in my next one.

Do go and visit
Kaja and Ann

who jointly host AHIQ
for all the information on the new invitational,
I'm off to link up now.

Maureen

Sew,Stitch,Snap,SHARE #16

Hooray, I'm actually getting a post up on time to join the link

with

Linda and Julie
and this time I'm using up leftovers from Chinese Coins
shown below

so with lots of strips

and chunks of the fabrics used and tossed in my scrap bin

I'm going for more plain and simple.

Four strips measuring 2" x 6 and 1/2" cut
and sewn
then placed on the design wall

these will be 6" square when sewn together, I really should
have liked 8" finished but some of my strips were not quite long enough.
It's not the best time of day to take photos, too late in the afternoon
and the light is going, the colour is much brighter than shown here.
Chinese Coins gives an idea of the true colours.
By the way these are all Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics.

I'm hoping to spend some time making lists tomorrow -
projects I would like to sew top of the list.
Two I have in mind need quite a bit of concentration,  these will sit
and wait for a couple of weeks.

Enjoy the rest of your week and don't forget the
link with Julie and Linda at the top of this post.

Maureen

A Taste of the Orient - Chinese Coins

Heading towards the finish line with this piece for

the AHIQ first invitational.

There is a background story to this small quilt regarding my choice of colour

and of design, stick with me please for a moment whilst I explain.

Two books influenced both of the above,

one by M M Kaye and the one below bought in 2013, this is by

the author of Wild Swans.

Note the colours  Cixi wears, we have yellow, red and touches of green

in her magnificent robe. What about the fantastical head wear and those two long

finger nail accessories!

The idea for splitting the original oblong pieces of fabric came from the book by

M M Kaye in her autobiography. She spent some time

in China in the very early 20th century and

describes the house in Peking where they stayed which 

had belonged at one time,

so she thinks, to a member of the  Imperial Family. She tells us that the door of the Spirit Gate

was green lacquer, the uprights and roof ends were lacquer red and the tiles

were Imperial Yellow. 

I just had to use these three colours and needed to try

and find a way of creating the effect of Yellow tiles.

You won't see perfect matching seams as some of these pieces were

cut freehand, it is my take on Ad Hoc Improv!

I have lots of left-overs

perhaps these could become something else set this way

AHIQ is hosted by
Kaja and Ann
and I'm linking up with them now.

Linda and Julie
are hosting
Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE
and I'm linking up here also.

'Til next time - happy quilting!

Maureen

Progress!!

Hooray - I feel I'm now "back in the saddle" with my quilting.

The yellow/green segment of Chinese Coins.

Starting on the red/yellow section Monday.

Concentration was needed with cutting the strips, it was so easy

to cut the original oblong fabric pieces in the wrong direction. so I now

have quite a few double ups in my parts box!

Measurements of the above segment 35" x 15".

I don't have a "set in concrete" plan for this small quilt,

I'll just play along and see where it takes me.

Is anyone else noticing that the list of blogs they follow

is becoming smaller?? I think a lot of folk are using Instagram

and Facebook, perhaps this is due to the amount of time

some quilters have available.

I love looking at the sky at sunrise and sunset this is 

one from a few days ago.

A truly "brooding" sky here!

Cutting out and Computers

Why do computers cause grief just when we need to edit photos

and write a post!!

I haven't been able to check my reading list properly for

a few days and the darn computer totally closed down on me

earlier this afternoon, hopefully it will keep working until

I've finished this.

 First up I've now sliced up 8 and 1/2" strips for Chinese Coins

and been playing around with added solids

and  many years ago we bought six of these large Chinese Coins below

in one of those ethnic shops, presently used as mats for hot mugs

of tea/coffee, I intend to  incorporate the shape

into the quilt. Possibly raw edge applique or even photo transfer.

More cutting for Kaleidoscope

more spot fabrics for the four corners and plain cream for the

alternate wedges.

I also pulled more strips from my clean up cut bin and started

on those.

It's great fun just feeding these strips through the machine

without thinking of trying to co-ordinate colour or pattern.

I ended up with rather a good plateful - thanks to Julie for a great idea!

 I was looking at the Japanese Maple in the back garden this morning

and noticed the colour was just beginning to turn,

eventually we'll have lots and lots of the little two winged seed capsules

floating all over the place, I thought back to when we were kids in Autumn

 in England,  there would be thousands of these things falling
from the trees, whirling around and around - we just called them aeroplanes,

I guess because of the similarity to propeller blades, just like the eight "blades"

in the kaleidoscope block.

Not what I would call a stimulating post from me but

before my computer packs up on me again I'm off to try and catch up on two days of blog

posts, hope you're having a good week free from computer glitches!