Playtime with Half Square triangles and Big Sur

 You see I make mention of my latest upgrade on my Mac
to Big Sur, these are early days and I'm  still finding my way
around the new system, there may be a few hiccups along the way
so fingers crossed I can actually produce a reasonable post!

In an earlier post I had this photo below

a Churn Dash cut in two halves  ( I had lots of others to cut, different fabrics)
and was wondering what on earth
to do with them.
quiltdivajulie
said they would make 'pretty cool half square triangles'
and just cut them up,  armed with ruler and rotary cutter I did just that.
Each HST you see above yields cut into four smaller HSTs giving me eight in total and decided it was playtime.

Here is the result as of yesterday

I used two shades of violet/purple as the solid half.
NOTE yes I do have the letter m all on it's own and haven't time to
go back and redo, reasons below.

I must be on a purple kick as I have backing fabric for eldest sons quilt

and in sorting through older fabrics found this one below,
 if memory serves me correctly
this is an early KF fabric - Chard

I love this one!!

I'm rushing to get this post written as I am heading off to the hospital shortly to the
pacemaker clinic as there is a possibility that my battery is discharging quickly
and causing real problems - I am pacemaker dependent and without it
there is only one outcome!!
They are also checking me out in case I have had a heart attack, oh and my doctor
thinks I may have become diabetic, lots to choose from here, so much fun!

EDIT

No heart attack, pacer battery OK - Hooray!!

On with quilting.

All for now but here is a beautiful cheery cyclamen sitting my bedroom

and  new fabric received a few days ago

Maureen

Liquorice Allsorts

My last post HERE was focused on the start of a new quilt,
Stamps and Bricks.
I showed a few early 9 patch blocks - bright blocks!

As I placed more and more pieces up on the wall I became more and more
excited, this quilt just called out to be named

Liquorice Allsorts

   

 those of you who grew up in the UK or are still living there will surely know
how popular these sweets were, especially as children, and I think every
sweet shop in the country had them on the shelves.

For those who are not familiar with Allsorts they were, as the name suggests,
based on liquorice and were brightly coloured. They were definitely a favourite
of mine.

A number of years ago just on Christmas I spied tin boxes of these delights
on a shelf in the supermarket, one just had to come home with me

and oh did we all enjoy them - the 'kids' ( 45 to 52 yrs now) were delighted!

You can see the bright colours of the sweets, there was more selection than
shown on the tin.

Back to quilts - the centre block is 32" square presently, because of all the colour
I decided to go with a narrow border break - what else could I use but
Kaffe Fassett Guinea Flower in White, this echoes the 9 patch directly in the centre.

Aboriginal Dot in Orchid is used for the alternating squares,
it looks black in the photo but in reality is more purple/aubergine.

The only other patchwork related happening was pulling out my
spare parts box, this post from quiltdivajulie inspired me, but I had one
heck of a shock at the amount tucked in there. I pulled out
two Churn Dash bocks which I had made many years ago
when I was just discovering KF fabric, at least in the left block.

I had obviously become a devotee by the time this block below was made

but don't let the photo above fool you, for some un-known reason
I had done this

  

yes, what I pulled out was two halves!!
I truly do not remember doing this at all.
I promptly closed the box in case there were any more halves lurking there.
On a positive note my love of the Churn Dash block has been
re-kindled so watch out for a visit from the squirrel.

That's enough from me right now, closing with one of the beautiful
camellias flowering in the garden

Have a happy weekend, see you next week.

Maureen

First week of lock-down and a dray of squirrels

Not content with the first squirrel 

Hannah's Garden

another one has appeared on the scene and I suspect

I shall soon be dealing with a dray of squirrels!

The latest addition is this

a pattern by Frankie and Ray.

It's been long on my list of 'want to make' quilts.

I had a pretty big box of scraps needing to be sorted into colour

families, I began by sorting them into warm and cool

then decided to go with a lucky dip approach to choosing the fabrics.

for the churn dash blocks 

by closing my eyes and dipping once into each pile

and working with the two fabrics which came out, no fiddling trying to 

find a better match etc.

So just five right now

I did just manage to fussy cut this centre piece

I think I got lucky because I'm really pleased with these.

I have four more patterns lined up to use more from my

many boxes of scraps during the weeks of lock down.

Working on one quilt each day is my plan.

I now have, or will have, a dray of squirrels. Some folks say a scurry

of squirrels but a scurry refers to a gathering and as they're fiercely territorial

this is a very rare happening, a dray consists of a

mother squirrel and her young. I'm going with a dray!

Sadly we all know about lock down, social distancing, staying home

going out only to the supermarket for groceries, pharmacy or medical appointments.

We can go for a walk around the block, ride the bike but really nothing

else, no visiting family or friends. I think we're all feeling

the strain and worry of these times.

However we did have a visitor join us at breakfast yesterday

munching on the long seed pods.

Today I found another little visitor

who then headed from the rose into the porch and eventually

into the house!

Got to head back to the dining table now - apple pie with cream - my favourite,

leaving you with the sunset from two days ago.

Keep safe, keep well and keep quilting!

See you all soon.

Maureen