It's all in the planning

I haven't achieved a great deal in the past two weeks, cut all the HSTs for Tussie Mussie, the amount of these differed, a number were cut from one wof, more from two wof strips, then three strips wof.

Here I made use of the plate system for keeping things in order, used by quiltdivajulie, a great idea Julie!
The cutting took quite some time,  no die cutter used.

Just a few pieces on the wall  (not stitched) at the moment, other things seemed to hold me up!

I'm making an effort to tidy fabric, using large containers to hold the fabrics assigned to a few quilts on my list for this year and next. Cutting odd size scraps into 2 and1/2" and 1 and 1/2" squares for two projects and preparing strips for another two quilts I have in mind, all now neatly stacked and labelled. Tussie Mussie needs to be worked on quickly now, I had my pacemaker check last week and a referral was sent off three weeks ago for me to be called in for a replacement, probably within the next few weeks. As this procedure involves using a temporary pacing wire threaded in (I have no underlying rhythmn and rely totally on my pacemaker)  it's a little more complex, I may be taking it easy for a couple of weeks afterwards, no heavy lifting or reaching for fabrics and boxes.

You may remember my Dolly Mixtures quilt from a little while back

there were lots of sets  unused, they re-appeared during "the great tidy up" in one of the drawers and I probably have enough to make another small quilt.

 

I've been photographing in the garden, now suffering from the high winds and rain which do a great job of spreading rust spores throughout the plants. I planted three new canna lillies a little while ago, the seed pods of these plants have always fascinated me, I picked a few and photographed them on an old patterned saucer

just look at that lime green popping out.

We've been concerned for our daughter whilst she had four weeks in the UK and a week in Italy, she had missed one of her Covid booster shots. Arrived back on Wednesday, down with a sore throat and feeling pretty ill on Thursday, tested positive for Covid on Friday! She may have picked it up right before travelling home, but sitting on a 'plane for two 10 hour flights and an 8 hour lay-over in HongKong probably didn't help matters!

Dinner is calling me and then more sorting, hoping for quite a few more blocks of Tussie Mussie in the next post.

Maureen

A little more progress - a new quilt

My last post I was debating which binding to use on
Dolly Mixtures I had a photo of two binding samples against the quilt and asked
for thoughts on which to go with.
Julie aka quiltdivajulie
said in her comment that she was torn between the two shown and the backing
fabric I intending using could influence her choice - good point made.

I've decided on the Green Guinea Flower to go with the bright backing,
this fabric has been sitting on the shelf for a number of years, the many coloured parrots
nicely fit with the fabrics in Dolly Mixtures.

It's been a slow two weeks involving a visit to the hospital
for a consult with a Neurologist, I won't bore you with the medical details
apart from saying that there may be mistakes in words and phrasing
in my posts, these and other symptoms are felt to be consistent
 with a functional neurological disorder.
I know also that my comments on blog posts from others have perhaps been brief
so please forgive me if I do slip up here and there.

A bright spot on the day of the visit was stopping off at our local beach at
Cockle Bay on the drive home

the tide was  out and the sand positively glowed!

Quilting - a quilt for our eldest grandson - 21yrs in January - needed to be
dealt to reasonable quickly, having enjoyed working with the simple squares
of Dolly Mixtures I decided to go with the same format but larger squares,
progress so far

the very dark one on the left will probably be moved, it's looking a little overpowering
just there I think and you can see I'm going with the same format used with DM to create a border
of just  one fabric - KF  Baba Ganoush - another favourite fabric. Fussy cutting is
necessary to create the effect here, I can see there are two squares in the top row
which I'll change out tomorrow. The squares will finish at 4"

Luckily grandson loves colour and will not be averse to having a few
flowery squares in the quilt but I am trying to keep those to a minimum, a 
little tricky when you're a collector of KF Collective fabrics!!

Summer officially began yesterday here in New Zealand, flowers are blooming
and my hydrangeas have excelled themselves, here are two below

the pink one truly is a rich pink.

See you soon, until then happy quilting.

Maureen

Progress with Dolly Mixtures, Spring blooms and a good book!

 I don't have much to write about in this post I'm afraid, update on
Dolly Mixtures and flower photos!!

Let's start off with beautiful magenta pink roses

the name escapes me at the moment but the bush is blooming
prolifically and scents the air wonderfully!

My last post had Dolly Mixtures as a top but minus the border,
that's now been remedied, I've carried on with a 2 and 1/2" finished
border of Guinea Flower - a favourite pattern of mine in all colours of the
range.

Photographed in the garden below on a sunny morning yesterday

and here on the design wall whilst I played with choices for binding.

 

I'm really happy with the extra width of Guinea Flower, I feel it holds
the multitude of colours in this quilt together nicely.

Binding ideas, just playing with scrappy pieces, on the left
is green GF  - I placed this so that I  could see how that shade of green
fitted in given all the colour in the top,  I do like the
medium depth in this one. In contrast the strippy scrap on the right is
really very dark, in fact I think it's too dark, it's one of the new PJ fabrics below.

I could try a few more tomorrow but looking at the LH side again

I think the green version of GF could work - any thoughts here?

 Emptying out my three very large scrap bins has been keeping me occupied and the

the volume is overwhelming!! Starting to sort into large/small pieces and

iron. I've been guilty of just tossing pieces gaily into these bins when I should

have put them away after completing a project.

There are lots of nice surprises for me in the sorting process, a piece of

one of my favourites from years ago, KFC of course. Pity it's only
a 10" square but I shall find a nice home for it!

Here are a couple of flower

photos for you all.

Alstromeria with a David Austin rose - Tranquility - and we all need a little

of that right now.

Outside the living room window

the first epiphyllum bloom of the year.

The next few days will be spent making a decision/decisions  on which project/projects to

make next on my list, my too long a list, which needs culling and to make a start

on reading a new book bought this morning.

Lynda is a well known gardening celebrity in NZ and lives with her family

on a farm -  Foggydale Farm - with a magnificent garden  in the

Hunua Ranges here in Auckland.

Perhaps the scrap sorting and project list could wait!!!

Maureen

Dolly Mixtures all ready for stitching

 I decided I'd played around enough with placing the squares, now
all nicely fastened in rows and ready to go

and here's my final layout below, perhaps I could have done a little more
tweaking but I wanted to move on

a little shadow on the bottom left, need to photograph
at a better time,  you can see the squares are
quite roughly in place, luckily none of them floated to the ground as
I removed the rows.
There will be a 2 and 1/2" border of the Guinea Flower fabric which
holds the centre in very nicely then I'll go with a dark binding.
Almost all the fabrics used are from my scrap stash apart from
two of the latest KF range.

Isn't it amazing what we find as we hunt through our scraps,
one of the fabrics in the quilt I must have had for a great many years
and was surprised to unearth it amongst the others.

I have used all of it here, look closely at the second row down to find a Plus with a pink
tentacle looking pattern, there are three more and it's got to be a KF and how I wish
that all those years ago I had thought to buy more yardage!

More KF fabrics arrived the other day, a few are below - in no particular order!

I'm counting these as a birthday gift to myself - 75 yrs  last week!!

Better get sewing my way through my fabrics!!

Hokusai's Mums

Hokusai's Mums

My Favourite - Van Gogh

Climbing Geranium and Flower Net

Dorothy - Red

Some time will now have to spent folding and putting in the appropriate place,

I really did buy a lot this time, now NO more fabrics, at least not until
next year when the new range is released.

Spring has arrived  here in New Zealand - the greenery is a delight to see

the Japanese Maple in the back garden is looking amazing and I always love

to see the tiny red 'helicopters' peeping out.

An early misty morning walk last week was a treat

and a bright show of pelargoniums - forgotten the name of the

other flower

 Not much here relating to quilting I'm afraid but I do have plans for next week!

Maureen

Four weeks later......

 Can't believe it's been four weeks since I last wrote a post!
I'd like to say a huge thank you for all your good wishes following my last post,
they really lifted my spirits.

Not much achieved lately but I received back the quilt, beautifully quilted, for my
eldest son Matt. It was too large to get a full shot so here is the centre showing off
the quilting, a photo showing the colours of the various strips and
also one of the fabric used for the backing.

Quilted by 
Leeanne at QuiltMeKiwi
with Celtic Wave design
using wool/polyester batting

Size: 78" by 84"

I was contemplating starting the hand quilting on
Liquorice Allsorts this week, but guess what arrived,

yes, another squirrel.
I had on my project list for next year a Plus quilt but plans changed thanks to my visitor
and I began cutting at once.
I enjoyed making my last quilt,
Liquorice Allsorts so much, read the blog posts

HERE
and
HERE

for the back story,
that I decided to base this new quilt on another of my well remembered
sweet treats from childhood.

The beginnings of Dolly Mixtures below

and I'm beginning from the outside and working in!

The strips are cut at 3".

Hopefully more progress will be made over the next few days

before I write another blog post.

Must finish up with something from the garden

how I wish you could breathe in the scent of this beautiful Viburnum.

Until next time, Happy Quilting!

Maureen