Teapots and a finish

At last I'm back into posting and have a finish with my H for Heywood quilt for

my grandson and a teapot for RSC 2015.
The colour was indigo but I have a shortage of this colour
and we were told we could go neutral or orange, I went with orange - sort of!

I used "Dream" fabric once again, beautiful pattern.

Yes, my grandson now has his new quilt on his bed and DH and I
went along to their place this morning to take a photo.
Our son and my DH were holding the quilt up but trying to dodge the rain
meant they didn't have time to position the quilt as I would have liked!!

Although I was having a break and a general "rest" I was still busy sewing
the blocks for High Flyer for the younger of our two granddaughters
so this was ideal for working on my Tumbler Leader and Enders

a few of my old Hoffman fabrics, hunting through my scraps for these reminded
me how much I loved and still love these fabrics.

The blocks below for High Flyer are coming along, at a count up yesterday
I realised I had cut around quite a number of extra squares,  this came
about because of my miscalculation with the small triangles initially but all remedied now.

After missing last week I'm linking up to
Rainbow Scrap Challenge
but before I go I'd just like to thank everyone
who sent their good wishes, thanks so much!

Closing doors - metaphorically speaking ….

Once weekly there is small magazine included with our daily newspaper which contains very

interesting articles and usually a small piece in the wellbeing section

 written by a Louse Thompson.

Her piece this week was headed "Close Some Doors"and certainly struck a chord with me!

I quote

"it's deceptively easy to end up with so many open doors in our life that our

energy, time and attention is dissipated all over the place"

and I realised I had quite a few doors to close!!

Example - I thought that as well as quilting I should like to take up dry felting

using one of the embellishers on the market, bought one plus

packets of wool roving, sari silks, dyed organza, pre-felts, lots of packs of silk slushies 

in the most glorious colours plus other bits and pieces  all ready to make these fabulous

creations - that was five years ago - have I made anything - NO -  but I

have hung on to these "just in case" I found the time and every so often

I would get the guilts about all this stuff I wasn't using. Yesterday I realised

I was never going to do felting so "closed the door" and let it go. I feel good.

 Already I have someone calling in who is very interested in buying

all the goodies mentioned above!

  There were other doors to close and two more "bit the dust". 

Does anyone else ever feel that they have too many doors open?

Now I've gotten that off my chest it's on to quilting matters.

I am still quilting away on my H quilt - the quilting would certainly not

win any prizes that's for sure, it's a cross between wood grain

and rolling waves but I'm just going to refer to it as "organic" quilting!!!

Scrap Vortex - this I am loving!! Lots more small pieces all made up

ready for joining but I couldn't resist putting three pieces up on the wall

yesterday

I would say that this is a good example of time and energy being dissipated in 

that being in a hurry to get a few things done I didn't wait for the good

light and  a seam is way off kilter bottom left - so that needs

to be sewn again.

In the midst of reflecting on the words of wisdom above I downed tools and took off

for a leisurely walk around the block hoping that  I would see

some colour in the gardens - not much at this time of year - but

there are plenty of Red Hot Pokers flowering and lovely colour in the

succulents.

That's me for today, hope you're all having a good week and I

am heading back to the quilt and then more Scrappy Mountain catch-up!

Sunset, Stars and Stitching

Sunset a few evenings ago

Six green stars - sadly showing on the dull side

I was going to try and re-photograph this morning but it's wet and grey again so

I stayed with these. The answer would be to move one of my design boards into

the living room when we have these dull winter days, only snag is they're pretty unwieldy

to move around.

Stitching - basting my H quilt

using the method demonstrated by Sharon Schamber using the boards. I had seen this

ages ago but then I had an email following my last post asking if

I was aware of the video on You Tube and that jogged my memory! Thank you Sherrill.

Now my quilt is considerably larger than the pieces of fabric

used in the demo so it took me slightly longer

to set myself up, the main reason for this was that my cutting table

is 80" long and the only option for following her method, my printer had to

be moved off plus my mini set of drawers holding sewing and quilting cottons,  a stack

of fabric pieces waiting to be sorted into scrap drawers, my container with bits and pieces

of sewing necessities.

You can guess where I'm going here - I had to make room for these items

elsewhere  - my large sewing table where I was set up for sewing strips as a break from basting.

I then realised in order for the basted section of quilt to drop down neatly onto

the floor I had to move a set of six cubbies butting up to the table!!

I need a serious rethink in here!

After all that I do think it's a great way of basting, especially when you have

really bad spinal issues, I just couldn't have done this on the floor.

My stitching is not as close nor as neat as that by Sharon but after all the

re-organisation I really didn't care.

Linking up with the last green Saturday for RSC 2015 here
June will be light blues going into blue greens.

Can you believe that we will be into June tomorrow??????

Cold, wet and windy - perfect quilting weather

Yes it's definitely good weather for being indoors surrounded by thread and fabric

and getting busy on the machine.

I'm still playing catch-up with my teapots and just about finished

up six green stars for this month, I'll post to RSC2015 on Saturday coming,

the last one for greens.

So caught up with a blue teapot

and I rectified the error with the sizing of the top spot fabric on my

green teapot which was posted here, the proportions are now correct.

I am about to wrestle with the H block quilt this week, I need to use
the floor in the lounge to baste this and I'm thinking Wednesday would be good, husband out all day
so I can crawl about the floor in peace!

In the meantime I have been pulling fabrics for a quilt for our
grand-daughter who's 10yrs and loves pinks, yet to decide which to keep and which
to put back in the basket, her favourite is the pink Guinea Flower
which she spotted in my stash a few weeks ago

and a few spotty fabrics

I've not decided yet on a pattern but favouring something strippy perhaps.
I was hunting in my stash for the china blue spot but I must have used it in a previous
project.

Back to the drawing board until Saturday post.

A touch of green

This week I spent what sewing time I had

on the remaining few H blocks, they're

now all stacked in rows ready for machining, that's my

main task for this week.

Because of working on the above I didn't get around to

green stars or teapots! So bending the rules slightly I am posting this mostly

green H plus the last few blocks up on the wall

I had a lovely day yesterday, visits from all three of our children

plus our two youngest grandsons. Lunch made by our eldest son,

two beautiful new mugs from daughter and

a lovely bouquet of flowers from youngest son.

We were able to spend a few hours sitting around chatting

and reminiscing!

I hope all you mums out there had a happy day too.

See you later in the week I'm heading on over to 

Angela and friends at RSC 2015

see you later in the week.

Maureen

More Mountains and catch up teapots ..

Last week was pretty quiet on the quilting side of things, a visit to the doctor

confirmed I had extremely high blood pressure, ? kidney involvement.

A visit to the laboratory for tests and a visit to the chemist

for a another treat to add to my medication regime!!

However,

I have been able to catch up with yellow and pink teapots,
these two are joining the purple one to be machine appliqued.

My fingers and toes are crossed that I have enough variation in the spot fabric

to carry on through the next few months. I may have to force myself to

order more yardage in other colours - pity!!

Mountains in green this week and  an update from Angela that we should be aiming

for dark green so here goes

My H blocks for our grandson are up on the wall but I need another 14 so
that's a job for tomorrow. Both the H blocks and the Mountains are so quick
to cut and sew, really enjoying these.

We had an afternoon tea/family party today for the 2nd birthday of our
youngest grandson, a great time had by all especially when
the luscious chocolate birthday cake was placed on the table,
you should have seen the eyes of the two boys, they couldn't wait
to try some. Pity I didn't take a quick photo to post.

Linking up now with all the greenies at
superscrappy for RSC 2015

See you in the middle of the week, hope you have a good one.

Maureen

The letter H and blue hexies

This morning I thought what a good day to take my blue hexagon quilt

outside and get a photograph, life got in the way and its's 

only now, at almost 4.00pm and watching the sky darken ready for rain,

that I have actually been outside. The only photo I could take was of

the quilt draped quickly over the trellis, the wind had started to

blow so that didn't help.

 I had more success with blocks for the H quilt yesterday

These blocks go together so quickly 

this is the backing for the quilt, a good buy on sale from a site in the USA,

should be a good one for a soon to be teenage boy.

Now on to making a decision of which of the six quilt tops waiting

to be quilted will be the first to be basted!

Hope you're enjoying the week.

Maureen

Just enough time for a quick post

Almost Wednesday evening here in NZ and I don't have to make dinner tonight! 

Eldest son is coming around with a huge Moussaka for us to share, so time now to put

this post in.

All ready now to sew on the inner border of my blue/green hexagon quilt,

the plan is to get both borders on tomorrow and try to sew a few more H blocks

cut  out today from the new KF, PJ and BM fabrics.

I'm almost there with the number of blocks needed for this quilt and hopefully will

have it all sewn up by the end of next week.

Out grocery shopping yesterday I visited our local book store to see

what was new on the shelves, I spotted this book

bursting with photographs of stunning quilts.

They cover quite a time span and I think any quilter

would enjoy this book. The name of the maker and date made, fabrics used and

measurements are the only details given but it's interesting

to look back at some of them made many years ago by

quilters whose names we know so well. You can see

that this came home with me!

Maureen

Sun, Sea and Sand

Still beautiful weather in the Southern Hemisphere!

Yesterday we took a ride into the city along the waterfront and even though

it was a weekday there were still 

 folk soaking up the sun around

the beaches.

One solitary guy looking out to Rangitoto Island

Nice shady spot here under a pohutakawa tree

I had been busy sewing lots more H blocks before going out

and on our way back home we called in a local quilting store, not intending

to buy anything of course but I did come out

with a few pieces. One I just couldn't resist was so wild and I decided

a piece of it had to become an H block so this morning I made

just  three more -  two "normal" and one wild - why I did I shall never know

as looking at it makes me feel quite ill!!!

First one OK

Second - still happy and going slightly limey green

This is the one I have a problem with!

Should it stay or should it go????

I'll be back over the weekend with another pink block.

Happy quilting

Maureen

Scrappy Blues and a New Zealand Flavour

For the last Saturday of Blues with

Rainbow Scrap Challenge I made a couple more H blocks using blue and

 a few scraps of New Zealand themed fabrics.

I also made one with a lovely Hoffman fabric which played a

part in the first quilt made for this grandson who will be having the H quilt.

These two blocks feature one of our native birds
the Pukeko see this post HERE for a photograph of this bird
I

this last one is the Hoffman feature fabric, I also have yardage with a black background

the Ruru (tiny owl) is on the left and the tui on the right.

Our colour for February is Pink so I need to get busy picking out pinks for my
Geese blocks.

I'll finish with another of my Hydrangeas from the garden

which are finding the weather a little too hot here at the moment.

Hope those of you catching all the snow are safe and well.

Linking with Angela at Superscrappy

Maureen