HSTeria - last link-up

Here we are, the last link-up with Vicki at Field Trips in Fiber who so kindly organised this quilt along.
We have seen some great examples of using half square triangles in quilts and I've enjoyed this quilt along enormously even if I have concentrated on just the one quilt!  Still have the diagonal seams to sew but family circumstances mean that I won't get around to this until later in the week so I decided to post now even though "Red Sea Sunset" is not totally finished,  the wave along the bottom edge needs fixing - I was so careful with bias edges but the bottom ones got away from me.

Red Sea Sunset

I must find my tripod, trying to get the photographs without it means I'm ending up with wonky looking quilts and then cropping evenly to lose the background becomes difficult to say the least, the yet to be sewn diagonal seams don't help!

As a result of all the different fabrics used I have a large bag of left over triangles, these are being stitched to black half square triangles and being placed in a random fashion - photo next post all being well.

The first bunches of narcissus appeared the shops last week and I love the scent of these early flowers, two bunches came home with me.

Off to read the blog posts for today - have a good week.

HSTeria - almost at the finish line!

Yes almost finished,  just one half of a square to place and sew today ready for showing fully next week.

I didn't post last week due to family issues, dental visits and more but the main reason was that I just sort of "hit the wall" with designing and colour choice for this quilt, I just couldn't move forward with it at all and had to walk away for a few days to recharge the batteries, this has never happened to me before but yesterday I felt energised once more and worked on three more blocks, I see now after cropping that the one on the left needs some adjustment so it's out with the seam ripper later!

I have piles of six inch strips of fabrics all over my cutting table, sewing table and eight trays of triangles cut in every colour imaginable!

What a mammoth task it's going to be to sort into my scrap drawers at the end of the process.

I am thinking I will use my Accuquilt to cut strips and tumblers for future use from the leftovers.

Normally I would link up with Vicki at Field Trips in Fiber but due to the continuing Internet problems she is having at the moment the link possibly won't be up until Sunday, I will edit once her HST post is available.

Have a good weekend

HSTeria 5 July

Three more blocks of the puzzle in place

Still a WIP on the wall and only a few blocks sewn together on the top left hand side, I need to leave the other blocks just loose on the wall until I have decided where to go with colour. Will be linking up with Vicki and the gang shortly - please go visit!

Haven't done anywhere near as much quilting as I had intended due to the painting of the laundry and bathroom, which is a shame as it has been the perfect weather this week for shutting myself off and just getting the machine going. Rain most every day, thunder storms with quite a number of houses badly damaged with lightning strikes, the lawn areas in the garden are just a bog! Alternating showers and sunny spots so far today and we went along to watch our eldest grand-daughter horse riding,  lovely display for end of term  a synchronised performance to music by Cold Play - great!

Totally different tack now - fruit - I love fresh fruit apart from one in particular which I adore looking at  purely because of the colours

Water Melon
one of the most delicious fruits going with it's beautiful red flesh surrounded by creamy white and the patterned green skin. I have about a yard of water melon fabric bought years ago when fruit and veg  fabrics became all the rage but I'm still thinking what to do with it! Our youngest granddaughter loves water melon and I have seen her sit at the table with a huge plate of melon wedges in front of her, juice dripping down her chin in seventh heaven.

Red cat afternoon now for me and should be posting those in a day or so.

Don't forget to click on the link with Vicki above and I do hope you're all having a lovely 4th July!

HSTeria and Haori

A few more blocks completed this week and the finish line for the HSTeria Quilt Along is now in sight!

The one below is my favourite of the newer blocks

I have four full blocks to try and finish up in the coming week and these ones will be a challenge  blending the colours.

After having the problems with Blogger last week along with many other bloggers, I am now in full working mode again thank goodness. Not in working mode is my camera which is around 8 years old, colours are just not showing true at all and I am still resorting to my iPhone. Priced up newer cameras during the week and probably looking at NZ$1300 - may have to think about that for a little while!

 The other subject of the week along with HSTeria is Haori, do any of you follow a blog 

piece'n peace

written by Lis Harwood? One of her posts recently showed three Haori from Japan, absolutely beautiful! I had a look at the site  

ichiroya

what an experience, they have all sorts of Japanese clothing some which are antique and other newer items, I bought a few Haori with the intention of cutting up the fabric for using in collage work, it's noted in the description if they are stained or badly worn and only suitable for handcrafts but the two I particularly had in mind for cutting are hardly marked at all. They are silk and Shibori dyed 

this is a detail above of the Pine Tree pattern on one intended for cutting and the other is below, these are close up shots  to get a photo of the haori I need to thread  a rod through the sleeves and probably hang it on the side of the large garden shed  but as it's raining here that's out for the moment!

Going to link up now with 

Vicki 

and the HSTeria Quilt Along gang

HSTeria and Accuquilt

Thank goodness for Accuquilt!!!

I have lost track of the number of triangles - half square - cut on this machine in order to make my Ocean Waves quilt, I am so pleased I decided to buy one.

This week has really only been spent playing around with colours  and trying to decide how to grade down towards the bottom of the piece so sadly no more finished blocks to show.  I was asked by a fellow blogger last week whether I sewed two HSTs together then placed them or placed individually - the latter,  which means I can blend from one colour to another even though time taken is an issue.

I have a series of trays and try and use one for each colour, they start off life all neat and tidy, well reasonably neat and tidy as on the trays on the left, but usually end up after an hour or two in the state of the one below right! So when I need just one piece to fit in I start rummaging through

 During the week the pieces on the tray and board on the left were cut plus a blue tray and another teal/turquoise tray to join the ones I was already working with, reason for this was that I had forgotten a new basket of batiks from a few weeks ago which  hadn't  been "filed"  away in their new colour homes! Lesson learnt there.

Linking up now with Vicki hosting our HST Quilt Along
and back to sewing blocks ready for the next link up.

HSTeria Quilt Along - next instalment

Lots more half square triangles cut, lots of fabrics to put away in baskets and lots more to sort for scrap drawers but only three further blocks to show for it all, and one in progress. Go along and visit Vicki and friends to see more HSTeria!

Today is very wet and gloomy not good light  for photographing fabric, but a few weeks ago I bought an Ottlite Task Lamp which is a reasonable height and moveable, I do have a small one with the flip up lid  but it's no good for lighting up a wide area. This is the first time I have used the floor light to take a photo - it's worked out pretty well I think although the blues at the bottom have a slightly psychedelic look to them, they're not so vivid as this.

We are now into Winter in NZ and it is pretty cold today, the garden beds are wet and soggy with everything drooping all over the place. Misty mornings quite often which I love, the one below was last week

back to the sewing machine, I still have to sew yellow cats ready to post tomorrow so I need to get busy. 

HSTeria Quilt Along and The White Rabbit

Having read the post title you could be forgiven for assuming I have added a white rabbit into our household, but I haven't, I just feel like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland who rushed around shouting "I'm late, I'm late" repeatedly!

The HSTeria part of the post title is also appropriate!!
We seem to have had such a very, very busy time dealing with health issues and personal matters within the family and friends and now catching up with all the accumulated jobs which have built up.

I have made some progress, but not much, with the HSTeria part of things and one or two blocks need adjusting. I apologise for the blocks being placed roughly on the design wall but my studio is a disaster area and I have had enough of it so I am renovating the whole thing - starting this week when I have put together a few more blocks and cut out a few yellow cats!

I can see that one of my triangles along the top edge has done a curl over, sorry.

Regarding renovating my studio I'm going to go back to The Real Studio Tour which was organised by
Vicki and try and get together a few ideas - hope no-one minds! Wish we had an IKEA store here in New Zealand but we don't, sadly the nearest ones are in Aussie and I fear it would be pretty expensive to try and ship anything over to NZ.

Brief post I know but I'm pretty hungry right now and need to eat!! I'll catch up again when I have some cats to show you.

Joining up now with everyone at taking part in HSTeria.

HSTeria and a yummy package in the mail

Another week for HSTeria and I missed posting last week because of this bug.

I was feeling a little better yesterday and had the idea that I'd finish two blocks on the top RH side of the quilt - not a great idea when you're not feeling the best! Not sure about these two and will play around with them tomorrow.

Still having trouble sometimes with the light hitting the design wall and the camera is not registering correctly, I think I'll have better luck with the camera in the iPhone.

Anyway still on the subject of HSTeria look what arrived for me in the mail yesterday from Vicki who is hosting the Quilt Along

Lots and lots of delicious dyed fabric strips! Thank you so much Vicki! This photo doesn't do justice to the amount of strips and the  huge array of colours, I will take another shot when I have laid them out on the table. I would love to use these in a Rayna Gillman style piece - will post progress.

Hope, hope, hope I am back to normal next week as there will be a new colour for the month for
RSC 2014 (just checked and it's sunny yellow) and more cats will be needed, I need to make more blocks for my Ocean Waves and there is another piece waiting to be cut and made ever so quickly (has to be ready in three weeks time) using the fabrics below

whether this will happen is debatable presently but fingers crossed!

Have a look at the link up for Vicki and HSTeria just below the photograph of Ocean Waves
and enjoy the week ahead.

HSTeria Quilt Along and Broken Baskets!

The end of another week, one in which I dropped a lovely very, very old pottery basket which belonged to a much loved Aunt, DH was able to patch it together for me and as you can see the chips and cracks it's now going to live in my studio I need to find a safe place, I'll find a use for it possibly holding extra sewing threads. 

More or less back to my usual self  (fingers crossed - thanks for all the good wishes) and yesterday completed another two blocks of my HSTeria project and pinned the blocks so far on the wall

the top left quarter block needs taking down and re-arranging, I still have the dark triangles heading in the wrong direction! Don't think any more sewing will be done today - oh, correction I have four more green cats to make for RSC 2014 so I'll be posting again tomorrow!

Linking up now with Vicki who's hosting HSTeria Quilt Along
and below a subtle sunrise one morning this week to end this post.

Have a happy week

HSTeria Quilt Along

Loving this Quilt Along, thanks to Vicki at Field Trips in Fiber for coming up with this great idea! Hop along to the link please after reading this post and see all the other HSTeria projects.

I'm busy pulling out more fabrics in different colours and generally making a real mess on my cutting table - and over  other surfaces as well! Because of the colouring of this quilt it's a matter of careful placement so that's taking more time than the cutting and sewing at the moment. Using the colours I showed last week I have begun on Ocean Waves and making it with the memories in mind of my 1962/63 sail to NZ through Suez and the return to UK through Panama - I will never forget the beauty of the ocean and the sky, incredible.

All At Sea

I've just been along to the store to buy more of these white plastic trays, great for keeping pieces nice and tidy after cutting and waiting to be sewn.

That's all from me at the moment on HSTeria, gotta get busy on green cats!! Watch for another post on Sunday. Don't forget to visit the HSTeria link-up. 

Before I go we have been watching and reading about storms, flooding and tornadoes in the States, it looks horrific, know that other folks in other countries are keeping you in their thoughts.

Sunset one evening last week, just look at that sky!!!!!

HSTeria Quilt Along

First post for HSTeria Quilt Along today kindly organised by Vicki at Field Trips in Fiber, I have started cutting my half square triangles and  have gone with 2" finished squares. Huge indecision on both fabrics and layout so I'm going with the idea of two quilts! Had a few Bali Pops by Hoffman and really wanted to make something with those, that limited me to the 2" finished size and not sure yet whether to go with Flying Geese format, nor whether  to keep to these sort of shades or add a little of something else, I will probably do to the latter and make it a real multi coloured quilt - what do you think?

I suddenly realised that these colours are quite similar to my choice of some of the fabrics used in my Midnight At The Oasis quilt which is still waiting for the final border.

I'm using my GO Value die to cut these and by folding the strips into three and by carefully laying them across the die  I'm getting the half square triangles above, 2" finished squares and rectangles which would measure 2"x4" finished all good for using  in a future project.

My intention  had originally been to go with KF, PJ and BM fabrics so during the next week in addition to sewing the triangles I need to think about a more complex design for my second HSTeria quilt and pull the fabrics for that one. Looks like the next few weeks will be pretty full as in addition to my quilting I have unbelievably been told that I have FIVE appointments booked at the hospital in May  for my follow ups - all for different parts of me!!

Here in New Zealand we caught the tail end of Cyclone Ita, the full force of which  caused enormous devastation for the people in the Islands in the Pacific who were smack bang in the middle of it all. We had some shocking weather but as I said this was the tail end for us. We drove down to the beach at the start of the bad weather

Pretty rough!

Link up time now with Vick and HSTeria participants

so go along and see what we all have planned!