As Bob Dylan says - The Times They Are A-Changin' - but I'm back writing a blog post!!

 It's been almost four weeks since I wrote a post and I confess haven't

read all your posts on a regular basis. I've had a busy time with clinic

visits and hospital visits and consultant visits.

I shared my cardiac issues some time ago and don't propose to

bring them up again here except to say I was left in no doubt at my last

visit to my cardiac consultant that things are more serious than I had thought.

Bearing that in mind I purchased some of the latest KF Collective fabric, purely to lift

my spirits and  I also have a finished top!!

Oh, this post is rather heavy on photographs, I give you fair warning!

I decided to add the extra border and so pleased that I went with that,

thank you for the comments left last post.

I'm Happy!

Measuring 38" square.

Half yards were the order of the day buying the new KF fabrics, the only

one I bought yardage of was the new colour Guinea Flower

but I do regret not taking a chance on yardage of Agate in the colour

scheme below

all the colours in this range are amazing.

Four new Spot fabrics were in the parcel

I love Merlot, the very top piece.

Thinking ahead I pulled out fabric for a quilt to be made at the end of the year

for our eldest grandson

I don't propose to use all of the solids shown.

Can you tell that I'm a fan of the Lotus Leaf design?

Here's the pattern  but there'll be a little re-thinking regarding the

strips on the diagonal

Next task was to decide which projects I had set aside no longer appealed

to me, first up was Stonewall so the book went back on the shelf

and the fabrics so far chosen went back into the stash. I really couldn't face sewing 

all those 2" HSTs!

I then remembered we were almost halfway through September and

I had a quilt to make for our eldest son, it was to be a surprise for his birthday

but then DH let the cat out of the bag and told him, needless to say

I wasn't too pleased.

This is an out and out kit and the pattern a Free Spirit freebie but it appealed

because eldest son likes Amish quilt (made him one years ago) and needing to keep things

simple at the moment I though this was a good compromise.

Centre and first border

second round added

The problem with the KF woven cottons is that they're so very fine

and it's a heck of a struggle to keep them straight, I remembered I had

an extremely light Vleiseline roll, just iron on and there

is no change to the drape of the fabric but it does add a little body

and makes sewing so much easier.

I'm steadily working on my Lego blocks and don't need to wear the wrist brace continually,

hooray!!

If you can bear a couple more photographs here's one of

the two visitors we had join us for breakfast during the week

please excuse all the weeds in the garden.

Here's a close up below of a lonesome rosella 

Now I'm going to get a hold of a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit and 

catch up with reading your blog posts.

Keep safe and well amidst the mayhem in the world right now.

Maureen

Guess what I found in my studio today

No escaping the fact that a squirrel is around and just

as I'm busy with my Green Diamond quilt!

I'm putting this together in two halves, easier than hauling the whole quilt-in-progress

to the machine and then the ironing table.

Left hand side done, first long strip for the right ready and waiting for tomorrow.

I'm really happy with how this is progressing.

Close up below and hooray, the points seem to be meeting up just fine!

The appearance of the new squirrel means that the Lego blocks will be

on hold until Wednesday, six blocks right now just pinned on the wall.

 I'm loving this project, lucky that I had heaps of strips cut 

because my die cutter with three convenient strip sizes has patches

of rust on the blades. Careful use of a fine nail file seems to have

worked somewhat, I can get a clean cut now but only with

two layers of fabric.

So, moving on from Lego and onto the squirrel.

Today saw the start of the centre of a Medallion quilt, more elements need to be added

before I can stitch these together.

I think I may be hooked on strips because there are more to come,

a few already cut

and more to cut tomorrow

and these will all be going into the Medallion quilt mentioned

early in this post.

You might just guess that my new Sue Ross book  

Patchways

 is the cause of this visit from the squirrel.

I see more squirrels on the horizon.

Maybe I need to slow down a little, I'm on a high right now

and don't want to go down the other side of the hill.

Gardening?? Not at the moment but the weeds are going

crazy with all the rain, but flowering at the moment

are the Japanese Anemone, I think they're also known

as Windflowers.

I had a couple of other mentions but they too will have to wait

until my next post because DH tells me the apple pie and cream

is ready for the eating!! 

Be seeing you.

Stay safe in this upside down world of ours right now.

Maureen

Definitely Spring and more on my Medallion

We have a very old orange tree in our front garden,

it sits at the beginning of the path to the front steps

and it may be a good age but my word we have great oranges

from it, husband makes the marmalade (which is delicious) and the blossom is just beginning to open.

The perfume is almost gloriously overpowering, I love it! Spring is definitely

here.

I have a few bluebells out so I must remember to take a photo of those

later this morning.

You might remember I made a start with the

Gwennie Inspired Medallion and  had reached the stage below,

 this was taken on a pretty dull day, it shows
in the colours here.

Anyway with lots of things going on I didn't keep up with
the monthly schedule so the Medallion was shelved.
Yesterday I decided I had to finish it but just doing my own thing.
I've  added a couple of sliced borders, patched in a couple of
places because I had only a smidgy strip of the dark fabric (top and bottom) left
which I intended to use all around. After all  improvisation
can add a bit of interest.

Oops I never cropped the photo!

Fortuitously an order of Moda Grunge fabric arrived yesterday afternoon
and without realising it I had ordered the perfect lime green, so I added
a very narrow border. The next round will be pieced, but as yet I have
no idea of a design - I'm really making it up as I go along.

Back quickly to the fabrics - these are gorgeous, there are well over 100
colours in the range, the ones I ordered are below.

I am guilty of having been on a spending spree lately with
books and fabrics,  come to think of it that's a silly thing for me to say
because I actually don't feel guilty! There are many things I don't or can't do,
 some due to health problems and these include
not taking expensive holidays, or sometimes any holidays,
 I can no longer enjoy a glass  (or two) of lovely
rich red wine - which I loved - and I'm not a big buyer of clothing. The
first two are out for health reasons, the last because I'd rather
have fabric, or buy plants for my garden.

So given  the above you may be seeing more fabric and a couple
more books over the next few weeks!

I'm linking up with
Kaja and Ann
At Ad Hoc Improv Quilters

Back to the machine for me - enjoy the last few days of the week
and happy quilting.

Maureen

Keeping things simple ...

With limited time, due to the kitty, quilting has not been top priority over the past week.

My off-centre medallion now has a border on two sides and my original idea

was to set this square but then tried it on the diagonal,

first the square

sorry about the poor light on this one.

On to the the diagonal

and this is the way I prefer to see it, reminds me of a Tree of Life block.

 I had thought maybe some sort of small liberated block

where the two borders meet but went with a simple square.

This truly is liberated or AdHoc Improv because to make these

borders fit I just chopped bits off a few of the geese units,

you will see a difference in size here and there.

If I go with this there are four pretty large triangles to fill so better get

thinking pretty quick!

 I turned to something simple by asking myself did I really want to

continue on with Scrap Vortex blocks and make a decent size quilt  - short answer was NO,

the blocks are now being made into a large

pillow cover - oops I see I have goofed here with the

text.

Another early start this morning due to a four legged fur baby

crying for breakfast,  being up and about early for this

sunrise was a pleasure.

Next on the agenda this week one green house block, two if possible, fingers crossed!

This and That

I just couldn't seem to get going again this week on the quilting

side of things. I worked  on stitching down three of my teapots

by machine appliqué

so that I can have a finish at the end of the quarter.

Gypsy Wife blocks were on the agenda, one of the

simple ones below

and what a pleasure to make this one after taking absolutely ages

on the Colourwheel block, purely because I changed

the fabric arrangement four times!!! That one can be posted

at the end of month link party.

The need to begin a new project or two was presenting problems

because the motivation didn't seem to be there to sit down and decide

just what I would like to make next. Monday I read the post

from 

Wanda at Exuberant Color
who had made blocks using up strips, I commented that
I had a huge bin of clean up cuts which would be
just the thing for these, I figured they would be a change
from the full on concentration of GW blocks.
 A fun two hours yesterday and I came up with

the four blocks above, my thoughts were it had been fun but they would  languish in
my parts box.
They stayed on the design wall until the evening
when I had the idea of making a large cushion and out came my
white pin dot on black

and arrived here, and I love it!! But …. I like it so much
that I'm considering a medallion quilt, the question is would I go totally
scrappy to fit in with these blocks, or would that be too much??
I would definitely use more black/white fabrics which would tone things
down a little if it became too jazzy!
What do you think?

Maureen