Old and New

Let's start off with the new - 

I've finished sewing the top of the quilt for our 5yr old grandson.

The weather has been wet and windy so I just managed

to pick a break in the rain this morning to throw

this top over the bench seat - excuse the weeds!

Four blocks across and six down each 12" finished, 1" finished sashing.

His bed is not quite as long as a full size so we've ended

up with the Safari print borders just on the sides.

I wanted something bright for the sashing but not too bold given

the bright solid strips, luckily I came across 3/4 yard of fabric which must have

been in my stash for around 15 years!

New Kaleidoscope blocks - 

and I need to get these and the others on the wall to check how they look so far.

New fabric - 

it's many years since that I first fell for solid fabrics,

the book on Amish quilts had just been released by Roberta Horton and

I was hooked. It was about time I bought a few new ones I reckoned and

 here are three new fat quarter bundles. My preference is for the long quarters

but quite often buying online requires you go with the pre-cuts or

buy a half yard  if you like the full width.

Now onto the old - 

my version of Midnight at The Oasis, pattern by Jen Kingwell, the photo is on the dark side I'm afraid,

the rain and dark skies are back!!

Some of you will have seen this before when I took part in the QAL, I had a

nine patch border but didn't like it so that's been removed and one day this week

I need to sit down and work out my next two rounds.

Pulling this piece out I had quite a shock when I realised the number

of WIPs I had, plus quilts waiting to be quilted, so better get my act together

and get busy!!

Enjoy your week - happy quilting.

Maureen

Midnight At The Oasis - Final Link-up

Here we are - our final link-up for everyone taking part in the MATO Quilt Along and what a great idea from Sharon and Jess - thank so much!

Unfortunately I am still behind with my quilt "Desert Rose" due to a difficult five weeks but it WILL be finished by the end of this month, check in to my blog towards the end of February to see the finished quilt.

The nine patch blocks are still a work in progress and as for the very last border we'll have to wait and see. I didn't follow the prescribed order, width or content of the borders for this quilt therefore the log cabin style final border will need to be resized and I suspect my quilt will turn out a little larger than the pattern which we used as our inspiration. The colours in the quilt are actually richer than they are showing in the photo above - see the thumbnail by my profile for a true representation.

This has been such an enjoyable journey and I have seen such beautiful work from all the people who have taken part  but I suspect I am not the only one who has not completed yet. I am linking up now with Sharon and hope you will go along and have a peek.

Until next time have a good week
Maureen

Catching up

I should be at my machine sewing more 9 patches for my MATO quilt "Desert Rose" or more 16 patch blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014 (waiting for the colour for next month) or sewing the crib quilt for our youngest grandson or  even quilting my Fractured quilt but I decided to do something which had been bugging me for ages, my large crate of scraps was becoming so full that I could only just pull it from under my sewing table to add more pieces to it, time to make the choice on what to keep.

The photos above really don't do the amount of material justice. Some of these fabrics have been hanging around for a good 15 years or more and what you see is only part of the problem,  yesterday evening was spent on this and after all the time it is taking I am seriously considering just pulling the special pieces and putting the rest into a huge bag and asking the local primary school if they would be able to make use of them it's just going to take me too long to sort every bit out into colour families.

One  task to cross of my list though is the binding on the Bento style quilt for my daughter, 

I decided I just couldn't face hand stitching the odd 400"  or so on the back of the quilt so bit the bullet and after carefully pressing the binding over I machine stitched from the front - I couldn't quite believe that the stitching didn't show - although it's a different matter on the back side, not quite a straight line of stitching but I'm not stressing about it.

On the subject of scraps there will be more scraps in the future because part of my order of batiks arrived yesterday, absolutely gorgeous! Can't wait for the other package to arrive. These were ordered before January 1st so I am not going to get into trouble from  Fabriholics Anonymous.

Back to the scrap heap and then I think some work on Desert Rose tomorrow, DH arrives back from the UK  in the morning so it will be an early start collecting him from the airport.

Maureen

Midnight At The Oasis - not quite finished!!!

Desert Rose

As you can see hardly any progress at all!!

Events over the past two weeks have conspired against me due to late night and early morning telephone conversations with family in the UK regarding the health of my mother-in-law. Things just got too much for me and I was really tired and couldn't for the life of me summon up the energy to quilt.

It became obvious on the 30th December that it was only going to be a few days  before the end so my whole morning of the 31st was spent with John organising flights, insurance, putting affairs in order here before he flew out. Sadly we had completed more or less everything and he was flying out that night when we had the call that she had passed away. John obviously still flew out to join his three brothers and carry out all the necessary arrangements, he won't be home until towards the end of January.

I had such high hopes for showing a photo of Desert Rose ready to be basted and quilted ( the one above was taken with me perched on the edge of my high cutting table so not straight) and thought that when John left on Tuesday I would work on and finish it, but I feel so drained physically and emotionally that I couldn't do it. However, today is another day and I plan a quiet weekend to hopefully "re-charge my batteries" and move forward.

I did have a lovely surprise in the garden early this morning a new gladioli had opened - I had forgotten all about these in the garden - so I was thrilled to see the colour. 

Now I'm going to link up with everyone else and looking forward to seeing how many have all their borders completed.

The link is here at Fabrics and Flowers, we have one more link on the 31st January so stay posted!

Happy New Year to everyone

Maureen

Midnight At The Oasis

Another post from me - this time for an update on "Desert Rose"

Nine patch style border this time but I began by making mine as if they were nine patch blocks rather than sewing the 1" squares in a row x 3 then sewing them all together. Only finished ten of these and was having doubts about how they would look on my quilt given the way I had changed some of the borders, also the colouring of mine was quite different to the original pattern

On the design wall I placed the tiny squares down one side of the quilt and the result was just too busy for me and did look quite out of place with the other borders - I did take a shot of this but must have deleted it - sorry - it would have been good to show just how it looked.

Finally I decided to just make nine patches, all with the same coloured centre square and set them diagonally - happy with this!

As you can see this is as far as I have gone, just one of those times when other things held up my progress plus I have not been feeling too well for a few days. However as we don't link up again until the 3rd January 2014  I  have three weeks to get this round finished up and hopefully the log cabin style final border and celebrate Christmas with the family!!

Don't forget to go along to visit Sharon and Jess who have kindly organised this project and the link-ups

Have a happy quilty weekend

Maureen

Wet Wednesday and Work in Progress

After two hot, hot days we are having a very wet day indeed - good for the garden though and I just knew I should have dead-headed the roses yesterday but hopefully better weather Friday.

This is a photo of my all time favourite day lily and I think the name is Queen of Siam but not sure I should have written a label, this has a lovely scent  as well as being a beautiful colour.

Even with the wet weather I had a good day and a package arrived with a few pieces of fabric and yes I know I have joined with others pledging to not buy fabric for six months beginning 1st January 2014 so I am getting my fix now. The purple on black dot was needed for my MATO so there was no way I could avoid buying that and a little extra fabric crept into the packet. The turquoise shell montage will be used as a border for a future quilt  with the pattern yet to be decided on.

These can wait on the table until tomorrow and then join the stash. Still busy with MATO (see last post) and I am playing around with nine patches at the moment.

This next round needs to finished by Friday next week so I do need to get busy in case any last minute problems arise. We then have the log cabin style border and that's the last one. Final link up is at the end of January for the finished quilt!

I'm onto the quilt for our grandson  just cut out at the moment and hopefully this will be finished by Christmas. 

Strips of the Owl fabric with the green/blue stripe will alternated with strips of flying geese.  Should measure around 32" by 45" and after posting this I'll go back and start sewing the geese together, tomorrow is MATO sewing day.

A good quilting day for me and hope it is for all you quilters out there

Happy Quilting

Maureen

Midnight At The Oasis - should be a Churn Dash border!

The post header says it all - a 3" finished Churn Dash border is the third one to be added, I did give it a go but the pieces were just too hard for my hand joints to deal with, even tried on foundation but still no joy. Sharon had used some of a favourite fabric for one of her borders instead of appliqué and thought what a clever girl! You can see I took a leaf out of her book, my non-Churn Dash section is made up of a fabric which I loved the instant I set eyes on it,  it's the same one used in my flying geese border. I have about one and a half yards left in my stash so it will be used sparingly in the future.

"Desert Rose"

My camera is playing up so this was taken with my iPhone by my husband, the light from the window hits my design wall and mid morning shots are better lit really but this was taken in the afternoon and the top of the quilt looks slightly darker than the bottom half, must be better organised for photographing.

Below is a close up shot of the fabric and you can see there is a pattern there and I just love the colours, it reminds me of a journey to NZ when I was 16 years old (a long, long time ago now) and we sailed by Suez and down through the Red Sea, I vividly remember the banks of sand and palms, resting on the deck rails absorbing these amazing sights and especially the sunsets.

John said the fabric reminded him of the "desert roses" he brought home for me from the times he was  in Al Ain and I thought  great idea no more having to think of a name for this quilt - problem solved!

I now have to box on and finish cutting for the nine patch style border,  I've done a few mock-up blocks and I think they'll be fine.

Sharon and Jess are the girls hosting this Quilt Along and we're all linking up, please go along and see how we are working this pattern. 

Back to nine patch 

Have a good weekend

Maureen

Design Wall Monday

Slower progress than I had hoped on my Midnight At The Oasis quilt, still to sew the last round of blocks and I am cutting the next round, Churn Dash which should be 3" finished, but following the lead from another participant in the Quiltalong I intend to make them a little larger. 

I'm going to be linking with Judy at  Patchwork Times on her Design Wall Monday, loads of lovely work in progress to see there!

I have two or three other projects on the go and I bought fabric yesterday to start another one.

This cot size quilt will be for our newest grandson, I have one or two more fabrics put away to add to these, but I just love owls and couldn't resist buying this. I had bought safari style fabric a few months ago for him but decided it wasn't colourful enough so that's waiting for another day! This will be one for DWM in the next few weeks.

House chore list getting longer so time to get busy

Have a good quilting week and Happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends

Maureen

Midnight At The Oasis

I'm another one who is making slow progress for this posting, my lateness is due to the fact that I decided to make a change with the fabric I was using for the second border (should be applique but it's not) and decided I would rather like a darker background fabric this time. Duly began and after six blocks were up on the wall I decided it was just too dark

both blocks are the correct size but I virtually just threw them on the wall so one of them looks as if it is larger at one side than the other.

I do love the black fabric with lilac polka dot but not quite so much of it all at once, so I reverted back to my original colour which is the background of the centre block but having done that it put me back a little having to start cutting the fabric all over again. Also I have just bought two more sets of basket stacks for my fabric so precious time has been spent arranging things there.

Only five of these blocks are sewn together the remainder just positioned on the wall,  please excuse the thread covered bits and gap in the design wall just waiting on the fabric from Glorious Colour to re-cover the panels. I'm pleased I decided to revert to my original choice of colour here, and next posting in two weeks I should have finished this round and also the next one, Churn Dash - which is tiny just 3", that will be fun!!

Time to link up with Sharon and Jess and shoot over there to see what everyone else is doing - please go along and have a peek, you can also just click on the button on my side bar to learn more about MATO

Enjoy the coming week and happy quilting!

Maureen

Ready for quilting!

At last I am just about ready to send off the Bento Box style quilt (started quite some time ago ) off down to  Linda for her to work her magic with the quilting!  Just onto the last border now and then  I will courier this down to her tomorrow morning. It's a big quilt (104" x 84") to manoeuvre around in my small sewing area -  here it is all scrunched up on my cutting table for pinning and then scrunched up again for sewing! Ironing is another issue

  

 

I have also been busy working on the next round for the QAL for Midnight At The Oasis and there will be post from me again on Friday, so come visit, and a link up with Sharon and Jess. These quilt alongs are great fun - I would love to take part in more of them, great fun getting to "meet" everyone 

taking part. I have found more super blogs amongst the ladies joining in  which I now have on my blog list, so more time spent reading posts every day!

The next border will be made up of the blocks above (excuse the shadows on these pics)  click the  button on the right hand side bar to see who is taking part and how they are working  with the pattern.

Thank goodness for my Accuquilt it has been great for cutting my strips and triangles!

Apart from being busy with quilting I have been enjoying wandering around the garden, I love doing this early in the morning, it's very peaceful and a great way to start the day and gather my thoughts!

I have a few new roses and dahlias in the garden

The rose is another David Austin named after his wife Pat Austin, it's an absolutely amazing colour and she lives now amongst purple and copper day lilies and just glows in the sunlight.

The dahlia is settled amongst the pink roses along side my established dahlias and day lilies. Some time ago  I also took  cuttings of a purple penstemon and plonked them in the ground, they have taken beautifully so there should be some lovely colour going on in those particular garden beds. I just love purple and golden copper or apricot/peachy colours in the garden, and you can  see that I have used those colours in my Midnight At The Oasis quilt! 

Time for a morning cup of tea and then back to finishing the last border on the quilt - I am so looking forward to seeing what Linda will do with this and will post when I get it back again!
Don't forget to stop by Friday (Saturday am New Zealand time) for the latest episode of Quilting At The Oasis!

Have a good week

Maureen

Quilt Alongs and Sunny Days

Having taken part in the Fractured Quilt Along hosted by Vicki I enjoyed the process so much that I decided to join in with Midnight At The Oasis hosted by Sharon and Jess,  go for a visit and have a look at what has been achieved so far. You can also click on the side button. This is a lovely pattern although if you read my post purely on MATO you will see why mine is a little different!

One lovely surprise from the Fractured QAL was that I won one of the draws organised by Vicki and yesterday received a gorgeous piece of her dyed fabric

Thanks so much Vicki!

So apart from piecing a border on MATO I spent a lot of time reading this week and with the sunny days we've been enjoying I have taken time out just to wander around the garden each day seeing what was in flower. Quite a few plants are just about ready, my roses are in bud and two flowering,

the one below is "Crepuscle"growing along the fence

love this one and she has a delightful scent.

I also found the plant below in the garden centre a few weeks ago and have a number of my soft pink/apricot roses and a yellow one underplanted with these 

Loving gardening and quilting I find a lot of inspiration for colour in quilts from my garden - just look at the photo above for example, and below is  a photo of the beginning of a few lemons, the flowers on the orange and lemon trees are falling now and for the first time I took a really close look at the mini lemons

aren't the colours great?

Until next post

Happy Quilting

Maureen

Midnight At The Oasis 2

A couple of days late here I am with my MATO post

Because of issues with arthritis and a flare of my auto-immune issues my hands were a disaster  so hand applique on an orange peel border was out. I didn't feel up to even using machine applique on all the small petals so I came up with flying geese instead!

Unlike the pattern there is not a lot of contrast between the centre medallion and first border but that's the way I wanted it, more of a moody look. Next problem is the upcoming border with the applique vine - again that is out presently for me so I shall have to get busy thinking of a substitute to use instead that fits with everything else.

Beautiful work being done on the QAL (thanks to Sharon and Jess)  click on their names or just click on the Midnight At The Oasis button on the side bar and have a look at the link-up.

I have my usual blog to write now so better get to it

Hope you're all enjoying a happy weekend

Maureen

Birthday and Blues

The title of this post is  not strictly accurate - I did have a great birthday yesterday the 26th.  Our daughter asked if we would all like to go to her place for a meal so it was a full house and we all had a great time, lovely to see our six grandchildren enjoying themselves. One really good bit was when  the lights were closed off and my lovely chocolate birthday cake lit with candles was brought into the dining room and put on the table and everyone launched into Happy Birthday to Mum/Grandma, our second youngest grandson (2 1/2 yrs)was delighted to see and hear all this and his little face was a delight to see - he thought this was all for him and when the singing stopped promptly made a dash to blow out the candles!

 The blues bit of the post covers the fact that I haven't achieved anywhere near the progress I intended with my quilting over the past week due to health issues. Still not feeling great but was able yesterday to finish part of the centre medallion for Midnight At The Oasis QAL.

There is a post on 1st November for the QAL and most everyone will probably be well on the way to completing the first border ready for the post - if I can get a move on I should catch up.

I have put together the four triangles and rough cut the set in triangles and the centre square, I have cut them larger and will reduce them down to the correct size when I put the centre medallion together.

If you click on the  button on the right hand side you can find out all about the QAL.

Threads need cutting and edges trimming but I have got them sewn together now and I am so over these small triangles! Don't get me wrong I enjoyed this bit but what a time consuming process, after a few false starts in-between bouts of illness I turned to my tried and true method of using tear away stabiliser for accuracy and piecing in strips, same procedure as using paper which some  have used for this quilt, I just prefer the stabiliser which tears away like a dream or can be left in, it's really fine. So many of these small triangles were cut to give me plenty of choice for placing, just a few below

I have a huge amount left over but for the moment they are heading for a plastic bag in a drawer!

My Fractured quilt is all sewn of course now and waiting to be quilted, quite a lot of the ladies are making second or third quilts, click the button on the side and you can read all about us and what we have been doing. Vicki has sponsored this QAL and I was lucky enough to win the draw on Monday for a piece of her beautiful dyed fabric which should be arriving in my mail box pretty soon.

So the week passed slowly for me and I have been reading a book with the title Quake Dogs. When the earthquakes hit Christchurch two years ago an awful lot of pets were in dire distress and this book tells their stories - very moving indeed, especially if you are a doggie person like me.

A quick wander in the garden this morning to see where my roses were up to with their flowering and a 

David Austin rose which was  a new one this season has a bloom open, this one is Eglantyne, as with all his roses a delicious scent.

So that's it from me for the moment, I have two days posts to read and there are heaps of them so the next little while will be spent sitting here at the computer.

Have a great week

Maureen