Hi Quilting Friends, yes, I'm back for a visit!!!

Two months now since my last post and thank you all for your kind comments - apologies to anyone who didn't receive a reply from me I was having  a difficult time!!

I'll bring you up to date with progress on my Seven Seas quilt, not touched until yesterday for two months. you'll see that I've deviated from the pattern. There should be two long strips of small Flying Geese in this quilt but things were such that I had no energy or patience to fiddle with those. So, strips here and there separated the blocks, it doesn't sit well with me but the best I can do right now.

Hand quilting I'm finding extremely relaxing and still working on Northern Lights

difficult to see the stitches unfortunately, only the solids will be quilted.

I've been trying to come to terms with the results of my tests after it was found my platelets were a problem - last post. Without writing a medical dictionary here the result was that it became necessary to have bone marrow biopsy. So Bone marrow duly carried out  mid October going into the back of the pelvis into through the bone to take a liquid marrow sample and a piece of bone, these were sent off to the research people in Melbourne. Boy, they do complicated testing, it's amazing.

 Confirmed now  that I have a rare form of Leukaemia - CMML - Chronic MyeloMonocytic Leukaemia
which is cancer of the blood forming cells of the bone marrow. I have a score of 2 (intermediate risk) and a median survival of 26 months! This could drop when the last bone result arrives back. It could also transform towards the end of that time into Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.  Chemo is going to be in place asap. Difficult to get a hold on all this - so making the effort in the midst of this rotten news and fatigue to head into my sewing room. - and I've bought a few new fabrics!!!!! Got to try and stay positive. Although somehow in the midst of this they have to find a way and time to fix my aortic valve! We need a magic wand.

Cutting going on with AMH fabric Iconic, the pattern is Paris Metro from These Clever Hands

and my 2 and 1/2" strips are all hung neatly on the back of my door in the sewing room

these will morph into a Wallpaper quilt courtesy of a KF pattern. The reverse side will be used in lots of these fabrics.

A collection of new KF/William Morris fabrics below

these will mix with solids for a 16 patch quilt - notice I'm going with simple and easy piecing.

Change of tack now by showing a book I first saw on Instagram @itsalovedayfor - this is the account of  Lindsey Dickson Creative. She had been sent a book - surprise - Soulful Stitch - Finding Creativity in Crisis by Cas Holmes and Deena Beverley and shared a few photographs along with her thoughts after looking through the book. My copy arrived yesterday and this book couldn't have arrived at a better time for me - see last photograph!

here's a closeup of the book below rather than the quilt top! - Sailing through Suez!

I can 't wait to be turning the pages!

That's all from me for now but will truly try and show some progress in my next post.

Take good care of yourselves and your loved ones.

Maureen 

September - quilting, a flood, a Featherweight and of course fabric

Let's deal with the flood as quickly as possible. 10 days ago, burst cold water pipe going to shower, 4.30am. Husband thought it was raining hard, water coursing through the new outside drain. Visit to the bathroom, stepped out the bedroom door and straight into water, through all the hall, the study and of course the bathroom, water just gushing. After 20 mins able to close off the mains. Now dealing with the aftermath - absolutely awful and very expensive - dealing with insurance at the moment and coping with huge de-humidifier machines to draw moisture from wherever!

On to quilting:  Northern Lights

begun hand quilting the  lilac pieces in the blocks using DMC Perle 8, the colour below, I love the variegated threads

next up will be the red/orange blocks, again variegated thread

I have yet to find a similar thread in a blue/green colourway. A good excuse to visit the patchwork store.

Fabric: Tilda Hibernation

This is such a sweet range and perfect for a quilt for a little girl, cue - expected great granddaughter, this will become part of a quilt when she's older. I'm a great believer in being prepared!

Here's one of the latest from Philip Jacobs - Curly Kale

I can't wait to be busy on a quilt using this fabric, the colours are beautiful. I see a border somewhere in the future.

Singer Featherweight 221K  

Bought around 25 years ago and I made one of my Indonesian batik quilts using this machine. Why this little beauty went back into her carrying case I can't recall but probably because I was making clothing in addition to quilts and it was easier to just have my Bernina set up.

A little history:

Production date was 14th September 1953 and  5,000 were commissioned.
She was produced in Kilbirnie, Scotland. Using her serial number I was able to gather the information above. Sadly her cable covering leading to the plug has given up totally, after 70 years I'm not surprised so it's off to the the repair shop within the next two weeks. I have looked at the price of a Featherweight here in New Zealand presently and they're really very expensive, this one cost me NZ$250. What sort of price are they in the USA?

I have never given any of my machines a name before but this one is different. Thinking of my younger days up to the age of around 15 years old, we had such delightful neighbours whom I loved dearly. All of my grandparents had died before I was born and so Mr and Mrs Wadsworth  became surrogate ones, at least to me. So this darling is going to bring back many happy memories by having the name Mrs Wadsworth!

The original manual and even the oil can, much troubled by old age, are still in the case but the attachments, of which there are many, are still in pristine condition.

If you have made it this far then congratulations! I do have a couple more photos if you can bear to continue, latest book from Kaffe Fassett - splendid and colourful as usual.

Two of my feathered friends soaking up the sun on the old verandah

The End!!

See you soon, happy quilting until then.

Maureen

Slow and Steady

Well, I'm certainly slow and steady at the moment!  Three projects in the works right now but not getting along as quickly as I should like - better time management is called for I think.

Just two more rows of my Slashed Squares quilt need to be sewn together but instead of pressing on I decided to do a little more fabric arranging, not a good move in some respects but in others it's resulted in  finding a project from two years ago. 

Found hidden in the bottom of a box tucked away at the back of the cupboard was a container of 2 and1/2" squares, a number of squares stitched into fours and one 16 patch square.

Below we have a shockingly untidy collection of squares

a number of the four patch strips

and the 16 patch

 

I just couldn't remember cutting or stitching these but felt they must be reasonably recent. After sitting a while I did recall this was after seeing a post from quiltdivajulie and her quilt Bemused in January 2020,  the link will take you straight to the post. I fell in love with her quilt and decided there and then to make one - you can see I didn't actually get very far at the time.

 Taking the bull by the horns I headed straight to the machine and made a start but after a while realised not all the squares were equal, some were a smidgen out so the seams weren't always matching up. Thinking not good enough, begin again with new squares and perhaps Leila could use my efforts so far for her own quilt!!!

This isn't the traditional light square, dark square but just whatever came out of the box was stitched together. However, I love it anyway and I'm quite sad that I wasn't careful enough with my cutting.

In between sorting and sewing I made a start on ditch quilting long strips on Northern Lights. Next step will be hand quilting in the ombre patches.

A few more fabrics have been added to my stash

Bold Blooms from Kaffe Fassett

and Hibiscus below from Philip Jacobs

That's all from me for now, we've just had a message from our eldest son to pop across the road to his place, grand-daughter has put together a platter of tasty eats for 5.00pm, who could refuse that! See you soon and Happy Quilting.

Maureen

A quick update - quilts and flowers

A teeny bit of progress with my AdHoc Medallion.

If you read my last post HERE

I was at the stage or working out what my next step would be

with this wall quilt. I had two fellow bloggers,
Sally T at The Objects of Design
and
Wanda S Hanson at Exuberant Color
who sent me their suggestions which were a great help.

I decided on a narrow border and chose this ombre to try and "contain" the central
part of the quilt. Ombre fabrics, which I think may feature more in my quilts, were used in my earlier
quilt top "Northern Lights" shown below,

So folks all I have to show as I link up with the AdHoc Improv Quilters

are strips of fabric 1 and 3/4" wide!!!

But here's a peek at two of my favourite blooms out at the moment and

yes, they are very much in the pastel range, not like my quilts!

 Hibiscus

Camellia

That's all for now!

A gathering of quilt tops - quite a few photographs

We had an absolutely beautiful spring day yesterday,

apple blossom

Rugosa "Alba"

everything in the garden is slowly coming back to life, scent from wisteria and our

Viburnum bush, orange blossom and the Rugosa rose above 

 pervades the whole back garden when all 

bushes are in full flower.

This was a good day to pull out my quilt tops from my very large

drawer in the chest in the bedroom. I keep them in there until I'm ready to sandwich

them and I also usually have a couple in there rolled up

ready to quilt, but they needed to see some fresh air so outside they went

under the apple tree.

Alley Cats - Rainbow Challenge 2014

Red Sea Sunset - Half Square Triangle Challenge

Ice Cream - going to be hand quilted

Blue Heaven

Rainbow Rag

I have two ready now for quilting, sandwiched yesterday

Northern Lights

Paintbox - before straightening the bottom left!




So nothing exciting achieved this week, once again. Oh, I have finished up the sewing
on High Flyer for my grand-daughter and playing with Scrap Vortex.

I have a provisional date of 12th November for my next hospital visit so
I'm trying to get a few loose ends tied up.

Thanks so much for all your good wishes and I should be posting
again during the week with progress on other projects!

Maureen