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

Spring 2019 - planning projects - top heavy on photos

Yes, Spring is officially here!

Down at the beach on a beautiful day, the water looks so inviting

but still on the chilly side so I'll wait until Summer before paddling.

My sewing studio is in quite a mess and desperately in need of tidying

but I'm still pressing on with more blocks for

Unconventional and Unexpected

I love the zigzag fabric around block 4.

Just 12 more and my target of 30 will be reached and I

can begin sewing up the rows.

Project planning - my head is full of quilts

I really want to get on with and after the five blocks from yesterday I

had to have a little play with two of the new fabrics from Philip Jacobs,

pattern and results below of the beginnings of a mock up of

Hex Star

a pattern from Victoria Findlay Wolfe

and I'm intending using PJ's big, bold prints for the stars.

 Continuing on with the floral theme in the two fabrics above

are three photos of soft, pale flowers in bloom in the garden right now,

colour quite the opposite of the brightness above.

Camelia Lovelight

Arum Lily

Ranunculus

I bought three of the plants above and we're heading off again to the garden centre

for a few more, I have a lot of gaps to fill in our front garden bed.

Off now to cut more blocks so see you soon.

To readers who are presently in the unpredictable path of

Hurricane Dorian you're in my thoughts, keep safe!

Maureen

Projects - present and future - and a visit to sew stitch snap SHARE

We're still in Winter, at least officially, but this beauty

was flowering yesterday

and heaps more all ready to open, the scent is out of this world.

I've finished my Golden Strips top

I had to lay it on the floor to take the photo, not enough room

on my design wall and the morning light was brighter than

I would have liked for photographing.

Here's a close-up with one of my favourite fabrics with

the gorgeous roses in Yellow Floral Delight, a Philip Jacobs design.

I 'd decided there was no more room on my book shelves for any

more quilting books but then I succumbed to this one,

it arrived in the mail a few days ago

and it's another glorious publication!!

One of the first quilts which caught my attention was this one

and it really is brighter than it looks here.

I have lots of the KF  stripes and his shot cottons so

this is on my list, the best part is I don't need to think about spending

on fabrics.

My Little Bits blocks are coming along slowly, there's quite

a lot of cutting in this one. Placement is supposed to be random, it is a scrappy quilt

after all,

but I'll make all the blocks before putting them up on the wall

and play around with them.

Paying a visit to 

Linda and Julie

for

sew stitch snap SHARE

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

A Go Slow week!

Not really much achieved at my place over the past week - due to internet woes and  tendonitis in my right wrist.  Top of my list was to take the plunge and wash my Fractured quilt - if you're not familiar with my saga of the dyed fabric run in the quilt check out this post. The results of the wash (with the addition of about 14 dye catcher sheets) is below. 

 

So the sheets did a good job, there was only one fabric which really changed colour, the grey which is the top centre block changed to a soft pink/grey and the white rings are a definite pink now.

 I can live with that, the quilt is over the fold down bed and looks really nice. Some of the other fabrics also had white in there but they didn't take up any of the dye.
Before my hand began to play up (probably helped to bring it on) I was cutting 6" strips off  my Jinny Beyer Colour Palette fabrics, all 150! Also was able to bind this
 small  8" square piece.

I now need to catch up on reading all the blog posts which I wasn't able to access over the past three days so that will keep me out of trouble for a little while! Also I see that there are new fabrics out for KF, PJ and BM (no time to type in full) and I need to put in an order  - sadly this action may get me run out of Fabriholics Annonymous as it's not fabric considered essential for finishing anything - I just need some!!
Enjoy the week

Flowers and Feathers

Two posts on the same day once again!

Spent quite some time this week working on the Fractured QAL (see the other post for today), I was determined to have it finished by posting day but didn't quite meet that, just a few more seams to put in.

On the quilting front I am also taking part in Midnight At The Oasis Quilt Along - click the button on side bar to learn more about this beautiful piece and Sharon and Jess who are organising. I was so excited when I saw this was happening I just had to take part.

Feathers - two more glorious colours  from Philip Jacobs - look at these! 

The yellow colourway is actually a little brighter that this photo is showing, both are amazing.

Flowers - a visit to the garden centre with husband last week was intended to just pick up a packet or two of seeds, but it took a huge amount of will-power to leave these three clematis plants behind. 

and the one below was so unusual, I have never seen a clematis like this before

Actually there is something else relating to quilting, last post I spoke about our local bookshop and posted two shots of books bought there last week. We called in again this morning "just to browse"

but I came out with this

So looking forward to reading this one.  I just cannot buy any more books now until the New Year!!!

Hope you're all having a great weekend and don't forget to visit Sharon and Jess by clicking the Midnight at the Oasis button and the one from Vicki for Fractured, until next time

Maureen

Cabbages and Roses and Kaffe Fassett Collective

Second post - just had to do this one!

One of the blogs which I follow and look forward to seeing on my dashboard is from
Mias Landliv in Norway and on 3rd October her post showed beautiful fabric from a shop in London -Cabbages and Roses. I had a quick look at their site and decided I just had to go back for a longer look when I had the time and that possibly there might be something there for me in the fabric line which would ship to NZ no problem!

Yesterday husband and I went off to the village for a coffee in our favourite cafe and as usual called in Readaway Books - an amazing book shop, the number of books we have bought from them defies belief!! Anyway my real reason for going in there was to buy a book by David Austin on the English Roses

as you can see I was successful, but the gardening books are alongside the interior design books and I was having a look along the shelf when what should I see but

by Cabbages and Roses - it was my lucky day.

Haven't had time to do more than look at a few pages but it is food for the soul I think and look forward to sitting down with this book in a quiet corner without any interruptions!

On the subject of Cabbages and Roses I received on Thursday an order of fabric and included were the two new colourways of Brassica design by Philip Jacobs (which is my all time favourite design) from the Kaffe Fassett Collective, they are divine, absolutely gorgeous. I loved his first five colours but these two I think are his best yet

You have to see these "in the flesh" to really appreciate the colour, I can't bear to put them away in their basket just yet - I need them out on my cutting table to admire them! Can I actually bear to cut into them? Watch this space!! In fact I'm going to head back down to my studio to stroke them again  and will leave you with a photo of one of the English roses from my garden

What a pity you can't bury your nose in this photograph and smell the delicious old rose perfume!

Until next week
Maureen

Fractured Quilt Along Week 6

I am so late today posting about the Fractured quilt and I see that some of the folk taking part have already linked up with Vicki, but I have to wait until Saturday for Vicki to get the link up on Friday US time. If you go along for a visit you can be able to see what we are all working on, there are so many different interpretations of this design.

My quilt is changing in size!
I have a number of things going on in my life at the moment, one of which is upcoming surgery on my knee, I was finding it difficult to get as much sewing on my quilt as I would have liked plus I really didn't know where I would use it. A light bulb moment occurred when I read a post by Wanda at Exuberant Color in which she said she really didn't need a queen sized quilt but more of a throw size - so thanks Wanda, mine has now lost one row on all  four sides also.

It's a really dull rainy day here in NZ and there is not enough daylight coming onto my design wall,  I have had to throw more light onto the work in progress with my tall work light but it is slightly yellowed the colours, lesson learned to take the photograph on the day the sun is shining and not assume the we will still be having good weather the day following. I see I am not straight with my blocks on the left hand side - that's what comes of rushing!

I intend to have all my blocks finished by next Friday but not necessarily sewn together.

This is one of my favourite blocks in the quilt

I love Brassica by Philip Jacobs and have just received more of this design in the two new colourways - see my second post of the day!

Time to go along and see what progress everyone else has made

Maureen

Spring and Fractured QAL

Tomorrow is officially the first day of Spring here in New Zealand, according to the weather forecast today and tomorrow would be lovely fresh springlike days, for once they look as if they may be spot on! Today there is a blue sky and sunshine, birds were singing like crazy just on dawn and were trying to have me feed them about a half hour earlier than my usual time so their body clocks must be changing gear and thinking about getting into baby raising mode soon.

We did have one spring-like day during the week and I took a photo of the little cottage named Green Gables down in Howick, this is the base for the Howick Art Group and my husband and I are members, John is the painter. They are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday only and have two rooms with work displayed by members and each month there is an extra room given over to a solo exhibition. Three years ago I had a quilt exhibition there (bear in mind these rooms are only small)  which I really enjoyed, there is no room to hang a full size quilt but I had a number of very small pieces in addition to a couple of throws and table runners and I am booked to hold another one in February - slight panicky feeling - as I am not really organised so I'm really going to have get my skates on. I spent some time last night getting ideas together and working out how many pieces would look good in the small space. I could take my quilt ladder down which will help with the space problem. Hopefully I will also have a few felted pieces and probably two or three of my Silk series using the sari silk.

You can see it's a cute little place especially at this time of year with the daffodils in full bloom. It is more or less surrounded by immense oak trees which are just glorious whether in full leaf or showing their bare branches and in Autumn the pathway and outdoor exhibition area are covered in acorns, reminds me of primary school days tramping home from school scrunching through the dried Autumn leaves.

One piece from my exhibition last time was this schoolhouse wall hanging, this is a photo taken in the wrong position on a windy day! I had  a number of fat quarters of fabric from Fig Tree sitting on the shelf waiting to be used and they seemed just right for this one.

On my list of things to do, or rather for J to do is set up a good area outside for shots of quilts so if the good weather holds I might get lucky.

The quilt for our daughter is still a work in progress, a work yet to be started is the quilt for our youngest grandson and my progress with cutting for fabrics for the Fractured QAL is coming along.

Just finished cutting the strips yesterday - the greens and yellows on the left and the other strips, which I know I posted last time, below. Just starting to sort the darks out today and I'm finding that's the tricky bit deciding which fabrics I want to put in there! You can see I have used a lot of Kaffe Fassett/Philip Jacobs fabrics in there along with a few batiks so the question is whether I have sufficient darks in the range from the above mentioned designers. also pulled a large assortment of dyed fabrics which could be a possibility and there are some very dark batiks on my table so today will be spent as a play day. Another alternative is to not go too dark but medium dark - we'll see.

One week to go now to start date for  FQAL

Enjoy your weekend

Maureen