A sad week - Setters and one orange teapot

A sad week indeed and the end of an era.

We had to make our last visit to the vet on Monday morning with

Seamus, our old Irish Setter and the last of the seven

we have had as family members over the past  45 years.

Saturday last week his hind legs gave out on him so we knew

this was the end. He reached the grand old age of 13 years - good for

a Setter.

Seamus

Here he is below with his sister Mollie when they were just
a few years old, we lost her due to cancer

4 years ago. They were waiting for John to come out of the water

after his swim.

Seamus and Mollie

And I just have to have this one in the post, his favourite place of all, 

on the knee of his best pal!

Seamus and John

I did pull myself together and made an orange teapot 

and I'm off  to link up with Angela and the goodies on show for
Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2015

Maureen

Quilting Weather

As Nancy J from All Points of The Compass tells us New Zealand is in for  an extremely cold spell.   It's a case of "batten down the hatches" keep warm and quilt. The wind is starting to blow here in Auckland and the sky has gone very grey indeed so I guess it won't be too long before the rain hits, maybe some hail in there as well. When the icy blasts come up from the South Pole it's quite a shock to the system.

I have been stuck in the house all week with a shocker of a cold and cough - in fact the whole box of tricks really! Not felt much like quilting or doing anything and the only thing I have done was to complete another small block for the Scrap Swap over at 15 Minutes Play so I now have  two  and I am just not happy with the result!! My intention  was to make four blocks and then figure out what to do with them from there, four together then borders or strips between each  block and so on. A shot of two together isn't doing it for me so might have to rethink. 

See what I mean?  The top one I am happy with but I think the bottom one will be a non-starter. They also don't look to be equal in measurement but they are, must be the angle of the camera. I think  because of my hand surgery and handling everything that came with my long time friend being so ill and then passing away two weeks ago I just haven't been in "the zone". Hopefully things will now begin to get better.

Bird watching at the feeding tables has been great and I get such a lot of pleasure out of seeing them all eating breakfast. For the third time in a week we have had a kingfisher sitting in the branches of the silver birch and he/she is so tetchy about being photographed! I did take two yesterday but they are not showing the beautiful colours.

In fact now I have inserted a pic I see that there is really no colour at all!!! However his lethal beak is much in evidence.

Now my moth orchid below is not short on colour - I look forward so much to the blooms from this particular one. 

I have had a few people emailing to ask about the photo of the Irish Setter on my page - this is my  darling Mollie. We lost her almost two years ago now to cancer.  Miss her so very much she was a honey, our four legged friends are counted as family. My husband still has regular doggie people stop him and ask what happened to her, one guy was so upset when told that she had died he said she was a real hussy!! We still have her brother Seamus and for old times sake I am posting one of my favourite shots of them 

down at the beach.

In fact here are two pics because these particular ones are two of my favourites even though Seamus is being difficult and not smiling at the camera.

Enjoy the rest of your week and happy quilting!!

One finished - one found

Well, I delivered the "Vintage" quilt (which I showed in an earlier post) to my friend in time for her birthday tomorrow with strict instructions that she couldn't open it until then. Because of my tendonitis I had been really worried that I wouldn't complete it in time, the binding was stitched down yesterday, so all's well. I just love the colours of this one and I think with the left over fabrics I have enough to make  two cushion covers. Here is a close up:

Hope she likes it!!

Quit a few years ago I put together a wall hanging - my Setter quilt. At that time we had three Irish Setters - Mum, Dad and Son. They loved going down to our local boating beach which is called The Sandspit, as soon as we reached the bottom of walkway through the bush they would start pulling on the leash and howling to reach the water, when we let them off the leashes they raced off one behind the other all the way along the spit of sand which was a considerable distance when the tide was out.  It was a joy to watch them. Sadly they left us many years ago and not long after we lost the "baby" I began to make the piece for the wall, I used the Fossil Fern as the background as it was the nearest thing to sand colour that I had at the time, the dark reddish brown was for the rich colour of their coats and because I love purple I added a bit of that too. Somewhere along the way after I had marked the quilting pattern, pin basted it and decided to add the borders with the stitch and flip method later I must have folded it up and stashed it away while I thought about the border. You can probably guess where this is going - I couldn't remember where I had put it. Over the years when I have needed to have a good tidy around my sewing room I have looked high and low for it without any luck. Yesterday I decided to move all my basket stacks of fabric out of the storage area as I needed to re-arrange - and yes, there was my lost quilt. Must have been on top of the high stack of baskets and slipped down the back between the stacks and the wall. I am so, so pleased that I have it back and it is now safely under my cutting table ready to be worked on again. So, this is the Sandspit below and when I go and stand in the spot where the photograph has been taken I can drift back in time and  see them again racing along. Those of you with dogs will understand I'm sure.

Now here is my "lost and found" piece in memory of our three New Zealand born Setters:

Following my magpie story in my last post I must show you the Eastern Rosella parrot having a nibble at the apples, they are beautiful birds and I much happier with them in my garden than the magpies!

I must try and finish all the panels on my scrappy bargello quilt this week, I loved reading the post from Melody at fibermania where she hopes to make one quilt a week - that would be a great blog challenge!

Until next time - have a good week!