And here comes another squirrel

This particular squirrel is actually on my list of projects
but decided to jump the queue, photo kindly sent to me by a dear long time friend
of over 50 years in England! I think this will be my permanent post photo for
The Squirrel Club

Click on the squirrel graphic in my sidebar to visit Julie's blog
and read all about The Squirrel Club.

Many Trips Around The World has long been a favourite pattern
of mine and two days ago sorting through an assortment of
2 and 1/2" strips I decided to just make a start

and this is my first trial block. I photographed on black because both my 
grey squared and my cream design wall seemed to drain the colour
from my fabrics.

Top left square needs replacing because the strip was a fraction too short
that's on my list for tomorrow.
I really like the Kaffe Spot fabric as the dark diagonal so I gathered
more from my stash

to use as the diagonal in all the blocks.

There is another project currently being put together and I'll post
on that this coming Tuesday, I'm making good use of Julie's
plate system to try and keep some order with my pieces for this
one.

It's a short post from me this time  but I'll be here again come Tuesday but
before I head off to begin the evening meal here's a photo
from the garden

ideas here for a quilt colour scheme!

Stay Safe!!

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

A finished flimsy and a new project

It's been some time!!!

Crutches back with the physio - at the moment anyway - and I'm back

at the machine but with a difference, I have my left foot on the pedal

not the right one,  this change took me a little while to get the co-ordination flowing
smoothly.
I've been doing a little sorting of projects.

First off I finished the seams on the 2 x 4 quilt top, comes under the heading
of a Squirrel Club project.

then a little more hand quilting on Paintbox, 

this is the full shot below from (can't believe this)

2015!!!!! 

I pulled out a WIP  - below - put away because I wasn't sure if I truly

wanted to continue with it, I do, that's down for next week.

 A wander in the garden

and then onto Scrap Vortex (below).

You may remember it was put aside because I was fast

losing the ability to focus my eyes stitching this.

Julie, who blogs at quiltdivajulie.blogspot.com/,
offered to adopt the blocks should I decide I truly didn't want
to continue on with it.
After thinking this over and pulling the said project out of
the parts box I decided to take drastic action

so now I have twenty three 3 and1/2" by 12 and 1/2" pieces,
a selection below

and I also have

a few strips of KF Aboriginal Dots
and one of his stripe fabrics.

I'm still stitching on this one but I'll have a photo
up later in the week.

Before I sign off a huge thank you for all the good wishes
sent my way. It's a toss up as to whether it's a
Medial Collateral Ligament tear or the Meniscus or something entirely
different, another knee specialist visit this week.

Bye for now and Happy Quilting

Maureen

Springtime, The Squirrel Club and a finish

Let's go with the finish first.

The binding of this quilt below was delayed, due in no small

part to the fact that I am currently on my fourth round of antibiotics

in five weeks!

However, I summoned the energy yesterday to have a finish, no photo of the bound quilt
until next time, I've left it too late in the day to photograph outside.

I went with the AMH border fabric for the binding

and decided to forego hand stitching down on the back

and used the machine saving me quite some time.

My Squirrel project - see sidebar - is a Scrap Vortex quilt.

I had decided to work with decent size pieces of fabric to save time, but

somehow I found they were going smaller!

Excuse the 'rough and ready' photo below, the gridded flannel

needs straightening.

Much as I enjoy this quilt

there is a limit on the time I can spend working on it before

I lose control of my eyes!!

Instead of going with set size blocks I'm working as if

piecing a jigsaw in that I sew chunks and then fit them in wherever I can and cut to size

 when necessary, having said that there are a couple of 12' blocks in there.

Spring seems to finally be here for us in New Zealand, we've had a few

sunny days and the garden is coming alive again.

I have a huge clump of Clivia which put on a wonderful show

each year, sadly the snails and slugs enjoy a nightly feast on them.

 Always a harbinger of Spring is our Japanese Maple, I love

the lime green of the new leaves.

Last, but not least, the hellebores.

I have the room for two more plants in this area so a visit to the garden centre

will be on the agenda this coming weekend.

Bluebells are peeping up and should be flowering soon.

We're watching the news here of the hurricane heading for

the East coast of America and what a monster!

Thinking of all who are in the path of Florence as I write this,

keep safe.

Maureen

The Squirrel Club

If you look on my right hand sidebar you can see

a cute graphic headed The Squirrel Club and if

you click there you will be taken to a

post from
Julie
explaining how the Squirrel Club began and what
we're doing right now.

Cut to the chase, we're playing with our scraps and
sewing up a storm with a Scrap Vortex quilt inspired
by the design from
Amanda Jean
blogging at
https://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com

Progress to date:
sorting scraps and trimming into squares and rectangles

then stitching into pairs

and  making use of fussy cut pieces left over from my
Gypsy Wife quilt top.

I was too impatient to sew all the pairs I need before
creating a couple of blocks.
These are 12 and 1/2", they won't all be this size but
I've yet to finalise my setting plan.

I wrote in my last post about my 'serious quilting'
which was going to happen over the past week. Given
that we were told of the deaths of three people, two of whom
my husband had been friends with since school day, plus
bad news about kitty Leila - she was discovered to have
luxating patellas Grade 1
 in both hind legs just after we had
given her a home -  we  learned last week
that in two years they have progressed
to Grade 3, therefore the sum of my serious
quilting can be seen in the photos in this post!

I'll finish up now, time to play nurse with a syringe full
of medicine for Leila.

Hope you're all enjoying your quilting,
see you in a few days.

Maureen