Work in progress

This is a brief post, seems to have been the story of my life over the past few months, not a lot going on.

So after a few cancellations for various reasons I'm off tomorrow at 6.30am. to have my pacing generator changed. Quilting projects have been difficult to jump into whilst waiting for the above to happen, I've been spending a lot of time doing this

the book title says a lot, a coaster for the numerous cups of tea and hexies in the dish.

Two new Raskog trolleys were delivered a week ago and the mats from my previous trolley (different brand) didn't fit the new ones, I have three stitched and binding will be done soon along with three more mats.

The Fonthill quilt has presented me with a few challenges, various  fabrics for the two strip borders have been auditioned and rejected, I also found that my fingers/hands do not care much for working with the small half square triangles - around 350 -  I began at trying to work with something different in the centre design and I think I may well have come up with "a cunning plan" as first mentioned by Baldrick in the Black Adder tv series. This will have to wait until I'm all healed up.

Two individual fabrics I had tried out to use for the strips are these two below, they're  totally different from my original pieces pinned up on my design wall, the grouping then was based on purples.

Decision now made below for the two rounds of border strips  - the left hand Baba Ganoush  above - plus the corner triangle and as you can see I've reversed the colour layout shown in the original Fonthill quilt, my border strips are darker and the corner half square triangle is lighter - a new Tilda fabric in a soft green/aqua.

So that's it from me for now, a late night as no food or drink after midnight so I think a hot cup of tea  with toast will be on the menu around 11.00pm.

See you all soon.

Maureen

Getting into the quilting swing of things again - hopefully

I feel the past six months have been a nightmare on the quilting side of life but hoping that I can now begin to spend more time with my fabrics and my sewing machine.

I've been trying to really make my sewing studio organisation easier to work with and put aside one project in order to deal with a squirrel which arrived yesterday so  things must be improving!

Last post I had made the fortunate discovery of 16 patch blocks tucked away and began making more, still more strips ready to cut on my Accuquilt

I had also begun on the blocks earlier in the year on a  quilt for eldest grandson

and whilst I was enjoying stitching these I decided that with the number of 8" blocks needed I  would put on hold and go with something using larger blocks, I turned to the pattern for Slashed  Squares, tutorial purchased from Lynne at The Patchery Menagerie, made a start and love these large blocks for the initial stage. Great tutorial by the way.

The blocks you see above were the result of my time at the machine yesterday, in total I'll be making 30.

I made mention above of sewing room organisation, the room is quite small so do I really need to find another basket in my fabric racks for even more fabric??? I decided that yes, I could make a little more space and bought a few of the latest Tilda range 'Chic Escape', I have in mind a few pillows for around the place and possibly a small throw size quilt. Perhaps I'm being too indulgent and maybe feeling a little sorry for myself over the past few months but what the heck, we only live once and I ain't getting any younger.

This is my favourite

Just a few more
 

And I fell for the new Tula range Tiny Beasts, hopefully these will be here over the weekend or Monday.

Guess I should end this post here but must share with you a photo of a few regular visitors

hoping that a certain someone - guess who - will be kind enough to give them a little breakfast.

It is duck shooting season here in NZ, a practice I abhor, strong word perhaps but true for me, so we have lots of ducks around this area right now all trying to escape the mayhem. This happens each year, there are even signs here and there by the road side  - Caution, Ducks Crossing!

That's all from me, back to tidying and storing, see you soon.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

A quiet time for quilting

 Nothing too exciting this post.
I've been busy with my string blocks for the
AHIQ String Tulip QAL just a few more to sew now and
I'm really cutting it fine to have them all complete by the 28th, but
I'll get there!

Green Diamonds

She's not showing quite as bright as she truly is and at the moment
one half is sewn together and the other half is in the process, pinned here and there but
at least I am now heading down from the top right and the
strips will become shorter and more manageable.

Where the two halves meet there's going to be a little adjustment,
a few diamonds unpicked and restitched to have them matching up correctly.

Whilst I've enjoyed putting this together would I make another quilt
all diamonds - I would not. I had to starch because all the fabrics are KFC
and they're a little finer than the regular quilting cottons. Even with the starch
there is stretch here and there.

Apart from the above, the blocks, planning future quilts, the highlight of my
day today was a visit to the quilt store for more pins and an extra
cutting blade, an exciting photo below!

Funnily enough I did feel that I needed just a few more Tilda fabrics
to add to my collection

and I was very restrained and bought just one 1/2 yard from the
KFC fabrics

the reason for my restraint being that I have a largish order of the new
Kaffe Fassett Collective release, which should be here around March.

So folks, that was my exciting week apart from being rated a
Priority 2 case to see the Oral Maxillary specialist within the next
four weeks, such fun. So I best make the most of my quilting as I might
just be out of action for a short time.

Garden - two little flowers, seeds sown a while ago

aren't they so pretty?

The bottom photo is a new zinnia and the top one
a small cosmos.

Enjoy the weekend and stay safe.

Maureen