A few more blocks for Unconventional and Unexpected - progress!!

If you cast your mind back to January you may remember that I was
joining other quilters invited by Sujata Shah to take part part in her
Unconventional and Unexpected Quilt Along

Our posts are on her blog
Basket Full of Scraps
with our quilts being inspired by the ones
in a book
Unconventional and Unexpected
by
Roderick Kiracofe

and I chose the one below.



"Cross"/Four Patch

Not wanting to make a straight copy of this beautiful quilt I began my own take on it
 using quite different fabrics to the ones in the photo above, the first six were on my blog
HERE
and then life intervened, as it does, and no further blocks were made until
two days ago.

These are my latest ones, and I'm loving them!

I prefer these to my original blocks so I'll be continuing on
using a mix of lots of Kaffe Fassett Collective
and Anna Maria Horner fabrics plus a few others.
So many new designers are coming out with super bold and colourful
fabric lines now.

I have been planning future projects so not much playing with fabrics
unfortunately. I have pulled my Tula Pink quilt

out of the drawer
and hope to make a start on the binding tomorrow.

We're coming to the official end of Winter here in New Zealand,
I'm definitely looking forward to Spring and the colour in the garden,
but we do  have some beautiful flowering hibiscus still blooming

and brightening up a rainy day.

That's it from me for now, wishing you all
Happy Quilting until next time.

Maureen

Planning, Surprises and Sunrise - heavy on photos!

I have a total finish!!

The quilt for Bea's 20th birthday has now been bound, she doesn't know

anything about this surprise at all, I hope she likes it!!

Photos taken on the old deck

Two more quilt tops are on their way to Leeanne

for her to work her magic with the quilting

Rainbow Blur below

and my Tula Pink top

I'm just about to bind one of my Memory Quilts - quick peek at a

smidgy bit of it below.

I need to get down down to some serious planning on quilts to be made,

size, fabrics chosen and so on. It's going to be a hard task to decide which to play with

over the next twelve months. I'm having a sale at our Auckland Quilt Guild

early August, with the results of a serious de-stash.

An echocardiogram a couple of weeks ago gave us a surprise,

I have a congenital heart defect, not picked up before.

My aortic valve did not form correctly, instead of having

three leaflets (tri-leaflet) which peel back fully in order to let the blood flow mine

is bicuspid, the valve only splits into two flaps, looks like a round emoji with just the smile!

This, as you can see, is a

slight problem!

The  valve thickens and becomes stiff  (stenosis) and is a disorder which is progressive - 

presently mild but progression rate is variable, hence my decision to take stock

of my proposed quilting and fabrics, hopefully prematurely!

However, life goes on and just look at this sunrise two days ago,

took my breath away.

You can just see a peep of soft turquoise streaking in through the trees.

Have a great weekend, see you soon.

Maureen

One step forward, two steps back

If you read my last post from 29th October you might recall that I showed

my scrap vortex cut into strips along with two other fabrics.

deconstructed scrap vortex

aboriginal dot and kf stripe

I also said that before the end of that week I would have something to

show for my efforts as I was now off crutches.

They are now back with me, hence the wording of the title.

Dictionary definition of the post title:

If you take one step forward, two steps back, you make progress but then

experience events that cause you to be further behind than you were when you made

the progress.

In reality I have made al little progress in the past two days sewing a few seams and

buying new fabrics - necessary for therapy!

Below is the beginning of my take on a new Chinese Coins using the strips

shown above.

Strips sewn 3" x 11 and 1/2", yes a bit of a strange size.

You can see that the bright scrap strips seem to be taking second place

to the dark combination.

Here is one completed strip, there will be three in total

My husband looked at this and said I had killed the colour,

perhaps I have but I am happy with it. Yes, it has darker elements rather

than my usual all over bright colour, I think sometimes our quilts reflect

our mood at the time, mine wasn't that great!

But  here comes the colour starting with

the 2018 range of Moda Bella Solids - there a few moody darks

at the bottom of the bundle, I have plans for an Amish piece.

 The next two photos are Tula Pink Zuma and sadly 

these shots don't quite show the vibrancy of this range.

Don't ask what I have in mind for Zuma,I have a lot of ideas buzzing around.

The beauty of Tula Pink fabrics

is that they mix and match, especially when incorporating

her solids, stripes and dots.

Lunch time now - home baked savoury cheese muffins and a cuppa.

Fingers crossed for a little more sewing over the weekend.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

A dry spell for quilting!

Just over three weeks since I last posted, that must be the longest spell

without a post since I began blogging!!

It's been a while for various reasons but I'll show you

the sum of my quilting over this lean period.

First up the quilt for my daughter was quilted by

Leeanne at quiltmekiwi.blogspot.com/
if you head over to her blog you'll see good photos of the quilt, better than
I have below!
It's been pouring with rain here, not ideal for outdoor photos.

The central blocks were from a QAL with Sujata Shah, she blogs
over at
The Root Connection
and the pattern is Rail Fence.

The border is an Anna Maria Horner fabric from  her
Sweet Dreams collection

The quilting, as mentioned earlier is by
Leeanne at Quilt Me Kiwi,
I went with the Plump Swirls pattern in order to
soften the angular lines in the blocks
You can see the pattern on the back of quilt below.

Remember my Tula Pink Plus One quilt ?



I'm going to quilt this in three sections, something that's been on my radar
for a while.
There was quite a good amount of fabric left from piecing the top and that's
been cut into strips for  the backing.
The first section for quilting covers the blue bees down to the
racoon fabric.

I had to do little piecing here and there and was out of the bottom aqua racoon on pink so
went with the reverse colourway - you will see I have
a two headed pink racoon!

And that is all I have done in my three weeks, I have  been fiddling
around in the studio trying to find a better working
set up - without much success!

On a sunny day we headed over to see our two youngest grandsons, they
 live just a couple of minutes walk from the beach - how about this view
as you're making sand castles or paddling in the sea.

Rangitoto in all her splendour sitting out in the Gulf.

Time to power up the machine and get creating,
back soon,
have a good quilting week.

Maureen

Back on board - slowly!

I have had my leave of absence and now I'm ready to 

get back to work!

Even though I haven't been posting I have been

sewing for short periods at a time on my

Tula Pink Plus One quilt.

Eleven rows which now have to be stitched together,

and working with an assortment of splints and supports on

hands and wrists does not make photography easy,

so excuse wonkiness!
If you supersize this photo you should be able to see the critters
a little more clearly.

I hope I haven't missed thanking anyone for their good wishes,
if I have then please accept my apologies.

There was good news with my cardiac investigations in that
my heart valves are declared OK and working as they should.
Bad news was xrays of my hands. I do have arthritis, that was known and obvious 
and the reason for a review, but unfortunately they have discovered
that I have several cysts in the carpal bones, actually in the bones, I couldn't
quite get my head around that result.

This is a huge worry for me because of my quilting but I'm taking steps
to minimise damage. I'm thinking of buying one of the
newer Accuquilt Go BIG electric cutters my ordinary GO can find
a new home.
I only had the news of the cysts this morning so I'm sure I'll come up with more
ideas.

I have had a wonderful friend keep me company, no, not my
four legged friend but a two legged one

he has been feeling braver and braver and now sits on the
branch directly outside the sliders. I adore kingfishers.

Thats all from me, and I'm hoping that Blogger
will work if, as suggested, I leave myself the first comment and
I've also changed my settings.

June already

June began at our place with a beautifully sunny day,

today just the opposite, cold and windy.

I've been working on my Plus One quilt, progress as of yesterday below

and so far my favourite character is

the owl below.

I've strayed a little from the original quilt, which sparked my

interest in making one just the same, I'm fussy cutting

for the creatures in the 6" blocks.

The same procedure for the two 3" pieces either side of the rows,

 but here I've done a reverse fussy cut.

This morning I'm onto the squirrels and they're a different

fussy cut setting again, they'll be parading about

in the next post.

Winter is now with us and I realised early yesterday morning that

the oak tree in the next door garden was looking pretty bare,

but I do still have a few flowers in the garden, this vireya was

soaking up the sun and celebrating 1st June yesterday,

colourwise it's a pretty good match with the pinks in the

Plus One quilt.

The China Doll trees have huge long seed pods now,

they provided a good breakfast for this guy

and I wish I could have moved closer too him but he was off too quickly.

Back to the squirrels now but I'm heading off to 

make the link up with
Linda at kokaquilts

for Sew,Stitch,Snap,SHARE
hope to see you there.

Oh, before I go, I guess by now everyone knows
about the problem we're all having with blogger, no email
notification of comments, I'll still try and get a response out to any commenters,
but it may take me a little longer.

Enjoy the weekend and happy quilting until next time.

Pottering and playing with something new with Tula Pink

Watching Katie Pasquini Masopust on The Quilt Show

last week she had a great idea for hanging strips.

This was ideal for keeping some of my strips

tidy instead of in a jumble in the bin.

So, rings hanging either on a door, the wall or a rail,

safety pins holding strips together, could be in colour order, or not,

 depending what they're being used for, threaded

onto the rings. Cut off then length you need as you along, give them

a shake at the end of the day - no creases or wandering threads!

Looking through my KF books I flagged quilts which I'd like

to make, however I only worked on four books

and you can see the amount of markers!!

As I have another 16 books to go through I think a culling

session will be in order - no way will I be making all 

these quilts!

But I have made a start on a new quilt.

I don't think I posted my Tula Pink All Stars collection when

they arrived a few weeks ago, some of them shown below

and I should have posted them in three or four photos

to truly show them off to their best.

Plus One is a pattern in the newest book from

Tula Pink and Angela Walters, which just happens to be

on my shelf.

A quilter from Aussie on Instagram @goneaussiequilting had made this

pattern up with the All Stars range, I loved it and along with a few 

other quilters asked if she would mind if we made the

very same quilt using her colour setting, she gave us the

go ahead!

Above is the top border and then the first row - only stuck

on the flannel wall - is made up of squares and pluses and  will be 60" across.

I'll have a better photo next time, the colours are

more vibrant than they're showing here.

This is a project which makes me feel like doing nothing else but

hiding in my little studio all day with these luscious fabrics, not

actually possible because of the arthritis in my hands but I'm

using a timer to work in short bursts.

I think the bright colour fans will enjoy watching this all come

together row by row.

I should have more to show in my next post

but as John and I are celebrating our 50th Wedding Anniversay

tomorrow, 25th May, it will be next week before much gets done around here.

We have a family lunch Sunday, we're looking forward to that and probably

a day of rest will be needed the next day!

 I'm off now to do another 30 minutes on the quilt,

 hope you all enjoy the rest of the week.

Maureen

No sewing - just stashing

Decided it was time to tidy up a few 

containers of large fabric pieces over 1.5 metres and ended

up realising that I had far more than I thought!

I have two containers filled with older stash, like these below

then I have two more with Kaffe Collective fabrics -just one shown.

All this re-shuffling was to free up a basket for these

Tula Pink All Stars with her Pom Poms and Tent Stripe,

I already have a quilt marked out.

Below are her solids, if I've posted these before then apologies.

This overload of colour reminded me that I'd intended

to show you you a teapot my daughter gave me for my

birthday

I don't use it, I have it on the bench for eye candy!!

On the subject of colour I'm posting two flower photos,

one is of a favourite rose coming towards the end of flowering

the other is a flower of the palest kind

but with the most delicious Summer scent

which fills the air in the evening,

we know it here as

Queen of the Night.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

Back at the machine!!

After a difficult three weeks I finally feel I'm coming out of the fog

and ready for some action - simple action was the order of the day

yesterday.

First up a few more strip sets for

Freshly Squeezed - nice and easy.

Next in line using up a stack of left over batik strips,

I've seen many quilts using this simple block and decided to 

make a start, so quick and easy.

Below I have just a few blocks thrown willy nilly

up on the wall, not even trimmed yet, I have heaps to make so I'm

going to wait until I have enough for a decent size quilt. and

then start the time consuming part of placing in a pleasing

arrangement.

There were a few inches of the strip sets left over at the end

so trying to be more organized I'm cutting

these into 2 and 1/2" wide strips, they can go in my parts box.

I like the look of these on a black background, I found an old piece

of black felt and covered a padded board to photograph individual

blocks and bits and pieces.

Whilst I was in my miserable place an order of Tula Pink solids

arrived to cheer me 

and I just love the saturated colour  of these fabrics, in fact

I was so thrilled I promptly ordered more and given 

 the news from Free Spirit I'm pleased I did

as I read and heard that once these stocks are gone thats it,

until the dust settles. Reading a few lines today it seems that

the designers may have found a "new home".

I had notification that the Tula All Stars fabrics were in so

these should be on the way to me tomorrow.

It seems to be a case of "feast or famine" as the new range

from KF Collective may be released in March and

having seen a preview of these I am in

seventh heaven.

After this binge fest of fabrics I shall be very strong and

resist further buying!!

Due to my missing three weeks my poor garden has suffered somewhat,

weeds galore due to the heat and humidity and then pouring

rain.

A walk around this morning though found  two of my favourites were

flowering to cheer me,

a lovely dahlia given to me by a neighbour all of

32 years ago

and below my spiky bromeliad, touch the leaves at your peril!!

I think I have my colour mojo back now, so until next time

happy quilting!

Maureen