A beach visit and blocks both new and old

I shall make a start here, after an absence of more or less three weeks,

with a photo taken yesterday at our local beach. 

This is Cockle Bay beach and the name is self-explanatory,

this particular beach is known for it's cockle beds, accessible

at low tide and sadly now being depleted by folk coming along

and collected bucketloads of the cockles. Moves are thankfully

underway to try and put a stop to this.

Now onto the subject of blocks. At last I have the UANDUQAL

blocks stitched together, but, there will have to be a little time spent

on unpicking two or three blocks!

I became unwell just after my last post and without boring you all

with details I ended up with an urgent visit to the cardiac unit!

All seems to working well now - thank goodness - but it was a mistake to

try and get these blocks sewn up whilst unwell.

I fiddled around with my intended fabric for a border, didn't work,

tried lots of others and still not happy so it will remain

borderless and just bound.

Do you remember these blocks begun with a Rainbow Scrap Challenge?

There are two more, a blue and a yellow.

We have a local Howick Art Group in the village, an old cottage with

rooms displaying the artists work and as a member I'm going to join in with

two small quilting pieces, hopefully each month.

My first one is underway using the yellow block

a little quilting, trimmed, then narrow binding and mounted on a

painted canvas to match the yellow - hopefully.

The pattern for these came from a magazine a number of years ago,

the design is by

Cynthia Brunz

link below

https://quiltingismorefunthanhousework.blogspot.com/2018/03/oh-scrap-geese-migration.html

I think that's all from me, things have been pretty quiet on the

quilting side of things but hopefully I should be back to normal

by next week!

A flower photo before I go

my favourite Epiphyllum on a rainy day hanging in the

'catio' by the living room!

See you soon.

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

Kaleidoscope and Cats - warning top heavy on the cats!

A funny week spent fiddling around and not really

making a heck of a lot of progress.

A post  heavy on photos - have patience please!

OK

Rainbow Safari for one of our grandsons all basted and ready

for me to quilt - this is the very last time I shall baste

a large quilt, it almost finished me off!!!

This is the pieced back and I'm thinking of this multi thread for quilting.

Choosing two more fabrics for my Kaleidoscope and you may wonder

where on earth will these be going

so a quick view below.

Just a few blocks in this pic with only 4 sewn together.

Remember this is my take on an old Persian carpet, it's not intended

to be the usual kaleidoscope block of light and dark, these

are pretty mixed up blocks!

 All be revealed at the next link-up for Kaleidoscope of Butterflies and I need to

get a move on at the machine over the next few days, I shall be celebrating my

70th birthday on Wednesday next so I may be doing a little
relaxing.

Moving on  to cats - Leila and her new friend:

I photographed these out of my little studio window, hence reflection

watching John gardening

? battle stations

into battle

time out

and

time for a tea break in the overgrown area by the veg patch.

These two are great buddies, this little barred cat lives over our back fence and calls

around every morning for Leila! We hear the bell on her collar tinkling

and Leila heads for the cat door.

Before I go this was the sight at the beach two days ago at low tide

Time to go I think!!

Maureen

The best laid plans can sometimes go wrong!

Following on from my last post I decided to sew together the remaining two panels in my scrappy bargello style quilt ready for folding and slicing. I then reviewed the measurements needed once again and realised that I had miscalculated - I need another 6" on each long side! So I now need to work out what I am going to do here.

I thought of a narrow strip all around the quilt in either a very dark
or very light then a half panel i.e. using 3 squares instead of 6. Alternatively I could still use a narrow

 border strip, then sew 6" strips in long panels on either side. If anyone has any ideas please let me know!




My next good idea was to pull a few weeds out of one of the garden beds, I was out there about one hour - noticed the ongoing tendon problem in my right wrist starting to play up a bit - never mind just down some pain relief and carry on a while longer.


Good idea yesterday morning was to hand quilt around the centre squares of the nine patch blocks in my light Kaffe Fasset quilt which I showed in my last posting.  Don't know why I did this really as I hadn't hand quilted for ages because of very painful hand problems.
Well, managed about twelve squares and the pain really kicked in.
The tendonitis had flared up with a vengeance!


That was the end of the quilting.

You can see the results on the right.

With my thumb immobile and my wrist prevented from bending with the metal in the splint I am reduced to sorting through a box of scraps which I had intended to cut up into tumblers and 1 and 1/4" wide strips. I think I could do this if I hold the rotary cutter very carefully. I will also have a rummage through my clean-up cuts.                                        

You will notice here that I have not managed to align these two pictures, one above and one to the right - more practice needed.

Good Friday tomorrow for us in NZ, hoping for a quiet Easter and catching up with family.

I hope you all have a lovely Easter holiday and will leave you with a shot of our local beach, hopefully we will find some time to have a walk down there over the holiday. More of my ramblings early next week.