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

Just another Manic Monday …….

I intended posting this last night but time got away on me and

it was a real busy day, more present shopping, laundry, ordering fabric and so on!

My cat quilt - Alley Cats - should have had a few seams sewn yesterday but didn't

happen because of the above reasons and I couldn't

stop myself from starting a small quilt using the Hourglass Block from the new book by
Sujata Shah - Cultural Fusion Quilts - over at The Root Connection
pay her blog a visit, it's wonderful.

 Cats -  I made around 126 for a quilt 70" x 81" and was undecided whether to set them as the original or put a narrow strip between rows.
Putting them up on the wall I realised I didn't really want it so big
more of a throw over the couch or over a chair, even
hanging on a wall in the hallway so I lost the bottom row and two side rows

Alley Cats

here they are in the final arrangement, untrimmed and still with threads hanging off
some of them but I'm not worried about that I just
wanted to see how they all looked. Also you can see I'm going
with the original design. Head on over to
Super Scrappy and RSC 2014 and catch up
with everyone, only two more Saurdays' left now.

 On to the sewing machine to get them all in order, before doing that I need
 to go and dead-head some of my roses, the wind and rain here
have ruined the blooms.
I did take a couple of photos before the bad weather

Can't remember the name of the rose

day lilies and penstemon

Off to the sewing machine  - happy quilting.

Maureen

Cats for RSC2014 - stripping!

In my last post to RSC2014 I showed a few of my cats

set out in two rows HERE and
 Sally T left a comment with the suggestion that perhaps a thin black strip between
rows would improve the look of the cat's ears
coming right into contact with the row above
so

tried out with a few more cats with what would be a 1" finished strip between.
I think they look much happier (bearing in mind they're just popped up there
nothing sewn yet, nor will be until 126 of them are all there).

What do you think?

Almost There - RSC 2014

Yes, almost time to call it a day for my kitties!

Six more to add this week which actually brings me over the

total number needed and I now must  make a decision 

as to whether I add another vertical row to make

the quilt a little wider. Present measurement would be

70" x 81" and I guess this would be a good size.

There are a few cats in my collection

in the Guinea Flower design

which I'm very fond of. Rings

also I have, I think, in most

colourways.

Seems as if I once again I have resized one of the cats slightly larger  - the one here on the right - looks like a much fatter creature!

Beloved Batiks - I love working with these because it doesn't fray and the 

colours are glorious.  

The gingko kitten on the left I think is just beautiful, this is the only colour way I have in this design. Had I known it was going to look so amazing when the fabrics arrived 

I would have chosen a couple more colours.

 

 Besides my cats I'm into quilting my Purple Challenge piece and loving it, cutting more H blocks today and plan to work on Cotton Candy tomorrow.

If the old knees were in good working order I would be basting my Bargello but that's going to 

have to wait for another day.

After all the rain we've had here in NZ the garden is looking lush and flowers opening up left right and centre, the rose below is either Yellow Charles Austin or Graham Thomas, I've lost the label! It's a beauty.

Quickly on the subject of flowers I am expecting a bundle of digitally printed fabrics from
Fingerprint and one of their fabrics is just covered in fallen rose blooms, quite a delight to see. If you have the time go and have a peep.

Posting this now and linking up with Angela and all at RSC 2014.
Hope you're all having a happy weekend.

Oranges on Saturday RSC 2014

 On to the colour of the month - Orange

my cat collection is steadily growing and I do have quite a lot of orange fabrics ranging from very light through to the background colour of Oxblood - fabric by Philip Jacobs. Oxblood Pansy will be on show next week and I have to thank Wanda over at Exuberant Color for giving me the information that this Pansy was  Philip Jacobs 01 and that the Oxblood and Sunny colorway are now very rare, I'm so pleased I have some in my stash.

I wanted to make a small pillow cover  to sit on a Baltic pine sea-captains chair in a corner of our lounge, something simple and quick. Pulled out a handful of strips from my clean up cuts bin and came up with this top, yet to be finished with backing.

Obviously the strips are random and uneven but I had to square off the edges.
I'm happy with it and think I could sit for a whole day making these.

Now, for my next miracle I am going to try to link up with Angela and everyone making beautiful orange projects for Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2014. Those of you following these posts will possibly have picked up that I have been having trouble shrinking down to thumbnail size for the link, don't know why my mind has gone blank on the quick process I used earlier in the year.
Let's give it another try!

Still not getting it!!!! Maybe some incompatibility between the editing programme on my computer with Mr Linky, perhaps another programme is called for. Anyone use Picmonkey??

ScrapHappy Saturday - last of the Yellow Cats!

Just made it as it's the 30th June here in New Zealand!

Four more yellow felines to add to my box of kitties - now have a total of 60 with another 66  to complete by the end of the year to finish a quilt at 70" x 81". I won't be adding borders to this but could add more cats if I wanted a larger size, at this stage I don't I am quite happy with the size above. Later in the year I will have to start thinking about how I need to quilt it.

Linking up now to
Angela and RSC2014
and looking to find out the colour for July in the next day or so.

Sewing Works in Progress (Not!!)

Had my day planned and ready to go at 8.00am - water two large garden beds - done, laundry - done,  tidy living room - done, work on scrappy bargello - not done, make more blue 16 patch blocks - not done, blog - now doing. Just had lunch and can get down to business. I got caught up this morning with  paperwork and a telephone call from a friend who has had another week in hospital, three general anaesthetics in six weeks due to deep seated wound infection following surgery, she had been discharged yesterday evening and wanted someone to talk to, that was a one hour chat so I was rapidly getting behind with things. I am collecting two of our grandchildren from school at 3.00pm so I have 90 minutes of sewing time left before walking along the road to meet them.  I will be busy giving them chocolate chip hot cross buns out of the freezer (left over from Easter) preparing the evening meal and hanging out with them until around 5.30pm. Husband is going to watch our eldest grandson play in his  basketball game. Don't think any sewing will get done!

Tomorrow I should have a clear day all to myself, fingers crossed, and I can sew to my hearts' content. I really would like to finish the other half of my bargello, the last six strips are  pinned on the wall and when those are together I can stitch three panels so then the quilt will be in two halves ready to baste and quilt.

I also had started on a blue 16 patch just to use up blue scraps as I have a stack of blues, a few are thrown up on the wall but I have a lot more to put together yet. 

As we have now hit Autumn here I am putting feed out for the birds, I just threw some on the concrete this morning and the doves were the first on the scene 

I just love these Malaysian doves, in the middle of Winter I have had about 50 at one time waiting for me to feed them, that's in addition to all the other birds hanging around.  Someone else who likes to watch the birds is Daisy our 15 year old cat, they don't mind her one bit she can sit about four feet away from them and they carry on feeding quite happily, she never attempts to harm them at all.

 

Looking at this shot I must add clearing weeds to my list of "to do" items.

Gotta go - time for my sewing and I think just a few minutes to make a pot of tea!

See you soon