A little progress

Only one more panel completed for Roundabout! Life has been pretty busy here with all manner of  happenings so time at the machine has been limited. Here's a photo of the present layout below, sadly not level because I couldn't quite reach the top RH side to pin, I'll deal with that this afternoon.

The strips here are 2 and 1/2" wide and 40 and 1/2" long, 10 in each panel. The original design concentrated on basically using just two colours, plain and small patterned fabric in shades of red and green, I decided on something different. 

My original idea was to mix all colours of strips but after finishing up the top panel I decided to try and go with the same layout for each of the four. I've changed up a few of the fabrics when I found I sometimes only had one strip, you can see the ones I substituted where necessary but still keeping to the colour layout.

 The design is from the book by Stuart Hillard  chock full of excellent designs to use up scraps.

My only other quilt related item is a  piece of Art Gallery Fabric - design from the Charlotte range,  luckily I spotted this online 1.6 metres so a good amount to work with.

Here in New Zealand we are officially enjoying the last month of Winter, Spring is around the corner come September. Down in the garden  the freesia are beginning to put on a performance and it's a delight to walk past them with their beautiful scent.

I can see that dreaded oxalis weed trying to take over, somehow I need to get out and weed pretty soon. I  shall be going solo for some of the time dealing with this chore and only around 15 minutes at one time, husband is in a bad way with one of his hips and up for replacement surgery so guess who will be in charge here!!

Lunch is calling - potato and leek soup with kumara sourdough bread, a nice thick toasted slice. Back in a few days, all being well.

Maureen

Happy New Year 2024 from New Zealand

Best wishes to all for the coming year!

I'm hoping 2024 will be a more productive year for me with my quilt projects. This week is set aside fo working out plans for better organised fabric storage, a plan for order of quilt tops to go under the machine, a full list of quilt tops to be quilted, another list of WIPs  and generally enjoying time in my little studio.

Next post I hope to have the above achieved - almost!  Sticking point right now is deciding how to quilt great grand daughters quilt, basted and rolled and under the needle, 

I'm thinking plain wavy lines over the seam lines, if anyone has a better idea then please let me know.

Some of you may remember me collecting my fabrics for the quilt below

I had quite a tub full but of course found more, one in particular was Hares in Bluebells, no hares in the fields where we played with bluebells, just rabbits, but I needed this, plus a few more which I thought would go well

The Hedgerow fabric here is not as bright as a lot of my other collected pieces but it will fit in somewhere.

already gathered and boxed below.

That's all I have for this short post today, let's see if I meet my target within the week. Oh, I also hope to work on my blog over the next few weeks, it does sorely need updating.

Maureen

Something New - QAL Bramble Blooms

Something new for me.

Audrey at QuiltyFolk has suggested and organised a QAL, instead of my trying to explain fully what she has in mind I suggest you click on the link for all the information. Main thing is that it's a long term project, covers hand applique and an improv style. No definite pattern to follow. She has suggestions for pulling fabrics from stash, preferably older fabrics but is open to individual ideas. 

I have had a couple of email conversations with Audrey as my colour likes are bright and bold, and full of pattern (those who follow me will know what I work with) and I suspect they may be pretty different to the colours which other participants choose to go with. I still have to go into my scrap boxes for other fragments. My main "older" fabrics I sold some time ago and I don't use many solids in my quilts.

So, here we go and I have picked out four colours to work with

 greens

\

 purples

 yellows

 reds

Yes, there are quite a lot of darks but having tried them all against the Merlot Spot they do work well.  Of the fabrics shown a few are newer ones, others quite a few years old.

The centre panel can be made up of a few different fabrics, a good example on Audrey's post, or cut from one fabric only, I'm going with the fabric shown below using a rectangular for my centre. Yes, it is pretty extreme but I feel it will work, I have used darker centres before in medallion style quilts. This will also come into the borders at some stage.

Merlot Spot

This was the one I pulled before auditioning any others, it was the only one that did it for me, paler ones were lost with the bright colours.

Size of the rectangle 22and1/2" x 26and1/2".

On the RH side of Audrey's blog is a box listing participants of the QAL, head over and visit.

Enjoy the weekend!

Maureen

Sunday sewing with Hannah

Almost finished up sewing block seams, more tomorrow and then, hopefully, a completed top on Tuesday

and then a full photo without the addition of my chair back and small ironing surface. Just click to enlarge the photo. Oh for a larger design wall. This was such an easy quilt to make, perfect for using up already cut 2 and1/2 "strips or a jelly roll.

Here I've used strips left over from other projects and also I cut into odd shaped large scraps, a few I also cut from favourite yardage. Two strips I particularly wanted to use were short of a 13" length but by scratching around in my very small scraps I found tiny pieces and stitched together, it is after all a scrappy quilt, here's a joined up strip, tiny piece LH side. 

I began with neat stacks of 13" strips, two of which are below, lots more not in the photo. The throw size is 60" x 72" and I gaily kept on going hunting strips, I only needed 120 but when counting up found that I had stacked 260, perhaps there will be a second Hannah quilt in the future.

Here's how they ended up after random pulling out of pieces

and there are more of these covering the cutting table. Guess what I'm going to be doing come Tuesday!

For a break last week kind husband drove me to the new premises of The Ribbon Rose, a well established store for many, many years here in Auckland. Recently they moved and what a treasure filled three storey building they now occupy. The fabric floor is amazing and it goes without saying that I found a few KF fabrics on sale, just a few quarters came home with me. Large bins had simply rolled up metre lengths of fabrics at good prices, I took a chance and bought this one

delighted when I came back home and unrolled, below is a small section of the full piece.

I just love this!!

Books are a passion of mine, all my life I have been a voracious reader but over the past few years this pleasure, for various reasons, seemed to have been left behind a little. I'm now back on board with books and there are quite a few on my bookshelves which I have never read, some have been read many times over  because they were so exciting, moving and so very interesting.

Two below, the cover of the first one is self-explanatory, having worked in a Pathology Lab for a number of years in long ago days, and also spent time in General Practice surgeries as receptionist, I was excited to find this book a little while ago. 

These Precious Days is a collection of essays  by Ann Patchett, each essay stands alone. I see myself keeping this one to read during quiet time in the evening, perhaps even when settled in bed with a nice hot drink!

Perhaps I could write a little about my thoughts on a particular essay after reading here on the blog.

Silly mistake made by me in my last post.  I spoke about making a quilt for our "soon to be grand-daughter" - the quilt will actually be for our great grand-daughter!

That's all from me for now, a rest day today after a family lunch here at home yesterday on my husband's 80th birthday, we had such a happy time but I was shattered by early evening and my bed called to me earlier than usual.

Maureen

Another new day

 A glorious sunrise yesterday morning 

I usually begin my day by heading out on the deck to watch the sunrise, never tire of the sight.

Life seems to have moved along slowly and in rather a muddle over the past few weeks, little to show but I'm working away steadily on the Hannah Quilt and Tussie Mussie, five rows now of the latter and five more to go, each row is folded in half and  pinned on the wall keeping me motivated. 

Come December I have two sales tables booked at the Guild Meeting, so slowly, slowly I'm going through older fabrics, different designers and a couple of my scrap bins to select goodies for my tables. I came to the decision to ditch some of the older fabrics saved for backings and use my favourites, I may as well enjoy them right now!

Always find a surprise as I hunt through, the one below, possibly a Hoffman from way back, was a huge favourite and I don't have much left now, this one I'm keeping.

Two new fabrics came to be added to my stash last week, first one I spotted online from a store further down the Island, this will be used in a quilt for our soon to be grand-daughter, still a couple of months away.

This was so difficult to photograph, the soft green background repeatedly looked almost grey on the first few tries. It's a gorgeous fabric with hummingbirds, beetles and all sorts of flowers the dragonfly seems to be missing in this particular photo. This is a Tamara Kate design - Anew.   

The second piece is a Heather Bailey fabric line - Local Honey

daughter will be sewing this up in a summer dress for me, she is a designer and after three years training here in NZ she flew off to England and worked a while for the British designer John Richmond, originally from Manchester, then to London and eventually to Milan. He was very much into the rock music fashion industry and dressed many of the stars, still does I guess and Sally would tell us of all the folk who came to have him make their clothes, she worked on one in particular which was a green suede suit for George Michael, this was around the early nineties.

Books are being sorted for the sale, I have far too many so one stack is ready 

thank goodness I have until the end of November to process everything!

Well, I began the post with a sunrise and I'm ending with a mid evening photo of the moon through the bare oak tree next door, this is my nightly ritual - moon gazing

see you all again soon!

Maureen

Snippets on Sunday

We're creeping ever closer to Christmas, how could the past 12 months have

moved along so very quickly!

First up before quilty photos see below. On the grocery shopping list 

was a bottle of a good, rich red wine for my pasta dish for the evening meal.

As soon as I spotted this one on the shelf,  I knew it had to come home with me!

A welcome addition to our meal.

I've been able to spend some time this week on my quilting,

first on my list was checking for stray threads

on two quilts ready to be sent off next week

for quilting.

First, with borders added, is Memory Quilt and you can see it was

a windy day. The story behind this quilt I will share in the New Year

when it's been quilted.

 A blip with the watermark, a practically non-existent 'z'.

Second quilt was made quite some time ago, around three years I think, from 

 Quilts in Morocco by Kaffe Fassett.

Blue Heaven

I thought the hydrangeas were a good match. 

A little more progress made with Mardi Gras

just pinned on the wall at the moment, 19 more blocks to make. I'll try different

settings when they're all finished. I'm loving playing

with strips and strings and as I have heaps I can see more string/strip quilts

in my future.

Something new now - I'm cutting solid 9" squares, 

the pattern is inspired by Sujata Shah and her

superb book Cultural Fusion Quilts. 

More squares to be cut this week. This is another in the

Memory Quilt category.

Time to go, a little time to spend on a few hexies and then

our two eldest grandchildren are coming for a meal with us.

Beatrice is the eldest at 19yrs and Charlie 17yrs.

Bea is training at a hair salon and Charlie heading off to

University in the New Year.

Doesn 't seem so long ago that we were sitting reading nursery rhymes

with them!!

Enjoy the coming week and hopefully not be too stressed

with preparations for Christmas. 

Maureen

Teapots, Fabric and Flowers

Good, just managing to get a post in before Christmas!

Whilst taking things slowly I've finished the applique on

four more KF teapots

only three more to go, hopefully before the New Year is upon us!

Have you see the newest book from Kaffe Fassett - 'Quilts in Ireland'?

I fell in love with Green Diamonds and decided to send off for the fabrics,

they arrived a few days ago and I'm so pleased with the

combination, this will be a project for 2018.

The weather here has been so very hot and humid, everyone heads for the beach

or stays home with every window open to bring some relief. The

other option is a very shady spot in the garden, luckily we have the large

Japanese Maple and nearby is one of my blue

hydrangeas, this year it has a mauve tinge on some of the flower heads.

This weather is great for the vegetable garden

and the courgettes are flowering nicely, tomatoes are coming along

 and I've planted basil seedlings alongside.

Before I finish up 

I'd like to say a big thank you for all your good wishes following my last post,

my spirits were definitely lifted after reading comments

and emails.

I'm hoping the New Year will see much more quilting from me!!

Wishing you all a

Happy Christmas

and a

Happy and Healthy New Year 2018

See you soon.

Maureen

Scatty Cats!!

I believe it is Labor Weekend in the USA, I hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

This post should really have gone out earlier but I've been down with a nasty bug and only just feel energised enough to sit at the computer and write and of course it's cat time!!! Ten green cats are all settled in their box with the others but I need a few more than the 120 originally planned so I think I'll throw in a few different ones over the next four months.

and

A package of new fabrics arrived last week and these two above are Martha Negley prints, I fell in love with both when I saw them and have the egg fabric in two more colour ways. 

 Visiting the local Bernina shop ended with me  buying a few "modern" fabrics which I normally just wouldn't go for but the peachy colour is a favourite,  there is a metre piece of the floral and a half metre of the others.

No plan for these at the moment but I have a few ideas bubbling away.

Heading over to Angela and RSC 2014

Yes, on the thumbnail in the Linky I am showing an older pic of two cats, having problems for some reason with reducing to thumbnail in my programme!

Wednesday Words and WIP

Cotton Candy

Only three more rounds added to Cotton Candy this week I've been busy sorting through fabrics most of the time. I notice that Wanda over at Exuberant Color seems to have been doing the same thing !

I was amazed at how many yellows I have in my stash, an abundance of green also. Blue is pretty well represented, red and pastel also but not too many real darks. May have to remedy that before too long.


One good thing about reorganising is that you sometimes find fabrics you had forgotten about, I was over the moon to find a small piece of one KF or PJ fabric (can't remember which now) and a larger piece in a different colour way

Just remembered the colour way of the small dark piece "Oxblood" - correct me if I'm wrong, and wished I had bought more yardage of this, same with the yellow, turns out I had  - found a half yard of each in a different basket, goes to show that it's best  to put away first off with like colours!

I  went off today to have a  pre-admission  check prior to  knee surgery, the problem had improved somewhat but we had still planned on going ahead, however when I met with the Clinical Nurse Co-ordinator for a chat it was decided because of the long list of health problem I have they felt it was safer to see if things settle further over the next six months, boy was I happy with that!!!  As the hospital was really handy to a quilting store we couldn't miss a call there  and I came home with a few quite different pieces of fabric - shown left. They will be put in my stash in their proper place!

I have been looking out for a small sewing cabinet to fit a particular spot in the studio for some time and just what I was looking for was on a brochure on the counter in the store, a small Horn cabinet should be with me on Friday and my Bernina Virtuosa 155 will live in that. My Aurora 440QE is set into a larger table for machine quilting smaller pieces.

More cats need to be worked on now so I'd better get busy.