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

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

Hot Summer Nights and Days & Freshly Squeezed

Last post but one I showed a new quilt I'd begun using my

left over fabrics from Chinese Coins,

Raewyn at stitchingfarmgirl 
said it reminded her of things sweet and sour and this gave me
the idea for the name
Freshly Squeezed - oranges, lemons, limes all in the mix

and this is the progress made so far, not much!

Due to pretty messy cardiac problems (in addition to other chronic health issues)
life has slowed down considerably for me, my quilting is
sadly missing out! I don't even have the energy to read blog posts sometimes
so I have lots of catching up to do, I'm hoping to do that after the evening meal
when the weather is a little cooler. The heat and humidity is making life
uncomfortable at the moment here in Auckland, difficult to sleep .
 The sun is just baking the ground, roll on Autumn
as far as I"m concerned!

I've been photographing in the garden early in the morning,
here is a lovely rose

Brother Cadfael

sadly showing signs of black spot on the leaves.

Below is a black stemmed hydrangea, this is a new hybrid, I usually

stick to the old fashioned plants but loved the colour so it's now in

our side garden bed.

Three years ago I planted a few gladioli, sadly they haven't performed too

well for me and this year I was down to only two flowering.

We have a large Japanese Maple in the garden with my old lichen covered

garden bench right under the canopy, this has been the perfect place to

sit in the shade and relax and read Quiltfolk magazines accompanied

by my little follower 

who prefers to be up high watching the birds!

A few bloggers wrote that they would interested on my thoughts

about the Quiltfolk magazine, this will have to be in my next post

as my concentration is not the best at the moment.

 I'm hoping I can get back into regular blogging and more quilting again
pretty soon but until next time
Happy Quilting!

Oh, almost forgot I'm going to link with
Linda and Julie
for
Sew,Stitch,Snap,SHARE
hope you'll go and visit, lots to see.

Maureen

Strips Galore and Sew,Stitch,Snap,SHARE

We've had a lot going on around here so time at

my sewing machine has been almost non-existent,

however, I have made four more blocks today for my

Mardi Gras quilt.

I have a couple of tubs of scraps by the side of my machine,

chunks, clean up cuts, plain old left-overs from lots of quilts and

I'm just digging in and going with what comes out,

this strip was too wide but I just sew and cut to length,

 press, then use my ruler to trim to the width

I want.

After setting myself the target of making four blocks this afternoon

I now have 12 blocks, just another 24 to go! Blocks are 12" finished

and it goes without saying that most of these scraps are

my favourite bright and bold KF Collective fabrics, with a few

other additions from over the years.

 Still playing around with possible arrangements but had a break because

of this distraction arriving on our doorstep this morning,

four Quiltfolk magazines - I thought about this magazine when it first became available

but the cost had me hesitating,  decided to go for it last week and

when I checked on the subscription costs found they were also

offering the first four issues at half price - too good an offer to pass up.

Before linking for Sew,Stitch,Snap,SHARE   two 

rose photos.

A "Peace" rose opened for a few days and saved from the rain

and another photo from two days ago

That's it from me, hope you'll go and visit
Linda at Kokaquilts
and

Julie at Justjulielou

for
week 17 of Sew,Stitch,Snap.SHARE
see you soon.

Maureen

Forgotten Houses

Rummaging through an un-finished project drawer

I came across 13 house blocks, these were

part of the RSC 2016 challenge

I have 13 blocks and the original plan was to

make considerably more than that over the year

but I found it difficult keeping to one colour

theme each month, project stalled!
A mix of Kaffe Fassett, Philip Jacobs, Jinny Beyer
fabrics with a few very old florals thrown in.

So, back to the machine yesterday with 12 of them

and here they are.
I decided not to add sashing,

 when they were up on the wall

I had a flash back to my childhood in Lancashire UK.

 We lived in terraced houses, 'though I was lucky

enough to be a few strides away from fields and a farm.

 These are not truly representative of rows of terraced rows

 but to me they say home, friends and family and surroundings

of childhood.

My next decision is whether to border or just bind - my gut

feeling is to leave this just as is and bind, it will hang on one of walls

in my sewing room to take me back to the wonderful times of

childhood.

What do you think?

Just having gone along to the mail box I feel that yes, Spring

is truly here, even though we're having a lot of rain. My tulips

from last year are all up and just about to open

only nine up this year.

On my mind at the moment are all who are

suffering from the devastation

in various parts of the USA.

Visiting
Julie
and
Linda
for sew stitch snap SHARE #12,
lots more goodies to see!

Also linking up with 

Scraptastic Tuesday - September

Projects - present and future - and a visit to sew stitch snap SHARE

We're still in Winter, at least officially, but this beauty

was flowering yesterday

and heaps more all ready to open, the scent is out of this world.

I've finished my Golden Strips top

I had to lay it on the floor to take the photo, not enough room

on my design wall and the morning light was brighter than

I would have liked for photographing.

Here's a close-up with one of my favourite fabrics with

the gorgeous roses in Yellow Floral Delight, a Philip Jacobs design.

I 'd decided there was no more room on my book shelves for any

more quilting books but then I succumbed to this one,

it arrived in the mail a few days ago

and it's another glorious publication!!

One of the first quilts which caught my attention was this one

and it really is brighter than it looks here.

I have lots of the KF  stripes and his shot cottons so

this is on my list, the best part is I don't need to think about spending

on fabrics.

My Little Bits blocks are coming along slowly, there's quite

a lot of cutting in this one. Placement is supposed to be random, it is a scrappy quilt

after all,

but I'll make all the blocks before putting them up on the wall

and play around with them.

Paying a visit to 

Linda and Julie

for

sew stitch snap SHARE

sew stitch snap SHARE

And so another Wednesday has come around and

this week is another link up with
Linda and Julie

for
sew stitch snap SHARE.

Not a whole lot going on in my little sewing room,
just something easy and straight out of a book!

From a Kaffe Fassett book, pattern named Golden Strips!!
Pretty self explanatory.
I'm not too convinced about the Grey Brocade fabric, I'll sew up a few
more strips and see how I feel about it then.

The time since my post last week has been spent taking stock of
a few things, being up before dawn to look
at the planet Venus which is beautifully clear just before dawn
in the Eastern sky

just a tiny pinprick on this photo, but followed by

a beautiful sunrise.

Trying to walk on a very marshy lawn to see what's flowering in
the garden beds - one of my favourites is this

and if my memory serves me right this is a primula - correct
me if I'm wrong.
And that's it in this brief, barely quilting, post.
Don't forget to visit with Linda and Julie - links above
at the top.
I'll be back in a few days after upping my game with
the amount
of quilting projects I'm posting these days!

Maureen

Last section of Gypsy Wife now sewn up - at last!!

Just finished sewing section 10 and two words

used sometimes by our two grand-daughters sum up my feelings tonight -

I am "so over" Gypsy Wife!

This really needs to be seen in place with all the other sections, but I don't have

the room at the moment and I'm afraid she's not very

well placed in this photo.

GW has been in the works now for 18 months, I was off to a great start

but sections 9 and 10 saw me hitting the wall a bit, just

couldn't always get the mix of colours I wanted, lots of breaks were

needed then I would usually come back and things

would fall into place.

A four legged feline has also slowed me up at times.

The sections won't be put together for a couple of weeks,

I just want to put it away somewhere and catch up on all my other

projects.

So, I'm going to sit in a quiet corner with this

lovely little rose by my side

and this on my lap

spotted two days ago in the local book store.

I'll tell you all about it next time I post, if the cover is anything to go off

I think it's going to be a wonderful read!

See you sometime next week.

Maureen

A little more Gypsy Wife and fabric goodies

It's been one of those weeks where a lot of time has been

spent on thinking about WIPs and projects I should like to

make a start on over the next six months. Problem is there are so
many quilts on my "hope to do" list.
Added to the mix is the need to really sort out my fabrics, seriously my
scraps boxes need attention,

also I've been looking at up-dating my Mac computer to
the new model, this needs quite a bit of thinking time.

I did make a little progress with GW and below is the

far left hand side of section 10, I've changed out two of the

square in square blocks and made a wee kaleidoscope.

Three more blocks ready to go, the first one has a fussy cut

of the new range from Anna Maria Horner - a bit blurry for some reason

Goodies in the mail and brought home from the store, the

first two photos are store bought locally 

This one below are three of my favourites from AMH received in the
mail with a few others.

I fell in love with the patterned fabric below after seeing

pics of a class by
rachaeldaisy over at bluemountaindaisy blog

the dotty fabrics I picked up again at a local store, not
particularly to use with the tropical fabric but just because I liked them
then when I was taking these photographs I thought
they looked quite good together.

The weather here has been atrocious, wild and wet and cold!
Today the sun is out, still very cold and impossible to walk
on the grass in the back garden, but in my front garden
my favourite camellia is blooming - Lovelight

and was I surprised to see these little beauties peeping out

my lovely tulips from last year, I can't believe they're coming up so early!

I'm off to make the most of the sun by putting a load of
washing in the machine and hoping I can hang it on the line
to dry.

My weekend is going to be spent dealing with everything
mentioned in my first few lines of the post so I'll head off and make a start,
possibly a nice cup of tea would help the process!

Enjoy your weekend and happy quilting.

Maureen