Choices and bird watching

It's been one of those weeks where I just haven't been able to settle to do anything. I intended having the top of my bargello quilt all ready to go but after reading again the initial post from
Leanne at She Can Quilt
about Scraptastic Tuesday and the 45 comments that had been left for the post I decided I too needed better organisation for sorting scraps, fatal mistake as my studio is now in a worse mess than ever!!

However re the aforementioned scrappy quilt the fabric I originally intended for the border looks dull against the quilt top and I  think I'll leave it without borders and just bind with the green - what do you think? Actually looking now at the pics maybe the white of the design board is distracting me, perhaps it could work.

I have had to fold the top in half in order to fit on the small design board which is higher at one end than the other  so the shots are all over the place something else which needs attending to - not able to access the one fixed to the wall at present due to boxes and fabrics all over the place

 Bird watching - the three baby blackbirds fled the nest last Saturday, I saw them perched on the edge of the nest stretching wings and ten minutes later they were all off! Well, not really off they fluttered down into the bushes below for a day or so.
Parent blackbirds are still calling me for a few raisins every day, they're a delight to see

Poppa arrives for his fix ….

bit worried about the competition

now he has company. ….

and leaves just the one for her…..

Moving on from blackbirds I'm off to continue the great battle with my scraps and storage issues and general mayhem around me. Back at the weekend with a few more cats.

This and That

Spent the last few days playing around with fabric, our local Guild are holding a Market Day on Saturday at our monthly meeting and I have a table booked so deciding which pieces of fabric I would let go was first on the agenda.

It was great looking through my baskets, coming across fabrics which I have had for years and thinking I just couldn't let a quarter yard piece of that one go - you can guess what the result of the exercise was - most fabrics went back into the basket, however I do have lots of threads, beads and so on which I don't have any use for so out they go. Books had been sorted over the past few weeks so I have a stack of those for the Market.

I bought a six cube cabinet for storing my larger pieces of Kaffe Fasset Collective fabrics so those are all tidy now

Next on my list was to decide what to do with the hundreds of triangles left over from HSTeria, cut more triangles in black and I've started a new project.

After all the wet weather we have had today was glorious, the sun was warm and my basket of violas are blooming away merrily

The weekend will be spent  playing around with the template for my blog, I feel the need to change a few things and have a makeover!

We should have a post soon from Angela giving us the August colour for RSC 2014, there was a hint that it could possibly be orange, looking forward to that.

Enjoy the rest of your week, back again soon with more cats.

HSTeria - last link-up

Here we are, the last link-up with Vicki at Field Trips in Fiber who so kindly organised this quilt along.
We have seen some great examples of using half square triangles in quilts and I've enjoyed this quilt along enormously even if I have concentrated on just the one quilt!  Still have the diagonal seams to sew but family circumstances mean that I won't get around to this until later in the week so I decided to post now even though "Red Sea Sunset" is not totally finished,  the wave along the bottom edge needs fixing - I was so careful with bias edges but the bottom ones got away from me.

Red Sea Sunset

I must find my tripod, trying to get the photographs without it means I'm ending up with wonky looking quilts and then cropping evenly to lose the background becomes difficult to say the least, the yet to be sewn diagonal seams don't help!

As a result of all the different fabrics used I have a large bag of left over triangles, these are being stitched to black half square triangles and being placed in a random fashion - photo next post all being well.

The first bunches of narcissus appeared the shops last week and I love the scent of these early flowers, two bunches came home with me.

Off to read the blog posts for today - have a good week.

HSTeria Quilt Along - next instalment

Lots more half square triangles cut, lots of fabrics to put away in baskets and lots more to sort for scrap drawers but only three further blocks to show for it all, and one in progress. Go along and visit Vicki and friends to see more HSTeria!

Today is very wet and gloomy not good light  for photographing fabric, but a few weeks ago I bought an Ottlite Task Lamp which is a reasonable height and moveable, I do have a small one with the flip up lid  but it's no good for lighting up a wide area. This is the first time I have used the floor light to take a photo - it's worked out pretty well I think although the blues at the bottom have a slightly psychedelic look to them, they're not so vivid as this.

We are now into Winter in NZ and it is pretty cold today, the garden beds are wet and soggy with everything drooping all over the place. Misty mornings quite often which I love, the one below was last week

back to the sewing machine, I still have to sew yellow cats ready to post tomorrow so I need to get busy. 

HSTeria Quilt Along and Broken Baskets!

The end of another week, one in which I dropped a lovely very, very old pottery basket which belonged to a much loved Aunt, DH was able to patch it together for me and as you can see the chips and cracks it's now going to live in my studio I need to find a safe place, I'll find a use for it possibly holding extra sewing threads. 

More or less back to my usual self  (fingers crossed - thanks for all the good wishes) and yesterday completed another two blocks of my HSTeria project and pinned the blocks so far on the wall

the top left quarter block needs taking down and re-arranging, I still have the dark triangles heading in the wrong direction! Don't think any more sewing will be done today - oh, correction I have four more green cats to make for RSC 2014 so I'll be posting again tomorrow!

Linking up now with Vicki who's hosting HSTeria Quilt Along
and below a subtle sunrise one morning this week to end this post.

Have a happy week

HSTeria Quilt Along

Loving this Quilt Along, thanks to Vicki at Field Trips in Fiber for coming up with this great idea! Hop along to the link please after reading this post and see all the other HSTeria projects.

I'm busy pulling out more fabrics in different colours and generally making a real mess on my cutting table - and over  other surfaces as well! Because of the colouring of this quilt it's a matter of careful placement so that's taking more time than the cutting and sewing at the moment. Using the colours I showed last week I have begun on Ocean Waves and making it with the memories in mind of my 1962/63 sail to NZ through Suez and the return to UK through Panama - I will never forget the beauty of the ocean and the sky, incredible.

All At Sea

I've just been along to the store to buy more of these white plastic trays, great for keeping pieces nice and tidy after cutting and waiting to be sewn.

That's all from me at the moment on HSTeria, gotta get busy on green cats!! Watch for another post on Sunday. Don't forget to visit the HSTeria link-up. 

Before I go we have been watching and reading about storms, flooding and tornadoes in the States, it looks horrific, know that other folks in other countries are keeping you in their thoughts.

Sunset one evening last week, just look at that sky!!!!!

Birds,Blooms and hint of Spring

We are now into Thursday here in NZ and have to say I haven't achieved much at all!!

I have found the backing for New York Blooms and my thread for the hand quilting on the blooms, I have machined in the ditch around the four blocks, pink narrow border and will do something maybe in the subway border.

Hoping to work on the blocks for my daughter, 30 quarter log cabins completed - 80 to go!

I am enjoying making this one but whether it will be finished and quilted before her birthday at the end of August is debatable, partly due to the fact that I am sewing with my left leg resting on a low stool due to a ?tear in the meniscus in my left knee, which is extremely, extremely painful. Crutches for walking so as to avoid weight bearing when possible, a bit of a nightmare to say the least.

I have lessened the problem slightly by ordering fabric for our youngest grandson a quilt and as the postage from eQuilter was the same whether I just ordered that or another 10 or so yards I decided to go with the extra batiks.  Retail therapy in action, now I have to hobble round trying to make room for them before they arrive here. Another incentive to buy was the fact that there was a special for half price postage so couldn't refuse that could I?

My next item on my to do list is to create another to do list putting all the projects in order of importance and urgency and hopefully progress will be made.

Been spending some time watching the birds busy feeding in the front garden and the first little primrose flowering - roll on Spring

 

I know I have posted photos of these little wax eyes before but they are "moreish" and just so friendly, as soon as I spike the fat for them they fly in out of the rose bush, not worried about me at all, you can see this cheeky chap posing for his photograph.

 Hopefully more progress on my projects to show next posting, happy quilting all, until next time

 Maureen

Enjoying the welcome sunshine!

What a glorious day we're having here in Auckland, cool early this morning but been sunny and warm until now, the cool evening is creeping up on us. It would have been a great day for gardening but our soil is still pretty wet although the weeds would have come out easily I should have thought, which is immaterial really as I didn't set foot in the garden, certainly not to work but I did take a photo of one of my roses "Heritage" (at least I think that's the name - lost label) it's a David Austin rose, most glorious perfume, real old fashioned. Still a few drops of very early morning rain on the petals.

Guess who came to visit again today?  

Yes - my old friend the magpie (see earlier posting on my aversion to these birds), hope we don't have 

many more visits!

In my post Tuesday I had a shot of strips of fabric ready to make a quilt for our daughter which got off to a slow start, however I did complete the sub-cutting of the strips and was able to get under way with the sewing yesterday. The photo below has the blocks just pressed up on my old flannel design wall, in total there will be 20 blocks so it will be a good size when the two narrow and one wide borders are added. Not sure about the fabric in a block on the left, this is the same as the centre squares and I think it stands out too much in comparison to the rest of the fabrics, maybe I will wait until tomorrow and make a few more blocks and decide whether to take it out or leave in, perhaps if I have it in another two or three blocks it might work.

The light was fading a little when I took this so it possibly looks a bit dull. Daughter saw the fabrics and said she would love a quilt, she thought it had a Pacific feel to it. 

Been looking at a few more blogs and found a lovely one from Tauranga, about a three hour drive from Auckland, lovely gardening and quilting so I have added that to my blog list - thank goodness not everyone posts on the same day or there would be no time left for my quilting and all the household chores.

Don't know how many of you are fans of Kaffe Fassett and friends fabrics but I love them now got a fantastic stash together, but if you are a fan of his have you seen his new stripes?? First saw them on the new blog from Glorious Colour and they really are lovely have a look if you are a "follower"of his fabrics!

Seamus (old Irish Setter doggie) will be needing his tea soon so better go and feed him, hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and happy quilting.

Maureen

Quilting Weather

As Nancy J from All Points of The Compass tells us New Zealand is in for  an extremely cold spell.   It's a case of "batten down the hatches" keep warm and quilt. The wind is starting to blow here in Auckland and the sky has gone very grey indeed so I guess it won't be too long before the rain hits, maybe some hail in there as well. When the icy blasts come up from the South Pole it's quite a shock to the system.

I have been stuck in the house all week with a shocker of a cold and cough - in fact the whole box of tricks really! Not felt much like quilting or doing anything and the only thing I have done was to complete another small block for the Scrap Swap over at 15 Minutes Play so I now have  two  and I am just not happy with the result!! My intention  was to make four blocks and then figure out what to do with them from there, four together then borders or strips between each  block and so on. A shot of two together isn't doing it for me so might have to rethink. 

See what I mean?  The top one I am happy with but I think the bottom one will be a non-starter. They also don't look to be equal in measurement but they are, must be the angle of the camera. I think  because of my hand surgery and handling everything that came with my long time friend being so ill and then passing away two weeks ago I just haven't been in "the zone". Hopefully things will now begin to get better.

Bird watching at the feeding tables has been great and I get such a lot of pleasure out of seeing them all eating breakfast. For the third time in a week we have had a kingfisher sitting in the branches of the silver birch and he/she is so tetchy about being photographed! I did take two yesterday but they are not showing the beautiful colours.

In fact now I have inserted a pic I see that there is really no colour at all!!! However his lethal beak is much in evidence.

Now my moth orchid below is not short on colour - I look forward so much to the blooms from this particular one. 

I have had a few people emailing to ask about the photo of the Irish Setter on my page - this is my  darling Mollie. We lost her almost two years ago now to cancer.  Miss her so very much she was a honey, our four legged friends are counted as family. My husband still has regular doggie people stop him and ask what happened to her, one guy was so upset when told that she had died he said she was a real hussy!! We still have her brother Seamus and for old times sake I am posting one of my favourite shots of them 

down at the beach.

In fact here are two pics because these particular ones are two of my favourites even though Seamus is being difficult and not smiling at the camera.

Enjoy the rest of your week and happy quilting!!

Blooms, birds, batiks and fabric cutters

Following good advice from a fellow blogger (to try for ease of use) I finally found a shop here in Auckland which I was told sold GO! Baby but not the bigger GO! which I really wanted to buy. Turned out she had come back from Quilt Market having ordered two of the larger cutters to see what the interest would be over here, the order had arrived that morning. Dashed over and found it was the one with the "new improved roller system" with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims on the packaging. Tried it out and it really was easy to turn the handle, I had thought it may have been quite hard, but not so. After buying the cutter, three dies and mats and and a few pieces of new fabric I headed home, picked up two pieces of scrap fabric to try it out. Really happy with it! Can't wait to start using it seriously.

 Although I was out of action for two weeks with hand surgery I was able to order a package of batiks from Batiks Plus and they arrived yesterday and they're just gorgeous, can't wait to start using them, here are just two pics, I have a whole lot more!

What have I been doing whilst waiting for hand to heal and bandaging to come off? Lots of reading done, catching up on videos and watching the birds feeding out the front. I've mentioned before that we have the Malaysian doves in abundance around here and this morning there were around 50 all pecking at the feed on the ground. They have to share with the mynahs, blackbirds, starlings and of course the sparrows.

We have two quickly put together bird tables in the front garden just in front of the kitchen window so I normally make bird cakes with fat (beef dripping), honey, seed, nuts and fruit and stick them on a blunt spike on one table and maybe half an apple on the other. The greenfinches and wax eyes just love this for breakfast, even gave them a half avocado yesterday and that disappeared in record time!

The garden is now closing down for Winter but still I have a few things flowering, we have had an awful lot of rain and the blooms are so easily marked and then rot and fall off. One of my favourites at this time of year is the Wintersweet, always labelled as having an insignificant flower but a delicious fragrance, and yes it does have an amazing scent, one small piece can scent the whole room, but I went around the garden this morning and I reckon the flower is not insignificant when you have a close look. The yellow outer petals of this one below have faded to white with age but you can just see a new one about to open which is soft buttery colour.

There are two new camellias blooming and the pink one has a perfume, and of all things a rose still flowering. This is a David Austin rose Sharifa Asma which he reckons is one of his best, and I agree!

The magnolia stellata is also flowering, what a sight  when the whole bush is in flower.

I love to take closeups of the centres of some flowers, blown up they are amazing.
I think I will have to get a shot of the centre of this magnolia.

This pink frilly camellia has the perfume and I had a look for the plant label to check the name but that seems to have disappeared.




The one below is about the last of the Sasanqua variety which we grow as a hedge.

Next week I desperately want to get back into sewing mode - I need a bigger room! My computer really should be in my sewing studio but there just isn't enough space so it is sitting in a corner of the living room for a few days which is not ideal. We have a couple of ideas to shuffle things around and give me a larger place, my husband paints and he also needs a dedicated room for this so all these plans are works in progress. However as I am due to have a small exhibition in February next year the pressure is on to get things out for this as well as working on my present "bits and pieces", should hopefully have something to show next week.

Hope you all have a good week and happy sewing!! 

Birds and Blooms

Hope those of you reading this in the USA are enjoying your Memorial Weekend!

Decided to write a post today, was going to do it tomorrow morning before going for hand surgery but I suspect I may be rushing around with last minute things to sort out.  I am dreading trying to cope using my left hand  everything is going to take at least twice as long - showering is going to be the most difficult I suspect.  Not too worried about the household chores as husband is retired and has been "in training" for the past week re housework and cooking. He's good on those things anyway as I have a number of health issues so he is used to helping out and looking after me when needed!  Also stocked the freezer with meals, every main meal over the past two weeks has been doubled or trebled in quantity and the extra amount frozen just ready to heat up and cook veggies.

I haven't really been able to get on with any quilting over the past week as I have been using the wretched splint again and I get so frustrated trying to use my cutter/sewing machine and so on wearing it. I did spend some time mixing up a batch of bird food (with great difficulty) for the finches and wax-eyes I use beef dripping, hot water, honey all heated until boiling take off the heat then add wholemeal flour, chopped nuts, mixed commercial bird seed and raisins. All mixed up put into small throw-away "beakers" and frozen. I can just take one of out the freezer for them, the sparrows have also started to eat this mix and love it, I even saw one of our tiny fantails hovering around yesterday and would love to get a photo of one for you all but they are so quick. John is making a bird table at the moment but in the meantime I just fastened a bit of board onto one of my dahlia stakes, nail in the middle, push one of the frozen meals on! The doves, starlings and mynahs get their food scattered on the ground.

These birds are a joy to watch they flit around like crazy, they are commonly called wax-eye or silver-eye for obvious reasons.

Quilting matters - below is one of the blocks for 15 Minutes Play, a result of the scrap swap with Helen and I intend to make four, I'm really enjoying this style of quilting and using the Manhattan subway fabric which was in the swap. On the subject of fabric I have been looking at the new batiks from Hoffman - absolutely glorious, I have to confess that they are my favourites. The colours this time are mouthwatering - I'm sure I could use my left hand next week to do a little ordering on line!!!

I am calling these blocks New York Blooms! And on the subject of blooms two pics below - one of the  last alstromeria blooms and of all things a daylily which is flowering way out of season, normally September is the beginning of their season here in NZ

Okay, that's me finished on this post, hopefully I will try and post again in about a week - with the left hand! Have a good week all.