2021 designated as My Year of The Quilt

I feel I have, for a number of reasons, not been as productive
as I should have liked over this past year with my quilt making, I am
determined that this year will be different, hence the title
of my post.

I do have a finished top now for Matt

measuring  78" x 84" I don't intend to attempt to quilt this myself.
Because of the size I couldn't photograph on my design wall so here it is under
the Japanese Maple tree in the garden.

This can count as the beginning of my dedicated quilting year.

A long awaited task has been to make a start on sorting all
my small scrap containers, fabric leftovers have been thrown into these
without any organisation whatsoever.

I have sorted one only right now
measuring 10" x 8" with 4 and 1/2" depth

so pulled and sorted neatly I have
an assortment of small and large pieces and the same for wide and narrow strips.

I have six more of this size container to sort through, next step is to decide 
whether to have a container for each colour, that's going to be tricky
with only six containers although I do have a few oblong large boxes
but they're not very deep. I'm tempted to take the easy way out 
and go with the size of the piece, small medium or large.

There were some very small pieces and I have those in what I call
my Smidgy Bits box

Apart from the above all I have had the energy to do is a stitch a few hexagons

 a little colouring

from this book

and photograph hibiscus

I have a busy week with dental and hospital appointments but I'll be setting
time aside to plan new quilts.

See you soon

Maureen

 

Scraps and Secure Sites - https

Here we are in November, did anyone see the moon
on Halloween ?

I spent some time outside enjoying the sight of the clouds scudding
along and giving glimpses of the full moon - a blue moon I believe.
Suitably spooky!!!

This could possibly be a boring read today, nothing interesting to show I'm afraid
thanks to a hiccup with dental treatment involving more visits then
were envisaged and swallowing quite a lot of pain medication!!
An emergency pacemaker clinic visit,  a meeting with the cardiologist
involving blood tests and taking things at a slower pace
 also held up quilting progress.

So, dealing with scraps, lots and lots of scraps as you will see below

a flimsy red scrap bin - falling apart as you can see,
a 16" square bin into which I have just thrown scraps over the
past few years, however, I have three more bins larger than this one
also tightly packed with scrap pieces.

I thought it a good idea to empty this one onto the floor

and I had one heck of a shock at the amount
16" high, 28" wide and 36" in length!!!!
I hastily crammed them all back into the box and decided to
make a start on sorting this week, I think one box each week
will keep me occupied.

Shifting furniture around in my little studio came next and I
eventually found a use for an older sewing cabinet.
I enjoy having my computer in here but it is a small room and I needed
to think outside the box a little.

So here we have the cabinet closed up with computer sitting happily

but no room for my legs of course  and I have
the beautiful colourwash quilt by 
Wanda at Exuberant Color
above the screen.

On to the room for legs

door swings open with pens, glues, stickies, binder clips
and other fiddly bits, pus I have the large holder at the bottom
for patterns, notebooks and so on. I sit comfortably with legs tucked in!

When the computer is not in use it sits on my cutting table right up
against the wall, the top flap then opens to the left hand side giving me
an area of 51" long and I have a padded and covered piece of
board to sit on there, I then have a good size ironing area.
To do this I have to roll the cabinet more over to the right to meet up flush with
the cutting table.
Told you it could be a boring post didn't I?

However, I hope you will read what I have written below,  it's not boring, it is important.

A few of the blogs I visit and have visited for many years are
coming up with notice that they are not secure sites,
they have never switched to https, this is a simple matter of going into settings
and a quick tick solves the problem.

I am no expert and certainly would not have a clue of how to go into all the
details as to why it is so important for all of us but
Ann at Fret Not Yourself
whom I have followed for many years has written two
extremely informative posts with excellent information, she has kindly agreed
to my giving the link above to the latest post above on the subject and the link to her 
original information is given in there also.

I do hope you will visit.

I'll close with a photo of a stunning Clematis seen at the local Garden Centre

I'm wondering if I have room somewhere in my garden for this beauty.

Before I head off to make dinner I would just like to wish all my blogger friends
 in the USA a safe time in the days to come, sending my best to you all.
Please take care of yourselves.

Maureen

 

Brain Freeze

I am tearing my hair out right now with the darn computer

and my photo editing system!

New Blogger isn't helping either.

It's taken me ages to put together the simplest of posts

and in the process I've forgotten half of what I had intended to write.

However this was the start of my day

beautiful sunrise with Venus still hovering in the sky.

So on with my intended day dedicated to more stitching on

Green Diamonds

and the colour is still off plus I now see I have the letter j in Quilter,

I am not going to begin the whole process again so it's going to have to stay.

This new system  is far more time consuming loading up photos.

There is now a grand total of four Postage Stamp blocks

picking up these tiny squares plays havoc with arthritic fingers

and I'm now using tweezers  and the process is

much less painful.

I am overwhelmed with my tubs and other containers

of scraps, something has to be done because they're bugging me,

 some will be given away and the remainder will be

assigned to a variety of scrap quilts.

First up I have a number of plastic boxes which hold a mix of 

1.5" strips and now I need to decide what they will be used for.

A Lego quilt is a possibility,  lots of these around right now,

Julie at Quiltdivajulie

has a whole series of Dumpster Diving quilts, the original was based on

a Lego quilt,

 go visit and you'll see some beauties!

So these are my strips below, boxes are 11" x 14"

and,  apart from the third box, they're mostly Kaffe Fassett Collective

fabrics with a few others mixed here and there.

The strips in this last box are a mix of widths

but I'm happy to haul out the Accuquilt and reduce them all to 1.5"

Any ideas for simple strippy projects gladly received.

One camellia and one rose photos before I go and make a much needed cup of tea,

if I was able to drink alcohol  (doesn't mix with my medications) I'd be 

slicing a lemon into a stiff gin and tonic!!

Sadly I can't remember the name of the camellia below

but this rose is

Buff Beauty

and has a delicious perfume.

All from me, hopefully my next post will be written in a much

calmer frame of mind and with computer, photo and blogger

problems all sorted.

Keep safe and well.

Maureen

Ever feel as if your batteries need re-charging?????

I hadn't intended leaving it so long before posting again but the post title

says something about how I'm feeling presently.

I think the past few weeks with family and friend happenings

have had an effect on my mental and physical state and my quilting

has suffered.

Example:

My intention was to post the photo below for February from

my calendar on 1st February

obviously I'm a little late!

Taking me longer than I had intended is the completed top

for my very dear friend who's battling cancer.

The green Guinea Flower fabric forming the border edge

isn't showing true, it's somewhat brighter than in this photo.

I've stitched twice around the outside edges to prevent

the edge of the seams opening, so fingers crossed

all works out well when it's being quilted.

This is going up North to

quiltmekiwi

to work her magic!

When down in my stitching haven I decided to muster

my energy and re-cover my ironing board, after

collecting the batting etc. I came back into the room to see I had a helper

who wasn't inclined to move.

Now a question re scraps.

I am overloaded with them and really have to get busy and sort them,

I do have most sorted by colour but there are thee huge bins

sitting in the corner of the room staring at me each time

I walk through the door!

What size do you regard  as a scrap?

Tiny odd sized pieces or a decent

size piece of fabric enough to cut a few shapes from

to use in a scrap quilt? Do you regard a fat or normal quarter as

a scrap?

I would be interested to know how many of you organise your scraps.

 A few handfuls at one time is the first step for me, some to work on

below

and it's only a small amount but will be ok for starters.

I look forward to hearing your ideas and in the meantime I'm

going to be planning projects and trying to

get myself back to normal!

Have a good weekend.

Maureen

Scraps on Friday and other things

No actual sewing has happened since I last posted, I decided to begin

the organisation of my studio by sorting my scraps.

A huge shock was in store for me because I had six

of these bins below tucked away under my large extension table.

You can see they are literally bursting!!

Scraps date from present day to way, way back.

Each of these cardboard bins are full, I weighed each one,

 12lbs give or take a few ounces under or over,  I calculate

that within each bin sits approximately 36 yards of fabric!!

By my reckoning six bins gives me approximately 

216 yards of fabric scraps.

I am drowning in scraps!!!! I was so overwhelmed that I 

promptly replaced them under the table to sort next week and moved on to

opening a package in the mail - not more fabric - but I think

the most delicious book I have ever seen!

From QUILTmania comes

this treasure below,

text in both French and English and is a book about the collector

and his quilts.

Just look at this quilt below

I saw this book pop up on Instagram a few days ago and was hooked.

If you do have the chance to turn the pages of this book you will see why.

Time will be set aside each week to spend reading in a quiet corner.

More fabric selections for my UANDUQAL quilt

have been selected and will be under the machine next week.

A walk through the garden yesterday revealed below

one of my clumps of bluebells. These harbingers of Spring, along with crocus,

are the flowers of my childhood days playing in the fields at the side of

my home in Lancashire.  Nostalgia sweeps over me when I

see and smell these blooms.

Dawn is here much earlier now and I love to be up 

watching the sunrise. At 6.30am yesterday I took this photo

of the sun hitting the bare oak branches giving them a golden glow,

sights like this are the perfect start to my day.

Happy Quilting

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

Rejects and scrap sorting

I'm finishing up section two for Gypsy Wife today

and in the process got an awful lot of left over HSTs, squares
and odd bits and pieces

and felt as if it was taking me for ever to get the fabric
combinations just as I liked.

I  have a few "rejects" from these two sections
but they can possibly be incorporated into other blocks.

 The two small blocks below are already in place and sewn - thank goodness.

I have two other larger blocks complete but I'll not post those until
we have the Gypsy Wife link up.

In my last post I commented on the lack of colour in the garden now
we're going into Autumn but of course the hibiscus in the front bed
are flowering

This one had ended up on the ground so it's now floating in a dish in
my kitchen.

That's me for today, a short post!
More over the weekend - hope you all have a wonderful
Easter!

Maureen

Scrap Vortex

This scrap quilt is the greatest fun!!

I'm using up, or should I say intending to use up.

scraps in two of my plastic drawers, strips, squares and all sorts.

Following the lead from Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts
I'm busy putting the small units units together to make the bigger units and it
really is quite addictive. Just a few below

medium units

now made into larger blocks

 these all begin life as just two small pieces of a similar size sewn together,

and like Topsy they just grow!

Hope you're having a great week.

Thursday - an early start

An earlier start than I would have liked because of going down to the laboratory 

for a whole lot of blood tests following

my visit to the Rheumatologist yesterday - a downer was that

two of them had to be fasting so I was outside

the door as soon as they opened!

I haven't done a thing for a few days with quilts, grabbed a handful of

clean up fabric strips yesterday to make a cover for my birthday

iPad, turns out most of the strips were in the green range

quilted the lining and now need to trim to the size needed. I may not quilt the strips, 

I did flip and sew so they should be OK, I'll think about that

whilst writing this post.

Yesterday I found that I had quite a collection of yellow fabrics bought

maybe two years or so ago with the intention of making

a yellow diamond quilt - now I've changed my mind so I 

have heaps more yellows to add to my already considerable yellow stash.

I also bought around two and half yards for the border

so I will not need any more yellows!

Sorting out scraps is turning out to be a major I have just folded some of the ones I have 

used recently which were piled up on my table and

decided to keep them in one drawer just for Kaffe Collective scraps 

I would really like to begin on a quilt from the book by 

Sujata over at The Root Connection
but as having my eyes dilated is on the cards for around lunchtime and therefore not
being able to focus for a few hours after that the new start is out!

Off to make the most of the morning whilst I can still
see clearly - have a good week!