Scrappy Cats and Prayer Flags

Another week gone by, I have been busy binding my Fractured quilt

I was undecided about the binding earlier but very happy with it now and just two more sides to go!

I have met my goal of 10 more cats - teal this time and will be linking up with everyone at Scrap Happy Saturday. I rarely do solid fabrics so all my cats, whatever colour they be, will usually have a bit of something else in them, although I do love Jinny Beyer fabrics and you will see a Jinny cat in there! I think because of my lighting the cats are slightly deeper in colour in this shot. One looks definitely greener  and another more blue than teal - but they are teal.

Before I end this post I would ask you to do something for me please.

Below I have posted a photo of a Prayer Flag. I contribute to The Prayer Flag Project and if you would go along please and visit you could learn of the tragic circumstance which  led to my making this particular Prayer Flag yesterday. To learn more about the project generally see the button on the right on my sidebar.

Please visit the two links in my post

Maureen

Busy Binding

More quilt binding today this time on my Fractured quilt renamed "Catastrophy".  First on my list was to bind the quilt early this morning and then take the plunge and wash it later in the day but when I came to unfold and check for any stray threads I realised that I hadn't finished the quilting on the dyed fabrics - can't imagine how I missed that but suspect it was when the dye run threw me out of sync. Finished the quilting and now have the binding machined on and all ready to hand stitch down.

I've used  multi coloured fabric for binding which half way through I thought was the wrong choice but the body of the quilt is so colourful and the one I have used does blend in quite well I think.

Tomorrow John and I are on duty at the Cottage looking after our small exhibition and it will be an ideal time to sit with hand work.

My goals for this month include the quilt for Sam and finishing MATO but I also have one or two other projects to work on at the same time - more about those in later posts. Also bought a Gelli Plate to use for mono printing, I have done this before using a small piece of heavy duty bevelled glass, but these look as if they will be great and all being well will start to play this weekend.

I desperately want to get out into the garden but the weather here has been so very hot and even with steady watering a lot of my plants have suffered. Thankfully when I checked my clump of Babiana bulbs they were quite plump and look as if there will be another beautiful clump flowering later in the year, I love the colours of these little flowers

Autumn weather

March 1st is the first day of Autumn for us down here in New Zealand and today (Monday) is a true Autumnal day, a drop in the temperature, showers, wind and sun all in the one day - time for an extra layer on the bed at night time!

The weather began to change on Saturday as we went for a drive up the coast, low tide and a boat on the lean.

 Saturday we finished hanging a few pieces for our small exhibition. John and I are members of the Howick Art Group and we are having a joint display of our work at Green Gables cottage just a few minutes drive down the road. This is the "headquarters" of the Howick Art Group and all members, apart from myself, are painters. We have to go down to the cottage to take more photographs - I took mine here at home but having issues with my camera. I have one below "Bridge to Nowhere" complete with two small white lines which are flower head pins and I forgot to remove them! I have made three small pieces in this style using three blocks left over from Fractured. I will post the other two next time. What an enjoyable process - slicing, adding and more cutting and turning bits around - lovely and as I have two more blocks left I will do the same with those.

More cats will be cut tomorrow after pressing the pieces from my large scraps bin, the colour this month is teal and I really don't have hardly any plain teal fabrics, most of my fabrics are multicoloured, I had collected a few batiks and Kaffe Fassett fabrics and then remembered my Jinny Beyer stash so grabbed one from there. Hopefully these kitties may be ready by Saturday.

That's me finished for now my screen is telling me I have low keyboard batteries so better publish.
                                   Have a good week, happy quilting from me

A Lovely Year of Finishes 2014 - one finished one new start

The end of February already and I have had one heck of a month!

Won't bore you all with the details but it does concern one of my February goals which was Fractured

if you need to know the sorry story go to my  last post!

However, another on my list of finishes scheduled for February was New York Blooms which is finished!

Presently I am having to do a contortion act to get to photograph anything on my wall because of my badly organised studio - this will be remedied next month (hopefully) so this pic is badly lit and on a design wall full of threads, but I am working on three small pieces to add to work already completed for a joint  exhibition of some of my fibre art  and paintings by my husband, starts this coming weekend. Two finished and one almost finished, when they are hung I will take photographs but here's a peek of one below

All for now and back to quilting but I am going to link up with everyone over at Fiber Of All Sorts
please go along and have a look!

Maureen

Delight and Disaster!

First off - Delight

I mentioned a few posts back that I had won a prize over with Sharon at Fabrics and Flowers for the final link up on Midnight At The Oasis (still not finished mine), a fat quarter pack of Tula Pink Whistling Acacia fabrics from the Fat Quarter Shop in pink. The package arrived two days ago and I love it!!

I had looked at the range on the shop web site and really liked it but having joined Fabriholics Anonymous I was very good (on this occasion) and passed on the purchase.

This soft coral in here is a delight and just look at the racoon - what a face!

The mail man made my day and I have been mulling over what to do with these.

Disaster Time

You may remember this:

Made with Kaffe Fassett fabrics and some luscious hand dyes, bought here in New Zealand and washed by myself around three times to make sure there was no dye run. All OK. However, somehow a couple of fat quarters of these hand dyes must have gone in with my stash without having gone through the wash.
Fast forward to yesterday when I spent the whole day quilting Fractured or Catastrophy as I am now calling it. I had made a couple of guide marks on one of the blocks, a lovely peach with a rich red brown mottled hand dye - finished all the quilting

then realised the guide marks were showing a little so off to get a little special soap and water to remove, remember this was on the peach - shown above. All came off beautifully and I laid the quilt over my rack ready to bind today.  Fast forward to mid morning  today and head to the machine, pick the quilt up to check the marks hadn't reappeared - they had not - but the dye had run into two pieces of the peach.

This photo just doesn't do the level of dye run justice! It looks much worse "in real life".


Can't remove the colour, tried and tried.  This quilt was meant to be in an exhibition starting Friday next now this can't happen and even if I found a way of fixing the problem it can't be sold because I don't quite know how many small pieces of unwashed fabrics are in there. Upside is I get to keep it but just can't wash it!

Hard lesson to learn about being extra vigilant with hand dyes, and I usually am. I was in tears this morning.
Ah well, tomorrow is another day folks and I hope you are all enjoying your week.
Maureen

Super Scrappy Cats - RSC 2014

Time to show a pic of my ten pink kitties - I only finished these yesterday evening as we had one of those weeks explained below.

Long story short - daughter tooth extraction last Monday, problems: one root of tooth has pierced sinus cavity major repair to cover the cavity hole - not enough gum to cut and use as flap, solution cut into cheek and a bit of muscle! Next problem - they hit a bleeder!!!! Major panics and rushes from here to city arrangements for her ex husband to move in and manage two teenagers and daughter came home with us mouth packed to glory and instructions that if there was an arterial bleed to take to emergency or get an ambulance. 

Poor girl, she was terrified. So a week of me up and down every 20 mins or so with cold drinks, cold soups, ice packs for hugely swollen and bruised left side of face. Two nights later we had an ambulance visit then three hours observation in emergency  -I could go on! Sally went home Friday and we are making sure she takes it easy and taking cooked food etc.

OK  so lovely to sit at my machine yesterday and play with fabrics and the pinks really cheered me!

Yes, one of my kitties has both ears going "backwards" one slightly cross cat! It's not a mistake I did it intentionally, I like doing things a little differently sometimes, adds a bit of interest.

I realised I have lots of pinky/peach strips cut, and whilst not strictly scraps I think I will make a small quilt out of them before the pink month draws to a close - providing we have no more dramas!

Linking now with Superscrappy and everyone else who is taking part in the challenge - go visit!

Finishing with one of my favourite flowers - not all pink but a little bit in there

See you next time
Maureen