Two new projects

I love getting fabrics ready for new projects, two are in the process

as of this week.

 I'm making another Rail Fence with
 Cultural Fusion Quilts but in the bright colours which I love and

using only one quarter of the 16" Fence blocks

I love cutting these strips

and the effect of the Ombre fabric.

Second project, two posts ago in Making Progress I mentioned the
Ad Hoc Improv Quilters
and included  blog links for Ann and Kaja who
together had this happen and whose latest posts
suggest a way of working.

I selected one of my favourite fabrics then quite randomly other fabrics,
some I had forgotten about and I never thought they would all
play together nicely but

I'm happy with them. The colours, especially the duck egg blues on the left,
are not quite as clear as in "real life".  I think I'm going to
base my work on rectangles - that could change though!!

Whilst I was taking tea - black tea …….

Bit of a funny post title I admit,

I got my colour months confused for RSC2015 - black or neutral last month

and orange was scheduled for September - I goofed and

did the opposite!!!

Anyway I did catch up with six black Scrappy Mountains and

this week I have done a catch-up with a black teapot, naturally with other colours added!

Now comes the bit about what happened "whilst taking tea" - 

I am crazy about birds, I feed them daily and have

blackbirds nesting just outside our glass slider doors

out onto the deck, they even "talk" to me through the other

house windows whether I'm in the lounge, bedroom or sewing studio,

at least the female does, she and her other half take

raisins off a little old table on the deck as I am busy putting them down!

Needless to say we have umpteen sparrows around the garden, today we had

a few heavy showers of rain and at one point my husband told me to come see 

three sparrows sheltering under the table! By the time I got there

and quietly opened the door only one was brave enough to have

his photograph taken

can you just see him perched on the wheel of the sewing

machine base?

Well I'm off to catch up with a TV programme and tomorrow I'm

all ready to play a little for

Ad Hoc Improv Quilters.

Hope all in the USA are enjoying a long weekend to

celebrate Labor Day, I'm linking up with

Angela and RSC 2015
more from me in a few days.

Maureen

Making Progress ...

Slowly but surely the quilt for my grand-daughter

is moving along, faster progress would be

made if my back didn't limit the time I can sit and sew!

These rows are just pinned onto the design wall presently

tomorrow I should be able to get them together.

I'm quilting this myself but doing it in two halves, I don't

feel like wrangling another large quilt through the machine.

Progress has been made with my Rail Fence as part of

the Quilt Along over at
Cultural Fusions Quilt Blog,

in addition to my blog here I also post there, quite a group
of us are now contributing.

So one more to add to the quilting line!
A second Rail Fence will be cut out, all being well, next week.
The blocks are a good size - 16 inches and quite addictive!

Something exciting is on the cards with
Kaja of Sew Slowly
and
Ann of Fret Not Yourself
coming up with the great idea of an improv online group

Ad Hoc Improv Quilters

go along to either blog, or both,  to see what it's all about, I have
a button also on my side bar.

That's all for now, hoping to have something to post
for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge this weekend, see you then.

Maureen

A few distractions ..

After my good start to the week posting my Mountains and working

on my Rail Fence ready to sew, life got in the way!

Tuesday started off as good day, hair appointment, present buying

for DH (birthday the next day) and eldest son calling around

to join us for a meal early evening. It was obvious

by 8.30pm that my husband was not in good shape, the last time he

was in this situation I had to call an ambulance and he ended up

in the hospital, however I managed to cope and had around

two hours sleep!!!

My plan for the next day was to get busy on the machine whilst he

was at his portrait painting group, however, the events of the

night just gone had me barely able to get about due to

my spinal problems made worse by playing nurse.

So still not able to sit and sew but as consolation I did have two packages in the mail

Alison Glass fabrics

Something light and airy

Moving towards Modern

As you can see the first package was fabric - from
Hawthorne Threads
I decided to drag myself into the modern world!

Next arrival was

So heaps of reading until the back is feeling better!

Have a good weekend!

Catching up

It's been a busy week with grandchildren, working on my Rail Fence quilt for the Quiltalong at
Cultural Fusion Quilts
 and working out which fabrics in my stash I'm going to hang on to and which

can find a new home, I desperately need to cull!

I have been able to get 6 Scrappy Mountain blocks together

in black!

Notice the pukekos - they are contrary little creatures and
do things a little differently to what we would expect!

Hopefully I can get out in the garden for a little while late afternoon,

it's a beautiful Spring day  even though Spring doesn't officially

hit us until September 1st. Daffodils are blooming, bluebells budding up, camellias

full of flowers  and yesterday we bought super size punnets of viola and stock from the

garden  centre nearby, the stock plants are just in flower and the scent is heavenly, I've

planted them by the path to the front entrance.

I love this time of the year!

If you would like to see more black or neutral projects go along to

soscrappy and RSC 2015

for the link-up.

Rainbow colours and Rail Fence

Time to post to Rainbow Scrap Challenge again, the week just flies by these days.

Colour for this month was Indigo but there were a few folk, myself included,

for whom indigo was going to be difficult on the fabric front so

a substitute  of orange of neutral was allowed 

they are a very deep orange and granted two of them do have a little

red in there. I didn't want to use light shades in the "mountain" because

of the neutrals making up the background of the block.

Two more should be made this week.

Visit Angela at soscrappy to see more goodies

Rail Fence with Sujata had me busy on a few more blocks this
week, these blocks go together like a dream, so quilt and the freestyle cutting
is extremely liberating!

I only have four more blocks to put through the machine
to have my 12 block quilt, hopefully I can get that together
this week.

To see more more from the Rail Fence Quilt Along organised
by Sujata head over to
Cultural Fusion Quilts

Happy quilting for the week ahead.

Maureen