Happy New Year

Sending lots of good wishes for this New Year to all my blogger friends with lots of
 happy time spent quilting and fondling fabrics.

My intention was to have a post today on my

planned projects, but I'm still working through them all

and will be ready to go on Friday.

I'm starting here with my last finished top of 2018

and I'm hoping my efforts with my quilts this year will

be happier ones!

Here we have Chinese Coins 2

and you will see the result is not the best. 

In theory the combination of KF stripes sandwiched between

two strips of Aboriginal Dots was fine, in practice it was not.

I began to sew them to the rectangles re-purposed from my

Scrap Vortex. Even though I starched the combination of KF strips pretty well they

weren't happy getting together with

 rectangles stuffed full of seams. The problem is, I think, with the
finer weave of the stripe.

I unpicked and fiddled around but I'm still not happy

with the result and decided to leave it alone for now.

The Quilt Show had an episode with Tula Pink a few years
ago and I should have remembered ( I did after my experience) that she was asked by
Alex Anderson about using her (Tula's)
fabrics with the finer ones of KF, her reply was that she
had to starch the KF within an inch of their life.
Lesson learned.

Hope you've all enjoyed your Christmas and New Year celebrations
and are ready to go with lots more quilting in 2019.
See you Friday.

Maureen

Mardi Gras - a smaller version

Mardi Gras is now a flimsy albeit considerably smaller than

the original which had 36 blocks.

The pattern is in the book

Sunday Morning Quilts

by Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkinson.

My last post showed 17 blocks up on my design wall, why I had decided

to make another 72" quilt right now I really don't know, I decided to come

to a stop after making another three blocks.

Size of 48" x 60",  a reasonable size to use for throwing

over the legs on a cold day.

Not a quilt made of precisely cut strips, most are a little

wonky and pulled from my clean-up cut basket.

Even some of the blocks are wonky although they do measure 12" square.
In this photo the quilt looks darker at the bottom, it isn't, it's the time
of day when taking the shot.

Only four more 'sleeps' now until Christmas Day, so our two smallest

grandchildren tell me.

I won't post again until after Christmas, by which time I hope to have had

some time to myself to plan quilts for next year. Problem is 

deciding which, so many ideas are buzzing around in my head.

I'm signing off on this post with a close-up of a

pink lily from my birthday bouquet earlier in the year

and wishing everyone a very

Happy Christmas

Maureen

Snippets on Sunday

We're creeping ever closer to Christmas, how could the past 12 months have

moved along so very quickly!

First up before quilty photos see below. On the grocery shopping list 

was a bottle of a good, rich red wine for my pasta dish for the evening meal.

As soon as I spotted this one on the shelf,  I knew it had to come home with me!

A welcome addition to our meal.

I've been able to spend some time this week on my quilting,

first on my list was checking for stray threads

on two quilts ready to be sent off next week

for quilting.

First, with borders added, is Memory Quilt and you can see it was

a windy day. The story behind this quilt I will share in the New Year

when it's been quilted.

 A blip with the watermark, a practically non-existent 'z'.

Second quilt was made quite some time ago, around three years I think, from 

 Quilts in Morocco by Kaffe Fassett.

Blue Heaven

I thought the hydrangeas were a good match. 

A little more progress made with Mardi Gras

just pinned on the wall at the moment, 19 more blocks to make. I'll try different

settings when they're all finished. I'm loving playing

with strips and strings and as I have heaps I can see more string/strip quilts

in my future.

Something new now - I'm cutting solid 9" squares, 

the pattern is inspired by Sujata Shah and her

superb book Cultural Fusion Quilts. 

More squares to be cut this week. This is another in the

Memory Quilt category.

Time to go, a little time to spend on a few hexies and then

our two eldest grandchildren are coming for a meal with us.

Beatrice is the eldest at 19yrs and Charlie 17yrs.

Bea is training at a hair salon and Charlie heading off to

University in the New Year.

Doesn 't seem so long ago that we were sitting reading nursery rhymes

with them!!

Enjoy the coming week and hopefully not be too stressed

with preparations for Christmas. 

Maureen

Ready for the borders

Memory Quilt One is going to have

the borders sewn on, hopefully tomorrow

and then off to be quilted.

Remember this piece below from my earlier post?

Catastrophe - three strips sewn together, up on the design wall I see

that the centre section of the three had some of the strips bowing,

major unpick and no more of Aboriginal Dots fabric in Teal!
Off to the store - none of this particular

colour on the shelf so waiting to see if we can get a hold

of some early next week. Also we discovered that it is officially listed
as Charcoal.

Whilst I'm waiting I'm busy gathering

the fabrics together to make a quilt from the latest

KF book - Quilts in America.

Stonewall

This of course was based on a stone wall in the States, coming

from  the UK the dry stone walls there are quite different depending

on which county they're in. I'm from Lancashire and the colours there

are different to Derbyshire for example, so my quilt will

 certainly not have as much blue as the one

in the photo above. 

I will also be going with a different fabric for the sashing rather than

the one above.

Gathered as of today are a few below.

Most I have in my stash but some I had to buy in.

I like that KF suggests only making one block at a time rather

than thinking to cut all those HSTs at once, time to check

if I have the correct size die for my cutter!!

In the garden I love my day lilies, this one is a very prolific bloomer,

just a touch of lime green in the very centre.

All for now, happy quilting!

Maureen

A little progress!

And it is truly only a little progress with the

Memory Quilt

from my post HERE

last month.

Hopping about like Long John Silver with his one crutch

makes it a teeny bit tricky to be on small step ladders

trying to pin a quilt on the design wall. However I did a 

reasonable job, I think.

The very bottom row is just pinned on the wall, still needs to be sewn

to the pink strip but I decided a break was in order at that 

point. Two side views, couldn't go far enough back to take

a full on photo. Just one more row to go at the bottom, a repeat of the first

row but different fabrics.

I'd forgotten there was a border to go on so more of the

KF  Dream fabric in Dark is on the way to me.

Coming out of my little studio I saw that John

had one of his old oil paint palettes upright on a shelf, I always

take a photo of these because of the stunning

mix of colour.

A scrap quilt in oils!

The garden is so overgrown right now, John is

carrying out an assault on the weeds and overgrown grass,

I'm hopping along taking photos.

The hydrangeas are just beginning to colour up so here's

a look at a couple of the flowers coming out on the

hydrangeas down the drive, the bushes are

huge this year. Sadly once the sun beats down in Summer

the blooms wilt like crazy, copious watering takes place then.

I'm sending wishes for a

Happy Thanksgiving

to all in the USA but there will be a tremendous

number of people for whom there will be no celebrations, only mourning,

following the horrific fires in California with loss of loved ones

and their homes.

I'm thinking particularly of the destruction of

Paradise right now. To see the sights we have on our

news here brings tears.

Back soon.

Maureen

One step forward, two steps back

If you read my last post from 29th October you might recall that I showed

my scrap vortex cut into strips along with two other fabrics.

deconstructed scrap vortex

aboriginal dot and kf stripe

I also said that before the end of that week I would have something to

show for my efforts as I was now off crutches.

They are now back with me, hence the wording of the title.

Dictionary definition of the post title:

If you take one step forward, two steps back, you make progress but then

experience events that cause you to be further behind than you were when you made

the progress.

In reality I have made al little progress in the past two days sewing a few seams and

buying new fabrics - necessary for therapy!

Below is the beginning of my take on a new Chinese Coins using the strips

shown above.

Strips sewn 3" x 11 and 1/2", yes a bit of a strange size.

You can see that the bright scrap strips seem to be taking second place

to the dark combination.

Here is one completed strip, there will be three in total

My husband looked at this and said I had killed the colour,

perhaps I have but I am happy with it. Yes, it has darker elements rather

than my usual all over bright colour, I think sometimes our quilts reflect

our mood at the time, mine wasn't that great!

But  here comes the colour starting with

the 2018 range of Moda Bella Solids - there a few moody darks

at the bottom of the bundle, I have plans for an Amish piece.

 The next two photos are Tula Pink Zuma and sadly 

these shots don't quite show the vibrancy of this range.

Don't ask what I have in mind for Zuma,I have a lot of ideas buzzing around.

The beauty of Tula Pink fabrics

is that they mix and match, especially when incorporating

her solids, stripes and dots.

Lunch time now - home baked savoury cheese muffins and a cuppa.

Fingers crossed for a little more sewing over the weekend.

Happy Quilting

Maureen