I'm back - with Bluetooth technology!!

At last I have my new pacemaker, or as they are described by the medical professionals,  a pacing generator! With Bluetooth no less. Technology these days is amazing. I'm feeling good, which is exciting, my pacemaker "talks" to the special app on my iPhone and in turn if the app spots anything of note information goes straight through to the Cardiac Unit. It's rather like a Big Brother is Watching you scenario but I'm tremendously grateful.

So, what have I been doing since my last little post, nothing much, reading, sleeping and watching a few good TV programmes, oh and my usual moon gazing and catching sunrise and sunrise when possible, this was sunrise the other day

the cloud formations always fascinate me, especially when the rising sun catches the underside of the cloud.

You might recall I was making a start on Fonthill quilt, Wanda was also working on the same project, she had come up with the idea a few months that we could both work around the same time frame, she made tremendous headway whilst I was stalled! I hoped to continue on after my hospital visit, I had found beforehand  that I wasn't coping with the many small HSTS involved - hands not good. Sadly I'm not going forward right now but hope to perhaps think again in the New Year. So what now,  well I have three boxes with projects ready to go and from now on I'm working on patterns with good size pieces and also strips, I'm keeping things simple.

The boxed projects below were put together quite some time ago 

the bottom quilt project - Japanese Brocades - is quite a change from my usual fabric choice, I just felt like making something a little softer

I had made a start on fabric for The Hannah Quilt a little while ago, I've had the pattern from when it first was released, and was inspired to make a start after seeing the quilt  Koselig made by Julie using this pattern. Appealing to me was the fact that Julie had not used a light solid colour as the "background" strips shown in the pattern but had used a beautiful Tula Pink fabric, macaws on a pink background. I have yardage of the same design but in the turquoise colourway. Two day ago I found two fabrics to choose from as my background. Choice not yet made.

A few days ago I was told by a friend that she was having a 'mental health day' just doing something she really enjoyed, and had missed out on in recent times, she might read or paint, two things she really enjoyed but found she couldn't find the time any more to enjoy them. This had me thinking seriously about the past two years I have had, the result of which has affected my wellbeing enormously, both physically and mentally, to this end I have decided I shall have not one mental health day but a 5 month Mental Health break!!! Blogging often as I used to, spending more time in my little studio enjoying my fabrics and the view of camellias outside of the window, sitting outside in the sunshine with hand sewing and listening to the birds, moon gazing, catching sunrise and sunset, reading, going for walks now that I have the new pacemaker, reading blog posts daily again,  seeing family more often - we're going to be great grandparents soon which is thrilling.  

Reading -two books below have been sitting on my bedside table for around three months, the cover of the first book - Phosphorescence - drew me in straight away, as did the title of the book. I hasten to say it is not a book about depression but the beauty around us. I used to love the streams of phosphorescence in the wake of the boat at night, also by the bow, when we sailed to New Zealand in 1962 and back to the UK in 1963, the glow is stunning.

Next in line is Miss Dior - A Wartime Story of Courage and Couture. The title says it all, Christian Dior and his beloved younger sister, Catherine who inspired his famous perfume. I am so looking forward to reading this biography.

I think I have exhausted my news here now, apart from apologies for having, once again, missed your posts over the past 10 days, I had to take things easy.

Oh, making a start on my 5 months mentioned above here is a photo of one of the most beautiful camellias in our garden, can't recall the name unfortunately!

Before I sign off we have been reading and hearing of the horrific weather in the USA, in fact all over the world I think, but reading our news this morning I was horrified. Hoping that you re all safe and well, along with all your family members.

Keep safe

Maureen

Work in progress

This is a brief post, seems to have been the story of my life over the past few months, not a lot going on.

So after a few cancellations for various reasons I'm off tomorrow at 6.30am. to have my pacing generator changed. Quilting projects have been difficult to jump into whilst waiting for the above to happen, I've been spending a lot of time doing this

the book title says a lot, a coaster for the numerous cups of tea and hexies in the dish.

Two new Raskog trolleys were delivered a week ago and the mats from my previous trolley (different brand) didn't fit the new ones, I have three stitched and binding will be done soon along with three more mats.

The Fonthill quilt has presented me with a few challenges, various  fabrics for the two strip borders have been auditioned and rejected, I also found that my fingers/hands do not care much for working with the small half square triangles - around 350 -  I began at trying to work with something different in the centre design and I think I may well have come up with "a cunning plan" as first mentioned by Baldrick in the Black Adder tv series. This will have to wait until I'm all healed up.

Two individual fabrics I had tried out to use for the strips are these two below, they're  totally different from my original pieces pinned up on my design wall, the grouping then was based on purples.

Decision now made below for the two rounds of border strips  - the left hand Baba Ganoush  above - plus the corner triangle and as you can see I've reversed the colour layout shown in the original Fonthill quilt, my border strips are darker and the corner half square triangle is lighter - a new Tilda fabric in a soft green/aqua.

So that's it from me for now, a late night as no food or drink after midnight so I think a hot cup of tea  with toast will be on the menu around 11.00pm.

See you all soon.

Maureen

Fonthill, lax with blogging and other things

 I seem to have really lost the plot with my blogging at the moment due to so many things!

You may have read Wanda's blogs over past days with mention of the Fonthill quilt, we're both working on this Kaffe design.  Wanda is really progressing, I am way behind!  This is a photo from the book Passionate Patchwork, there are two photos in the book of this particular one below,  one showing  in a  slightly different shade , there is also a paler version shown.

It is the design which attracted me but after many attempts to try and go with the flow of the the colouring here I had to admit defeat! I'm going with a completely different take on the colour but sticking strictly to the pattern. Here I'm just beginning to test out different fabrics on the design wall, the stripe along with the purple Scarabs are the two constants throughout. Try outs for the small triangles in the centre portion are now being auditioned.

Holdups in my blogging and reading blog have once again been due to unfortunate event.
There were two cases of bad news (health) concerning very long time friends and also sadness over a situation with one of our grand-daughters, also health related. I have another rotator cuff tendon possibly torn - scan tomorrow - but the very saddest blow came last week, my brother-in-law - husband's  brother just three years younger in age than John, passed peacefully away in his sleep in the early hours of Thursday last week. This has just knocked us sideways - the family are still in England so communication is by 'phone or email. Many of you will no doubt have experienced the same sad happening. A quilt will be on the cards for my sister-in-law later in the year.

Whilst trying to process all the above I've been finding solace in the last flowers in the garden, watching the sunrises and sunsets and moon gazing - yes, I love watching for the moon each night.

Also a lovely flowered metre of fabric arrived in the mail.

That's it from me for the moment, hopefully I can put together another blog before I go off to hospital next week for my change of pacemaker, meantime apologies again for not being up to date with reading your posts.

Thank you for all your comments last post, Diane, if your read this thank you for your kind words, I'm unable to reply as you are showing as a no-reply blogger, if you pop into your settings you could enable your email and receive replies.

Enjoy your quilting my friends, see you soon.

Maureen

Five weeks blogging missed thanks to a spider!

Would like to first say thank you to all who left comments on my last post 24 April, my apologies for not replying. I had hoped to do so two days later and have a few rows of Tussie Mussie sewn up to post, but only had the one sewn and pinned on my too narrow design wall when I had an argument with a spider!

Hopped into bed 26 April, read a few pages of my current book, light out and turned over onto my right side when my leg, a few inches above the ankle, began to burn, sting, tingle, throb, couldn't think what on earth was happening.  DH  thought was somehow a burn or a graze. - not possible!  The next day there was obviously a problem, by this time inflammation was slowly spreading  all around the area with a nasty wound in the centre. Off to the local emergency department.  Result - couldn't decide what had happened but massive doses of antibiotics for seven days, told to keep leg elevated, five weeks of visiting my usual Doctor's surgery every couple of days for dressing changes, wound cleaning and still elevating leg. Healing up now but the consensus is there must have been a white tailed spider in the bed and in turning I obviously lay on it and it wasn't too happy about that.  These spiders can cause real damage to the surrounding flesh on occasion, my leg was one of the occasions!

Sadly I was going to have my pacemaker replaced the week after all this happened but this was postponed due to the darned spider, now scheduled for June 23rd.

So I've been spending time sewing hexies

reading a new book 

opening a package of new fabrics

sitting with a box of small pieces sorted by grand-daughter and finding this gorgeous piece of fabric  not sure if KF or PJ - Wanda you would know I'm sure

watching the birds come to attack the seed pods of the trees outside the window

and at last DH driving me down to the beach for a short walk along the sand at low tide yesterday.

Hopefully back to short spells at the machine in the next day or so and reading current blog posts tomorrow, I haven't a hope of catching up on all your posts from the last five weeks, hope you'll excuse me.

Happy Quilting

Maureen

It's all in the planning

I haven't achieved a great deal in the past two weeks, cut all the HSTs for Tussie Mussie, the amount of these differed, a number were cut from one wof, more from two wof strips, then three strips wof.

Here I made use of the plate system for keeping things in order, used by quiltdivajulie, a great idea Julie!
The cutting took quite some time,  no die cutter used.

Just a few pieces on the wall  (not stitched) at the moment, other things seemed to hold me up!

I'm making an effort to tidy fabric, using large containers to hold the fabrics assigned to a few quilts on my list for this year and next. Cutting odd size scraps into 2 and1/2" and 1 and 1/2" squares for two projects and preparing strips for another two quilts I have in mind, all now neatly stacked and labelled. Tussie Mussie needs to be worked on quickly now, I had my pacemaker check last week and a referral was sent off three weeks ago for me to be called in for a replacement, probably within the next few weeks. As this procedure involves using a temporary pacing wire threaded in (I have no underlying rhythmn and rely totally on my pacemaker)  it's a little more complex, I may be taking it easy for a couple of weeks afterwards, no heavy lifting or reaching for fabrics and boxes.

You may remember my Dolly Mixtures quilt from a little while back

there were lots of sets  unused, they re-appeared during "the great tidy up" in one of the drawers and I probably have enough to make another small quilt.

 

I've been photographing in the garden, now suffering from the high winds and rain which do a great job of spreading rust spores throughout the plants. I planted three new canna lillies a little while ago, the seed pods of these plants have always fascinated me, I picked a few and photographed them on an old patterned saucer

just look at that lime green popping out.

We've been concerned for our daughter whilst she had four weeks in the UK and a week in Italy, she had missed one of her Covid booster shots. Arrived back on Wednesday, down with a sore throat and feeling pretty ill on Thursday, tested positive for Covid on Friday! She may have picked it up right before travelling home, but sitting on a 'plane for two 10 hour flights and an 8 hour lay-over in HongKong probably didn't help matters!

Dinner is calling me and then more sorting, hoping for quite a few more blocks of Tussie Mussie in the next post.

Maureen

One top finished, a new one started

Okay, I finished sewing up the Maggie Pearl top - hooray! A boo-boo with the blue block, second row down and second block in, this I  moved to a different position in the top and the more subdued blue took it's place, DH asked could he see how it was placed originally, yes he could but then I forgot to move it back again. After a tricky day I headed for the machine and stitched - only at the last strip did I realise what I had done. I wasn't about to begin unpicking all those seams so it's staying as is.

On to my next project, one I had marked in a Kaffe Fassett book just after Quilts in Italy became available in 2016. The colour in this quilt had me hooked, ideal to bring a breath of Spring into the bedroom when Autumn and Winter hits us, as we're now in Autumn  I had better get busy with Tussie Mussie.

Isn't she (looks like a she) a beauty! Apart from the required two Mad Plaid fabrics (one will have to be a substitute) the remainder are from stash, I love this one so much I have just gone totally with KF listed fabrics. Measures 80" x 80" and required 8 and 7/8" strips as the first step, I couldn't be fussed with this measurement so mine are cut just 8 and 1/2", it's not going to make much difference at all.

Some fabrics require just one strip cut, some two strips and a couple need three strips. 

One strip of each fabric:

Two strips:

Three strips:

I shall definitely be starching before cutting, they would stretch too easily without this. A special project is coming up end April beginning of May so TM needs to under the machine within a few days. Doesn't have to be all complete before my next quilt, I like to have two or three projects on the go (understatement here, it's usually more than that).

More re-arranging and tidying of my little studio has been keeping me busy, don't know why such a small room needs so much arranging to have a better working set up. It does have to be tidy though or everything quickly unravels.

Signing off with my favourite hibiscus and an almost matching sunrise yesterday

and the hibiscus

Before I do sign off,  am I the only quilter who has noticed a heck of a lot of bloggers that I've followed for some years are no longer around, they all seem to be on Instagram, or have just totally stopped writing a blog, such a shame.

Happy Easter to everyone.

Maureen