Progress with Dolly Mixtures, Spring blooms and a good book!

 I don't have much to write about in this post I'm afraid, update on
Dolly Mixtures and flower photos!!

Let's start off with beautiful magenta pink roses

the name escapes me at the moment but the bush is blooming
prolifically and scents the air wonderfully!

My last post had Dolly Mixtures as a top but minus the border,
that's now been remedied, I've carried on with a 2 and 1/2" finished
border of Guinea Flower - a favourite pattern of mine in all colours of the
range.

Photographed in the garden below on a sunny morning yesterday

and here on the design wall whilst I played with choices for binding.

 

I'm really happy with the extra width of Guinea Flower, I feel it holds
the multitude of colours in this quilt together nicely.

Binding ideas, just playing with scrappy pieces, on the left
is green GF  - I placed this so that I  could see how that shade of green
fitted in given all the colour in the top,  I do like the
medium depth in this one. In contrast the strippy scrap on the right is
really very dark, in fact I think it's too dark, it's one of the new PJ fabrics below.

I could try a few more tomorrow but looking at the LH side again

I think the green version of GF could work - any thoughts here?

 Emptying out my three very large scrap bins has been keeping me occupied and the

the volume is overwhelming!! Starting to sort into large/small pieces and

iron. I've been guilty of just tossing pieces gaily into these bins when I should

have put them away after completing a project.

There are lots of nice surprises for me in the sorting process, a piece of

one of my favourites from years ago, KFC of course. Pity it's only
a 10" square but I shall find a nice home for it!

Here are a couple of flower

photos for you all.

Alstromeria with a David Austin rose - Tranquility - and we all need a little

of that right now.

Outside the living room window

the first epiphyllum bloom of the year.

The next few days will be spent making a decision/decisions  on which project/projects to

make next on my list, my too long a list, which needs culling and to make a start

on reading a new book bought this morning.

Lynda is a well known gardening celebrity in NZ and lives with her family

on a farm -  Foggydale Farm - with a magnificent garden  in the

Hunua Ranges here in Auckland.

Perhaps the scrap sorting and project list could wait!!!

Maureen

Dolly Mixtures all ready for stitching

 I decided I'd played around enough with placing the squares, now
all nicely fastened in rows and ready to go

and here's my final layout below, perhaps I could have done a little more
tweaking but I wanted to move on

a little shadow on the bottom left, need to photograph
at a better time,  you can see the squares are
quite roughly in place, luckily none of them floated to the ground as
I removed the rows.
There will be a 2 and 1/2" border of the Guinea Flower fabric which
holds the centre in very nicely then I'll go with a dark binding.
Almost all the fabrics used are from my scrap stash apart from
two of the latest KF range.

Isn't it amazing what we find as we hunt through our scraps,
one of the fabrics in the quilt I must have had for a great many years
and was surprised to unearth it amongst the others.

I have used all of it here, look closely at the second row down to find a Plus with a pink
tentacle looking pattern, there are three more and it's got to be a KF and how I wish
that all those years ago I had thought to buy more yardage!

More KF fabrics arrived the other day, a few are below - in no particular order!

I'm counting these as a birthday gift to myself - 75 yrs  last week!!

Better get sewing my way through my fabrics!!

Hokusai's Mums

Hokusai's Mums

My Favourite - Van Gogh

Climbing Geranium and Flower Net

Dorothy - Red

Some time will now have to spent folding and putting in the appropriate place,

I really did buy a lot this time, now NO more fabrics, at least not until
next year when the new range is released.

Spring has arrived  here in New Zealand - the greenery is a delight to see

the Japanese Maple in the back garden is looking amazing and I always love

to see the tiny red 'helicopters' peeping out.

An early misty morning walk last week was a treat

and a bright show of pelargoniums - forgotten the name of the

other flower

 Not much here relating to quilting I'm afraid but I do have plans for next week!

Maureen

Four weeks later......

 Can't believe it's been four weeks since I last wrote a post!
I'd like to say a huge thank you for all your good wishes following my last post,
they really lifted my spirits.

Not much achieved lately but I received back the quilt, beautifully quilted, for my
eldest son Matt. It was too large to get a full shot so here is the centre showing off
the quilting, a photo showing the colours of the various strips and
also one of the fabric used for the backing.

Quilted by 
Leeanne at QuiltMeKiwi
with Celtic Wave design
using wool/polyester batting

Size: 78" by 84"

I was contemplating starting the hand quilting on
Liquorice Allsorts this week, but guess what arrived,

yes, another squirrel.
I had on my project list for next year a Plus quilt but plans changed thanks to my visitor
and I began cutting at once.
I enjoyed making my last quilt,
Liquorice Allsorts so much, read the blog posts

HERE
and
HERE

for the back story,
that I decided to base this new quilt on another of my well remembered
sweet treats from childhood.

The beginnings of Dolly Mixtures below

and I'm beginning from the outside and working in!

The strips are cut at 3".

Hopefully more progress will be made over the next few days

before I write another blog post.

Must finish up with something from the garden

how I wish you could breathe in the scent of this beautiful Viburnum.

Until next time, Happy Quilting!

Maureen

Difficult times

 Just a short post today, reasons at the end of the post.

I had decided I really wanted to make a 16 patch quilt, this had always
been on my wish list. Warm colours was my first choice but then I also began a cool colour
one as well. 
Just after my last post I was able to sew up a few blocks for the two proposed quilts,
here they are along with colour combinations auditioned on the wall., I then came to a to stop.

Cool colours

Warm colours

There are of  course lot more fabrics to add to the ones already here. 

Inspiration for my decision to work on these came from two areas,
one was the quilt below

Red Sea Sunset
made in 2014 and still not quilted

and a sunset from a few weeks ago

I had a visit to my doctor Friday last week with disturbing symptoms over a few
weeks which I ignored until my limbs were unable to function as they should,
especially my legs but my hand and arms are also a problem, they will be shaking like mad
by the time I have written this.

I have an urgent brain CT scan on Wednesday morning coming and then an urgent
appointment with a neurologist. He want so rule out anything in my brain before
going down the path of the possibility of Parkinsons. My primary care doctor had this in 
mind after carrying out a thorough neurological assessment. I have no balance and no co-ordination
in my legs, plus tremors and more. Concentration and diffictuly findint
the words I want to say.
I may not be able to leave comments on your posts at the moment but I do hope
to catch jup with reading them.

As soon as I am able I will post, meanwhile I was able to get able to get into the
garden to look at my flowers and take a few photographs, this cheered me up immensely.

Do take good care of yourselves and enjoy your quilting.

My best wishes to you all.

Maureen

 

Alert Level 4 Lockdown Day 15 and quilting non existent!!

Well I thought I would be galloping away on my sewing machine
during our two (now to be 4) weeks of lockdown, but not so!

Since my last post I just haven't been able to move forward at all,
a list of proposed projects still pinned on the design wall
which is currently blank. Mind buzzing with hundreds of ideas for future
quilts.

So, this post is an amalgam of bits and pieces
and to start with we have the latest Kaffe Fassett book, beautifully photographed as always,

however some of the quilts shown seem to be similar to ones in his earlier

books but using the latest of the KFC fabric range, which I have to say are as stunningly colourful
as always - I shall definitely be ordering a few for my stash.

Two books I particularly like from the early days are the ones below and
there are a few quilts which are interesting me greatly.

I decided to begin hand quilting Liquorice Allsorts whilst
waiting for inspiration to strike, I had in my box of Perle cottons a variegated

one which works beautifully on the Orchid centre squares,

the background I used for photographing is a little dark unfortunately
but the colours are quite luscious in 'real life'. I hit a slight snag
here with the needle size, the point was nice and sharp, needle just the right length
but the eye was too small for the cotton to pass through, if any of you have
used Perle cotton before I would love to know the type and size of needle used.

I have been spending time organising yet again my fabric storage, cubes were bought 

just before we changed alert levels and I'm using these for storing my

half yard KFC fabrics. Still need to go through the greys, whites and neutrals and
I just found a bin with more stash which I had forgotten about!

Sadly the light is not good again.

Other minutiae to show you is my favourite mask, we mask up when
leaving the house or entering essential business premises of which
there are only a handful including supermarkets, medical premises and the like.

I've actually been playing with fabric, cutting up three different colourways
of Sunburst fabric, there are three  quilts I've spotted using this fabric so I'll give some thought
to which colourway to go with and then  I need to cut them into individual
squares.

Last up a new fabric from 
Kathy Doughty -
click on her name the link will take you to her
store Material Obsession.
Aren't these budgies so cute!

Well that's all from me, perhaps inspiration will strike later today and
I should have something more to post about by the end of the week.

My thoughts right now are with everyone having been through the terror of Hurricane Ida,
the scenes were horrific.

Maureen

                     

Crumbs and early Kaffe books

 Actually this small piece is made up with cut up HSTs but
the result does look like small pieces sewn together individually.

So my last post I was here

 

Next I added a 1" finished Spot border followed
by a 2 and 1/2" finished border of the left over HSTs sewn together
in no particular order. 

I simply cut the top and bottom border at the required length of

23 and 1/2"
then repeated the two sides with 28 and 1/2"
so nothing matches, no good looking for points meeting up,

just ad hoc,  easy peasy!
I followed on with another narrow 1"finished Spot

and this is as far as I go I think, simply because I have no idea right now where to go from here!

This really was only a sort of practice piece, but I do like it very much,  mainly

 because I love all shades of purple/lavender.

Apart from Crumbs all I have to show since my last post is the find

of five Lego blocks in my Spare Parts box, completely forgotten why

I stored them away here, but together with my latest Lego blocks stored in their project box

I now have 10 in total!! A bonus find I think.

My aim here is for a 50" x 60" lap quilt.

Stop Press - See the bottom of the post following on from the shell- something for all Kaffe fans!!

To tone down the colour a little here's a photo of a shell found

on the local Sandspit beach, beautifully soft and restful and although I zoom in on the

bright colours I do also like the pastel shades.

A quilt using these shades of cream, and peach is possible.

Not including the brown!

For Kaffe fans here are  two very, very early books of his

published and purchased by me in 1985 - don't know how the tear came into being

as I treasure my books and treat them like gold dust, anyways next up

published and bought by yours truly in 1987.

Just click to enlarge.

See you all soon.

Maureen