Forgot the hearts...got the bugs...

Drats, I have come down with the flu in a major way.  Doctor has put me on two different antibiotics to try and knock it back straight away.  I have a compromised set of lungs due to once being a smoker.  Never to worry, I will be bouncing back very soon...there is quilting to be done.

Also forgot to put the heart photos up in yesterdays posts....I shall blame it on the bugs lol.  Here they are now.  Hope you enjoy them.

Lorraine is so clever...look at these little leaves.

Such lovely wee flowers

I wonder how many hearts there are in total in this quilt....hmmmm?

 

So there you have it.  I hope you enjoy looking at them.  I'm off to try and feel better.

Take care and thanks for reading.

Blessings
Clare

Scraps, Hexagons, hearts and lots of photos....

It has been a busy time since Sunday and I have some yummy photos for you.  First of all, I managed to get two rows together of my Pretties Scrap Quilt, then excelled myself and got another two done!! Whoopee, only 17 to go...that's not many when you say it fast!!!
First there were two....

...then there were 4....yay..

The long view...

I am really loving the way this quilt is looking already, which is inspiring me to get it together.

My friend Alison called in to use our tables to pin baste her gorgeous Zealandia quilt which was the last BOM that Quilt Works ran.  It was an exclusive to us quilt and was made from New Zealand fabrics but it is still available through Quilt Works in Lower Hutt.  It looks so good Alison...

Then there is Lorraine from our Tuesday Group who is mad about hexagons.  This is one of the latest she is working on which is going to be for her outdoor table.  Consequently there is a hexagon missing in the centre for the umbrella pole!!  Lorraine thinks of everything.

From memory I think these hexies are 1 inch in size. (Shaking my head here) lol.

And then we have the heart quilt....today I finished row 4...whoopee only 2 left to go.  Fighting off a sore throat and a few aches and pains that are beginning to develop, but the quilting must go on!
This is my new favourite ruler on my longarm machine.  It is called a Deloa's Boomerang ruler and is designed for curved cross hatching.  I have found it great to use going around the tiny little pieces of applique.

Today I had a lovely morning tea with about 20 church friends at one of our local cafes.  It was Gale's idea, and what a good idea it was.  I have to say the noise level of 20 plus females talking was fairly substantial...lol.
Tomorrow I have a lunch date with Sally up at the Church, so another little escape from the building!!!  It is quite good to have these breaks mind you, as staring at black background for hours is rather hard.
Ok you are now updated.  Kerry has cooked dinner (again) and it smells yummy....chops and veges...just delicious.

Keep on quilting and talk to you again soon.

Blessings
Clare

The Pretties Scrap Quilt, Aunt Grace and a rally...

have all been a part of the week.  I was really pleased yesterday afternoon to finally get the last row finished in my Aunt Grace BOM, but was annoyed at have so many blocks left over!!  Hmmm well once I looked at the pattern, the brain got into gear and remembered that I had to make TWO rows!  This afternoon it was time to get four more blocks made and get these rows done and dusted....woohoo...job done.  Now it is time to start cutting the sashing strips and putting this quilt together.  I think it shall be my task for the week.

Plus I managed to get my first row put together in my Pretties Scrap quilt.  The plan is to get lots more of these done over the next couple of weeks too.  Mind you, I have a full week ahead of me with the aim of getting Lorraine's applique quilt finished as well.

On Friday Kerry and I walked up to the "Green Patch" in town to join the "Don't Damn the Dam" rally in support of the water storage scheme being worked through here in Hawkes Bay.  It was a great turnout with over 400 vehicles of all types and over 600 people in support of this project.  The aim was to let people know it wasn't all doom and gloom which seems to be the only view we hear lately.

People were all around with placards and waving and cheering on the vehicles.

I never thought to make myself a placard....oh darn!  lol

There were some humungous tractors....

and lots and lots of big trucks with clever signs...

A rousing time was had by all and the speeches were really good too.

There you go then.  We are off to a new week when the eyes open next....hope you have a great week.

See you again soon,

Blessings
Clare

The Affair with the hearts continues....

Boy, I am tired from the intensity of stitching on this black background.  Then yesterday the unthinkable happened.  I started to stitch a new background pattern and hated it after about 3 seconds.  On deciding to unpick those 3 seconds worth of stitching it took about 4 hours!!!  Tiny stitches of black on black....scary.  Finally finsihed the last small portion today, but only quilted one block yesterday.

A better day today and have progressed to the 3rd row.  Only 3  more to go then it is onto the rest of the borders.  Going well really.

Here is some eye candy to keep you going....

 And here is my head rest....

Oh my goodness, tomorrow is Friday and I just blinked on Monday!  Hmmm well it jolly well feels like this week has run away on me I know that.

Talk again soon and enjoy your Friday.

Blessings
Clare

Monday's musings....

It has been a weekend of travel, family and gladness to be home for a bit.  We travelled to Te Awamutu for Daryll and Hamish's birthday celebrations - father and son 40 and 1yrs.  It was really  neat to catch up with so many of our grandies all at once.
Most of Saturday was spent standing on the side of a netball court watching first the granddaughters and lastly our daughter!  I forgot to take some photos (still getting to remember the importance of this) of the littlies - Hayley is 7 and this is her first year of playing.  Her team won and Hayley managed to net two goals.  I think the influence of two older sisters and a mum playing is quite strong.
Danielle's team was on next (after a dash up town to have lunch in the cafe where our eldest granddaughter works) and she also scored heaps of goals.  A brief sojourn with Richard and Kea in their motel unit then back to the netball courts to watch Rebecca. Here she is having a break between quarters with happy Dad in the background!

Then it was back to the court!

Look at these two beautiful girls....Jessica holds Olivia - oldest to youngest.

Then it's most wrinkled to least wrinkled!!!

Why do my kids take awful photos of their mother....lol.
On our way home we were puzzled by this huge black cloud until we drove over the horizon and saw the fire.  It was so still at Whakamaru that even the smoke didn't move.

Today it was a slow move to getting back to work.  It was one of those Mondays where there are so many interruptions you begin to think you may as well go home.  I did however, get one block done.  Hoping to have a good start tomorrow.

So there you have it.  The weekend is over and it is back into weekday routines.  Hope you all had a good weekend....the All Blacks won....whoopee!

Here's a lovely quote for you...a little long, but lovely.

"Friend! How sacred the Word"

"Born in the heart of God, and given to man as a treasure from the eternities - no other word in the language is so heavily freighted with meaning.  With one friend I would count myself rich;  to possess more than one, I were rich beyond comparison.  A friend is a priceless gem for the crown of life here and a cherished star in memory forever."                Cyrus B. Nubbaum

Thanks for joining me.  See you again soon.

Blessings
Clare

An Affair of the Heart quilt

My friend Lorraine arrived up here on Monday with her quilt and no idea of how she wanted to quilt it!!  In fact, she was going to quilt it herself on my machine.  However, we decided it is such a beautiful applique quilt it needs special treatment and hopefully, I will manage to give it that...here's some photos for you...

I am using So Fine black in the top and Bottomline black in bobbin and it is working like a dream.

 The photo above shows the filler designs on the outside of the feather shapes like the one below.  On the outside of the embroidered gold line I have just done pebbles as it is a very small area.  the binding will come right up to the bottom of the curl.

The feathering in these heart shapes is quite small...the width at the curl is about a half inch.  I have to say I amazed myself at being able to feather in and out of such a small space.

The long view.  It was tricky taking photos of the black background.  Even trickier quilting it as it is quite hard on the eyes.  Pleased with the progress so far though.

We have had constant heavy rain all day today and it was dark at 5 o'çlock.  Winter is here and the fire is very cosy.

No stitching has been done so far this week, but the beanie is coming along.  Talk to you later.

Blessings
Clare

Wonderful Wellington

We had such a lovely time in Wellington.  Saturday was spent by Kerry out in the front garden getting everything back up to scratch.  Shrubs were either trimmed back or dug out and weeds were dispatched to the transfer station.  Mid afternoon I was commandeered from my knitting duties to go for a ride to Bunnings to get some new shrubs and some mulch.  If I could figure out how to get the photo onto here I would show you...lol.  This is the beanie in progress however...

Sunday morning we all went down to the waterfront Farmers Market.  This is a wonderful place chock full of the most amazing array of fruit and vegies, herbs, potions, food to eat, coffee and buskers singing their hearts out.  We love it, and had our breakfast after Richard and Kea had done their shopping.

It was so picturesque and the day was fine, warm and a fabulously calm sea.  All this in Wellington in winter!!  Then it was off to make a choice in the food hall.  So difficult, especially when you are hungry.

A wonderful time was had by all.  Then we tootled off to have a look at a couple of open homes.  The kids are in the planning stages of working out what is necessary for them to get into their own home.  Tough times in this regard.
 Back home Sunday evening and it soon rolled around to work time Monday.  My friend Lorraine from Masterton arrived with a quilt for me to custom for her.  I will take some pics tomorrow...it is the most beautiful applique quilt and we have been ruminating over exactly how we are going to quilt it. 
 The traitor cat (Travis) thought he would check out if he could go home with Lorraine when she goes as she gave him lots of attention.  After all, his owners deserted him all weekend. (Dont tell the caat, but he is being deserted again this weekend too as we head up to Te Awamutu for a birthday party!) Shhhh.

That's it, my eyeballs are hanging out and I will catch up with you tomorrow and show you the additions that managed to end up in my stash..... who said that?

Blessings
Clare

Friday Fripperies on Thursday!!!!

As we are off to Wellington tomorrow afternoon, thought I should catch you all up to date as I never worry about taking my laptop.  Our son Richard works at Weta Digital as an animator and has lots of computers at his place.  We are going to be busy cleaning up the garden and stuff to help out.

Today I finished Sue's lovely scrap quilt.  It reminds me of oceans/summer/bright & breezy this quilt as the colours are so lovely.  There are lots of wee one inch squares and Sue has made a really good job in her colour choices.

Aren't they lovely?  Well pieced too.

Doesn't this one look so bright and gay.  I used a gorgeous lime green So Fine over the top with a soft purple Nature's Colours on the bottom.  First time I had tried this in the bobbin, but I didn't have a nice soft purple in my Bottomline or So Fine.  Decided to give it a go and this lovely Nolting handled it well.  A few issues to start with but changed the needle size and altered both tensions and we were away.

The pattern was Deco from Lorien Quilting.  Nice and easy and was a good size in balance with the quilt.

While Kerry was demonstrating a sewing machine yesterday I was unable to quilt due to the noise, so I found this sample of quilting from a class a year or two ago...it happens.  Decided to turn it into a cushion and was going great guns.  Turned it out and discovered I had not checked if I had right sides together....duh!  Unpicked, resewn and now all done.  Yippee.... another finished thing.

Then had a rush of blood to the head and decided to try out one of the Farmer's Wife blocks...

Sorry about the red background.  This was of course one of the most simplest blocks you could find, but I have made a start!

That's it from me.  I hope you all have wonderful weekends.  We are looking forward to being in the "big smoke" tomorrow as we love Wellington.


Blessings
Clare

The Tuesday Chat Quilting group

Gosh it is noisy in the shop on a Tuesday.  There is so much laughter going on it is heart-warming.  These ladies have been meeting at my shop for the past six to seven years we think.  When the shop changed we all wanted to continue to meet enjoy each other's company and have fun together.  Our numbers vary from 4 to 9 and we all make a great variety of quilts and other bits and bobs.

My photography is not very good today.  Left out the other side of the room!!

Lyn has been working on the gorgeous Christmas hanging for about 5 months.  She does the most exquisite handwork.

Lyn has sewn untold beads and sequins to this design.  Really lovely.
Five of us have decided to start on the Farmer's Wife quilt and will make 4 blocks a month to start with.  The template plastic has been pulled out and we are going to do this on the 3rd Tuesday of each and will share fabric.  Such small amounts are needed and we all have decent stashes to raid!!

Then I managed to load and get started on Sue's fabulous scrap quilt.  Decided to use Big Bertha while she is in residence....this machine does make small work of heavily pieced quilts.  More pics tomorrow.

The fire was so lovely tonight with heat pouring out at a great rate.  The boys thought it was such a wonderful spot to lie...

But then it got a bit too hot and we had to make a strategic retreat....lol.

That's it for tonight.  A bit tired as Wednesday mornings I always go to Morning Prayer group at church - St Andrews CHB, so I'm off to bed.  It really is a lovely way to start your day though.  We are going down to Wellington this weekend and I am looking forward to that.

"Dear friends, since God so loved us, we should love one another also.  1 John 4:11"

Take care and talk again soon.

Blessings
Clare