Saturday 23 January 2016

Scrapping away in the heat...

to get all my wee scrap blocks finished for the 365 Challenge.  I have 1 to go for the week that finished on Friday, then I  need to make up Saturday and Sunday's blocks. I am most pleased with myself as so far I have managed to hang in there and it is so good using up some of my scraps.  Am trying to keep to the dark look for this border, but balancing the colours between blue, brown, green and red.


The brown fabric has light lines over it and it looks like it has loose threads all over it.  We have branched out into doing triangles now which is interesting.  I have had a big play around with my sewing machine to make sure I am sewing a "scant" quarter inch seam with these. I hate reverse stitching too. However, if it is too scant, then the block is too big and it is not always good trimming back as you can lose seam allowances on pointy corners (you know what I mean?)




Then, just to make myself really challenged, here is my first blocks in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2016.  January's colour was Blue with a purple accent. These blocks will be the start of a quilt I would like to make for a good friend of mine who loves purple.  I used a block out of Judy Hopkins "501 Rotary Cut Blocks," a book I haven't used for ages.  When I did the cutting I failed to notice that I was cutting out for two blocks until I wondered why I had so many quarter square units!!  Ha!  So, figured I would make them up differently if I had to make two and see how they looked.  Both are quite nice I think. On top of that, I had a little issue with my quarter square triangles!  It is a loooong time since I have made these and this was why I had to figure out my scant quarter inch seam.  It is a different scant to the little 3 inch blocks...go figure...as they say.







While I was industriously making all these blocks, I finally organised myself to try doing the "Leaders and Enders" thingy that Bonnie Hunter teaches. Have owned one of her books for a while, but having never actually got myself sorted the time had come.  Now I am hooked.  I have this grand little system all set up, because I also found this really neat wee tutorial on how to trim your Half Square Trianges quickly and... "Bob's your Auntie"...all these gorgeous little HST's have been stitched, trimmed and ironed.! Look at this girls, it's just so impressive, and...I have the next project all lined up to come out of the cupboard and get stitched up! Did I tell you I was determined to be disciplined this year and get some stuff done and moved out of my cupboards into somebody else's cupboard, bed or anywhere?







The stitching station...the container has ended up in the rubbish bin a couple of times and they have had to be dethreaded from this adventure.


The trimming station.  Love that you don't have to press it out first then fiddle around with the diagonal line and all that hassle.




This is the extra little step I figured out.  To cut those pesky corners off quickly, line your ruler up square to the bottom left corner of the size HST you are making and trim.  This gives you the correct angle of the cut.  (Ask me how I figured this out?)  LOL.

Did I mentioned these are only 1.5inch HST's.  This is the tail end of my madness.




Last step at the ironing board.  Each time I go to press something when making the other blocks, I iron at least 4 of these little suckers.  Sometimes I get carried away and iron 8 of them!!  Hehe

End of production story.  Hmmm, I wonder why they say that we patchworkers have an incurable disease?














Final photo.  Dragged these out of the cupboard.  Might incorporate them with the blue blocks.  Started these way back when I first got involved with blogs and the lady got sidetracked away from doing these each month.  A good start though for something?








Well, I have come to the end of this chat.  You probably need to go somewhere by now as I think it has taken ages to get down this far.  Thanks a heap for sticking in there with me.  It has been soooo hot here these past few days.  We are swelting under 36C, which is quite a lot hotter that normal for us. For those of you in Fahrenheit, it is just touching 98F. My question is this, if I am melting away in the heat, how come I don't look any skinnier.  Darn,  I have to try something else maybe, like not eating ice cream on hot days do you think?

That's it, the last words are here.  I am linking to Oh Scrap here
and Rainbow Scrappy Challenge 2016 here
So Scrappy here

Hugs to you all,
Clare

Monday 18 January 2016

First Quilting finish for the year and a birthday party

I have had to start back at work again already, even though it is our hot summer time here in New Zealand.  We have our bi annual Wine Country Quilts exhibition coming up in mid-March and entrants need to have their quilts in by the end of February.  That is not so long when you have three quilts to custom quilt.
Being so organised (ha!) I have finished the first one.  I have only given you one photo as it is going to be in the exhibition so cant spoil it.


It was like quilting a garden with this quilt and Sue made a wonderful job of all the appliqued flowers.  Had to work hard with the eyes with such a dark navy background and my So Fine blue was almost too good a match.  I used a Magnifico blue down the centre of the feather fern and in the veins to give it a lift.  Thanks Sue, I enjoyed getting back into the swing of things with your awesome quilt.














This is a glimpse of one of the other quilts I have to get done.  I laid it out on my work tables to try and get some inspiration for the quilting designs.  Tyson decided to give me some help and is studying it closely LOL.  Thankfully Catherine knows this boy and I'm sure she will give him the 3rd degree when she sees him next.  It's a lovely round robin quilt that Catherine participated in a wee while ago and the colours are gorgeous.














Then it was off to Wellington for the weekend to celebrate our youngest granddaughter's first birthday.  We are both amazed that this year has flown so fast.  We had a wonderful celebration with Marceline's Mum and Dad - Kea and Richard, Kea's folks and some friends.  Wellington put on the most beautiful day that required sunscreen and all.






This is my cool Tonka Front End Loader that Mum and Dad got me.  I just love it and played for ages with it. Poppa is giving me some driving lessons while Mum looks on.
Gran Gran bought me this gorgeous new dress and was showing me some photos of myself.  I love playing with the camera and am happy to pose for you.  Nana took this one of me with Gran Gran (well just Gran Gran's knees actually).








We all had a yummy chocolate cake but Nana forgot to take a picture of that one.  Gee Nana.








Sunday we all went down to the Farmers Market at the Waterfront.  After buying some fabulously fresh fruit and vegetables, we checked out all the food stalls and had brunch.  The only thing with that is it takes me forever to decide what I'm going to eat and then I end up last!












This is me (Marceline) just hanging around with the oldies!




Please note, not a cloud in the sky and it's Wellington.  Love it.

Kerry and I decided to go look in Te Papa National Museum before we left for home and saw the Dream Works exhibition. It was great.  They take you on a dragon flight and wow, it was exciting.

On the way home we stopped in at Sawmillers Quiltery which is run by my friend Yvonne situated in Te Marua, just north of Upper Hutt.  Lovely fabrics and great conversation.  Next door is the Stonestead Devonshire Tea Shop.  Yummmmmm.

 Isn't this a most flattering photo of Kerry.  These made on the spot scones are absolute delicious.  Kerry had cheese while I went for the date, plus jam and cream of course!!!

My last gasp is this....7 little blocks, and I mean little!!!  I made the mistake of reading on Cynthia's blog quiltingismorefun that housework about this mad 365 day challenge.  You make a block a day for 365 days and at the end have this awesome quilt.  Hmmmm. Not all the blocks are 3" - these are the first border around the centre medallion.  I have also decided they must all come out of my stash.! Well so far I'm up to date with two blocks cut and ready to sew tonight which will probably end up being tomorrow as I ended up here instead which makes 15 blocks.  Let's see how long I can hang in there on this one. By the way, there are over 12000 quilters joined up...wow.  (It's free too)

So there you have it...life in the Moore household is still ticking along.  I hope those of you on holiday are having a great time.  Those who have worked through I sympathise with.  Those who dont work ....yippeee I wanna join you!  Mind you, I don't think there is anyone who doesn't work in some way or other.


Bye for now and thanks for reading all the way down to here.  It seems a long way to me too.  I need to stop talking so much maybe but I don't know, the words just keep coming out.  I will see you again soon I hope and take care.

I'm linking with Cynthia at Oh Scrap here.
Go over and have a look at her lovely blogs with lots of tempting scrap projects.  Actually I am blaming Cynthia for my falling for the above mentioned 365 Challenge, lol.

Blessings to you all,
Clare