The end of 2018

Thought I had better try and catch up with you all before the year is gone.  November/December have been hard months for me health wise and I got back home for Christmas on Christmas Eve Day.  Yay, thank you Lord.  Spent Christmas with some of our family.  Photos coming.
Might not be a lot more posts in 2019, we will see what progress I can make.  However, there is still a strong urge to kill that stash, so I'm hoping to do a little more stitching yet.  Hoping to infect (lol) one of my granddaughters with the bug as much interest is being shown.
Have started to assemble Danielle's quilt at last and did get three blocks worth together before crashing.  Today is when I'm feeling like stitching again, yippee.... so onwards and upwards people.
Now for some photos to finish the year off.

The two blocks

Danielle's blocks - one has fallen down and all the stuff has been plonked in front of my design wall.  Sorry, but you get a vague idea.
Colours are looking great.

This is Meg from our Tuesday Group who does the most amazing handwork.  Sorry about the light behind the quilt.  Meg has also done numerous hexagon quilts of all types.

This is our family at home between Christmas and New Year.  My daughter Rebecca is standing in front of her 6' 5" son Bradley along with her three beautiful daughters.  My eldest son Daryll is sitting beside me and my sister Joy has my grandson Hamish on her knee.  Love this photo except by beautiful daughter in law Dayn is taking the photo.

 On the way home Rebecca met up with her youngest brother Richard, wife Kea and daughter Marcy in Napier.  Glad they had a chance to catch up as they live in opposite ends of the country.

Suzy's quilt got finished before Christmas.  She was so completely blown away that it was hers to take away and have. I must acknowledge with such grateful thanks my helper Lynn Murphy for making and stitching on the binding for me.

Forgot to take a close up of the quilting which was a beautiful big daisy pattern.  Long arm quilter was Gael Byrne from the Quilting Shed in Hastings.  Made an awesome job and loved the way she put the red thread front and back.  It gave a fabulous two sided effect, and I jolly well forgot to take a photo!!!!

This is one of my favourite finishes for 2018.  This quilt was totally made from scraps and stash - oops, I forgot - I bought the green sashing as lack of large pieces of stash. It was quilted by my friend Lorraine Baker of Masterton who is now an accomplished long arm quilter.  The centre blocks are made from leftover bits of WOF  that I couldn't quite bear to throw away as was about an inch and a half wide.  LOL.  What a funny little lady I am, and loving it!!!












That's all folks for this year of 2018.  One of so many ups and downs for me I can truly say.  For once I am very surprised at how many quilts I managed to finish and give away to family and friends.  My stash (old) did reduce by quite a substantial amount, but alas and alack, I fear the new fabric section may have grown a little,.  Hehehehe.  It just means I will need to try and make even more quilts in 2019.
God has blessed our family constantly and I can say with all my heart that He  answers those prayers we ask of Him.  Sometimes it is in His way and time, other times we get what we asked for.  He is always good and God is love.  May your 2019 be full to the brim of love and laughter.  Love will always overcome dark.
Thank you for coming to visit my blog and I hope to see you again next year.

Hugs and blessings
Clare
I'm linking up with Oh Scrap here take a look and enjoy some eye candy.

Almost there...

I am taking a short break from trimming the very last of the HSTs for Danielle's quilt.  Soooo pleased to have finally reached this point and that assembly can now begin.
I was a little delayed as I stitched up this quilt for someone we know who lost their house in a fire.  Kerry dropped it off to the LA quilter this morning.  A little big for me to handle these days.

It was made using two roll ups of Kaffe Fassett fabrics that I had in my stash - bought the 2nd one by accident, and is lovely and sunny and bright.  I will show you again when it comes back from being quilted, but very happy with it.  Nice and quick to make and the pattern is from a Layer Cake tutorial from The Missouri Star Quilt Company.












Our Tuesday girls had a couple of beautiful finishes too.  Here is Lois with her fabulous Cat in the Garden quilt she has made for one of her granddaughters.  Awesome job Lois.

The colour choices are gorgeous and don't those cats looks fabulous.  Well done Lois.  Quilted it herself too, such a champion.


















Lynn was our other star yesterday.

Lynn does beautiful handwork and this table runner is so lovely.  The colours are really nice and the ric rac around the edges makes for an awesome finish.  Clever lady.



















That's it for now folks.  Off to trim up those last few triangles.  Hopefully the next picture will be of the progress of assembling this quilt.

I'm linking up with Confessions of a Scrap Quilter here for Can I get A Whoop Whoop! Yay, go visit the eye candy.

Hugs and blessings to you all.
Clare

Finished Sajou Mini quilt

I have finished my first sewalong with Lori from Humble Quilts.  Here is a link for you to visit - Humble Quilts and I'm sure you will enjoy a visit to her blog.  Two of my friends have said I should make this bigger, but then it turns into a WIP and I'm not sure I want that.  Much nice to say it is finished.  Hoping to quilt it over the weekend to be properly finished of course.  What do you think?

Best of all, it has all come from my stash.  Making some inroads here (she says positively).  LOL.  Have a great weekend everybody.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I'm linking to Humble Quilts Here  as well.

Progress has been made...lots of photos

My friend Lorraine said "your blog's been a bit quiet lately."  Oh dear, she is right, I have been so busy concentrating on getting stuff done, that the energy required for posting has not been there.

On top of all that I keep forgetting to take photos of finished quilts!!!  Hate that.  Here are a few photos of what I have been up to lately.

These first three are from the Master Guild quilt shown held in Carterton last month.

This is the guest exhibitor - none other than said Lorraine Baker who commented on my lack of posting!  Revenge is sweet!   LOL

All joking aside, Lorraine's quilts are stunning and her hand quilting has won at international level.

This is one of a display from a class the guild had taken.  Very beautiful hydrangeas.  Amazing work.

I am onto the very last size of HST's required for this quilt.  Seems to have been a long time in the making, but good things come to those who wait.  So they say anyway.

In the meantime, because I had nothing to do (yeah right)  I decided to participate in the little quilt a long at Humble Quilts.  It is a mini quilt and I haven't really done any of these before.  The best thing was everything I have used is from my stash.

 This was my Mystery Quilt that I made from the quilt along run at From My Carolina Home.  Enjoyed it immensely and the quilt is now finished and is being gifted to a friend who is going through cancer treatment.  It has been signed by lots of people at our church and he will received it shortly.  Again forgot photo, but hope to get one of the finished quilt when given to him.

This is Noah's quilt.  He has become the big brother to two twin brothers.  I made the twins quilts so figured Noah should not miss out on the fun.

This quilt has also been gifted and no photo taken.  Hmm.  This came out so pretty.

This was one of my favourite quilts from the Master Guild show.  Just loved it.

In the making for lady who has had her house burnt down.  Beautiful Kaffe Fassett fabrics that generate warmth.
Loving making this very simple pattern.

The baby quilts for the twins.  One has boats and the other has fishes.  One has Seahorses, the other has Starfish.  The same but different, just like them.

















That's it for now, hope you enjoyed these photos.  Talk to you again sometime????

Big hugs and blessings
Clare
I'm linking to Oh! Scrap here  Check it out for awesome scrap quilts.

Progress for 6and6in2018 and all that...

has happened in the last six weeks has halted some progress, but I'm quite pleased at what I did manage to achieve.  After the medical hassles mentioned last I managed to get a bladder infection and then react afterwards to the antibiotics.  Ho hum, it goes like that sometimes.  Now it's onward and upwards I reckon.

So I have managed to make some progress on Danielle's quilt which only needs the 5.5 inch and 3.5 inch HST's made.  Unfortunately, because I have changed the initial direction for the fabrics in this quilt I felt there was not enough variety to cut the last of these out.  It meant a trip to the LQS (sad), but it also meant I needed to go to the furthermost away one to get a good selection of batiks.  Oh well, my sister was here to stay for the week, so we had a wonderful day out.

There are lots of photos in this post to make up for lost time.  I hope you enjoy them.

 It hasn't grown much, but I did put the pale blue border on, and now have some idea of what I am going to do next in regards to colour.

This one is not long back from my friend Lorraine who is learning to do custom quilting, and doing a fabulous job.  I shall show you a better photo once it is all bound.  Very happy with how this quilt has come out and it all started with some tiny ends from some WOF's left over from my shop.  LOL.

A sneak peek also at the mystery quilt I did through My Carolina Home's quilt along and it was called Square Dance.  I will have two finished quilts to show you in the next blog.  Wow.

Aren't they beautiful. it was so hard to choose.  Hopefully I will get back to cutting these out next week.

This is the reason I haven't finished my HST's.  Been working on these three little quilts for a few weeks now.  A friend of my DIL gave us a lovely electric lazy boy chair that was almost new.  As she was expecting twin boys, I decided to make baby quilts plus one for the older sibling Noah who is 3 years old.
This one is all finished.

 This one has the binding sewn down on the front and tomorrow I will get it stitched down to the back.  I got these two quilts out of a 5 inch wide roll up plus some extras from stash.  Managed to make two different looking quilts even though the style and colours are very much the same.

This is Noah's one and it is slightly bigger, as it should be for the twins big brother.  This was a little collection that I had in my stash for some time and I added a few strips from another roll up.  Had to do some interesting piecing to get enough picture blocks...lol.

And to finish off these are the beautiful flowers my daughter and her family in Perth, Australia sent me for my birthday last week.  They have lasted extremely well and were certainly very beautiful.





As per usual, I shall try not to be so long in coming back, but for a few weeks there, I had nothing to report to you.

I hope your weather is good wherever you are.  We have had heaps of rain these past few days, which is most unusual for us and quite welcome really.  It will give our farmers a good start to spring and summer.
The garden is just starting to burst into life with my beautiful deep yellow freesias almost outdoing themselves in the gloomy weather.  I shall have some pictures for the next post.  Take care of yourselves and have a fabulous day.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

p.s.  I'm linking to Oh Scrap here  and 18 in 2018 at What A Hoot here You will enjoy a visit to both these blogs,

A scrap of this and a scrap of that...

Is all I have managed to get done since my last blog.  It has taken longer than I thought to get back my energy.  However, we are getting somewhere now. I have finally managed to sew the mystery top together and have chosen the frame and border fabric.

And now onto the large sized HST's for Danielle's quilt.  Got all the little ones finally finished - 350 of them.  Now only the medium and extra large ones left to do.  Hopefully these will go a lot faster being bigger and less of them.  Gosh I'm hoping to make some progress soon.


















That's me for today.  Hope you all have an awesome week.  Thanks for stopping in.  I am linking to Cynthia at Oh! Scrap and you can click here and enjoy some eye candy from lots of contributors.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare

A Winter rose...

What a lovely surprise to have Kerry bring in this lovely wee collection of flowers from my 25yr "Clair Matin"  rose.  It's the middle of winter and we have had some boomer frosts this past week.  Has been a real gift for me as I am just back from a weeks stay in hospital.

 Just a cold that decided to take a left turn instead of the exit!  All good now and the last 4 days were in our little local medical ward.  It's like being treated in the warmth of your own home, and the nurses and carers are so loving and helpful

We are so thankful to have this wonderful facility in our small town.
Today has been the most amazing winter's day - bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight all day.  Beautifully warm if you are tucked away from the winter breeze but suddenly very cold if you enter the shade.  It's one of those lovely things about winter.  Sort of giving us a reminder of the the lovely warms days of spring and summer to come and that our patch is just having a wee rest.  Hmmm, getting a bit poetic here!!  LOL.









On the patchwork front, it's all a bit of a shambles but there has been some progress of sorts...

This is my new BOM called Golden Days.  I have only just started by first block and block four just arrived yesterday, so the plan has gone to the pot quite quickly.  Oh well, it's not a race is it?  I do love the wonderful fabrics that come with this quilt.  Nice to have some new, modern fabric to play with. There are only 5 applique blocks and the rest are pieced - some with quite a challenge.

This has my knitting (son's next beanie), my challenge piece that might miss the deadline now and the next pile of HST's for Danielle's quilt.

The mystery has been revealed and I'm quite pleased with it.  Now need to choose a frame and border and then I'm going to donate it to a chap at church who is going through a cancer journey.


















So that is where I'm at right now.  Looking forward to seeing our granddaughter Marcy during these holidays coming up this month.
I trust you are all well and look forward to seeing you again soon.  Thank you for popping in.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I'm linking to Oh Scrap here  and 18 in 2018 at What A Hoot here You will enjoy a visit to both these blogs,

Little Plant heads

Today I'm shamelessly promoting my DIL's YouTube channel and it does use scraps! LOL
Just slightly different scraps to our fabric ones.

A quick update on my scraps - the new direction I have taken on Danielle's quilt is progressing well.  Having such a lot of triangles already cut out has made a big difference.  Almost finished all the small sizes - 2"  and 25" and the larger ones will not take as long as there are fewer to make.  Now onto my DIL's scrap use.

I just love this series of videos my lovely DIL Kea has made, along with lots of help from Marcy her 3 yr old daughter.  They are made for the enjoyment of other little ones, and it would be great if any of you would like to subscribe to Kea's channel so that she can get her film name of Ficus and Cat on her link.  Need to have a 100 subscribers I believe.  It will be enjoyable I know.  )-:

Hugs,
Clare

I'm linking to Cynthia's at Oh Scrap here

A Finish at last...

I can finally show you a completely finished quilt.  This is called "River"  and was a range of fabric we sold in our shop quite a few years ago.  It was always one of my favourites.  It was a real happy chance that I found this lovely border fabric so many years ago that goes quite well with it.  My heartfelt thanks to my friend Lorraine who quilted it for me and made a great job and to Lyn who stitched the binding on for me.  These are the heavier jobs I struggle with now.

I am very blessed to have such good friends.  This is all I have for now although I have managed a few other bits and pieces, I will save them for the next post.

Take care and thanks for popping in.  Hope all is well in your world.

Hugs and blessings
Clare
and I'm linking up to Cynthia at Oh Scrap here and you can check out some great quilting.
Also linking with Sarah here at Confessions of a Scrap Addict.  Such Fun to visit.

Been busy ...

Trying to make some progress.  I see I forgot to put the photo of Travis in my last post...hmmm maybe I was worse than I thought...lol.  Here he is trying to fit into Kerry's slipper - such a daft cat.

Travis has an absolute fascination with shoes and we have to keep our good leather shoes out of his way.  He likes to sharpen his claws on them and he has already lost at least three of his lives in regards to my lovely (expensive) shoes.  Travis lives a very dangerous life indeed.



















I also made  big decision regarding Danielle's quilt.  I made (or tried to) another two blocks and no matter how hard I tried, these blocks would not behave.  It is one of the reasons I have put off finishing this particular quilt.  So these blocks below -

have now been unpicked and we have gone back to the drawing board.  I had an inkling I had seen a pattern in one of my scrap books that would suit all the HST's and triangles already cut out.

There were a lot of them, plus quite a bit of extra fabric available.  That's when I remembered my fabulous book by Amanda Jean Nyberg...

Yay, looked through this fabulous book and look what I found...

This gorgeous quilt uses HST's in five different sizes and I already have two sizes cut.  There are enough left over of the 2.5" ones to be able to cut them down for the smallest size.  I only need to cut the two middle sizes or could leave one out as I don't want to make the quilt too big.  Happy, happy, got 20 done yesterday!














Plus I have made a start on the medallion quilt using my new method of 15 minutes (or thereabouts) at a time.  I'm very happy with how this is starting to look.  My biggest problem is I fuss over colour choices, so that choosing time is not going to be included in the 15 minutes,  Hehehe it probably took me about 30 minutes at least to choose this one little frame,

The photo has come up very dark, but it's not quite as dark as this and the outside blue has little gold dots on it.  All from my scraps - yippee.




















To finish off, I found my collection of thimbles.  These were put away when we moved almost four years ago.  The biggest problem has been "where do I put them."  Guess what my Mothers Day gift is from my DH?  He is making me a cracker little shelf set specifically for them.  I'll keep you posted.

I think there are about 90 something in that container!!  Maybe I have a bit of a problem.  LOL














That's my lot for now.  Thanks for stopping by and I will talk with you again soon.  Have a great time in your sewing rooms.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare
who is linking up with Oh Scrap here - check out Cynthia's blog. Great scrap quilts and more.

Decision making

The layout has finally been sorted for my Applique Affair quilt.  Once I have them all sewn together I will take it to a couple of LQS's in search of a suitable frame and border fabric.  Needs to be quiet and yet enhance my blocks.  So glad to have got this far with it.  I wrote that about two weeks ago... the only progress has been the blocks are now in rows. 

Then I took Angie's (of quiltingreadersgarden.blogspot.com) advice, and will turn this spare block into the beginnings of a small medallion quilt.  I'm quite excited to get started on it, and hopefully it will  not become another WIP.  Angie's advice also included the wise words of just spending 15 mins a day on it and it will soon be finished.  I'm going to try that!

Apart from that I have spent a lot of time recovering from getting extremely tired after events happening for three weeks in a row.  It's been a learning curve for me about how my tiredness can build up on itself it I don't allow enough recovery time.  I also allowed myself to get very dehydrated which is also a bit of a no-no for me.  Oh well, we learn from our mistakes - all is good and Clare is much wiser - lol.

To finish off here's our daft cat Travis trying to fit into Kerry's slipper.   LOL.

Hopefully back sooner than last time.  Thanks for dropping in and take care.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare

Wine Country Quilts photos..lots

It was a fabulous show once more. Congratulations to all the committee and to those who entered their quilts.

These are just some of the Quilts on show. It was awesome.

Thanks for stopping by. Hugs.

Clare

P.s. trying to learn how to do this on my phone.