Scrapping thru to the next Decade....lots of photos

Well golly gosh, here we are once more at the end of another year, and this time it will also be the beginning of another decade.  The mere thought of the year 2000 used to be such a far fetched fantasy, and yet now we are at the end of twenty years of this new millennium.  Many things have happened, most of them lovely, a few bad, but life goes on, and God is always Good.

Here are a few last photos of various things and I have included some of my favourite quilts over the past decade.  I hope you enjoy this little treat of photos.

 If all else fails, knit a beanie.  I have lost count of the number of hats I have made for my family and I do love making them.  Hunting out some of the yummy hand dyed wool is half the fun.  Thankfully they are still enjoyed by everyone.  Keeps me out of mischief.

 This year I decided not to hang up all the usual Christmas decorations and the tree as I didn't have enough energy for it.  Instead I asked Kerry for a "stick" or two on the wall in our lounge for me to hang a few things on.  This is what we ended up with and we have just loved it.  Along the top are our Remembrance Christmas bells for those who are no longer with us, and then on the bottom row I chose some of my favourite ornaments to hang.  It has been nice to be able to see them all at once, whereas on a tree you can only look at a part of the tree!  Plus the bonus is the cats have ignored them!!!

 What a tremendous achievement this was to get Danielle's quilt finished.  I had started this while not well, so had to do some remaking, grrr, but it was worth it in the end to get a good finish.

This finish is my best of the Decade actually.  I started to embroider this tray cloth when my eldest daughter was in her 10th year - 1982 to be precise.  LOL.  Needing only a small amount of crochet around the edges, the cloth languished in a chocolate box and was carted around the country as we moved!  The year 2019 was it's crowning glory of becoming a finished object of admiration.  It is now in Perth, Australia and said daughter Janeen loves it.  That saying,....you know...." all good things come to those who wait...."   Hehehe.

Hayley also finally received her finished quilt from Nana.  These were a precious collection of fat quarters from a shop no longer in existence.  They are really lovely together, and Hayley loves her quilt - thanks Hayley I hope you feel the hugs from Granddad and I when you snuggle under it.

 On our way to the supermarket yesterday, we spotted this tree with the new pine cones out.  They are the most loveliest shade of green before they dry out.  Quite unusual to see these days in town.

I am really enjoying making the smaller baby quilts for our great grandchildren and other babies we meet along the way.  Love using up scraps of pretty fabrics like this one for Nathalie.  We were testing an embroidery machine in our wee shop so did a butterfly centre for it.  It's actually now quilted and will have the binding stitched on over the next week or so.  Also ready to baste Nathalie's new brother's quilt so they can both get them together.

 Love this photo of some of our children and grandchildren, along with my sister, from Christmas 2018.  Feel so blessed to have made it to Christmas 2019 and in such good shape, thank you Lord.

My dear sister Joy comes and visits me once a month and we do stitching together.  We have a great time and it has brought us closer together since my ill health.  We are supposed to be working on some quilt blocks each month, but we have had a little detour, lol.  It will all come right in the end.

This quilt has now entered into the status of a WIP - work in progress.  It has morphed from a pile of half yards into blocks and rows, hahaha.  This is for Kea and I have had this fabric in the cupboard for a few years now.  Nice easy pattern, so will not take long once I get my energy back.  Looking forward to it now.

 This is Suzy's quilt - a friend who lost everything in a house fire.  It was made using Kaffe Fassett fabrics and a most simple pattern.  The colours just resonate with sunshine and warmth.

 This wee lap quilt goes back about 10-12 years I think when it became a finished centre.  Then I decided to get it finished and found this lovely border fabric at our little local shop.  Was perfect, and had just enough of the teal blue for the frame in my stash...love that,  Gave it to  my friend to practice her long arm quilting on and yay, it is now a finished quilt.  That didn't take long did it?

Richard and Kea's new(ish) quilt
It was started quite some years ago then put away for a rest. Oh and one of the loveliest things was the way the whole family worked on it . Mum, Dad, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

 Shala's sunflower quilt.  Oh I love this quilt so much.  It was fun to make and brings nothing but sunshine thoughts to your mind when you look at it.  It is full of awesome memories of my trip to America and meeting my friend Barbara and her quilting buddies as well as Jackie her daughter.  I had a better photo but cant find it.  Here is a link to the post with the good photos sunflower photo

A new photo of Travis among my Christmas gift plants.  He thought he was missing out on something,  LOL.  Just as spoilt as ever of course

His big brother who is such a roamer.  He goes to visit a lady (human) down the road and sometimes we don't see him again until night time when he demands more food.  Typical cat.





















Well I hope you didn't find this all too much.  Thanks a heap if you hung in there and have read all the way down to here.  I pray you have an awesome New Year and that you are blessed in ways you have never imagined before.  Remember God is always Good and He can see the bigger picture.  I keep forgetting that, lol.

Hugs Clare
I'm linking to Cynthia at Oh!Scrap  here

Christmas outing ...

Our Tuesdays girls had our yearly Christmas outing today.  This time we headed west and went to Palmerston North, which is about 1 hour 40 mins from here.  It's a bit longer these days because the gorge that you used to drive through has been closed for the last 18 months or so due to major slips.  The cost of repairing it was too major and a new road is going to be developed.  Unfortunately, it's going to take about another 6 years before that is completed!!  We are way down on the list of priorities. This is the only access road from east to west within reasonable distance.  In the meantime you have two options - the Saddle Road - steep, windy and hard work for the big trucks and is the most used one I think from north east traffic, and the windy, semi flatter one that goes from south east.  We went over one way and back the other so did a complete circle, lol. That way we could manage to fit in at least two quilt shops.

On the quilting front, I have been plodding only, as still getting my speed back up from the chest infection - had to do another round of antibiotics, but never mind.  I have finished quilting one of the baby quilts I made and bought some binding today to do the final installment.  I had a lovely wee spend up this time - it is only once a year ladies!  The excuse of Christmas that is, hehehe.

Most of these pieces I have in mind for small borders and binding on baby quilts.  The charm pack will make a really lovely little baby quilt and I bought a lovely yellow/gold matching fabric to border and bind this one with.  Sorry the photo is not very good but never mind.  The dark fabrics along the top are Fq's for my eldest grandson's new "big person"  quilt as his quilt was made when he was about 4 years old, lol.
The aqua/green FQ is for a skirt I am making for a granddaughter.  Gosh, I had better get busy.

Catch you later everyone.  Hope you are not finding the Christmas rush too overwhelming.  Thanks for stopping by.

God bless,
Clare
I'm linking to Oh!Scrap here have a look at the gorgeous scrap quilt ideas.

Quilting this little quilt

Made this little one completely out of my leftovers from another baby quilt.  It will be a donation quilt for the neonatal unit in one of our hospitals...not sure which one to send it to yet.  Hoping to get another couple done before I send it off,  It's good to be able to finish something quickly.

Managed to get some practice with my ruler foot on my domestic machine.  Quite different action compared to my long arm machine I had to let go.  Enjoying learning though, and the Janome 9450QCP is such a lovely machine to quilt with.

We had to have the approval of the quilt controller, of course.  Travis takes this position very seriously.

I do love they different textures and patterns you get on the back of quilts with the different types of designs.

Very satisfying to add to the finished list.


















Thank for popping in.  I have kept this post short as still recovering from catching dear husband's bugs.  A chest infection takes a bit of working through for me, but getting there now.  Plodding through quilting one of the other baby quilts I finished last post.

Take care everyone.  Hugs and blessings to you all.

Clare

Next quilt on the list please....

I'm trying to keep this roll going after the Sunflower quilt.  I managed to put two baby quilts together for Shala's newest grandchildren and enjoyed making something that was small and simple. The little pink quilt has an embroidered centre that I did while re-familiarising myself with the Janome MC500e Embroidery machine.  It was totally from my stash.  The boy's quilt is a little range of fabric I fell in love with in a quilt shop after Lucas was born.  Couldn't resist of course.

Now I have Kea's Star Wars quilt up on my design wall.  I'm using an incredibly simple pattern that was loaned to me called Bricks & Mortar by Red Mumma.  Its perfect for this collection of fabrics that I bought a few years ago.  Kea loves Star Wars if you haven't already guessed LOL.

Then I have a few photos of our spring garden.  Loving seeing all the bearded Irises and Granny Bonnets coming out.  Cant believe how tall my Granny Bonnets are - I'm assuming that's what everyone calls them - real name Aquilegia ?  I see from a quick peek on Mr Google that they are also known as Columbines.  Whatever you call them, I love them and some of mine are almost a metre (39 inches) tall this year.

That's all the talk this time and thanks for visiting me.

So there you have it.  A reasonably short blog for me I have to say.  I hope you manage to get in a lot more sewing in the weeks ahead with the Christmas rush already gaining steam.  It's the one thing I intensely dislike about Christmas - Jesus is the reason as they say.  But the commercialism of this season has become almost deafening (excuse my oxymoron).  The pressure that is put on families that are already struggling is huge when the main message is one of love.  I hope you manage to have a stress-free up to this celebration of all that is good and loving.

Well I did manage to chat on a bit more - it's a bit of a habit of mine lol.  I think I find it difficult to get off my soapbox which seems to be permanently fixed to my feet!!!  I wonder if it's because I'm so short, hehehe.


Oh dear, this time lovely people, I'm definitely signing off.
May you all be greatly blessed and hugged lots.

Clare
I'm linking to Oh!Scrap here  lovely eye candy and scrap busting quilts.

Let the Sunflowers shine...

Way back in September 2011, I visited my online quilting friend in small town Kansas - Parsons to be exact.  It was a very special time for me and I so enjoyed meeting Barbara and her daughter Jackie.  Because of Parsons geographical position, it was easy to visit four states within a couple of hours - it sits near the crossroads of Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas.  Such fun!
While I was there, Barbara asked me to give a talk to her local guild, then it became a few of the little outlying guilds until we ended up with 70 plus people.  It was a lovely evening of showing off our fabulous New Zealand with an awesome DVD of Central Hawkes Bay and other lovely stuff.  At the end of the evening, the President was thanking me and out came this positively massive bag of fabric!!  Unbeknownst to me, the entry fee was a fat quarter of fabric.  Oh my, I got all sorts of amazing fabric gifted to me and some pieces were way more generous.  Most of it had to be posted home as we couldn't fit it all in my bag!!

The reason I have told you this big long story is that I had  around 17 different sunflower fabrics in this amazing collection that I had not really touched in the last 8 years.  However, my (step) daughter was going to turn 50 last month, and I had asked her a year or three before if she would like a quilt.  As Shala is a very good sewist and has made a few quilts herself, I hadn't got around to asking.  The answer was an emphatic Yes!  Then it turned out that she loves sunflowers!  Oh yes again!!  Out came my stash and Shala chose basically all the fabric that had sunflowers on it.  Well Shala's 50th birthday was looming up and I decided about July that I would have a go at getting it ready as her birthday gift for when she came down on 29th September to celebrate with us.

Here you go with a couple of photos and I am smiling so much you wouldn't believe it.

This is one of the two large blocks in the quilt.  It's a beautiful piece  of fabric and the sunflowers just glow.
All the fabrics have come out of my stash, so this quilt managed to make a little bit a reduction, Yay,

 

 I was determined not to put any fabric back in  my stash, so used all the large pieces left to make up the back.  It actually came out really well,

Here is Shala with her quilt.  It was very windy so the quilt would not co operate with laying flat.  Never mind.  I actually managed to quilt it myself as well,  My awesome Tuesday girls pin basted it for me and I did an all over meander on it using a lovely So Fine mustard gold that blended beautifully with all the colours of the quilt.  Looked good as it didn't need anything fancy as the sunflowers were the stars, and then my fabulous Tuesday girls helped again with stitch down the back of the binding,

I can't tell you how amazing getting this quilt finished on time made me feel, as I do have a bit of a struggle with my health issues.  But God was so good to me and gave me the strength and tenacity to keep on and achieve something so filled with love for this very precious member of our family.

Now onto the next quilt...

Thank you for sharing my joy of this quilt and I'll look forward to showing you my next achievements.  I hope you are all having a great time with your quilting and your families.

Many hug and blessings to you all,

Clare

linking with Oh! Scrap here

It's officially finished!! lots of photos

I said to myself - I'm not posting again until Danielle's quilt is finished because you would all be sick of getting updates showing so little progress.  Well, it is done and dusted and as I type it is winging its way up to Danielle in Te Awamutu.  Our youngest son and his family are going up to visit his siblings up that way, so he is loaded down with the quilt and five beanies for delivery!!!

I'm sure most of you think I have fallen off the planet as I didn't realise it had been quite so long since I last posted.  Hmmm, been busy stitching and hanging on to my health.  But enough of that, I have a few photos to share and I hope you enjoy them.

The Beanie production line, lol.
I did have five of them, but the yellow one ended up being given to a dear friend and I am knitting another one for that dear DIL.

Love that my family like to wear them and that it is something else I can make when I'm not up to quilting.

The finished quilt for Danielle.  I am so very pleased with how it has come out.  My dear friend Catherine made a fantastic job of quilting it for me with an edge to edge pattern that let the colours speak for themselves.
It is sideways in the photos as it was too long to hold up length-ways and the grounds was still wet from the big frost we had this morning.

 I found this fantastic extra wide backing fabric at Counting Stitches in Hastings.,  It was the absolute perfect match for this quilt.

This shows a little more of the dark and light in the quilt and the flowers in my late winter garden.  The bees have been making the most of the wall flowers that seem to flower for ever and smell beautiful.

This is my incredible UFO finish.  I started this embroidery cloth when my eldest daughter was 10.  She received it at the beginning of June and Janeen is now 47 years old!!!!  only too 37 years to complete.  The  most embarrassing thing is it only needed a few inches of the crochet edging to be finished for most of the last 10 years or so.  Hehehe

Oh well, a finish is a finish and that is one less thing in the UFO cupboard.  Yay

 My mystery blocks up until May.  Had been enjoying them but had some troubles with June/July blocks and not sure what is causing it.  These blocks come pre-cut and I think there may be some small discrepancies in cutting.  Not ruling out operator error though. Lol

A small baby quilt to be sent to the preemie babies unit.  I used some left over strips from another quilt I had made and added a top and bottom border to make it to size.  Totally from my stash - yippee.  Halfway through the quilting of it and hope to finish off over the weekend,

Finally, a parade of elephants from the Tuesday Girls.  These animals are so beautiful I am almost tempted to start one,  But  I have not finished enough UFO's yet and need a project like this like I need another whole in my head.  Hehehe.


One day, as most of us quilters say about those projects on our wish lists.




I hope you have enjoyed your catch up.  I am currently working mostly on a sunflower quilt for our eldest daughter.  Not sure how long that's going to take but here's hoping not as long as Danielle's seemed to take.



Our weather is supposed to be quite horrible over the weekend and it has already become quite cold.  Big snow falls down in the South Island and we do have snow up on our ranges.  This is why we have had two boomer frosts.  Rain however is forecast and we actually have not had very much rain at all and it would be most welcome.  It is also an excellent reason for being in your quilting room!!

Bye for now and take care.  May you feel blessed in you have and do.

Clare
I'm linking to Cynthia at Oh! Scrap
and Sarah at Confessions of a Scrap Addict.  Click here to visit Sarah.  It's worth the visit.

Plodding away

At getting things finished, but then that is nothing new.  I think it is everyday life for a quilter, don't you?  Mind you, we do all work at different speeds, and some of us are (hopefully) like me, stuck in low gear.  Hehehe.
The progress on Danielle's quilt is good.  I have sewn all the rows now and merely need to stitch last five rows into the final section.  Stitch all the sections together and we are up to the frame and border.  It sounds (and feels) so good to be able to talk about the border as if it is becoming close to a finished quilt top.  Yay  I have to say that I like this quilt more as each section goes on.  The busyness of the smaller HST's would be quite overwhelming in a large quilt for me, but it may be because of the darker colours I am using.

This is the hat I was talking about in my last post.  It came through my error ridden blocking process with no problems.

Richard loves it as he is very kind to his Mum.





















Keeping it brief today.  Off to try and cook some dinner for us.  That will be interesting.  lol

Hugs and blessings to you all.
Clare

Scrappy Week

I have been tootling away at some more scrappy hearts and hope to have about 20 to send away on Monday.  The response has been overwhelming.  Thanks everyone.
I finished another hat this week.  This one was for my friend Helen, and it was a lovely pattern called Irma by Aneta Gasiorowka, whose Ravelry username is agasi.  It took a little bit of brain work for me to get the hang of it and I was actually amazed that I managed it.  I've never unpicked so much before without chucking it in the corner and leaving it there forever.  However, instead of said throwing out the toys from the cot, I did persevere and it is well worth it.  I even washed and blocked it, something I have never done before.  It was interesting...I watched a clip on YouTube and the knitter suggested using a partly inflated balloon to put the hat on to dry.  What a brilliant idea I thought, and after much scrounging Kerry and I managed to find a balloon that was not perished.  Of course Kerry had to blow it up, as I don't have any puff these days (darn). Next problem - neither of us could tie the blooming thing!!!  So we tied it tightly with a bit of fabric strip.  Later that evening said green balloon had become deflated instead of inflated.  "Nec minute" we found a vase that was shaped like a head.  Popped hat on and went to bed.  Oh dear, the ribbing had ended up on the widest part of the vase and was awfully stretched...  Back to the basin to soak and this time, I laid it flat.  After all this I forgot to take a picture.  This photo is of the one I did just before that for GD Marcy.
Thank you Aneta for such a lovely pattern.

Now my photos don't want to behave and load on my computer so I'm afraid this is all you can have today.  I am working on finishing my next two hexagon blocks in my mystery quilt and need to get a move on before April's arrive.  Trying hard to keep up with this one.  More importantly, need to get the next section done on Danielle's quilt.
Here's a couple of older quilts just because...enjoy.

The quilt above is one of the  very early quilts when I began doing long arm custom quilting and free motion.


The second one is the quilt I made for my granddaughter Olivia.  It was such a happy animal quilt.








Hope life is going well for you all and that you are enjoying some family time over the weekend.
Hugs and blessings to you all

Clare

I'm Linking up to Cynthia's Oh Scrap here and hope you enjoy your visit.

#this is not us

My heart is still very heavy as I pen this quick post.  The tragedy that unfolded in our country on Friday 15th March has left a huge impact on our people.  50 precious New Zealanders lost their lives when cowardly shot down while praying in their Mosques while they were praying. These people should have been safe We have come together in ways never seen before and made us look long and hard at our own attitudes to races and religions.  It will take a long time for New Zealanders to process this.
I really liked what a Rabbi (on a panel of a Christian, Muslim and Jew) said in an interview on television discussing this event and the question of why do we have these white extremist views.  His point was (and forgive me for not remembering his name)  that "when God made Adam and Eve, He made them human.  The Jews were not around for another 2000 years."  Such a good point - human!
I continue to pray for all affected by this terrible tragedy.

There are, of course, many quilters doing what I am at the moment as we unite to make healing heart quilts.  This is the start of my offering.

If anyone would like to contribute to these quilts, the following is reposted for your information.  Please read it all first as there are some requests that are very important to be followed.  Thank you.

View this email in your browser

Quilters' Lane, 50a Queen Street, Masterton (behind the Library) 06 370 9400

Quilters' Lane News Healing Hearts for Christchurch Dear Quilters and Stitchers It is so wonderful to see the community of quilters working together to do what they can to help the families suffering as a result of last week's terrible events in Christchurch. Two of our fellow shops have volunteered and are making a massive effort to provide quilts for the families. Helen of Angels in Gumboots is co-ordinating heart blocks. These can be appliqued or pieced. There is a pattern in the kiwiquilters Facebook group.They are looking for green hearts on a white background. Here is some information from Helen IMPORTANT NOTE: I've been asked to pass on that our hearts need to avoid the colour red, prints with animals on (my bad with my applique heart!) and prints with people/faces/figures. EDIT: pattern has been uploaded into Files and a picture attached. I love how much aroha there is in this group! So excited to see what we create together. For those wanting to applique, just make sure the background block is 6.5 inches unfinished square and your heart is at least 1/2" from all edges. Address to post to me: Helen Thomas, Angels in Gumboots, 101 Cambridge Avenue, Ashhurst 4810. Contact email: angelsingumboots@gmail.com. May I make a suggestion RE the Healing Hearts quilts? I have put my hand up to help coordinate and organise Healing Hearts quilts. I do know the colour white and green both mean a lot to Muslims - I am thinking we focus on white backgrounds with green hearts. Busy Bee quilt shop in Rongotai have offered to quilt and bind 100 quilts. Our wholesalers have offered the backing and batting free of charge. There has been a huge response internationally as well.

With love to you all and I pray that God will bless and keep you safe.

Hugs

Clare

Scrapping away still

I'm not going to talk about the fact that it's already well into March. Much better to talk about fabric and projects and everything else except how fast time flies. That's what you get when you look in the mirror I told  myself.  Just don't look and you wont have to think about it.  LOL.
In my attempt to reduce my stash,  I may have been a little successful since I spoke with you last, because at least I haven't bought any new fabric!!  Progress has been made on a number of projects, and I even dug out some (very) old UFO's and did a little on them.  I had to pinch myself a little at this point.  Hahaha.

The photo to the right shows that I have now laid out the fourth section of Danielle's quilt ready to be sewn up.
Section three has two blocks up on the design wall and the other two have be stitch into rows and just need making into the 2 remaining blocks.
That will just leave the fifth and final section to be done.  Woohoo as they say, sounds like it's almost getting there.  Must not speak too soon just in case.  LOL.















I'm trying to do some each day, but it can be a bit of a struggle some days.  All in good time.  The next three photos are of some eye candy from the Tuesday Girls who have been very busy of late.

This is Lorrie's lovely Christmas Redwork wall hanging.  It is really pretty.

Lorraine is doing a Boston Commons using hexagons.  These are quite large hexagons for Lorraine.  Often she is working with little tiny things that can barely be held in one's hand.  Mad, I think, LOL.  It's certainly going to be a beautiful quilt.  The fabrics are all French General scraps that Lorraine was gifted.

Not sure if I have already mentioned this quilt before but this is Lynn's Pies and Tarts quilt that looks fabulous.  It was interesting choosing the correct binding colour and I found a delicious rusty red in my stash that was perfect.

I have gifted my pile of completed pies and tarts and the cut out pieces and fabric etc to a quilter who needed it a lot more than I did.  I had to take a look at how important this quilt was to me in relation to my health issues and decided I did not want to continue with it.  Feeling really happy with that decision, and it has allowed me to continue on with other projects that need to be finished.

This is the first two blocks in the mystery quilt I am doing with Quilters Lane in Masterton.  I chose the Dear Stella colour way as a change for me and just love it so far.  The bestest thing though is it comes already cut.  I just have to sit and stitch it up together.  But guess what... I still only just got them done before the next blocks arrived. What.... that's just sad,  hahaha. Mind you, I had to pull out a few rusty old drawers in the filing cabinet of my brain to remember how to get these stitched up properly.  (whispering - I had to unpick a LOT...lol)  To change the subject....

This little quilt appeared in post here a while back and a couple of friends had suggested I make it bigger.  I'm never too sure what to do with little quilts, and the fabrics were not suitable to donate it as a baby quilt.  So I have added on a small frame and another floral border so far.  Have another floral border but with different flowers cut from the same striped fabric so will put in another lighter frame and put that one on too I think.  Then I will have to decide what to do with it from there as it will probably end up neither one thing or the other.  Might have to ask if anyone would like it and send it off somewhere to live happily ever after!!









So that's about it here for now,  thanks a heap for popping in and reading about my crazy life.  My health has been great the past two to three weeks and New Zealand has been sitting under this ginormous high and the air pressure has been so good for me. Now it's back to reality as this dratted little low came by and moved it out the road.  Okay, I know we all needed the rain, but gosh it was fun while it lasted.  Ignoring the fact that winter is definitely coming with the cooler autumn nights and mornings we are now having and realising the other side of the world is very happy about that.  Oh well.  See you again soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I have linked to Confessions of a Scrap Quilter here enjoy your visit.
Also linked to Oh! Scrap here for even more scrappy goodness.