Sunday, 29 December 2019

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


Saturday, 7 December 2019

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.