The Scraps of March...

Hello everyone, it is once more, nearly the end of another  month - this time also the end of the first quarter of our year.  Hmm, fast is not even a really good word for it.

Well the Wine Country Quilt Exhibition has come and gone and guess what?  I forgot to take any photos!!  Not one!!  None, zero, zilch... now how slack is that.  I do have a reasonable excuse - we were so busy on the Janome stand that I never had time.  I managed a couple of quick looks, but never remembered to take my phone with me to take some photos.  So this is the website and you can go have a look at the winning quilts here and see what good quilters there are in the East Coast of the North Island. There were over 160 quilts on show which is outstanding.

Suffice to say I was a bit knackered after that so have been somewhat slow in my sewing achievements.  The 365 Challenge is still lounging around in February, but I did manage to do four on Saturday, plus have cut out quite a few.  Hoping to make a determined effort to catch up over the next couple of weeks!!

I do love the look of the Ohio Stars, the bottom right one has a four patch in the middle of it, but my two fabric blend a little too much.  Never to worry, not doing it again, that's for sure.

This is the Stitchery Block of the Month that I started way back in 2008 (ahem).  The Stitchery blocks are almost finished, and not by my own efforts.  My friend Lynn loves doing stitchery and has done all but 6 of the 24 blocks.  I spent an afternoon before Easter and cut out all the pieced blocks in preparation for my grand stitching session.  Hmmm, wonder when that's going to happen?

These are the slightly better photos of the small quilt that I entered in the quilt show.  It is one of my first efforts and doing a whole cloth, and had great fun.  The pearl seed beads that you can just see on the ends of the leaf veins are my grandmothers, and I think they could be between 80 - 100 years old.  I never met my Grandma Ruby, and but am most grateful for her legacy of creativity.

This is some fabric I found (through my friend Catherine) at the quilt exhibition.  I'm going to make a bag for my best friend who has a yellow scoot!!  Perfect!

These are some 4.5 inch blocks I  made for the Rainbow Scrap for March.  The colour was purple with a yellow accent - my yellow is rather bigger than an accent, but I like it anyway.  For some reason I am into 4 patches and will most likely make another half dozen or so, then I have pulled out some cream that I will put between for a plain block and make it up into a small quilt for a friend's niece who takes in unwanted babies in India.  She now has over 30 children and all want a quilt of their own.  Happy to help out.



That's most all that I have to report at this point.  We have  made great progress in the house and the painting is slowly getting done.Only the bathroom shower and the tiling in the kitchen is left to do.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break, and that you were able to reflect on the reason we have this holiday time.  To celebrate the risen Christ who died the death we deserved to redeem us.  May you all be blessed this coming month of April and enjoy your family.

My dear husband Kerry had a small turn in church yesterday.  He was carted off in the ambulance to be checked over and praise God, he is absolutely fine.  A bit dehydrated and the Dr kindly told him he had suffered from "older person stuffy church syndrome" (if only you could hear me laughing here).  It's a fact, they had had several cases that morning and it happens on a regular basis on hot days and not enough air circulation.
However, it has made both of us realise how quickly life can be changed.  One minute Kerry was standing beside me singing, then he sat down and in 30 seconds was totally out for the count.  I am very appreciative of having him beside me still.  Go give your "dear old stick" a kiss and be thankful too.

Hugs and blessings to you all and thanks so much for stopping by.

Clare

I'm linking to Cynthia's blog here and Rainbow Scrappy here
Also Confessions of a Scrap Addict here

Rainbow Challenge, 365 Challenge, it's all challenging!!

Lucky for me there is one more day in February this year and I can squeeze this post into this month.  I have a jolly rotten cold at the moment and am so stuffed up in the head it will be a miracle if this blog makes sense. It will be short I know that, and will just fill it up with lots of photos.  I have been busy.

 This is my lovely friend Eve's quilt "Women of Courage" that I finished a couple of weeks ago.  A very large quilt I might add, but it has come up beautifully and looking forward to seeing it hanging in the local quilt exhibition in two weeks time.

 The fabrics in this quilt really are gorgeous, and each block relates to a women of great courage in our history...like Corrie ten Boom and Amelia Earhart.

My Rainbow Scrap Challenge block for February

Last weekend Kerry and I, plus our friend Eve, headed off to Wellington to attend the Edinburough Tattoo held at the Westpac Stadium.  What a fantastic show this was and we were so glad to have made the effort to get there.  I booked our tickets way back in June of last year!!! An awesome show.

Had to have a couple of shots of our granddaughter Marcy

I quilted this for my lovely friend Rosie who has designed this for her granddaughter's 21st birthday. Her granddaughter loves (and works) on a dairy farm. What a clever lady Rosie is, and if you knew the hurdles she has had to overcome you would realise why it is such an awesome quilt.  A pleasure to quilt for you Rosie.

Well that's it for now.  I have done some more blocks in the 365 Challenge, but have got behind a little with all this quilting I have had to do.  I think I am up to about February the 8th, but I will have some catch up sessions sometime soon. After all, I do have all year to do it....don't I?   LOL.

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

Blessings

Clare

I'm linking to Rainbow Scrappy Challenge  and to Oh Scrap  here

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