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

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.

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.

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.

Grandies, a Birthday, and my Garden - lots of photos

These three have all featured greatly in the past few weeks.  Last weekend we traveled up to Te Awamutu - a  journey of five hours which takes us all day basically by the time we stop for lunch and anything else that takes our fancy.  On top of this is making sure I have enough oxygen to last while away from the plugged in machine takes some doing. Our granddaughter Jessica turns 21 on November 15th and we arranged with her to have a quiet family dinner with her instead of attending the party Jessica was arranging with her young friends.  We had a lovely time and caught up with three of our kids and 8 of our grand-kids.  Awesome!

Said granddaughter loves playing around with fun photos as you can see.  Lol.

We ended up with a good sized crowd by the time we added boyfriend and a girlfriend into the mix.  Nice.

A c ouple of slighly more normal photos.  My eldest son's partner Dayn and I had a lovely catch up.

Friday morning we went to Patarangi School to attend Grandparents Day.  We were entertained (between rain showers) by each class room, then off we went to our own grandchild's class room where we were served morning tea.  It was a lovely time.  My granddaughter Hayley is 4th from the left.

Two of my younger grandies....Olivia and her brother Albert.  Such gorgeous kids and cheeky too.  Great to be able to catch up with them again.  Granddad's ear muffs were great fun.

Just so you can see I have been doing a little patchwork.  Have made a start on quilting this one, and have half the blocks done with the string quilt for grandson.






Wouldn't be right without a cat photo.  Travis was just hanging around trying to rest and would I please leave him alone?

My loo had a trip out to the front lawn on Wednesday while the vinyl layer came.  Yippee great progress as we now have the wet floor in and the whole floor finished.  Shower is ready to be hitched up to water.  Only problem was the wet wall did not show up on time.  After a little detective work at the store, found it had not actually been ordered until the day before.  Lots of scrambling around and hopefully it will arrive today.
This is the last big push on the renovation and my dear husband will be so happy to get finished.  We have a little bit of painting to finish but everything else is done!!!  Wow, he has done an amazing job.

My two new irises have flowered and are so beautiful.  May not get a flower of the 3rd one this season so will have to wait for that.

Phew!! That's the end of this catch up.  Thank you for dropping by.

Blessings to you all,

Clare

It's Jolly July and winter is here..

Wow, what an amazing autumn early winter we have had.  Fancy having 19 degrees (C) in July for goodness sake.  Unfortunately for our farmers it's not so good - drought from summer right through to winter is a bit hard on them.
It's been a month of a couple of finishes for our Tuesday Chat group.  At long last we finished the Grandmother's Garden hexagon quilt that we chose to finish off some 4 (?) years ago.  This quilt was part of a couple of boxes of fabric remnants dropped off by a quilter's partner after she had died. We decided to finish the quilt off and raffle it with the proceeds going to cancer research in her memory.  When we popped a little piece in our local paper about "was it you who dropped this in to our shop" the chap turned up and filled us in.  Ivan asked if he would be able to have the finished quilt as he had not realised exactly what it was...we agreed if he paid for some of the finishing costs, which he agreed to and included a donation in his partner's name to cancer research.
As I have been unable to do large quilts needing custom work now, I asked my good friend Linda from Razzle Dazzle Quilter to do the honours for us.  Linda did an awesome job as you can see.  You can check out Linda's blog here and encourage you to have a look at Linda's beautiful quilting.

This photo shows Ivan with myself, Lorraine, Lyn and Eve.  Missing that day was Lois who also did a lot of work on the quilt.
The border was a gorgeous blue from Kona Cotton range and it really did lift up the colour of the quilt.

It never occurred to Ivan that all that stitching had been done by hand.  It quite blew him away, and he began to realise why it had taken such a long time for us to get this finished - especially as it was done in between our own projects.
In this photo you can see the lovely feathers Linda has done in the border and a little of the all over pattern that created such wonderful life and texture in this quilt.













Then it was on to our next finish of the week.  Lynn has been the first of our group to finish her Farmers Wife Quilt.  Oh boy, Lynn did all 111 blocks and it didn't take her very long either it seemed.

The colours are lovely, and Lynn used a lot of reproduction fabric garnered from all around the country and from each other.  Once again we sent this one off to Linda as it was too much for me to handle these days.   What an awesome job again from this amazing quilter.

 Here Lori and Norma are admiring all the different blocks and the styles of quilting.  One of these little 6.5 inch blocks has 64 pieces!!  Gotta be mad to do that one I reckon.  Shhhh, don't ask what's happened to mine, lol.

Linda did something different in every block - wow!!  The sashing design was so clever - it creates a star at every cornerstone.  What a clever lady Linda is.


















I have managed to get a little bit of stitching done over the past month.  Almost finished these blocks on my granddaughters quilt. Only 3 more to go thank goodness.  They do look pretty.

It has been a good lesson in sewing slowly with accuracy.

Another block or two in grandson Bradley's quilt goes on the pile.  I am really enjoying this one, and am looking forward to how fabric it will use up out of my stash.

That's it for now.  Everything else is trundling along. We have made some progress with the bathroom and are now practicing the theory that "everything comes to those who wait." Love it, hehehe.

Take care everyone, and who knows, maybe I will manage to come back sooner instead of later.  It's an energy problem as I love chatting with you all.  Keep warm or cool wherever you may be.

God bless,
Clare
I'm linking with Cynthia at oh! Scrap check out all the great links.

Almost a finished quilt...

I have finally been able to finish the quilting on Rebecca's quilt and I am so pleased with it.  It has taken me ages as I have found it quite hard to quilt for long periods of time now.  Love the modern look of the lines and the way it lets the fabrics speak.  The binding is all made and ready to go on as soon as I can get hubby to move my sewing table close to the big tables to take the weight for me.
He is so busy right now getting the wet floor sorted in our bathroom.  Very  messy and noisy and extremely hard work for him, so don't want to both him too much.

Travis is checking it out for softness and how well it works for sleeping on, or under if you prefer.  It think it gets the mark of approval as he doesn't want to move off it.

I used a lovely soft silver grey Magnifico thread from Superior Threads and it looked great over all the colours.  Had no problem with it either - I always use a size 18 needle in my longarm and have no hassles.

 My sister came to stay for this week and we have been stitching up a storm.  Well Joy has.  I've been struggling a little this week, but have still managed to achieve a couple of things.

This is the gorgeous table runner Joy is making.  Because she has a small table, there has been enough in the kit to make two out of it.  Lovely batik colours and a quick and easy pattern.
















Lastly but not least, it wouldn't be right without a pic of the boys.  This one is Tyson trying to see if he does a better job of hiding that his brother Travis did.  What do you think?  lol

Well that's my lot for now.  Thanks for stopping by and will catch up with you soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

Gorgeous bag and other trivial stuff...

I was very spoilt last week when my lovely friend Eve gave me this fabulously gorgeous bag.
How about that, it has pockets inside and a beautiful button flower on the strap.  The fabric range came from a lovely shop in Missouri that I was taken to when visiting my good friend Barbara from Parsons, Kansas.

Barb and her daughter Jackie took me for a tiki tour (that means a good look around) and it included crossing the border.  I was a typical tourist and got very excited lol.  Anyways I fell in love with this range of fabric and the book that was with it, but had never got around to making it up.  I therefore gave to my friend Eve as she also loved it and "nek minute" Eve turns up with the awesome bag. There you have it the long winded story about this bag.














I went to early morning prayer at church on Wednesday, and the sunrise was stunning.  Had to try and capture it, but this pic doesn't do it justice really.

It looked like the sky and the trees were on fire.  Reminds you of our awesome creator I reckon.


Have done a little bit of quilting on Rebecca's quilt, but it has been quite a slow process.  The change in weather has affected my breathing heaps so cannot quilt for long periods.  Never mind.  Slowly does it.  Rome wasn't built in a day and all that stuff.


Have made another couple of blocks in granddaughter's quilt and cut out some blocks in another quilt.  I am trying to get a whole heap of cutting done, and then designate a day for each quilt.  It's my logic of how to get all these quilts finished, but whether it will work or not is an entirely different story.

I have be on guard to prevent any more fabric slipping in my door!! It is a very difficult job because all these quilt shops put lovely pictures up of all these fantasmorgorical fabrics. Neat word isn't it? So far it has worked for a whole week!

Well that's it.  I shall sign off with this photo of Tyson trying to hide under our quilt so we wouldn't see him.  LOL.

It's a bit of a give away don't you think?  Hehehehe.  Hope you all have an awesome weekend and mothers that you get very spoilt on Sunday by your children and husbands.  You are all such important people who do an amazing job.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

A little progress, sneaky fabric, butterflies and babies...

Decided today was the day to put hands to keyboard and do my blog.  I have been so slack lately with my blog but it is a bit of a tiredness thing, as I seem to slow down so fast these days.  However, I have made some big decisions in my patchwork life!!!

I have put aside the 365 Challenge for now.  It was becoming a total obsession and nothing else was getting done.  That was not what I had planned on.  The plan was to get some UFO's finished, not start something else that took me totally away from that goal.  So there you have it...I am back on track and really pleased that progress is now being made... here is the quilt I am finishing for a granddaughter.  My friend Lynn has done a lot of the stitchery for me as she loves doing them and has no daughters or granddaughters to do girly things for.  It made a big difference to my being able to see the end of this quilt that began um ? .....years ago!!

These are the blocks  that go between the stitchery.  I have 24 to make, actually only 22 left now.  I am doing these very slowly and carefully, as they are done the old fashioned way of cutting the triangles for the flying geese unit!!  Long time since I have done that, and I need these to be nice and accurate.

I have to say, one of the good things about having starting two mad projects that have small blocks - Farmers Wife and 365 Challenge - is that I have become a much more accurate patchworker.  It has also made me slow down and make my blocks and units much more slowly, and even this small thing will increase accuracy I have found. It did used to irk me when blocks would not come out right, and I think I have finally learnt some of the answers. Fast is not always first class sewing.

The other thing I did which I believe was extremely clever and funny, was at our Wine Country Quilts exhibition last month when I helped to man the Janome stand, there was an Elna Press on display.  So Clare took here 24 fat eighths that had been carefully folded up for 8 years and pressed them on it!  Wow, it was magnificent!  If I get rich anytime soon, I'm gonna buy one for patchwork!! LOL Actually, I have to confess...I only pressed about 8 of them...my friend Catherine did the others.  Mind you, it might have been the only ironing she had done during the week...just like me!  (I'm gonna run now before Catherine reads this)  LOL.

Here is my 365 Challenge stuff all neatly put into a satchel and into the cupboard.  My friend Eve showed me this neat pattern that uses 3 inch 9 patches and I have already worked out that I could use the blocks I have made and make some 9 patches to add to them and "wallah" I have a quilt done.  Hmmm, go to sleep brain.

I like these satchels.  They are transparent so you know what is in them and they stack quite nicely.  Come in lots of different sizes too.


Then, you'll never guess what happened!!!  Some blooming fabric plonked itself right into my stash!!   For goodness sake, as soon as you turn your back, you never know what might turn up!!!  Okay, I'll rephrase that for you.  I couldn't resist the pack at the Fat Quarter Shop of the Star Wars fabric...my lovely DIL is mad about all things Star Wars, and as it is her birthday next month, what better than to buy Kea some fabric and make a quilt for Christmas with it. I let Kea have a look case a quilt was not what she wanted, but it is now in my cupboard in the queue.

So, to keep this fabric company on its way to New Zealand, I felt compelled to buy this gorgeous, scrumptious, delicious collection of low volume fabrics.  I mean....who could resist?

This all means, of course, that I am now all fired up to get some more stuff finished, as I'm not allowed to start anything new without getting two things finished!!  Who made that silly rule I wonder?

I have also decided that I will only quilt my existing customer/friends quilts on my long arm, and will no longer look for new business.  It tires me out too much now, and if I get a cold like I have done in March and April, I am out for about 3 weeks while I recover.  Decision made, and now I'm happy with it.  Besides that, I will now manage to get my own quilts quilted!

In the middle of all this we have been watching our chrysalis and are so thrilled to have seen about 18 beautiful Monarch butterflies come out of their chrysalis'. this little video is of one sitting in the warmth of our autumn sunshine drying her wings before she flies away for the winter.  We were like little children, and on Thursday when about seven of them hatched, we wasted an inordinate amount of time watching them.  Mind you, sometimes you have to stop and marvel at these things.  There is no way I could believe that this incredibly complex sequence of a caterpillar totally changing its DNA to become the most beautiful of butterflies - could have been the result of haphazard evolution.

I hope the video works - as I not much good at editing these things it might be a bit long.  I hope you enjoy it though.





At the weekend, we had Richard, Kea and wee Marcy come to stay.  Richard was back to give his Dad another hand in finishing our house off.  It was so awesome that he was able to do this. Kea, Marcy and I headed off to Napier for the day.  We picked up Kea's lovely parents and headed off to the National Aquarium.  Not sure if we were impressed but it was interesting.  The weather was stunning, so that was a plus.  Here is Marcy have morning time in the "big bed" with Nana and Granddad.  She is wondering if that Granddad fellow is friendly or not...lol.

I didn't take a lot of photos as my phone was not charging properly.  Kea has lots and will send me some.  These weekends are so precious, and you realise that this time will never come again.  The little ones grow up so fast.








So there you have it - the update in the realm of the Moore's of Waipukurau.  I hope you have enjoyed reading all this most interesting stuff that makes up our lives.

What has been happening in your life?  Lots of huggy moments I hope.  Things like watching butterflies, and little girls learning to twirl, see a beautiful sunset and a chat with those who you love having in your life.  Smiling at those who need a smile and seeing it making a difference to that person. Life is a gift and we should remember to treat it as a precious thing.

Phew, well that was a right bit of the old philosophy  he he.   I think I'll go hug the cat...oops I mean my husband and see what difference it makes in his life!!

Blessings to you all
Clare
here is the link to Cythia Brunz  Oh Scrap.  Make sure you take a look, it's great eye candy.

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