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.

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

Scrap sorting...

Got a bee in my bonnet about sorting out the two baskets of scraps that were hiding under the tea trolley in the classroom.  Spent about 4 days using my Accu Quilt to cut them up into various squares.  Love this tool.  Makes life so easy for me.

I did start to balk at the 1.5 inch squares as I dont have a die for them.  Might be a Mothers Day request.  Think I'll sew them into strips and then cut a block out.  Sounds so much easier.

Made this beanie for son Richard, who has put in an order for at least a buffer of 10 before I decide to leave this world!!  Nice I thought, to be appreciated.

Love, love love the sunflowers in our back garden.  Seeds came from our daughter Shala.

Made this wee quilt as a donation quilt from a couple of charm packs I had collected.  Managed to find a gorgeous orange FQ in my stash for the border.  Nice blue to bind with.

Off on holiday on Wednesday and staying in Wellington with Richard, Kea and Marcy.  Made this wee zippered bag for Miss Marcy to carry some of her treasures around in.

And to finish, once again we are playing host parents to a zillion caterpillars and subsequent chrysalii and butterflies.  It is so exciting to get them right through.  The population is in decline and not sure why.
Will catch up again when back from our first holiday since 2012.  Wow it's going to be so interesting.

Hugs and thanks for reading.
Clare

I'm linking to Oh Scraps and the link is on  my sidebar.  Do check out what other wonderful scrap quilts are being made.

Stitching on...

in this very hot weather.  We had 35 C yesterday and I'm afraid we just huddled inside with the air conditioning on.  It has never been my thing - hot sunny days at the beach.  I'm an autumn, spring sort of girl and don't even mind winter that much.  Mind you, compared to some places our winters are very mild.

I have managed to do a little stitching though, and have all the blocks made on the Craftsy BOM 2013.  Now just to figure out how to put it together and what colour joining strips I'm going to use.  The HST border does nothing for me, so I'm planning on a small frame then outer border.

I'm really happy with the colours in this quilt.  They are mostly hand dyed fabrics from a class we held at our shop quite a number of years ago.  I had been looking for a project for ages and the 2011 Shop Hop fabric my pal Barbara in Kansas sent me was perfect.  Mind you, lots left over yet and keep thinking a 9 patch would be lovely too.
Then about 10 days ago I fluffed around with these 4 patches in a vain attempt to join in with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for January. The colour was purples, so I  took all of my purple scrap 2" squares that were already cut, and stitched the whole lot up into these patches...now what!   LOL.

It was such fun, but I must not let them become another UFO!!

At Tuesday Chat today, Lynn brought along her gorgeous Hexagon quilt that she has finished.  Lynn did this as a BOM for the papers, but chose all the fabrics herself.  It is truly wonderful.

That's it for today.  The Tyson cat managed to get out of his collar overnight and now we are of 2 minds what to do with him.  His stitches had ripped open which is why he had the collar on after they were restitched.  Hoping it will heal this time without problems.  The shoulder is such a bad place for a cat.

Talk to you later.  Happy stitching.

Hugs and blessings
Clare
and I'm linking to Cynthia's here at Oh Scrap

Happy New Year, may the scraps be with you!

Oh my gosh, it has been so long since I posted you probably have all given up on me.  My computer doesn't work very well these days and I need to figure out how to post on my phone.
The year finished with a wee flurry and I managed to get three Christmas ufos finished up.  Am so pleased with that.  My Christmas bunting never got finished in time however, so that is now my first finished ufo for 2017.  LOL.
Have joined in with #17ufosin2017 and I've made a list of those 17 projects I want to either finish or make good progress on.  Already started on grandson's quilt with another 8  blocks finished and dragged out my Agapanthus wall hanging which is supposed to be January's project. (no. 3 on the list was drawn out).

Here's a couple of photos.  The first is a 3 zipped pocket bag I made my sister for her birthday.  Used a combination of stash and bought specially fabric.  Joyce loves cats so couldn't resist the gorgeous purple cat fabric.

This Christmas wall hanging is one of the ufos I managed to finish.  Am so pleased with how it has come out I don't want to take it down...hehehe.

So there we go.  Small catch up and will try and stick to small posts in future.  Thanks for coming back.

Hugs and blessings to you all
Clare
Linking to Cynthia Brunz @  Oh Scrap   Take a look, you will love her quilts.