Painting, quilting and sweltering!!

Oh my goodness, it has been so hot here this week...we have had about four straight days with the temps in the early 30's Celsius.  I guess it is not that hot in the scheme of things like Australia, but we had winter here about 10 days ago.  These hot days are a bit of a surprise and the humidity is much higher than we are used to in Hawkes Bay.

Been a busy girl this week, what with the new exercise regime...I am just loving the swimming.  Went for a 2km walk yesterday but my body did not like the hard surface.  With quilting on top of the walk it was not nice by nightime.  Oh well, aches and pains become a part of your life as the deterioration increases!!! lol.

Managed to get this lovely summery quilt of Sue's finished today.  The pattern is "Tickle Too" and it is just perfect for this quilt.  Sue had done square corners (not sure what you call them actually) and I had never quilted these before. I had about six different threads spread out on the quilt while I auditioned them and settled on a lovely So Fine blue 473 (I think).

All set to go!

The square corner.  I tacked them down very close to the edge so they didnt get caught.

The pattern has some lovely swirls and echoes in it and is a pleasure to quilt.

The corner came up perfectly.  I was a little worried about whether the borders were nice and flat, but apart from a little bit of movement they came out well.

The back looks good too.  I used Bottomline Sage green which was soft enough to sit with the blue without any pokies.

One more view.  I am sure Sue will be pleased with this quilt.  The border fabric is a lime green stripe with a dark green.  It definitely makes the eyes go awol!!

Just to finish my day off I went home and helped Kerry with the house painting.  I have been doing a couple of doors inside that never got finished.  One more to go plus one set of wardrobe doors.  Oh, and the frame around the front door....oh and maybe the back door too!!! That's the thing with old houses, there is always something to do.

In January my friend Eve gave me a plant that she called a "Blood Lily" which had very large green leaves that were similar in shape to Dumbo the Elephant's ears.  They died off and then it just sat there looking odd for the last few weeks.  Evidently they dont flower until the leaves die and then these funny little red things started poking up and turned into the flowers below.  Interesting, but quite small in comparison to the leaves.

Well that's my lot for tonight.  I need to try and get to bed and sleep instead of being so hot you wrestle around for hours as I  am on projection tomorrow at church.  Last  minute call to help.  If I am too tired who knows what they may end up singing...lol.

Thanks for reading and catch you all later.

Blessings
Clare

Pictures at Last

Life has been busy.  Had a great day at Otane on Saturday where I got lots and lots of stitching done, especially on those projects in my "Finish List"  lol.

Here are the quilts I got done last week.  The exact same pattern, just different fabrics:

This one is made from French General fabrics.  Linda has made these quilts for her kids.

The pattern is Effervesence and I used Magnifico thread...Snow Goose from memory.

The back looks really good too.

The second one was in these lovely pastel girly colours.  Was so lovely to quilt.

Pattern on this one is Pretty Penny.  Nice big pattern and looks just right I think.

Another close up just cause I can and too tired to write much tonight :)

The back looks awesome too.  Used a King Tut variegated thread on this one with the light teal on the back giving two quilt looks.

Off to bed lovely people.  Will fill you in on my busy days later in the week.  Hope you all have an awesome Monday.  I have to be at the pool at 8am!!!!

Blessings
Clare

That "ex" Word

It's just all too much friends....I have started to exercise again!  There is no hiding the fact that I have a very on/off relationship with exercise.  It is something I NEED to do, but do I really WANT to do it?  Not really....lol.  The only problem is that as I begin to get into it, I love it and actually DO start to feel much better.  Oh dear, what a conundrum.

My friend Rae and I have decided to help each other and we are going to the pool twice a week and floor type exercises one other day.  On top of that, we are going to encourage each other, and perhaps even eat very healthy food!  Of course, if we keep it up, we will both lose some weight (needs to happen) and continue to feel much healthier and happier...  Mmmm.  Watch this space.

Photos....still not working properly with my phone.  Have to go back and talk to someone else and hope that they know something!  The last person didnt.

Am on the second of two quilts for my client Linda.  I have taken some photos of the first one and will take more tomorrow when I finish the second and will use my good old camera.  Shall go back to the old fashioned way.  These two quilts

both have different pantos, but are the same pattern different fabric.  They are quite different but look equally lovely.

Will post the photos tomorrow.
In the meantime, here are a couple of photos of quilts from the past...well....my past :)

This medallion has been waiting for quilting for a long time.  I designed it about 10 years ago.  It's still nice, just never got to the top of the quilting pile.

This was a panel that we had in our shop that wasnt selling, so I made up a sample quilt then couldnt keep up with the demand for kits!  It was sold and sent to Columbia!!

Thanks for reading and see you all again soon.

Blessings
Clare

I Did It!!

Technology is so wonderful when it is working.  My phone has decided to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things, so I cannot get my photos off it.  I will take some with the camera tomorrow and then things will come back to normal.

Have been busy doing all sorts of ordinary things like painting doors.  Kerry has been working on finishing the back porch area and the cats have been luxuriating in the front bedroom keeping out of the rain.

I finished my modern quilt and have made some progress on the finish list quilts.  Only two more blocks to finish blanket stitching around and that's it.  Yippee.

By the way...the "I Did it" bit is that I finally made a decision on my hair and have had a new hair cut.  Photos tomorrow!!

I will talk to you again tomorrow when I have some photos to share with  you.

Blessings
Clare

Making a Splash and a burst of fizzy

It has been such a busy time these past few days.  We had our daughter Rebecca, hubby Dave and two of their children come down for a long weekend.  It was fast, noisy and fun.  On Saturday we went off to Splash Planet in Hastings with our chilly bin full of food and drink and ready for a day of fun.  The weather was absolutely perfect, but it did start to blow in the afternoon. 

It was hard work finding a spot to sit

The never ending river was such fun.  There was great hiliarity and much tipping over into the water.  I also managed to tick another activity off my bucket list....I went down one of the water slides.  Hmmm, it was interesting...Rebecca said "use the mat Mum as it will make it smoother" but didnt add that it would also make it much, much faster!!!  What a ride.

 We all had to go on the train of course, it seems to be a bit of a habit lately.  Dont you just hate those close up photos though?

A lovely day and everyone slept exceeding well that night. 

Sunday was family day.  My sister Joyce and brother in law Bill came up for lunch, my sister in law Colleen who lives locally came round (saw her at church and said come join the crowd) so it was lots of fun and laughter.  After filling ourselves, we then sat around and played a really fun card game that Nana actually managed to win!

The crew went back to Te Awamutu on Monday and I went off to Pahiatua to deliver a new sewing machine, then on to Palmerston North to pick up my 16 yr old grandson Sam who was over from Perth, Australia to visit his family.  Finally home about 6pm.

While Kerry was starting dinner, he decided his bottle of cola was not fizzy enough so decided to try and put a little more fizz in it.  Hmmmm, Kerry got more fizz that he ever imagined  ROFL.  The cola exploded out of the bottle and sprayed itself from one end of the kitchen to the other, over the walls, floor, cupboard, fridge, oven, you name it, it was covered in cola.  On hearing the explosion and making sure he was alright, I  quietly walked out of the kitchen, out the back door and went up to the front garden to check on the flowers!!!  By the time I returned, things had calmed down a little and Kerry was busy mopping up cola.  An offer of help was then accepted a little more graciously.  What fun!

Unfortunately, Sam had to go back to Palmerston North yesterday, so it was off again mid morning, tootle around Palmy, have lunch with some friends of his Mums, and then dropping him off home at Ashhurst, 15kms out of Palmy.

Phew, it has been so nice to have a day at home.  I felt too exhausted to start quilting...I had managed to load another quilt top yesterday....a simple French General quilt.  It will have to wait until tomorrow.  I mucked around with a small modern quilt I am trying to get made for Wine Country Quilts.  You can check this exhibition out here .

Now I am off to bed.  Have also booked a massage for Friday morning...oh bliss.

Thanks for reading and come back soon.

Blessings
Clare

Big, brown and beautiful...

It was finished yesterday...wow I was tired after this effort.  Even though it is a very simple panto, the winding through of such a big quilt can be quite tiring.  All worth it though as it does look beautiful.  Lots of comments from fellow quilters on how lovely it looks.  I used a Superior threads King Tut in Cedar, a lovely variegated brown.  It justs sits there and lets the fabrics speak, but adds great texture.

We also tried to pick a basketful of nectarines to send off to our son in Wellington.  However, Kerry had to give up because the cat (Tyson) would not stay out of the basket.  He just sat there in the basket while Kerry carried him all the way from the front of the house, round the back and into the house....definitely a nutter cat!

This afternoon I made up a fat quarter apron for my granddaughter Hayley who turned 7 today.  The family is arriving tomorrow to stay for a long weekend, so thought I better have it ready.  Found a fat quarter of the Cat in the Hat fabric which I have used on the back and just peeks over in the front with the title in full view. Made the pocket out of a fussy cut piece of Disney Princess fabric.  I am really pleased with it and hope she will be too.

Tomorrow will be a busy day as I need to make sure all is ready for the family.  Plus my sister and brother in law are coming for lunch on Sunday....hmmmm what will we eat?  By the way, the pickle tastes delicious.

Thanks for visiting.  I will take a photo of the finished kitchen building project and post it tomorrow.  The light is not so good tonight.

Blessings
Clare

A Weekend away then tackling the cucumbers!

We had a plea from our daughter in Te Awamutu to come help her and hubby Dave look at houses.  They have sold their last house and have not decided on a new one yet.  Oh well, why not I thought and we packed our bags, organised a cat feeder and patter and headed off up the line on Saturday morning.  As our grandson Sam (who now lives in Perth) was being picked up from Rebecca by his Dad in Taupo, we arranged to meet there for lunch.  The day was beautifully sunny and very hot.  It was nice to catch up with Sam and we will go visit him in Palmerston North next week. He and Grandad were having a great catch up.

We then went off to find somewhere for lunch that wasn't McDonalds, and strolled from one end of Taupo to the other looking at various yummy looking options.  Once fed and watered it was off to the park so the two granddaughters could let off a bit of energy.  Hayley wanted to go on the wee train so it fell on Nana to do the honours.  Here we are going "Toot, toot" and having a great laugh.

The girls posing under a ginormous tree at the park.
 Our other two sons came to Rebecca's for a BBQ that night so we got to see the two youngest grandbabies too.  What a treat that was.  It was so lovely to see Dayn and Hamish...I have really missed having her around here.  Their new house and job are so much better though that it makes it worthwhile.

Sunday we ploughed our way through 5 houses, liking a couple but nothing that was a certain thing.  The house they were really interested in was pulled off the market on Sunday morning.  The kids are going to carry on looking as there is no real hurry at this point.

Home Sunday night and on Monday I finally finished sorting out the big brown quilt with the yuk backing.  Went home early afternoon and started cutting up the 8kgs of cucumbers that were sitting in my Vegetable drawer in the fridge. They needed to be soaked in salt water overnight, so had to get started otherwise they would go to waste.  What a  mammoth task cutting so many cucumbers up....I think there were about 10 of them, mostly a pretty good size.  They happily sat on the bench overnight and dewatered themselves or whatever it is they do!

Started quilting...it is a very easy panto, but when I rolled up for the fourth row, I forgot it was offset and should have restarted at row 2.  Hmmm, spent the afternoon mucking around and unpicking.  Maybe tomorrow I wont be so tired?

Went home to finish making the pickle and had to cut up 16 onions!  What a detestable job.  Got out my trusty old food processor but still the eyes were watering.  Suddenly remembered what my youngest son Richard would do when having to cut up onions so did the same....

Swimming goggles are really good for onion cutting duties.  Richard used to use a full face mask pair and used look like a right idiot.  My goggles are much more sophisticated and I look more like a left idiot I feel. LOL.

Anyway, this is the result of a very long process (including borrowing my friend's pot cause mine was not big enough).  Next time I will not wait until there are so many of these green things to process!

The picture is a bit wishwashy, but it does look more edible than this.  Shall let you know how it tastes...it had better be good!

Now I'm off to bed.  Got to finish this big brown quilt tomorrow and get another one underway.  Want to make a small quilt for Wine Country Quilts, so need to whip through these last four pantos and give myself a bit of free time.

Thanks for reading and look forward to talking with you again.

Blessings
Clare