Finished the Christmas Quilt and visit to a Quilt Exhibition

Seems like ages since the last post, but my energy levels are still rising only slowly.  Here are the photos of Sheryl's Christmas quilt that is now finished.  It came up really lovely and will look great on her wall over the festive season.

Here are a few more photos of the details.

Thanks Sheryll, I enjoyed quilting for you.

Then it was off to Carterton, Wairarapa for the Master Quilters Guild exhibition.  It was a lovely day with the snow on the ranges looking stunning and the feeling of spring in the air. (Pity it didn't last long)  Here are some of the lovely quilts we saw.  I just love the colours of this one made by Noeline.

 An awesome scrap quilt made by Pauline.

 Maria Travers won a Mayor's Choice Award for this beautiful quilt which is also hand quilted.  Stunning and has more colour than this shows.

 The soft colours of this hexagon quilt are quite delicious.  Wish I had the patience to make one this size.

Sorry  my photos are not up to scratch this time around, but there were some fantastic quilts on display.
This is us having lunch with my friend Lorraine from Carterton (and Guild member).  Her quilt took pride of place at the entrance to the show.....ta da....

And here we are...

Okay, that's your lot for tonight.  It's time I got some beauty sleep as you can see from this photo!!!

We are off to Wellington tomorrow to stay with Richard and Kea, Wednesday we fly to Auckland for a Janome day and then stay in Wellington again, coming home some time on Thursday.  Sounds good to me.

Take care you all and see you again soon.

Blessings
Clare

Christmas quilt etc.

Hello again, my goodness I didnt know fuzzy brain would take so long to go.  Hmmm, well we continue to progress in the health stakes.  Back to the Drs this week and pleased I am able to walk a little further now.

In the quilting department, I have sewn absolutely nothing for myself.  Drats, but haven't actually got the energy yet and told you about my mistake with the baby fabric.  Dont want to repeat that. Have been reading and re-reading the baby bag pattern as the fabric Kea bought is so delicious I am determined not to make a mistake!

Quilting for customers has had to go on and I am almost caught up.  This Christmas quilt is a lovely wall hanging and it is almost finished.

 Sheryl has a combination of stitchery and applique in the blocks.  Lovely work

This sashing pattern always looks good. Not very good photography sorry, cant see the border!

I have used Magnifico thread 2063 I think, a lovely gold colour that has gone well with all the different colours in this quilt.  Picked up the stars in the fabric with these pieces.

I will show you some more when it is finished tomorrow.  In my last post I put in the heading about our weekend away, and in the fuzz forgot to actually talk or post the pictures!!!  Must have been away with the fairies again lol.  Here a a couple of snaps I took on our weekend that our children paid for us to have a break plus my birthday/Fathers Day. 

This is our first night and we ate at the Thai Chef's  as I love Thai cooking. 

Our main meals and Kerry looking happy the food has arrived!  It was delicious too.

These are some pics from our balcony.  We overlooked the end of the Ahuriri Marina and had a great time watching the boats and kayakers.

The stretched limo was parked out the back right beside the Mini Golf vehicle....David and Goliath lol.  The Mini Golf was rained out unfortunately. 

Out the front was parked the stretched Hummer and a vintage ???? (forgotten).

Our wee balcony. 

We did have lots of fun brunching in the city and checking out some shops.  My photography is really bad friends, as the brain was still suffering from a lack of oxygen.  We caught up with some friends for drinkies on the Saturday afternoon, dined in the Hotel Restuarant "Salt" that the kids paid for, and then sat in bed and watched the All Blacks beat South Africa.  What more could we ask for? 

On the way home on Sunday we had lunch with our DIL Kea's parents which was thoroughly enjoyable.  We were glad to have the time to be able to catch up with friends.  So often when you are going somewhere there is never enough time to catch up.  Maybe we have to make that time, as it's amazing how short life is.

Philosophy over, I'm off.  Hope you all enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Thanks for calling in and see you again soon.
Blessings
Clare

Quilting catch up and a weekend away...

Gosh, I seem to get quite exhausted by the end of the day and blogging seemed such an effort so another week has gone past already.  Slowly getting my speed up and ended up having a good week for quilting customer's quilts.  Needed to so I could get back on track as I need to finish two custom quilts by the first week of October!!  No pressure lol.
This is Bev's gorgeous black,white and red quilt that she has made for her grandson.  A truly lovely quilt and it came up really well.

I used So Fine black thread - my favourite thread to use.

The pattern is Cool Beans, a  modern look that is so smooth to quilt.  Love it. The back is actually pure black, it is the lighting that is making it look lighter.

Then it was on to Darrell's scrummy wee cot quilt.

 It is a super simple pattern that really highlights the yummy fabrics.  Love these colours.

 On the back Darrell had a lovely soft flannel with the abc on it.

Used a lovely variegated King Tut that had mix of orange, green and tan.  Thanks Darrell, loved your quilt.
Then it was onto the next quilt.  This is a lovely Holly Hobbie quilt that Linda made.  Brought back memories of my girls!

I used an oldie but a goodie pattern called "Art Deco" which comes up so nice. The thread was So Fine 473 Blue which looked great.

 It looks really lovely on the back which is a tone on tone white fabric.

And last for the week was this lovely pastel pink and grey quilt also made by Linda.
Oops, that's my beloved's lovely hairstyle there!!

 This time I used the pattern "Tickle Too" and another So Fine thread in a medium pink colour.  Looked great.

 Back view on the white quilters muslin.  We were going to use the other half of the white tot used on Holly Hobbie until I spotted a flaw right in the middle of it!  Thank goodness I found it before it was quilted.

 

The first weekend in September is always "The Festival" up at Pukeora Estate which sits atop a very high hill that overlooks the whole of Central Hawkes Bay. I hadn't been for some years so took up my friend's offer to go with her and her hubby Chris.  We had a lovely time and this is the lovely couple at the food stand where we got our yummy lunch.

It was so interesting walking around the large number of stalls and see what wonderful creativity many people have.

Hope you have enjoyed the catch up.  Talk to you again soon.

Blessings
Clare

Friday Fripperies

Wow it is good to feeling so much better.  Life seemed to just mark time for a week or so and I am not a very good patient...too busy to be sick.  Now I am in catch up mode with everything, particularly my quilting.
Last Saturday Kerry took me out for a drive and we had lunch in Waipawa (about 6 minutes down the road), then we walked through Penny Lane to look at all the wonderful handcrafts.  We spotted a stand full of the most delicious children's hats and instantly knew this one would be perfect for Richard and Kea's new baby.  Of course, it may take a year or two for the baby to grow into it...but never mind!

What do you think?  How could anyone resist this...lol.

I was very spoilt last Friday as my sister sent me these beautiful flowers for my birthday.  The perfume has been quite delicious.

The colours are so full of spring.  It has been so wet and dreary here for the past couple of weeks it is lovely to look at these and think that it is not long until spring will burst forth. My children spoilt me too and have paid for Kerry and I to have a night away at a lovely hotel in Napier with dinner all paid for!  Just what we need, especially my dear husband who has been so dedicated at looking after me and doing everything else too.

I did manage to cut out the fabric for the baby quilt.  However, I should never try and do this while the brain is so fogged up.  Whilst they are all lovely squares from 2" to 4 1/2" what I wanted was all the same width and different lengths.... hmmm.  Change of plan for the quilt coming up.  What's that saying...when life throws you a curve, make a quilt!

We bought a new microwave too, but it sat at home for a couple of days before we unpacked it.  It drove Tyson nuts that the box was closed and he tried his very best to break into it.  He is such a nutcase cat.

Once it was open, he had a lovely time going in and out of the box.

I have plodded my way through loading my next all over quilt.  This is a lovely big black, white and red quilt from a customer in Wellington.  Hope to get started later this morning.

Off to get organised to go to work.  Thanks for stopping in.  I hope all is going well in your life too.

Blessings
Clare

A little quilting...lots of puffing!

Hi at last, blogging has been off the list these past couple of weeks...I came down with a nasty flu virus and have had to go real slow.  Just starting to come right though with lots of healing prayers and being so well looked after by my lovely husband.
Have also left the cord behind to take the photos off my phone, so only a little older eye candy tonight.  Will pick it up tomorrow I hope.
Finally managed to start cutting out my new grandbaby's quilt.  It is going to be fun.  And Kea's fabric arrived for the baby bag I am going to make.  Oh it is so gorgeous I cant wait to show you the photos.

This was one of my most favourite quilts that was a shop sample.  I still have as I just love it...it is mostly Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

This was our own pattern designed and stitched by my friend Colleen Watt, and I wrote up the pattern.  It was very successfull.

 This was one of those design it as you go for the customer quilts for a lovely lady who came to learn how to quilt at 78 years old.  Maureen was amazing and has made lots of quilts and bags.

Will catch up with you all again real soon.  Hope you are getting lots of quilting done.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I'm back with lots of photos and quilty things...

Oh my goodness, selling and moving house within two weeks is not somethng I would like to repeat any time soon.  Kerry and I have been totally exhausted. There are some plusses though as we didnt have time to agonise over the keep or move on stuff.  Mind you we still have a pile of stuff to go through sitting in a large corner of our shop building!!  However, with a smaller two bedroomed unit, there will be very little that will come here.
Today is the first day I did some sewing since the Monday after our quilting weekend which I think is the same day of my last post!  It was nice to finally start doing some stitching and planning.  I also quilted a humungous quilt this week - 98 x 104 plus two pillow cases.  That was hard work as the top was batik.
Anyway I shall start the photo parade and fill in the gaps for you....
Here is Christine's king sized quilt waiting to be loaded.

 Christine absolutely loves horses and appliqued a row of them along the bottom of the quilt.

 The pattern was Hearts and Blooms and it made a huge difference to the look of the quilt.

 I used a lovely dark green Magnifico thread on top and a Bottom Line in the bobbin.

Thanks for letting me quilt your quilt Christine.
Last Sunday afternoon the Group Leaders at Church had a Leaders Get together.  We had lunch at Subway then headed up to Napier for a mystery trip.  We ended up in prison!!!!  It was a visit to the old Napier prison up on Bluff Hill.  The old and very small prison was still operating as late as 1993.  The conditions were truly dreadful.  Prisoners were given one blanket and a mattress.  The blanket was removed at 5am each morning.  Showers were only installed in the 1980's.

My friend Kerry and I looking like matching members of the Red Club!!!

This collage shows the Hanging Yard and at the top of the concrete wall is a terrace about a metre wide where the crowds (mostly women and children) paid one shilling to watch the hangings!  The white picket fence surrounds the Graveyard.  Prisoners were buried standing up to prevent them from ever being at peace!  The blue lino floor is one of the corridors that was badly damaged in the 1931 earthquake.  It was not fixed which is amazing.  Two other corridors were badly affected during this earthquake (7.2 mag.) and had to be broken out of their cells because the doors were jammed.  How frightening would that have been - the earthquake lasted for over two  minutes and over 200 lives were lost.  My Dad was actually at school in Napier during the quake and told us that he and his classmates survived because they were outside during interval.  Their classroom collapsed on itself as it was made of brick.

Lyn from our Tuesday Chat group brought along her hexie quilt to get some advice on a border colour.  Isnt it just lovely?
Talking about hexies...look what I found in a cupboard when we moved (head a little dipped here)....lol

Umm I started these about 12 years ago and was going to make a bag.  Have long since lost the pattern so will do something else with them.
This afternoon I stitched the August blocks for the Paper Bag challenge.  This is Vivienne's quilt and she is using yummy New Zealand fabrics. It's my turn for September. We dont get the blocks til the end of the year though, but I am going to make extra and it will be Caleb's quilt (grandson no. 7).

Yippee I have started cutting out the fabric for  my new grandbaby's quilt.  The kids like the quilt in the magazine below but just want the middle bit.  Oh dear, what it is to be modern parents.  I am going to vary the size though as the strips are only an inch and a half wide finished.  I fussy cut this lovely fat eighth I got in Taupo.

This is the next quilt I need to work on.  Have been working out a plan as it needs some focus put into it to enhance the lovely fabrics.
And our post wouldnt be the same without a mention of the "boys" who have become commuter cats.  We have been taking them to work each day with us as they are used to the place and have lots of outside places to go.  Then home they come.  Last weekend they slept all weekend as if they had had a hard week at work...lol.

Clever Tyson and scaredy cat Travis looking worried.

Well that's the catch up.  Hope you are all well and have been having lots of great quilty moments.  I shall talk to you again soon...it is the All Blacks tonight against Australia....oh boy what a battle it is going to be.

Blessings
Clare

I'm linking with Hexie Weekend