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

First Quilting finish for the year and a birthday party

I have had to start back at work again already, even though it is our hot summer time here in New Zealand.  We have our bi annual Wine Country Quilts exhibition coming up in mid-March and entrants need to have their quilts in by the end of February.  That is not so long when you have three quilts to custom quilt.
Being so organised (ha!) I have finished the first one.  I have only given you one photo as it is going to be in the exhibition so cant spoil it.

It was like quilting a garden with this quilt and Sue made a wonderful job of all the appliqued flowers.  Had to work hard with the eyes with such a dark navy background and my So Fine blue was almost too good a match.  I used a Magnifico blue down the centre of the feather fern and in the veins to give it a lift.  Thanks Sue, I enjoyed getting back into the swing of things with your awesome quilt.

This is a glimpse of one of the other quilts I have to get done.  I laid it out on my work tables to try and get some inspiration for the quilting designs.  Tyson decided to give me some help and is studying it closely LOL.  Thankfully Catherine knows this boy and I'm sure she will give him the 3rd degree when she sees him next.  It's a lovely round robin quilt that Catherine participated in a wee while ago and the colours are gorgeous.














Then it was off to Wellington for the weekend to celebrate our youngest granddaughter's first birthday.  We are both amazed that this year has flown so fast.  We had a wonderful celebration with Marceline's Mum and Dad - Kea and Richard, Kea's folks and some friends.  Wellington put on the most beautiful day that required sunscreen and all.

This is my cool Tonka Front End Loader that Mum and Dad got me.  I just love it and played for ages with it. Poppa is giving me some driving lessons while Mum looks on.

Gran Gran bought me this gorgeous new dress and was showing me some photos of myself.  I love playing with the camera and am happy to pose for you.  Nana took this one of me with Gran Gran (well just Gran Gran's knees actually).








We all had a yummy chocolate cake but Nana forgot to take a picture of that one.  Gee Nana.








Sunday we all went down to the Farmers Market at the Waterfront.  After buying some fabulously fresh fruit and vegetables, we checked out all the food stalls and had brunch.  The only thing with that is it takes me forever to decide what I'm going to eat and then I end up last!

This is me (Marceline) just hanging around with the oldies!




Please note, not a cloud in the sky and it's Wellington.  Love it.

Kerry and I decided to go look in Te Papa National Museum before we left for home and saw the Dream Works exhibition. It was great.  They take you on a dragon flight and wow, it was exciting.

On the way home we stopped in at Sawmillers Quiltery which is run by my friend Yvonne situated in Te Marua, just north of Upper Hutt.  Lovely fabrics and great conversation.  Next door is the Stonestead Devonshire Tea Shop.  Yummmmmm.

 Isn't this a most flattering photo of Kerry.  These made on the spot scones are absolute delicious.  Kerry had cheese while I went for the date, plus jam and cream of course!!!

My last gasp is this....7 little blocks, and I mean little!!!  I made the mistake of reading on Cynthia's blog quiltingismorefun that housework about this mad 365 day challenge.  You make a block a day for 365 days and at the end have this awesome quilt.  Hmmmm. Not all the blocks are 3" - these are the first border around the centre medallion.  I have also decided they must all come out of my stash.! Well so far I'm up to date with two blocks cut and ready to sew tonight which will probably end up being tomorrow as I ended up here instead which makes 15 blocks.  Let's see how long I can hang in there on this one. By the way, there are over 12000 quilters joined up...wow.  (It's free too)

So there you have it...life in the Moore household is still ticking along.  I hope those of you on holiday are having a great time.  Those who have worked through I sympathise with.  Those who dont work ....yippeee I wanna join you!  Mind you, I don't think there is anyone who doesn't work in some way or other.


Bye for now and thanks for reading all the way down to here.  It seems a long way to me too.  I need to stop talking so much maybe but I don't know, the words just keep coming out.  I will see you again soon I hope and take care.

I'm linking with Cynthia at Oh Scrap here.

Go over and have a look at her lovely blogs with lots of tempting scrap projects.  Actually I am blaming Cynthia for my falling for the above mentioned 365 Challenge, lol.

Blessings to you all,
Clare

Last of the Year's Quilts - lots of photos

Hello again, I'm just squeaking in with a last post for 2015.  Oh my, isnt it a bit of a worry how fast these years seem to be going.  Never mind, we all suffer from the same complaint so it makes me feel a little better.  I hope you have all had a wonderful time with your families as we have done. My last week before Christmas went in a blur, but I did managed to achieve a few things.

I quilted, buttoned and stuffed (with inners) to get daughter Rebecca's cushions all finished and ready to take up with us.  I am most pleased with the way they have come out - three different sizes that grade up pleasantly - all completely unplanned, hehe.

I did really enjoy designing the layout of these to have a more modern look to them and hope to play with the modern look in this coming year.

Also managed to finished this lovely floral square in a square quilt of Jean's. I used a free motion pattern that I enjoy using and am pleased with the results.  I used a lovely Magnifico thread.

It's always a pleasure quilting Jeans quilts as she makes such a good job of making them.  I never have any issues.  This meant I was able to have enough time to pop her other quilt on and get in finished before Christmas as a surprise for Jean.





















Isn't this childs quilt so pretty.  Jean put lovely soft pink minky on the back, which quilted up extremely easily with no complications.  I used another gorgeous Magnifico pink on this one too and put cotton batting in it.  What a super soft and cuddly quilt this one is.

I used a freehand combination of hearts and flowers for this one, connecting them with small loops.  I am so enjoying learning to do all over patterns like this and have to admit that I have not done a pantograph for quite some months.  Mind you, most of my quilting at the moment is custom.

This next quilt is my  friend Felicity's, and she informed me that it was made some 30 odd years ago when she was just beginning her patchwork journey.  Some of the fabrics have wonderful memories for her of her mother, aunt and her own dresses that were made for her.  It took me a long time to decide on an appropriate design for this one and am extremely happy with the result.  I hope you agree.

 Felicity thought this was called Jack's Chain, and was going to have a hunt to see if the pattern was still around.  We quilters do like to hang onto things, dont we?

The blue backing gave the whole quilt a really nice lift and quilted up nicely.

The photo bottom left shows how the quilt looked before quilting.  I am always amazed at how quilting completely changes the look of a quilt top even after all these years.

Thanks Felicity...I have loved quilting this for you, and delighted in each nine patch and it's different colours as I quilted along.  May you get lots of joy out it now.

And for the last finish for the year, I was so thrilled to get another grandson's quilt finished.  That's quilt an achievement this year for me, as it has been a year full of ill health and set backs.  Thankfully, we can put some of that behind us now and get on with our quilting.  What about this fun quilt?

 It was made from a bundle of Cat In the Hat fabrics that I had purchased about 3 years ago, (yay, used some stash) and there were only 8 fat quarters, but with some sashing we managed to make a good sized single bed quilt.  I did have to go buy a little bit of sashing as there was no green that was "just right" in my stash.

I quilted it in a quirky fun fashion, after getting the idea from a blog I follow called Tamarack Shack.  I did oddball shapes and did the vertical sashing in a different pattern to the horizontal.  Such fun was had by all, nope - by the quilter!!

The backing is a gorgeous fun dinosaur fabric I picked up on sale at Spotlight (like Joanne's) and it was perfect.  There was just enough left over to make a cute little summer dress for my granddaughter.

The quilt was given to my grandson Hamish when we went up to Te Awamutu at Christmas time.  I bought the book to go with the quilt.  This was actually a birthday gift, not Christmas, but who cares?

I am just stoked that I got another quilt finished out of my own pile on top of finishing three customer quilts. The next grandchild's quilt is for my older grandson Brad.  I have started cutting it out and am doing this one "quilt as you go."  Not sure how this is going to work out but I love the pattern so we will see what happens.

Last photo is my tidying up efforts in the last couple of days before Christmas.  This is only a portion of my stash of threads...I just love threads!!!

They look so neat and tidy.  Hope it lasts. Well I hope you will all have had a fabulous Christmas with your family and friends.  We did and I will talk about that next year.

I would like to wish you all a Happy and Joyous New Year.  May you be blessed in more ways than you can ever imagine and may you experience God's love for you in abundance.

Blessings to all and thanks for hanging in there with my erratic posting.

Clare
I am linking with Sarah at confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

Check it out for some more delicious eye candy.

Quilt Exhibition and lots of other stuff....

We wont talk about how long it is since I posted.  Life trundles on and the quilting is slowly happening.  One good thing is another grandson's quilt is now just waiting for me to make and sew on the binding. I forgot to take some photos so will put it in the next post. It's the bit I dislike the most because my head has moved on somewhere else!!

Some pics you might enjoy from the bennial quilt exhibition of Hawkes Bay Quilters & Patchworkers held in Hastings last month.

 This gorgeous quilt below won the Viewers Choice award.  All machine quilted on a domestic machine.  Stunning.

Our trip to Wellington on our long weekend was so enjoyable.  The weather was fabulous for the time of year.  Spring can be so unpredictable. We went to the Botannical Gardens on Saturday and took a picnic lunch.  "Look at the ducks Nana! " Marcy is wearing her new wee dress that Nana managed to whip up before we went down.  Boy I was a bit rusty at making little dresses lol.

It was a lovely, lovely day.  We went to the rose gardens but there were very few out, but a couple of gorgeous beds of poppies were on show.

 Come on Grandad...push!!!

 Trying to hang on the little miss squirmy

Here's pointing at you!  Marcy loves pointing at things now and is so cute. Well, it goes without saying from this very biased angle...lol.

 I have finished cushion no. 2 for daughter Rebecca.  No. 3 is under construction and I had better hurry up if I want to take them up at Christmas time.

 Kerry is such a clever bloke.  This is  my portable oxygen trolley!!  You dont get given anything to cart the small oxygen bottle around in and a backpack is not an option for me.  So, Mr No. 8 Wire went to work on figuring something else out.  It's great because I can put all my gear in, it's lightweight and I can take it anywhere.

Our front verandah garden is looking really gorgeous with our triffid geranium on the left and right and our Clair Matin rose also on the left.  The rose in the middle is a small indoor rose I bought at the supermarket cheap as a left over from Mothers Day.  I put it in this bigger pot, stuck it outdoors and it has turned into the most beautiful rose.

Thought I had better finish off with the boys.  Travis (top) is actually sitting in front of me as I type, in the very same basket and sitting on the batting for the next grandson's quilt!!  Tyson is having a big stretch here.  He measures about 1.1m long at full stretch lol.

Hope to chat with you all again soon.  Take care in the mad season, and let's all remember why we have Christmas....to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Blessings to you all
Clare

Caleb's quilt finished and a couple more....

quilts have been transferred from the UFO pile into the "waiting to be quilted" pile.  So happy to have achieved some finishes at last and am feeling a lot better.
Lots of photos for you so hope you enjoy....
The first photos are of our trip to Wellington to see our son Richard and his lovely wife Kea, and the absolutely adorable granddaughter Marcy (of course I'm not biased)...

I loved the look of this sculpture in the square along Lambton Quay and we also went to Scorching Bay for afternoon coffee and cake.  It was my birthday on the Saturday so we had to have cake!!!

This beautiful camelia grows along the back of Richard and Kea's new home in Karori.  The weather was glorious for a Wellington August.

In the quilty department I have been having a ball.  First off... a FINISH!!!!!   Woohoo, all done and dusted, pieced, quilted and bound, oh my!!  It's just too, too much.  Caleb's quilt is now an item.  Although his birthday was last month, I asked him if he would mind if it hung in the Hawkes Bay Patchworkers Exhibition in Hastings that starts today.  He was most agreeable, so still hasn't properly seen his quilt.  I had great fun with the quilting as I decided to try some different and more modern looks, especially as the quilt was for a boy of 11. I am in love with it I have to say. Hope you like it too.

I used Magnifico 2159 for the blue part of the quilt, and King Tut 917 on the red border.  Worked well

These squares were such fun to do, apart from going the wrong way a couple of times and having to unpick!

Spirals filled the alternate square created by the diagonal lines.  Good look and again nice and quick to quilt.

There are three of these red squares over the quilt.  I forgot to get a full front shot so will do that when I attend the exhibition this week.
Then it was on to finally finishing one of my dd Rebecca's cushions.  Again going for that more modern look and very pleased with the results, as is dd.  The focus fabrics I am using were a gift from my pal in Kansas, Barbara - thanks Barb, they are being used for a great purpose.  Now to get on to the other couple.

The Aunt Grace 1930's quilt I bought as a BOM in Missouri, with above mentioned friend Barbara, has now moved into the awaiting quilting pile.  Just love this and might try and get it quilted for the next upcoming exhibition. That's if I get all my customer quilts done for this same exhibition!

The "Pretties" scrap quilt is also in the finished pile.  It was supposed to have another two borders, but I have decided it is quite big enough at 76 x 83 already.  The great thing about some scrap quilts is they look good with or without borders and this one will be fine.

 And it wouldn't  be right to finished without letting you see that the boys are being well looked after.  We bought them this "Mummy rug" which is like Minky.  They go bananas over it and knead it to death lol.

So there you have it.  Updated and will put the rest of the photos in another post.  Hope you are all well and enjoying life.

Take care and God bless,
Clare
I'm linking to whatahootquilts BOM Monday and Oh Scrap