Pretty in Pink Baby Quilt

Finally arrived back to say hi.  Have not been doing a lot of stuff, but did manage to make two baby quilts to give away.  Loved doing something small and pretty.  Used up scraps with both of them, although confess to having bought a couple of pink fat quarters for one, plus a pink binding fabric.  My stash does not contain a lot in the way of pink.  Anyway, forgot to take photos of the first one, so here are the photos of the second one.

Love the little pops of yellow.  The backing fabric I found in my stash too, so that was an extra bonus.  Gives two sides to this quilt.  Loved the wavy stitch on my new Janome 9400.  It looks great the way it stands out on the white squares and adds a little texture.

Now it's back to grandson's quilt as you go blocks.  I am now up to 17 done, 23 to go.  Jessica's is finished but not quilted...will give you pics when finished completely.

Short post as just get too tired these days.
Have a great week and will catch you again some time.  Thanks for coming back to see me.

Hugs and blessings

Clare

Linking to Cynthia Brunz @ Oh Scrap.  Link is on the side of this post.  Take a look, you will love her quilts.

Lovely day out to Quilt Show (lots of photos)

Hello everyone,

On Saturday I leapt into the car and with my good friend Colleen we set sail (well car actually) for Carterton.  We stopped for a coffee halfway in Woodville and then tootled off again.  Picked up our friend Lorraine in Masterton and swooped down to Carterton, threw my sister into the car and off to the show which was run by the Master Guild whose membership comes from all over the Wairarapa.

We had a lovely day.  Lunched in the Cancer Society run cafe on the premises and had the freshest sandwich ever - made while we waited.  The Show was very good and only purchased 4 fat quarters for a quilt in mind and resisted the rest.

Enjoy the photos and see you again soon.

Hugs and blessings to you all,
Clare

Still alive and stitching...

Oh dear, sorry everyone but it's been a bit of a rough time lately and finding the energy to write a blog was just not there.  We lost our eldest grandson to suicide and can only encourage you to talk to your grandies and let them know how much you love them every time you see them - as I'm sure you do.  Thank you for your patience.

I have managed to do a little stitching with my granddaughter's quilt having one side of the frame to go on and then the final border.  Definitely progress, but quite slow.  It has been a very fiddly finishing off process which I just hate with a quilt.  It is going to be simple, simple, simple from now on!!

Have been very spoilt - this is what I have been playing with today!!!

Not sure if the video is going to work.

Look at this gorgeous machine - a Janome MC9400 QCP no less.  Just happened to have a customer purchase my almost new 8900QCP Special Edition and that has enabled me to upgrade.  Wowee, how posh is that then.  I was so annoyed when I upgraded just a few months ago and then Janome brought this lovely new baby out.  When you are selling to a lot of quilters, it's important to have the top machine, now I am set.  Well, those are all my excuses and I'm sticking to them, hehe.

So while I was trying to decide what to practice on because it was Tuesday Chat day and no room to play with borders, I decided it was time to make a move on my box of 2 inch squares.  Had seen Cynthia Bunz's blog here and it inspired  me to get cracking.  Some of these fabrics are probably almost 20 years old so time to use them up.

They are coming along nicely.  Still far too many squares in the box, so might have to do some more yet.  Thought I might put a bright border around next.




Off to hospital on Monday 12th September to have the pesky gall bladder removed.  Hopefully all will go well with the recovery as I have these breathing issues.  Any prayers offered up will be most gratefully received.

Cats are still ruling the house and we are at their beck and call.

Bye for now and talk again soon.

Blessings
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.

A little progress

Has been made on grandson's quilt.  Just loving the look of it and it is gobbling up lots of the scraps and stash.  I also bought some new fabric (Shock, Horror!)  but it got cut up and straight into the basket of strips for this quilt.  Love that. Bradley's favourite colour is green just like his Nana, so I have lots of lovely leftovers that can go into this quilt.

Just loved the city scape and the dot was a great match.  I actually bought solely because I loved them and then discovered they fitted well into this quilt.  It is a pattern from the magazine "Modern Quilts" Fall issue 2015.
As you can see some progress has been made. Also like that they are big blocks - 10.5 x 18.5 then trimmed down by half an inch, it is quilt as you go without the backing fabric and colourful. Assembled as a normal quilt too.  As this grandson is 6 foot 5 inches, it will need to be rather a large quilt!!  He does not take after his Nana....lol.

Really loving the way it is coming out.

See you again soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I'm linking to Oh Scrap check out the neat quilts.

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