The New Decade has begun...

with very little being done by me.  Oh dear, I shall be hoping to get a lot better so there can be some progress made soon.
Had a  most fabulous visit to Wellington for the 5th birthday of Marceline Moore.  A schoolgirl now, oh my!  Where has this last five years gone I wonder, with so many major changes.  We managed to navigate the 29 steps up to Richard & Kea's house, twice I might add, lol, but it was maybe a bit much.  Should have used the brain and had a bigger rest gap between trips, but I was too keen to be out and about with the birthday girl.  All is good and on the way back now just a bit more slowly than thought,  and so no stitching is going on.  Darn.! Am working on a solution with a friend who is going to give me a bit of a hand with the bigger, heavier stuff.  Yay.
Not much in the way of photos either folks, sorry about that, but haven't actually been anywhere to take them.  I have done a little bit of cross stitch on a wee sampler I'm doing and enjoying too.  Haven't cross stitched for years.

Thought I would join in the RSC at so scrappy with the first colour being my favourite - green. Now there are only five days of the month to go... not a good start at all, but really keen to move out some of these scrap fabrics.

This is from springtime and now it's all dried up and looking a little sad for itself in the heat.  We have a week of temperatures of around 32 C at the moment.  Too hot for me and my garden, so on goes the air conditioning.









Hoping to make a start with my friend helping on getting the sashing triangles stitched onto the mystery hexagon quilt that I did last year.  Then I will put a small frame and final border onto it.  Looking forward to it getting finished at last as was hoping it would have happened last year, but sometimes things don't work out to plan do they?

The colours are certainly quite beautiful and very different for me to work with.  I have the recipient of this quilt all worked out and it is going to be a surprise.  Love that.


Well, I don't have a lot more to add today, but wanted to let you know what was happening in my world.  I may even get a beanie started this week as the urge is beginning to grow - a lovely friend gave me some gorgeous autumnal coloured wool, so that made the fingers itch a little bit.




Thanks for popping in and I shall try to have some more exciting news for you next time,.  Take care and keep on stitching,
God bless and big hugs,

Clare

I'm linking with Cynthia of Oh! Scrap here lots of lovely eye candy

Scrapping thru to the next Decade....lots of photos

Well golly gosh, here we are once more at the end of another year, and this time it will also be the beginning of another decade.  The mere thought of the year 2000 used to be such a far fetched fantasy, and yet now we are at the end of twenty years of this new millennium.  Many things have happened, most of them lovely, a few bad, but life goes on, and God is always Good.

Here are a few last photos of various things and I have included some of my favourite quilts over the past decade.  I hope you enjoy this little treat of photos.

 If all else fails, knit a beanie.  I have lost count of the number of hats I have made for my family and I do love making them.  Hunting out some of the yummy hand dyed wool is half the fun.  Thankfully they are still enjoyed by everyone.  Keeps me out of mischief.

 This year I decided not to hang up all the usual Christmas decorations and the tree as I didn't have enough energy for it.  Instead I asked Kerry for a "stick" or two on the wall in our lounge for me to hang a few things on.  This is what we ended up with and we have just loved it.  Along the top are our Remembrance Christmas bells for those who are no longer with us, and then on the bottom row I chose some of my favourite ornaments to hang.  It has been nice to be able to see them all at once, whereas on a tree you can only look at a part of the tree!  Plus the bonus is the cats have ignored them!!!

 What a tremendous achievement this was to get Danielle's quilt finished.  I had started this while not well, so had to do some remaking, grrr, but it was worth it in the end to get a good finish.

This finish is my best of the Decade actually.  I started to embroider this tray cloth when my eldest daughter was in her 10th year - 1982 to be precise.  LOL.  Needing only a small amount of crochet around the edges, the cloth languished in a chocolate box and was carted around the country as we moved!  The year 2019 was it's crowning glory of becoming a finished object of admiration.  It is now in Perth, Australia and said daughter Janeen loves it.  That saying,....you know...." all good things come to those who wait...."   Hehehe.

Hayley also finally received her finished quilt from Nana.  These were a precious collection of fat quarters from a shop no longer in existence.  They are really lovely together, and Hayley loves her quilt - thanks Hayley I hope you feel the hugs from Granddad and I when you snuggle under it.

 On our way to the supermarket yesterday, we spotted this tree with the new pine cones out.  They are the most loveliest shade of green before they dry out.  Quite unusual to see these days in town.

I am really enjoying making the smaller baby quilts for our great grandchildren and other babies we meet along the way.  Love using up scraps of pretty fabrics like this one for Nathalie.  We were testing an embroidery machine in our wee shop so did a butterfly centre for it.  It's actually now quilted and will have the binding stitched on over the next week or so.  Also ready to baste Nathalie's new brother's quilt so they can both get them together.

 Love this photo of some of our children and grandchildren, along with my sister, from Christmas 2018.  Feel so blessed to have made it to Christmas 2019 and in such good shape, thank you Lord.

My dear sister Joy comes and visits me once a month and we do stitching together.  We have a great time and it has brought us closer together since my ill health.  We are supposed to be working on some quilt blocks each month, but we have had a little detour, lol.  It will all come right in the end.

This quilt has now entered into the status of a WIP - work in progress.  It has morphed from a pile of half yards into blocks and rows, hahaha.  This is for Kea and I have had this fabric in the cupboard for a few years now.  Nice easy pattern, so will not take long once I get my energy back.  Looking forward to it now.

 This is Suzy's quilt - a friend who lost everything in a house fire.  It was made using Kaffe Fassett fabrics and a most simple pattern.  The colours just resonate with sunshine and warmth.

 This wee lap quilt goes back about 10-12 years I think when it became a finished centre.  Then I decided to get it finished and found this lovely border fabric at our little local shop.  Was perfect, and had just enough of the teal blue for the frame in my stash...love that,  Gave it to  my friend to practice her long arm quilting on and yay, it is now a finished quilt.  That didn't take long did it?

Richard and Kea's new(ish) quilt
It was started quite some years ago then put away for a rest. Oh and one of the loveliest things was the way the whole family worked on it . Mum, Dad, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter.

 Shala's sunflower quilt.  Oh I love this quilt so much.  It was fun to make and brings nothing but sunshine thoughts to your mind when you look at it.  It is full of awesome memories of my trip to America and meeting my friend Barbara and her quilting buddies as well as Jackie her daughter.  I had a better photo but cant find it.  Here is a link to the post with the good photos sunflower photo

A new photo of Travis among my Christmas gift plants.  He thought he was missing out on something,  LOL.  Just as spoilt as ever of course

His big brother who is such a roamer.  He goes to visit a lady (human) down the road and sometimes we don't see him again until night time when he demands more food.  Typical cat.





















Well I hope you didn't find this all too much.  Thanks a heap if you hung in there and have read all the way down to here.  I pray you have an awesome New Year and that you are blessed in ways you have never imagined before.  Remember God is always Good and He can see the bigger picture.  I keep forgetting that, lol.

Hugs Clare
I'm linking to Cynthia at Oh!Scrap  here

A New Year and new start..

Hello everyone, no doubt you will have given up on ever seeing another post from me.  Me too!!!  However, I have decided it is time to get back to some of these things.  Will try and be less wordy and more photographic.  Did lose a few good quilt photos when I changed phones, but never mind, lots of things come along to take their place.
We had a lovely Christmas and New Year and hope you did too.  Last weekend we headed down to Wellington and had a second Christmas dinner with Richard, Kea and Marcy.  We had to postpone going down as Marcy picked up whooping cough.  Although vaccinated, there are so many new strains around due to the non-vaccinated children.  Therefore we headed off in time to celebrate Marceline's 3rd birthday on Saturday 6th.  We had a great time.

I made Kea and Marcy these aprons as a Christmas gift.  They are  double sided and have cupcake fabric on the other side.  Rattled the brain a little as I remember how to make them.  LOL.

This is the huge quilt I finally got finished for Kea and Richard.
It is about 520 inches worth of binding big!!!
Can't actually remember the size, but it's blooming big and they have a king sized bed.  Wanted it to come down to the floor too.
It is actually a family-made quilt.  They all ended up helping me to make it - Kea, Richard, Kerry, and Marcy helped Nana by pressing the scissors button, LOL.

Most pleased it is finished, and did binding by machine both sides.  They don't really care, and it was too hard for my hands to go that far around in batik,

Now have to work on their spare bed quilt, as the one I made when Richard went off to university a number of years ago, is falling to pieces.  These guys love their quilts to death by using them constantly, and really, isn't that why we make them?

The old list below, and the new above.  Here's hoping for good progress again.




















Well that's probably enough for now.  I shall finish off and try to be a much better blogger from now on.  Hope you are all having a lovely new start to your new year.

Hugs and blessings,
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.

Rainbow Challenge, 365 Challenge, it's all challenging!!

Lucky for me there is one more day in February this year and I can squeeze this post into this month.  I have a jolly rotten cold at the moment and am so stuffed up in the head it will be a miracle if this blog makes sense. It will be short I know that, and will just fill it up with lots of photos.  I have been busy.

 This is my lovely friend Eve's quilt "Women of Courage" that I finished a couple of weeks ago.  A very large quilt I might add, but it has come up beautifully and looking forward to seeing it hanging in the local quilt exhibition in two weeks time.

 The fabrics in this quilt really are gorgeous, and each block relates to a women of great courage in our history...like Corrie ten Boom and Amelia Earhart.

My Rainbow Scrap Challenge block for February

Last weekend Kerry and I, plus our friend Eve, headed off to Wellington to attend the Edinburough Tattoo held at the Westpac Stadium.  What a fantastic show this was and we were so glad to have made the effort to get there.  I booked our tickets way back in June of last year!!! An awesome show.

Had to have a couple of shots of our granddaughter Marcy

I quilted this for my lovely friend Rosie who has designed this for her granddaughter's 21st birthday. Her granddaughter loves (and works) on a dairy farm. What a clever lady Rosie is, and if you knew the hurdles she has had to overcome you would realise why it is such an awesome quilt.  A pleasure to quilt for you Rosie.

Well that's it for now.  I have done some more blocks in the 365 Challenge, but have got behind a little with all this quilting I have had to do.  I think I am up to about February the 8th, but I will have some catch up sessions sometime soon. After all, I do have all year to do it....don't I?   LOL.

Take care and thank you for popping in.  Hope all is well in your world.

Blessings

Clare

I'm linking to Rainbow Scrappy Challenge  and to Oh Scrap  here

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

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