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

Let the Sunflowers shine...

Way back in September 2011, I visited my online quilting friend in small town Kansas - Parsons to be exact.  It was a very special time for me and I so enjoyed meeting Barbara and her daughter Jackie.  Because of Parsons geographical position, it was easy to visit four states within a couple of hours - it sits near the crossroads of Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Kansas.  Such fun!
While I was there, Barbara asked me to give a talk to her local guild, then it became a few of the little outlying guilds until we ended up with 70 plus people.  It was a lovely evening of showing off our fabulous New Zealand with an awesome DVD of Central Hawkes Bay and other lovely stuff.  At the end of the evening, the President was thanking me and out came this positively massive bag of fabric!!  Unbeknownst to me, the entry fee was a fat quarter of fabric.  Oh my, I got all sorts of amazing fabric gifted to me and some pieces were way more generous.  Most of it had to be posted home as we couldn't fit it all in my bag!!

The reason I have told you this big long story is that I had  around 17 different sunflower fabrics in this amazing collection that I had not really touched in the last 8 years.  However, my (step) daughter was going to turn 50 last month, and I had asked her a year or three before if she would like a quilt.  As Shala is a very good sewist and has made a few quilts herself, I hadn't got around to asking.  The answer was an emphatic Yes!  Then it turned out that she loves sunflowers!  Oh yes again!!  Out came my stash and Shala chose basically all the fabric that had sunflowers on it.  Well Shala's 50th birthday was looming up and I decided about July that I would have a go at getting it ready as her birthday gift for when she came down on 29th September to celebrate with us.

Here you go with a couple of photos and I am smiling so much you wouldn't believe it.

This is one of the two large blocks in the quilt.  It's a beautiful piece  of fabric and the sunflowers just glow.
All the fabrics have come out of my stash, so this quilt managed to make a little bit a reduction, Yay,

 

 I was determined not to put any fabric back in  my stash, so used all the large pieces left to make up the back.  It actually came out really well,

Here is Shala with her quilt.  It was very windy so the quilt would not co operate with laying flat.  Never mind.  I actually managed to quilt it myself as well,  My awesome Tuesday girls pin basted it for me and I did an all over meander on it using a lovely So Fine mustard gold that blended beautifully with all the colours of the quilt.  Looked good as it didn't need anything fancy as the sunflowers were the stars, and then my fabulous Tuesday girls helped again with stitch down the back of the binding,

I can't tell you how amazing getting this quilt finished on time made me feel, as I do have a bit of a struggle with my health issues.  But God was so good to me and gave me the strength and tenacity to keep on and achieve something so filled with love for this very precious member of our family.

Now onto the next quilt...

Thank you for sharing my joy of this quilt and I'll look forward to showing you my next achievements.  I hope you are all having a great time with your quilting and your families.

Many hug and blessings to you all,

Clare

linking with Oh! Scrap here

It's officially finished!! lots of photos

I said to myself - I'm not posting again until Danielle's quilt is finished because you would all be sick of getting updates showing so little progress.  Well, it is done and dusted and as I type it is winging its way up to Danielle in Te Awamutu.  Our youngest son and his family are going up to visit his siblings up that way, so he is loaded down with the quilt and five beanies for delivery!!!

I'm sure most of you think I have fallen off the planet as I didn't realise it had been quite so long since I last posted.  Hmmm, been busy stitching and hanging on to my health.  But enough of that, I have a few photos to share and I hope you enjoy them.

The Beanie production line, lol.
I did have five of them, but the yellow one ended up being given to a dear friend and I am knitting another one for that dear DIL.

Love that my family like to wear them and that it is something else I can make when I'm not up to quilting.

The finished quilt for Danielle.  I am so very pleased with how it has come out.  My dear friend Catherine made a fantastic job of quilting it for me with an edge to edge pattern that let the colours speak for themselves.
It is sideways in the photos as it was too long to hold up length-ways and the grounds was still wet from the big frost we had this morning.

 I found this fantastic extra wide backing fabric at Counting Stitches in Hastings.,  It was the absolute perfect match for this quilt.

This shows a little more of the dark and light in the quilt and the flowers in my late winter garden.  The bees have been making the most of the wall flowers that seem to flower for ever and smell beautiful.

This is my incredible UFO finish.  I started this embroidery cloth when my eldest daughter was 10.  She received it at the beginning of June and Janeen is now 47 years old!!!!  only too 37 years to complete.  The  most embarrassing thing is it only needed a few inches of the crochet edging to be finished for most of the last 10 years or so.  Hehehe

Oh well, a finish is a finish and that is one less thing in the UFO cupboard.  Yay

 My mystery blocks up until May.  Had been enjoying them but had some troubles with June/July blocks and not sure what is causing it.  These blocks come pre-cut and I think there may be some small discrepancies in cutting.  Not ruling out operator error though. Lol

A small baby quilt to be sent to the preemie babies unit.  I used some left over strips from another quilt I had made and added a top and bottom border to make it to size.  Totally from my stash - yippee.  Halfway through the quilting of it and hope to finish off over the weekend,

Finally, a parade of elephants from the Tuesday Girls.  These animals are so beautiful I am almost tempted to start one,  But  I have not finished enough UFO's yet and need a project like this like I need another whole in my head.  Hehehe.


One day, as most of us quilters say about those projects on our wish lists.




I hope you have enjoyed your catch up.  I am currently working mostly on a sunflower quilt for our eldest daughter.  Not sure how long that's going to take but here's hoping not as long as Danielle's seemed to take.



Our weather is supposed to be quite horrible over the weekend and it has already become quite cold.  Big snow falls down in the South Island and we do have snow up on our ranges.  This is why we have had two boomer frosts.  Rain however is forecast and we actually have not had very much rain at all and it would be most welcome.  It is also an excellent reason for being in your quilting room!!

Bye for now and take care.  May you feel blessed in you have and do.

Clare
I'm linking to Cynthia at Oh! Scrap
and Sarah at Confessions of a Scrap Addict.  Click here to visit Sarah.  It's worth the visit.

The end of 2018

Thought I had better try and catch up with you all before the year is gone.  November/December have been hard months for me health wise and I got back home for Christmas on Christmas Eve Day.  Yay, thank you Lord.  Spent Christmas with some of our family.  Photos coming.
Might not be a lot more posts in 2019, we will see what progress I can make.  However, there is still a strong urge to kill that stash, so I'm hoping to do a little more stitching yet.  Hoping to infect (lol) one of my granddaughters with the bug as much interest is being shown.
Have started to assemble Danielle's quilt at last and did get three blocks worth together before crashing.  Today is when I'm feeling like stitching again, yippee.... so onwards and upwards people.
Now for some photos to finish the year off.

The two blocks

Danielle's blocks - one has fallen down and all the stuff has been plonked in front of my design wall.  Sorry, but you get a vague idea.
Colours are looking great.

This is Meg from our Tuesday Group who does the most amazing handwork.  Sorry about the light behind the quilt.  Meg has also done numerous hexagon quilts of all types.

This is our family at home between Christmas and New Year.  My daughter Rebecca is standing in front of her 6' 5" son Bradley along with her three beautiful daughters.  My eldest son Daryll is sitting beside me and my sister Joy has my grandson Hamish on her knee.  Love this photo except by beautiful daughter in law Dayn is taking the photo.

 On the way home Rebecca met up with her youngest brother Richard, wife Kea and daughter Marcy in Napier.  Glad they had a chance to catch up as they live in opposite ends of the country.

Suzy's quilt got finished before Christmas.  She was so completely blown away that it was hers to take away and have. I must acknowledge with such grateful thanks my helper Lynn Murphy for making and stitching on the binding for me.

Forgot to take a close up of the quilting which was a beautiful big daisy pattern.  Long arm quilter was Gael Byrne from the Quilting Shed in Hastings.  Made an awesome job and loved the way she put the red thread front and back.  It gave a fabulous two sided effect, and I jolly well forgot to take a photo!!!!

This is one of my favourite finishes for 2018.  This quilt was totally made from scraps and stash - oops, I forgot - I bought the green sashing as lack of large pieces of stash. It was quilted by my friend Lorraine Baker of Masterton who is now an accomplished long arm quilter.  The centre blocks are made from leftover bits of WOF  that I couldn't quite bear to throw away as was about an inch and a half wide.  LOL.  What a funny little lady I am, and loving it!!!












That's all folks for this year of 2018.  One of so many ups and downs for me I can truly say.  For once I am very surprised at how many quilts I managed to finish and give away to family and friends.  My stash (old) did reduce by quite a substantial amount, but alas and alack, I fear the new fabric section may have grown a little,.  Hehehehe.  It just means I will need to try and make even more quilts in 2019.
God has blessed our family constantly and I can say with all my heart that He  answers those prayers we ask of Him.  Sometimes it is in His way and time, other times we get what we asked for.  He is always good and God is love.  May your 2019 be full to the brim of love and laughter.  Love will always overcome dark.
Thank you for coming to visit my blog and I hope to see you again next year.

Hugs and blessings
Clare
I'm linking up with Oh Scrap here take a look and enjoy some eye candy.

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