Quilting this little quilt

Made this little one completely out of my leftovers from another baby quilt.  It will be a donation quilt for the neonatal unit in one of our hospitals...not sure which one to send it to yet.  Hoping to get another couple done before I send it off,  It's good to be able to finish something quickly.

Managed to get some practice with my ruler foot on my domestic machine.  Quite different action compared to my long arm machine I had to let go.  Enjoying learning though, and the Janome 9450QCP is such a lovely machine to quilt with.

We had to have the approval of the quilt controller, of course.  Travis takes this position very seriously.

I do love they different textures and patterns you get on the back of quilts with the different types of designs.

Very satisfying to add to the finished list.


















Thank for popping in.  I have kept this post short as still recovering from catching dear husband's bugs.  A chest infection takes a bit of working through for me, but getting there now.  Plodding through quilting one of the other baby quilts I finished last post.

Take care everyone.  Hugs and blessings to you all.

Clare

Scrapping away still

I'm not going to talk about the fact that it's already well into March. Much better to talk about fabric and projects and everything else except how fast time flies. That's what you get when you look in the mirror I told  myself.  Just don't look and you wont have to think about it.  LOL.
In my attempt to reduce my stash,  I may have been a little successful since I spoke with you last, because at least I haven't bought any new fabric!!  Progress has been made on a number of projects, and I even dug out some (very) old UFO's and did a little on them.  I had to pinch myself a little at this point.  Hahaha.

The photo to the right shows that I have now laid out the fourth section of Danielle's quilt ready to be sewn up.
Section three has two blocks up on the design wall and the other two have be stitch into rows and just need making into the 2 remaining blocks.
That will just leave the fifth and final section to be done.  Woohoo as they say, sounds like it's almost getting there.  Must not speak too soon just in case.  LOL.















I'm trying to do some each day, but it can be a bit of a struggle some days.  All in good time.  The next three photos are of some eye candy from the Tuesday Girls who have been very busy of late.

This is Lorrie's lovely Christmas Redwork wall hanging.  It is really pretty.

Lorraine is doing a Boston Commons using hexagons.  These are quite large hexagons for Lorraine.  Often she is working with little tiny things that can barely be held in one's hand.  Mad, I think, LOL.  It's certainly going to be a beautiful quilt.  The fabrics are all French General scraps that Lorraine was gifted.

Not sure if I have already mentioned this quilt before but this is Lynn's Pies and Tarts quilt that looks fabulous.  It was interesting choosing the correct binding colour and I found a delicious rusty red in my stash that was perfect.

I have gifted my pile of completed pies and tarts and the cut out pieces and fabric etc to a quilter who needed it a lot more than I did.  I had to take a look at how important this quilt was to me in relation to my health issues and decided I did not want to continue with it.  Feeling really happy with that decision, and it has allowed me to continue on with other projects that need to be finished.

This is the first two blocks in the mystery quilt I am doing with Quilters Lane in Masterton.  I chose the Dear Stella colour way as a change for me and just love it so far.  The bestest thing though is it comes already cut.  I just have to sit and stitch it up together.  But guess what... I still only just got them done before the next blocks arrived. What.... that's just sad,  hahaha. Mind you, I had to pull out a few rusty old drawers in the filing cabinet of my brain to remember how to get these stitched up properly.  (whispering - I had to unpick a LOT...lol)  To change the subject....

This little quilt appeared in post here a while back and a couple of friends had suggested I make it bigger.  I'm never too sure what to do with little quilts, and the fabrics were not suitable to donate it as a baby quilt.  So I have added on a small frame and another floral border so far.  Have another floral border but with different flowers cut from the same striped fabric so will put in another lighter frame and put that one on too I think.  Then I will have to decide what to do with it from there as it will probably end up neither one thing or the other.  Might have to ask if anyone would like it and send it off somewhere to live happily ever after!!









So that's about it here for now,  thanks a heap for popping in and reading about my crazy life.  My health has been great the past two to three weeks and New Zealand has been sitting under this ginormous high and the air pressure has been so good for me. Now it's back to reality as this dratted little low came by and moved it out the road.  Okay, I know we all needed the rain, but gosh it was fun while it lasted.  Ignoring the fact that winter is definitely coming with the cooler autumn nights and mornings we are now having and realising the other side of the world is very happy about that.  Oh well.  See you again soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I have linked to Confessions of a Scrap Quilter here enjoy your visit.
Also linked to Oh! Scrap here for even more scrappy goodness.

Some Progress in 2019

Okay, January has already disappeared off my calendar and I didn't get to post.  I can see that this year is going to go even faster than the last, but I put some of that down to less time available for me to do "stuff" in. Health has leveled out a little and we are managing to get back to our sewing machine so that is the most important thing.
Here are some photos of what I have managed to accomplish so far...

 This is my block for January for the BOM running in the Kiwiquilters Facebook group.  It is a large block - around 22 inches.
Now to get onto February's block.  I'm trying to do it all from scraps in an effort to make a small dent in said pile.

In an effort to keep control of those wonderful bits of fabric called scraps I have got hold of this four tiered basket trolley.  The goal is to have all the colours in their own little spot so no need to rummage through endless bags and drawers to find them.  Let's see how well that works??

You may remember this - Danielle's quilt from Amanda Jean Nybergs book.  Have got two blocks assembled in the next size with the remaining four all sorted ready to be stitched,  Hoping this will be finished this week, then it will be onto the third size.  There's five in all.

My production line, lol. 













That's it for now.  Thought maybe I would be better at this if I kept the posts nice and short and then could do them more frequently?  We'll see.

Oh, did I tell you that my first block arrived today for my new BOM from  Sheila at Quilters Lane in Masterton?  It's a mystery quilt and we could choose from 10 different fabrics.  I have chosen Dear Stella and am very excited.  Only done one other mystery quilt and I enjoyed it.  You can check out Sheila's shop here and see for yourself.  Well worth a visit.

I'll catch you all later and thanks heaps for stopping by. 
Hugs and blessings to you all.
Clare

I'm linking to Cynthia's here for some more eye candy. 

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.

Finished Sajou Mini quilt

I have finished my first sewalong with Lori from Humble Quilts.  Here is a link for you to visit - Humble Quilts and I'm sure you will enjoy a visit to her blog.  Two of my friends have said I should make this bigger, but then it turns into a WIP and I'm not sure I want that.  Much nice to say it is finished.  Hoping to quilt it over the weekend to be properly finished of course.  What do you think?

Best of all, it has all come from my stash.  Making some inroads here (she says positively).  LOL.  Have a great weekend everybody.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I'm linking to Humble Quilts Here  as well.

Progress for 6and6in2018 and all that...

has happened in the last six weeks has halted some progress, but I'm quite pleased at what I did manage to achieve.  After the medical hassles mentioned last I managed to get a bladder infection and then react afterwards to the antibiotics.  Ho hum, it goes like that sometimes.  Now it's onward and upwards I reckon.

So I have managed to make some progress on Danielle's quilt which only needs the 5.5 inch and 3.5 inch HST's made.  Unfortunately, because I have changed the initial direction for the fabrics in this quilt I felt there was not enough variety to cut the last of these out.  It meant a trip to the LQS (sad), but it also meant I needed to go to the furthermost away one to get a good selection of batiks.  Oh well, my sister was here to stay for the week, so we had a wonderful day out.

There are lots of photos in this post to make up for lost time.  I hope you enjoy them.

 It hasn't grown much, but I did put the pale blue border on, and now have some idea of what I am going to do next in regards to colour.

This one is not long back from my friend Lorraine who is learning to do custom quilting, and doing a fabulous job.  I shall show you a better photo once it is all bound.  Very happy with how this quilt has come out and it all started with some tiny ends from some WOF's left over from my shop.  LOL.

A sneak peek also at the mystery quilt I did through My Carolina Home's quilt along and it was called Square Dance.  I will have two finished quilts to show you in the next blog.  Wow.

Aren't they beautiful. it was so hard to choose.  Hopefully I will get back to cutting these out next week.

This is the reason I haven't finished my HST's.  Been working on these three little quilts for a few weeks now.  A friend of my DIL gave us a lovely electric lazy boy chair that was almost new.  As she was expecting twin boys, I decided to make baby quilts plus one for the older sibling Noah who is 3 years old.
This one is all finished.

 This one has the binding sewn down on the front and tomorrow I will get it stitched down to the back.  I got these two quilts out of a 5 inch wide roll up plus some extras from stash.  Managed to make two different looking quilts even though the style and colours are very much the same.

This is Noah's one and it is slightly bigger, as it should be for the twins big brother.  This was a little collection that I had in my stash for some time and I added a few strips from another roll up.  Had to do some interesting piecing to get enough picture blocks...lol.

And to finish off these are the beautiful flowers my daughter and her family in Perth, Australia sent me for my birthday last week.  They have lasted extremely well and were certainly very beautiful.





As per usual, I shall try not to be so long in coming back, but for a few weeks there, I had nothing to report to you.

I hope your weather is good wherever you are.  We have had heaps of rain these past few days, which is most unusual for us and quite welcome really.  It will give our farmers a good start to spring and summer.
The garden is just starting to burst into life with my beautiful deep yellow freesias almost outdoing themselves in the gloomy weather.  I shall have some pictures for the next post.  Take care of yourselves and have a fabulous day.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

p.s.  I'm linking to Oh Scrap here  and 18 in 2018 at What A Hoot here You will enjoy a visit to both these blogs,

A scrap of this and a scrap of that...

Is all I have managed to get done since my last blog.  It has taken longer than I thought to get back my energy.  However, we are getting somewhere now. I have finally managed to sew the mystery top together and have chosen the frame and border fabric.

And now onto the large sized HST's for Danielle's quilt.  Got all the little ones finally finished - 350 of them.  Now only the medium and extra large ones left to do.  Hopefully these will go a lot faster being bigger and less of them.  Gosh I'm hoping to make some progress soon.


















That's me for today.  Hope you all have an awesome week.  Thanks for stopping in.  I am linking to Cynthia at Oh! Scrap and you can click here and enjoy some eye candy from lots of contributors.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare

A Winter rose...

What a lovely surprise to have Kerry bring in this lovely wee collection of flowers from my 25yr "Clair Matin"  rose.  It's the middle of winter and we have had some boomer frosts this past week.  Has been a real gift for me as I am just back from a weeks stay in hospital.

 Just a cold that decided to take a left turn instead of the exit!  All good now and the last 4 days were in our little local medical ward.  It's like being treated in the warmth of your own home, and the nurses and carers are so loving and helpful

We are so thankful to have this wonderful facility in our small town.
Today has been the most amazing winter's day - bright blue sky with not a cloud in sight all day.  Beautifully warm if you are tucked away from the winter breeze but suddenly very cold if you enter the shade.  It's one of those lovely things about winter.  Sort of giving us a reminder of the the lovely warms days of spring and summer to come and that our patch is just having a wee rest.  Hmmm, getting a bit poetic here!!  LOL.









On the patchwork front, it's all a bit of a shambles but there has been some progress of sorts...

This is my new BOM called Golden Days.  I have only just started by first block and block four just arrived yesterday, so the plan has gone to the pot quite quickly.  Oh well, it's not a race is it?  I do love the wonderful fabrics that come with this quilt.  Nice to have some new, modern fabric to play with. There are only 5 applique blocks and the rest are pieced - some with quite a challenge.

This has my knitting (son's next beanie), my challenge piece that might miss the deadline now and the next pile of HST's for Danielle's quilt.

The mystery has been revealed and I'm quite pleased with it.  Now need to choose a frame and border and then I'm going to donate it to a chap at church who is going through a cancer journey.


















So that is where I'm at right now.  Looking forward to seeing our granddaughter Marcy during these holidays coming up this month.
I trust you are all well and look forward to seeing you again soon.  Thank you for popping in.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

I'm linking to Oh Scrap here  and 18 in 2018 at What A Hoot here You will enjoy a visit to both these blogs,

Little Plant heads

Today I'm shamelessly promoting my DIL's YouTube channel and it does use scraps! LOL
Just slightly different scraps to our fabric ones.

A quick update on my scraps - the new direction I have taken on Danielle's quilt is progressing well.  Having such a lot of triangles already cut out has made a big difference.  Almost finished all the small sizes - 2"  and 25" and the larger ones will not take as long as there are fewer to make.  Now onto my DIL's scrap use.

I just love this series of videos my lovely DIL Kea has made, along with lots of help from Marcy her 3 yr old daughter.  They are made for the enjoyment of other little ones, and it would be great if any of you would like to subscribe to Kea's channel so that she can get her film name of Ficus and Cat on her link.  Need to have a 100 subscribers I believe.  It will be enjoyable I know.  )-:

Hugs,
Clare

I'm linking to Cynthia's at Oh Scrap here

Been busy ...

Trying to make some progress.  I see I forgot to put the photo of Travis in my last post...hmmm maybe I was worse than I thought...lol.  Here he is trying to fit into Kerry's slipper - such a daft cat.

Travis has an absolute fascination with shoes and we have to keep our good leather shoes out of his way.  He likes to sharpen his claws on them and he has already lost at least three of his lives in regards to my lovely (expensive) shoes.  Travis lives a very dangerous life indeed.



















I also made  big decision regarding Danielle's quilt.  I made (or tried to) another two blocks and no matter how hard I tried, these blocks would not behave.  It is one of the reasons I have put off finishing this particular quilt.  So these blocks below -

have now been unpicked and we have gone back to the drawing board.  I had an inkling I had seen a pattern in one of my scrap books that would suit all the HST's and triangles already cut out.

There were a lot of them, plus quite a bit of extra fabric available.  That's when I remembered my fabulous book by Amanda Jean Nyberg...

Yay, looked through this fabulous book and look what I found...

This gorgeous quilt uses HST's in five different sizes and I already have two sizes cut.  There are enough left over of the 2.5" ones to be able to cut them down for the smallest size.  I only need to cut the two middle sizes or could leave one out as I don't want to make the quilt too big.  Happy, happy, got 20 done yesterday!














Plus I have made a start on the medallion quilt using my new method of 15 minutes (or thereabouts) at a time.  I'm very happy with how this is starting to look.  My biggest problem is I fuss over colour choices, so that choosing time is not going to be included in the 15 minutes,  Hehehe it probably took me about 30 minutes at least to choose this one little frame,

The photo has come up very dark, but it's not quite as dark as this and the outside blue has little gold dots on it.  All from my scraps - yippee.




















To finish off, I found my collection of thimbles.  These were put away when we moved almost four years ago.  The biggest problem has been "where do I put them."  Guess what my Mothers Day gift is from my DH?  He is making me a cracker little shelf set specifically for them.  I'll keep you posted.

I think there are about 90 something in that container!!  Maybe I have a bit of a problem.  LOL














That's my lot for now.  Thanks for stopping by and I will talk with you again soon.  Have a great time in your sewing rooms.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare
who is linking up with Oh Scrap here - check out Cynthia's blog. Great scrap quilts and more.

Oh no! Look what I found!!! (lots photos)

It's been a little bit cooler over the last week, which has been a welcome relief.  Today felt positively cold this morning, but it soon warmed up by the afternoon.

 The other day, DH decided it was time to sort through all of the "stuff" that had literally been shoved into the conservatory at the back of our house and forgotten.  Unfortunately for me, there was a large rolling bin full of ..... you guessed it!!
UFO's.  More blooming UFOs is just what I needed.  Well, like a hole in the head, I should say.

So I sat down and emptied it out and had a bit of a stroll down memory lane.  This Angel project goes back to 2003!!  That's only... let's see....ummm 15 years.  Not bad when you say it really, really fast?  Oh dear, it only needs the border done and it would be together,  On the list it goes.

Then there are these two pieces of unfinished work.  They originate from a class I held in my shop back in ????? for the most lovely bag.  You fused the background and then cut out the flowers or a vase and put soft bridal netting over then.  Then you stitched it all down however you liked.  Made a fabulous looking bag, but maybe not until it's finished?  LOL.

























This vase full of flowers was lovely to put together.  Oh dear, this will definitely have to be finished.  Now how long do I have to live???

This is the pattern and you can see how beautiful it is supposed to look as a "finished" product.

Oh well, on with the parade.,.,,.

I found these most beautiful embroideries in a garage sale.  The lady who had stitched them had passed away and they had ended up in a church garage sale being sold for an infinitesimal amount. I love them and will do something with them soon.  Maybe set them on to a background and make a wall hanging with them.

This is the second half of a bargello quilt that I started making at a class with Malcolm Angus. The challenge was to use a colour not normally in your stash, so my friend Colleen and I swapped favourite colours.  I got purple and she got green, and it was very challenging.  Well it has to go on the list too, doesn't it?

My sample piece (wrinkled) of learning to hand quilt using the Luixin Newman method.  I only have some detail around the edges to finish and it could become a cushion.  Undecided on this one as I used a not very good quality quilters muslin, but it is one of my few hand quilted pieces,  I love hand quilting, but my hands don't!!

The left over makings of a sample from a Janome class in our shop.  It was used to learn lots of techniques like couching, decorative stitches, ribbon work, etc.  This lot will be donated to my friend who makes the Fidget Cushions for Alzheimer patients.

And then there was this magazine from 1997!  I thought why on earth did I keep this.  It's either the Sashiko stitching or the quilting patterns, but it's too long ago to remember, lol.

And finally, I found this Thimbleberries  Pun'kin Boy panel that was given to me by a friend for my birthday, probably about the same year as the magazine!!  I think they have even done a reprint of these I recall seeing somewhere.  Does it count if you have an original.  Not sure what on earth I will do with it?








Well, I hope you have enjoyed this walk down memory lane with me.  I am upset that I now have another six or so extra UFOs to get finished, but I do still like most of these, so I guess that's not so bad.



I hope you have all had a great week or so stitching and quilting.

I'm off to get organised for bed I think.  Shall try and make the next post a little shorter.  Take care.

Hugs and blessings
Clare