Animals, tulips and a few blocks...

I have been busy since we last chatted, with quilting two customer quilts and finally getting to do some piecing.  My resolve to get some projects finished is finally getting a bit of a shove.

First off, here is Rae's beautiful quilt of tulips.

 I used So Fine 410 Charcoal, and it went beautifully over all the colours,  with bottom line black in the bobbin.

I love the texture this swirl pattern gives to a quilt, without taking away from the fabrics.  Rae's beautiful quilt was being gifted to a close friend for his birthday.  Such a lovely gift.  Still need to practice more on my spacing though.
Then it was on to Janice's baby quilt.  This gorgeous wee baby animal quilt was lots of fun to do.

The thread was King Tut 941 with Bottom Line Sage Green in the bobbin.  Looked really great with these colours.

 I took the designs for the alternate blocks from the wee sashing that is around the animals and kept it really simple.  Definitely had a great time.

 Gorgeous backing fabric that Janice used, which gives the quilt two sides.  Thanks Janice for such fun.

Then I got a little bit of me time.  Managed to finish some more Farmers Wife blocks - this is number 8

Number 9 now completed.

And lastly today I managed to complete No. 82.  Yes, a big jump in numbers, but one of our FW group is roaring ahead as the quilt will be for her bed.  This block gave her some problems so I had a go at nutting it out.  Phew!!  It took some doing, but at last a few pennies went clunk and the block was sorted.  I now have 11 blocks finished...you know what that means dont you?  There are only 100 left to go!!!!

Last night I managed to complete some more of my Blue  Scrap Quilt blocks.  These are the accent blocks with the inner red circle.  Just loving the contrast from the red.  Only 7 more blocks to go and I will be able to start assembling the rows.  Yippee!  It almost feels like I am making progress here.

So there you have it.  My list remains to same, but at least there has been stuff happening.  Now that things are settling a little in the housing department...like sleeping in our own bed, I can pop into the shop and do some stitching.  Sort of like my own personal studio/shop all wrapped up in one.  We wont look at the pile of stuff in the corner of my lounge/kitchen/longarm/ everything room!!!

Hope you are all having a great week too.  Have to go to a funeral tomorrow.  My close friend lost her husband to cancer on Friday.  It is so awful when these things happen.  Thank heavens for faith in a better life after this one.

Take care and blessings,
Clare

We have a Winner and the Chicky Bag...

Thank you to those who entered the giveaway.  I appreciate you coming to visit and journey with me via this blog.  The winner of those delicious fat quarters is.... Number 3 (drawn from the hat by my dh Kerry) and is "tawa" who has been notified.  Tawa has some precious linen given to her by her grandmother...it was embroidered by an Aunt who was traumatised by the Napier earthquake.  Thank you for sharing Tawa.

There is an interesting connection here, as my favourite (and only piece) of linen from my paternal grandmother was stitched while living in Hawkes Bay.  My father was in the Napier earthquake also and was at school at Napier Boys High.  We always remember Dad telling us that he and the other boys only survived because the timing of the quake was during interval and they were all playing outside in the yard.  Their schoolroom collapsed in on itself.

On patchwork things...I have spent a wonderful weekend stitching in a class run through Delbrook Quilt company and the tutor was Dianne Fussell.  We had a lovely time and were certainly looked after extremely well.  Light, airy and delicious cake and a superb bacon and egg pie with salad among other tasties.  Christine made the cake and Liz the pie and Pat kept us well plied with drinks (no not that kind) and serving us both days..thanks girls.  Met some lovely fellow stitchers too.

Here are some pics of what I am supposed to be turning into a fabulous bag.  Lots of work with your machine which helps to get know all those stitches that usually we just stare at!!

 This is the front and back, but there are top and bottom borders to go onto the ladies panel yet.

 We played with our free motion on zigzag to get the gorgeous looking hair.  I am also quite proud of the satin stitch going around the blue scarf...managed to go right down to 1.3 width.  There is hope!!

Oops the stars a falling off the hat band.  Might have to stitch those again.

Of course you realise that this has added another project to the list of "to be completed" items.  Oh dear, there is not much hope is there.

Well, a little bit tired after two days of stitching so I'm off to have dinner at sister in laws as we are not quite ready to be back here.  We have slept here the last two days and I have to say it is heaven to be back in our own bed (sigh) there is nothing like it, is there?

Tyson has got the right idea, so I shall leave you with him and say thanks for calling and hope to see you again soon.

Blessings
Clare

I'm linking with Sew Crafty

100th Post!! Free Giveaway to Celebrate!!

Hello everyone, at last we have finally got to the 100th post after much puddling around these last few weeks.  Make sure you read to the end for details of the giveaway.

We are still not in our own home yet, so life is somewhat in a muddle and it is very hard to settle.  We are staying with Kerry's sister still and tonight I have come back to the house/shop as Colleen does not have an internet connection.

Last week I had great fun quilting this gorgeous vintage linen quilt for my friend Therese.  She has made for her best friend's birthday...what a special gift it is.

I used my favourite thread - So Fine 402 which just blended in with everything.

The centre out to the blue is one complete tablecloth.  Therese has added all the rest.  In the centre there was only the embroidered flowers.  Doesn't it look so different?

So many different elements made it really fun to quilt.

The fans in the corner started out as one cloth but cut up into four super corners.

The centre ice cream looking shape is a doily folded into quarters.  Looked great.

One of my favourites, I just love the way this one came up with just simple pebbles.

The back view, which gives another textured look to the whole quilt...one of the lovely things about light coloured backing fabric.

Well there you are.  Enough photos for this post.  Now onto the real business...

As it is my 100th post and to thank you all for hanging in there with me and my erratic posts lately

, I am giving away this gorgeous bundle of fat quarters.  Please leave me a comment on a favourite piece of linen from your family.  I am in the throes of figuring out how to download the random number generator to draw the winner.

Thanks for reading and take care.

Blessings
Clare

The Quilts to be Completed Clare list is growing...eeek!

Remember my brave talk about my list of Quilts to be Completed Clare (QCC) and Quilts to be Quilted Clare (QQC) ?  Well they jolly well keep growing!  Must be the manure or something around here. The QCC list is now up to 48, and the QQC list is 38...a grand total of 86 projects.  Oh for goodness sake, that sounds so ridiculous.
So action stations it is.  This list MUST be reduced.  So far I have managed a couple of small steps, which is how I am hoping to attack this task. First of all I have finished one section of the scrap blocks for grandson Caleb's new quilt and have cut out the extra red squares for the next section.

This quilt is the one I am doing as part of the Paper Bag Challenge at Otane Patchwork.  We have our last hand over of blocks on 9th February and then we have a sewing day of our own blocks in March.  My goal is to have all the extra blocks ready for the March date and then I am into assemblng this quilt.
These are the last two sets that I finished stitching today ready for the hand over day.

 

Burgunday and cream is quite delicicous and any scrappy blocks will always capture me...(love those scraps)...

At least these blocks are now finished and havent been lost in the rearranging.  I cannot find my basket full of templates that I need to carry on with my Farmers Wife blocks...hmm.

And here is a shot of my lovely petunias that have begun to flower beautifully out on our verandah.  They are a delectable shade of cerise and such good value as petunias flower for such a long time.

My last offering is a shot of Mr Moore gazing at the wall that is about to be rearranged.  Behind him is where our  new bedroom is going to be, in front of him will be the wall dividing the new laundry (currently the small shop kitchen) and new larger bathroom.  The electricians were in today and did a great job of putting in the new RCD switchboard and rearranging some of the lighting.  Very efficient, which is great for the bill!

 

So there you have it friends.  Life in the Moore household is full of adventure right now.  Who nows where we might be sleeping on Saturday night.  It wont be where we are now that is for sure!  Off to grab a little more sleep, so will catch up with you again soon.

Oooh, by the way, this is my 99th post!  So to celebrate my next post which of course will be my 100th, I am going to have a giveway for you all.  Keep checking in, I will try and be back within the week.

Thanks for dropping by and talk to you again soon.

Blessings
Clare

Back to Quilting and other snippets

It is two weeks since I posted last, which is really awful since I spoke of being better at posting regularly.  Hmmm, this reorganising our living places is quite time consuming.  My office has been "deconstructed" as I like to call it...taken apart and is now in separate pieces!  Archived all the old Quilt Works shop documents that we are forced to hang onto for seven years, and binned all sorts of other stuff that you tend to just hang on to. There were five ring binders full of patterns that had been collected over the past years plus those that had been used in the shop for classes and kits.  Now I am down to two!!! How awesome is that?  It was hard and I had to force myself to be ruthless, but I did it. (Dont gasp, I did pass them on, not throw them out LOL)

The hardest thing was when Kerry and daughter Shala came to shift my very long Rimu Cabinet.  It is around 3m (10ft) long and has two sets of sliding doors on the front.  It is like an Aladdin's Cave storage hanger and I love it!  It stores my unquilted quilts and ufos.  As I had to remove them to lighten up the cabinet, it seemed the right time to make those lists I talked about in my last post.  (Clearing her throat nervously)  she announces that there are 43 quilts to be finished, and 38 quilts to be quilted!  Oh dear, that does add up to quite a large number...81 in fact.  However, some of those things  listed are not yet started, or a collection of fabric set aside for a particular project and many were shop samples not quite finished.  Sounds good doesnt it.  I am determined to work my way through them one at a time and hopefully some will walk out the door this year.

We also dived down to Wellington last weekend so that Kerry could get to meet his new granddauighter Marcy.  It was lovely to see how much she had grown in just a week.

What a lovely new family. Marcy is a very good baby and is back to her birth weight already.

I managed to finish two quilts last week as well.  This beautiful red quilt with Kaffe Fasset flowers in the middle and the outer border belongs to Gale.

I used Superior Magnifico all through and loved how this red thread changed happily to each background colour, especially in the centre flowers.

I thread painted in these large flowers.  Ditch quilted between all borders.  Spirals in two of the borders and vertical and horizontal lines in another. Simple piano keys in the outer border for texture so that these gorgeous blooms stood out.

Thanks Gale, I really loved quilting your quilt.
Then it was onto this lovely bright stained glass quilt made by Elaine.  The fabrics are all batik.

Once again I used a Superior's Magnifico Blue 2159.  It blended extremely well and is quite hard to see in places.

The pattern was "Dazzle" and looked great with this quilt. I thoroughly enjoyed quilting your quilt Elaine.
On Monday I decided to spend the time installing my new "Red Snappers" system for loading quilts much more quickly.  After carefully pinning the three leaders, we actually lifted two of the rails off and I stitched them on my domestic  machine while Kerry held them steady.  Worked a dream after getting back twinges when the first one with the longarm.

This is loading my friend Rae's quilt as my first tryout with them.  Definitely much quicker than pinning and a breeze if you need to adjust something.

Okay, off to bed now and will come back soon.  Our move is planned for the 31st January...not that long for packing but it will happen.  We do have less stuff now.

Take care,
Blessings

Clare

Introducing our newest Grandie...

Marceline Joan Moore has arrived!!  Kea and Richard welcomed their beautiful little daughter into the world on Monday 6th January 2015.  Naturally, she is the most beautiful baby girl in the whole world.  The most amazing thing is that Marcy arrived on her due date.  How great is that.  I remember Kea telling me about the statistics for that to happen and they are well under 10% of all babies that arrive when they are supposed to.

Isn't she just gorgeous!  I will admit to being totally biased of course (vbg).
Kea is hoping to come home today and I am going to head down to Wellington to be on hand for helping duties until Kea's Mum arrives on Saturday.  How blessed am I to be able to get to see little Marcy so soon.
My gosh, all other news seems quite staid now.

In the bid to get on top of the UFO pile, I thinking of adopting the same process that Lyn uses at "What a Hoot" blog - here is the link to A Way to Reduce WIPs .  Lyn has managed to finish a large number of her projects and this could be a good way for me to achieve the same.  It really has been one of the worst things about having to condense my studio - I have seen all that is unfinished!  Now I am really keen to change that.  Last year's little list didn't do so well, so maybe this system would work better.  No harm in trying is there.
The thought is there anyway, but my list will not be started until at least next week, so not even going to try and call it a New Year's Resolution.  I think I will try calling it my .... "Come on Clare, Complete It" project.
Doesn't that sound so impressive?
Here is a pic of one to complete that only needs the outside border and then it can move into the other list... "Come on Clare, Quilt It."  He he he.  Darn, it need two lists.

This is my "Pretties" scrap quilt and I only need the outer border put on and it can change lists.
Of to get organised for my trip now.

Catch you again soon.  Take care and drive safely.

Blessings
Clare

2015 is underway....

New Year Greetings to you all.  We have had a really excellent break and while we have been back for about a week, we have been concentrating on the alterations that are going to be done on our shop building.  The plan is to turn it into our home...we will have a two bedroomed home in 2/3rds of the building and at the eastern end it will become our (smaller) shop premises.  My longarm will have to stay in what will be our lounge for a couple of months while we get everything rearranged.

Enough about that though, first off some of wht we did at Christmas with family.  We had to sneak away from Tyson - first of all he thought he could masquerade as a Christmas present, then in a last desperate attempt he said if you want your bag - you will have to take me with it!!!!  Daft cat!

We spent our first night with son Daryll and his partner Dayn.  Hamish is their 19mth old rascal. They live on a farm that is about 35 minutes out of Te Awamutu.  Lovely and quiet and great scenery.  We were lucky enough in the morning to see and hear this Kereru (Native Wood Pigeon). I hope you can see it ok.

 He had a great time putting these bottles in the box then taking them out again while Dad learnt how to cook on his brand new barbeque.

He is such a cutie and extremely good at climbing.  However, all kids eventually run out of steam and it seemed that Grandad had the magic touch on Christmas Eve.

In the morning we took Dayn and Hamish with us into Te Awamutu to Rebecca and Dave's  new house for Christmas dinner.  Daryll had to work unfortunately and would join us for the evening meal.  Wehad a lovely meal with three of our children's families, son in law Dave's parents and lots of great food to eat too much of.
This is our oldest granddaughter Jessica and youngest Hayley.  Jess came in the afternoon and was opening her presents which was of great interest to Hayley.

That's a very quick rundown of our Christmas.  I forgot to take photos of Rebecca and Dave's new house.  It really is lovely.  I will get her to send me some.  Oh, this was a gift from Rebecca and we have planted it already...love hydreanga's.

Have been watering it madly as we have had lots of days in the high 20's to 30 degrees.  OK, I will finish here and get back to you again very soon.  I have decided it is time to get back to being regular with my posts again.

Look forward to seeing you again soon.

Blessings
Clare