The Scraps of March...

Hello everyone, it is once more, nearly the end of another  month - this time also the end of the first quarter of our year.  Hmm, fast is not even a really good word for it.

Well the Wine Country Quilt Exhibition has come and gone and guess what?  I forgot to take any photos!!  Not one!!  None, zero, zilch... now how slack is that.  I do have a reasonable excuse - we were so busy on the Janome stand that I never had time.  I managed a couple of quick looks, but never remembered to take my phone with me to take some photos.  So this is the website and you can go have a look at the winning quilts here and see what good quilters there are in the East Coast of the North Island. There were over 160 quilts on show which is outstanding.

Suffice to say I was a bit knackered after that so have been somewhat slow in my sewing achievements.  The 365 Challenge is still lounging around in February, but I did manage to do four on Saturday, plus have cut out quite a few.  Hoping to make a determined effort to catch up over the next couple of weeks!!

I do love the look of the Ohio Stars, the bottom right one has a four patch in the middle of it, but my two fabric blend a little too much.  Never to worry, not doing it again, that's for sure.

This is the Stitchery Block of the Month that I started way back in 2008 (ahem).  The Stitchery blocks are almost finished, and not by my own efforts.  My friend Lynn loves doing stitchery and has done all but 6 of the 24 blocks.  I spent an afternoon before Easter and cut out all the pieced blocks in preparation for my grand stitching session.  Hmmm, wonder when that's going to happen?

These are the slightly better photos of the small quilt that I entered in the quilt show.  It is one of my first efforts and doing a whole cloth, and had great fun.  The pearl seed beads that you can just see on the ends of the leaf veins are my grandmothers, and I think they could be between 80 - 100 years old.  I never met my Grandma Ruby, and but am most grateful for her legacy of creativity.

This is some fabric I found (through my friend Catherine) at the quilt exhibition.  I'm going to make a bag for my best friend who has a yellow scoot!!  Perfect!

These are some 4.5 inch blocks I  made for the Rainbow Scrap for March.  The colour was purple with a yellow accent - my yellow is rather bigger than an accent, but I like it anyway.  For some reason I am into 4 patches and will most likely make another half dozen or so, then I have pulled out some cream that I will put between for a plain block and make it up into a small quilt for a friend's niece who takes in unwanted babies in India.  She now has over 30 children and all want a quilt of their own.  Happy to help out.



That's most all that I have to report at this point.  We have  made great progress in the house and the painting is slowly getting done.Only the bathroom shower and the tiling in the kitchen is left to do.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break, and that you were able to reflect on the reason we have this holiday time.  To celebrate the risen Christ who died the death we deserved to redeem us.  May you all be blessed this coming month of April and enjoy your family.

My dear husband Kerry had a small turn in church yesterday.  He was carted off in the ambulance to be checked over and praise God, he is absolutely fine.  A bit dehydrated and the Dr kindly told him he had suffered from "older person stuffy church syndrome" (if only you could hear me laughing here).  It's a fact, they had had several cases that morning and it happens on a regular basis on hot days and not enough air circulation.
However, it has made both of us realise how quickly life can be changed.  One minute Kerry was standing beside me singing, then he sat down and in 30 seconds was totally out for the count.  I am very appreciative of having him beside me still.  Go give your "dear old stick" a kiss and be thankful too.

Hugs and blessings to you all and thanks so much for stopping by.

Clare

I'm linking to Cynthia's blog here and Rainbow Scrappy here
Also Confessions of a Scrap Addict here

Wine Country Quilt Exhibition and more scraps...

It's almost upon us, our 5th biennial exhibition Wine Country Quilts up at Pukeora Estate that showcases the wonderful skills and creativity of quilters from the east coast of the lower North Island.from Gisborne down to the Wairarapa.  I know that there are going to be almost 200 quilts for you to look at, so do make sure you come if you have the chance.  It's open Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so lots of opportunity to get here.  The website is here and will give you all you need to  know.  I will be up there working on the Janome stand over the weekend.

Having recovered from my cold, I have tried to keep up with the 365 challenge but have not made much of an impact as yet. I have been trying to at least cut out the fabric for each block, but am still a little behind.  I did make one block yesterday, but here is my pathetic February tally.  Oh well, catch up will happen some time. Lovely little plastic bags with their appropriate dates written on them look very impressive, but they are not much until sewn up.

Then I was a very good girl and made this quilt my Tuesday project, and now it is almost a quilt top.  It is for my daughter Rebecca, and I just need to put the black frame and outside border on..  Quilting will hopefully happen sooner rather than later.

I am very happy with the way it has come out, plus it is a stash reduction project, as this has been waiting for quite some time to become a quilt. Now what to work on next?  So many choices of things that need finishing, but I am fighting the urge to start something new and different.  Smack the hand and get back to moving these older projects out. Maybe a little something new, but using stash could satisfy the urge do you think?
Actually the most worrying thing about this quilt exhibition at the weekend is there will be quite a few  merchants that will have the most tempting morsels of fabric.  Oh dear, got to work on my will power.

Look what I've got now.  A real bathroom (well almost) as it doesn't have the washing machine beside the loo, and a real laundry room.  Whoop de doo.  I am ecstatic and can't believe how big both these rooms are.  Kerry has make a neat unit with the old set of drawers from the kitchen sink unit and now we have storage all over the place and somewhere to put the baskets and all sorts of other general stuff!!!!

In the bathroom we are going to install a wet floor shower, but that is last on the list, although the list is getting much, much smaller.  Kitchen is now in use and has only the tiles to go.  I am loving it and Kerry has done a wonderful job.  Wow, how awesome it is to use the dishwasher after looking at it for about 8 months.







And lastly, here is a shot of one of my entries in the show.  I forgot to take one of it once finished and bound, so will do that when I get it back.  Will tell you the story then too.

That's it for now, hope you are having a great week, and hopefully I will see some of you up at the exhibition.  I hope you continue to enjoy your creative journey with great enthusiasm and receive wonderful satisfaction from seeing something come to life in your hands.  Enjoy your family and take time to smell the flowers too. If you have no flowers, fresh air is just as good, as it is a blessing to have fresh air in some parts of the world.

Thanks for stopping by.
Blessings
Clare
linking to Oh Scrap  here
rainbow scrappy here and
Confessions of a Scrap Addict here

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

Scrapping away in the heat...

to get all my wee scrap blocks finished for the 365 Challenge.  I have 1 to go for the week that finished on Friday, then I  need to make up Saturday and Sunday's blocks. I am most pleased with myself as so far I have managed to hang in there and it is so good using up some of my scraps.  Am trying to keep to the dark look for this border, but balancing the colours between blue, brown, green and red.

The brown fabric has light lines over it and it looks like it has loose threads all over it.  We have branched out into doing triangles now which is interesting.  I have had a big play around with my sewing machine to make sure I am sewing a "scant" quarter inch seam with these. I hate reverse stitching too. However, if it is too scant, then the block is too big and it is not always good trimming back as you can lose seam allowances on pointy corners (you know what I mean?)

Then, just to make myself really challenged, here is my first blocks in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2016.  January's colour was Blue with a purple accent. These blocks will be the start of a quilt I would like to make for a good friend of mine who loves purple.  I used a block out of Judy Hopkins "501 Rotary Cut Blocks," a book I haven't used for ages.  When I did the cutting I failed to notice that I was cutting out for two blocks until I wondered why I had so many quarter square units!!  Ha!  So, figured I would make them up differently if I had to make two and see how they looked.  Both are quite nice I think. On top of that, I had a little issue with my quarter square triangles!  It is a loooong time since I have made these and this was why I had to figure out my scant quarter inch seam.  It is a different scant to the little 3 inch blocks...go figure...as they say.







While I was industriously making all these blocks, I finally organised myself to try doing the "Leaders and Enders" thingy that Bonnie Hunter teaches. Have owned one of her books for a while, but having never actually got myself sorted the time had come.  Now I am hooked.  I have this grand little system all set up, because I also found this really neat wee tutorial on how to trim your Half Square Trianges quickly and... "Bob's your Auntie"...all these gorgeous little HST's have been stitched, trimmed and ironed.! Look at this girls, it's just so impressive, and...I have the next project all lined up to come out of the cupboard and get stitched up! Did I tell you I was determined to be disciplined this year and get some stuff done and moved out of my cupboards into somebody else's cupboard, bed or anywhere?

The stitching station...the container has ended up in the rubbish bin a couple of times and they have had to be dethreaded from this adventure.

The trimming station.  Love that you don't have to press it out first then fiddle around with the diagonal line and all that hassle.

This is the extra little step I figured out.  To cut those pesky corners off quickly, line your ruler up square to the bottom left corner of the size HST you are making and trim.  This gives you the correct angle of the cut.  (Ask me how I figured this out?)  LOL.

Did I mentioned these are only 1.5inch HST's.  This is the tail end of my madness.

Last step at the ironing board.  Each time I go to press something when making the other blocks, I iron at least 4 of these little suckers.  Sometimes I get carried away and iron 8 of them!!  Hehe

End of production story.  Hmmm, I wonder why they say that we patchworkers have an incurable disease?

Final photo.  Dragged these out of the cupboard.  Might incorporate them with the blue blocks.  Started these way back when I first got involved with blogs and the lady got sidetracked away from doing these each month.  A good start though for something?








Well, I have come to the end of this chat.  You probably need to go somewhere by now as I think it has taken ages to get down this far.  Thanks a heap for sticking in there with me.  It has been soooo hot here these past few days.  We are swelting under 36C, which is quite a lot hotter that normal for us. For those of you in Fahrenheit, it is just touching 98F. My question is this, if I am melting away in the heat, how come I don't look any skinnier.  Darn,  I have to try something else maybe, like not eating ice cream on hot days do you think?

That's it, the last words are here.  I am linking to Oh Scrap here
and Rainbow Scrappy Challenge 2016 here
So Scrappy here

Hugs to you all,
Clare

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

Last of the Year's Quilts - lots of photos

Hello again, I'm just squeaking in with a last post for 2015.  Oh my, isnt it a bit of a worry how fast these years seem to be going.  Never mind, we all suffer from the same complaint so it makes me feel a little better.  I hope you have all had a wonderful time with your families as we have done. My last week before Christmas went in a blur, but I did managed to achieve a few things.

I quilted, buttoned and stuffed (with inners) to get daughter Rebecca's cushions all finished and ready to take up with us.  I am most pleased with the way they have come out - three different sizes that grade up pleasantly - all completely unplanned, hehe.

I did really enjoy designing the layout of these to have a more modern look to them and hope to play with the modern look in this coming year.

Also managed to finished this lovely floral square in a square quilt of Jean's. I used a free motion pattern that I enjoy using and am pleased with the results.  I used a lovely Magnifico thread.

It's always a pleasure quilting Jeans quilts as she makes such a good job of making them.  I never have any issues.  This meant I was able to have enough time to pop her other quilt on and get in finished before Christmas as a surprise for Jean.





















Isn't this childs quilt so pretty.  Jean put lovely soft pink minky on the back, which quilted up extremely easily with no complications.  I used another gorgeous Magnifico pink on this one too and put cotton batting in it.  What a super soft and cuddly quilt this one is.

I used a freehand combination of hearts and flowers for this one, connecting them with small loops.  I am so enjoying learning to do all over patterns like this and have to admit that I have not done a pantograph for quite some months.  Mind you, most of my quilting at the moment is custom.

This next quilt is my  friend Felicity's, and she informed me that it was made some 30 odd years ago when she was just beginning her patchwork journey.  Some of the fabrics have wonderful memories for her of her mother, aunt and her own dresses that were made for her.  It took me a long time to decide on an appropriate design for this one and am extremely happy with the result.  I hope you agree.

 Felicity thought this was called Jack's Chain, and was going to have a hunt to see if the pattern was still around.  We quilters do like to hang onto things, dont we?

The blue backing gave the whole quilt a really nice lift and quilted up nicely.

The photo bottom left shows how the quilt looked before quilting.  I am always amazed at how quilting completely changes the look of a quilt top even after all these years.

Thanks Felicity...I have loved quilting this for you, and delighted in each nine patch and it's different colours as I quilted along.  May you get lots of joy out it now.

And for the last finish for the year, I was so thrilled to get another grandson's quilt finished.  That's quilt an achievement this year for me, as it has been a year full of ill health and set backs.  Thankfully, we can put some of that behind us now and get on with our quilting.  What about this fun quilt?

 It was made from a bundle of Cat In the Hat fabrics that I had purchased about 3 years ago, (yay, used some stash) and there were only 8 fat quarters, but with some sashing we managed to make a good sized single bed quilt.  I did have to go buy a little bit of sashing as there was no green that was "just right" in my stash.

I quilted it in a quirky fun fashion, after getting the idea from a blog I follow called Tamarack Shack.  I did oddball shapes and did the vertical sashing in a different pattern to the horizontal.  Such fun was had by all, nope - by the quilter!!

The backing is a gorgeous fun dinosaur fabric I picked up on sale at Spotlight (like Joanne's) and it was perfect.  There was just enough left over to make a cute little summer dress for my granddaughter.

The quilt was given to my grandson Hamish when we went up to Te Awamutu at Christmas time.  I bought the book to go with the quilt.  This was actually a birthday gift, not Christmas, but who cares?

I am just stoked that I got another quilt finished out of my own pile on top of finishing three customer quilts. The next grandchild's quilt is for my older grandson Brad.  I have started cutting it out and am doing this one "quilt as you go."  Not sure how this is going to work out but I love the pattern so we will see what happens.

Last photo is my tidying up efforts in the last couple of days before Christmas.  This is only a portion of my stash of threads...I just love threads!!!

They look so neat and tidy.  Hope it lasts. Well I hope you will all have had a fabulous Christmas with your family and friends.  We did and I will talk about that next year.

I would like to wish you all a Happy and Joyous New Year.  May you be blessed in more ways than you can ever imagine and may you experience God's love for you in abundance.

Blessings to all and thanks for hanging in there with my erratic posting.

Clare
I am linking with Sarah at confessionsofafabricaddict.blogspot.com

Check it out for some more delicious eye candy.