Progress is happening...

At last, I have finished my 40 blocks for Bradley's quilt.  Had them all laid out on the lounge floor last night and forgot to take a photo.  But here they are all stacked up in their rows waiting for me to sew them together.  Really pleased to be at this stage.

They are extremely colourful, and I do hope he likes them.  Hopefully the next photo you see will be the completed quilt.  I am definitely over it, lol.
For a wee break, this afternoon I got back to this wall hanging which is no. 3 on my #17ufosin2017 list. Thought I should do something on it.  Happy to be back on it and getting that dratted applique stitched down.

I am happy with the way it is coming along and it should look good when finally finished.
Wow, not doing too bad for January.

Catch you later and thanks for popping in.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare

Almost there...

I have been making a huge effort to get all the blocks finished with Bradley's string quilt...there are only 4 more to go. Just as well as my bin is getting very empty, especially with the longer strips for the middle.
It is just too hot to be outside at the moment, so apart from watering (every 2nd day, hand held hose only) I stay inside.  Means I can stitch for more hours than usual. Tomorrow I have to quilt a small top for my friend, so wont get them finished until Thursday.

Tyson was checking things out though.  You can see how dry our grass is.  No need to mow, except for the edges of the garden where we water.
The snapdragons (antirrhinums ) have really come on and are flowering beautifully.  They were tiny little self-seeded plants from my sister in laws.  All different colours too.






Thanks for popping in again.  See you again soon.

Hugs and blessings
Clare

Linking to Cynthia Brunz @  Oh Scrap   Take a look, you will love her quilts.

Happy New Year, may the scraps be with you!

Oh my gosh, it has been so long since I posted you probably have all given up on me.  My computer doesn't work very well these days and I need to figure out how to post on my phone.
The year finished with a wee flurry and I managed to get three Christmas ufos finished up.  Am so pleased with that.  My Christmas bunting never got finished in time however, so that is now my first finished ufo for 2017.  LOL.
Have joined in with #17ufosin2017 and I've made a list of those 17 projects I want to either finish or make good progress on.  Already started on grandson's quilt with another 8  blocks finished and dragged out my Agapanthus wall hanging which is supposed to be January's project. (no. 3 on the list was drawn out).

Here's a couple of photos.  The first is a 3 zipped pocket bag I made my sister for her birthday.  Used a combination of stash and bought specially fabric.  Joyce loves cats so couldn't resist the gorgeous purple cat fabric.

This Christmas wall hanging is one of the ufos I managed to finish.  Am so pleased with how it has come out I don't want to take it down...hehehe.

So there we go.  Small catch up and will try and stick to small posts in future.  Thanks for coming back.

Hugs and blessings to you all
Clare
Linking to Cynthia Brunz @  Oh Scrap   Take a look, you will love her quilts.

Grandies, a Birthday, and my Garden - lots of photos

These three have all featured greatly in the past few weeks.  Last weekend we traveled up to Te Awamutu - a  journey of five hours which takes us all day basically by the time we stop for lunch and anything else that takes our fancy.  On top of this is making sure I have enough oxygen to last while away from the plugged in machine takes some doing. Our granddaughter Jessica turns 21 on November 15th and we arranged with her to have a quiet family dinner with her instead of attending the party Jessica was arranging with her young friends.  We had a lovely time and caught up with three of our kids and 8 of our grand-kids.  Awesome!

Said granddaughter loves playing around with fun photos as you can see.  Lol.

We ended up with a good sized crowd by the time we added boyfriend and a girlfriend into the mix.  Nice.

A c ouple of slighly more normal photos.  My eldest son's partner Dayn and I had a lovely catch up.

Friday morning we went to Patarangi School to attend Grandparents Day.  We were entertained (between rain showers) by each class room, then off we went to our own grandchild's class room where we were served morning tea.  It was a lovely time.  My granddaughter Hayley is 4th from the left.

Two of my younger grandies....Olivia and her brother Albert.  Such gorgeous kids and cheeky too.  Great to be able to catch up with them again.  Granddad's ear muffs were great fun.

Just so you can see I have been doing a little patchwork.  Have made a start on quilting this one, and have half the blocks done with the string quilt for grandson.






Wouldn't be right without a cat photo.  Travis was just hanging around trying to rest and would I please leave him alone?

My loo had a trip out to the front lawn on Wednesday while the vinyl layer came.  Yippee great progress as we now have the wet floor in and the whole floor finished.  Shower is ready to be hitched up to water.  Only problem was the wet wall did not show up on time.  After a little detective work at the store, found it had not actually been ordered until the day before.  Lots of scrambling around and hopefully it will arrive today.
This is the last big push on the renovation and my dear husband will be so happy to get finished.  We have a little bit of painting to finish but everything else is done!!!  Wow, he has done an amazing job.

My two new irises have flowered and are so beautiful.  May not get a flower of the 3rd one this season so will have to wait for that.

Phew!! That's the end of this catch up.  Thank you for dropping by.

Blessings to you all,

Clare

Pretty in Pink Baby Quilt

Finally arrived back to say hi.  Have not been doing a lot of stuff, but did manage to make two baby quilts to give away.  Loved doing something small and pretty.  Used up scraps with both of them, although confess to having bought a couple of pink fat quarters for one, plus a pink binding fabric.  My stash does not contain a lot in the way of pink.  Anyway, forgot to take photos of the first one, so here are the photos of the second one.

Love the little pops of yellow.  The backing fabric I found in my stash too, so that was an extra bonus.  Gives two sides to this quilt.  Loved the wavy stitch on my new Janome 9400.  It looks great the way it stands out on the white squares and adds a little texture.

Now it's back to grandson's quilt as you go blocks.  I am now up to 17 done, 23 to go.  Jessica's is finished but not quilted...will give you pics when finished completely.

Short post as just get too tired these days.
Have a great week and will catch you again some time.  Thanks for coming back to see me.

Hugs and blessings

Clare

Linking to Cynthia Brunz @ Oh Scrap.  Link is on the side of this post.  Take a look, you will love her quilts.

Lovely day out to Quilt Show (lots of photos)

Hello everyone,

On Saturday I leapt into the car and with my good friend Colleen we set sail (well car actually) for Carterton.  We stopped for a coffee halfway in Woodville and then tootled off again.  Picked up our friend Lorraine in Masterton and swooped down to Carterton, threw my sister into the car and off to the show which was run by the Master Guild whose membership comes from all over the Wairarapa.

We had a lovely day.  Lunched in the Cancer Society run cafe on the premises and had the freshest sandwich ever - made while we waited.  The Show was very good and only purchased 4 fat quarters for a quilt in mind and resisted the rest.

Enjoy the photos and see you again soon.

Hugs and blessings to you all,
Clare

Still alive and stitching...

Oh dear, sorry everyone but it's been a bit of a rough time lately and finding the energy to write a blog was just not there.  We lost our eldest grandson to suicide and can only encourage you to talk to your grandies and let them know how much you love them every time you see them - as I'm sure you do.  Thank you for your patience.

I have managed to do a little stitching with my granddaughter's quilt having one side of the frame to go on and then the final border.  Definitely progress, but quite slow.  It has been a very fiddly finishing off process which I just hate with a quilt.  It is going to be simple, simple, simple from now on!!

Have been very spoilt - this is what I have been playing with today!!!

Not sure if the video is going to work.

Look at this gorgeous machine - a Janome MC9400 QCP no less.  Just happened to have a customer purchase my almost new 8900QCP Special Edition and that has enabled me to upgrade.  Wowee, how posh is that then.  I was so annoyed when I upgraded just a few months ago and then Janome brought this lovely new baby out.  When you are selling to a lot of quilters, it's important to have the top machine, now I am set.  Well, those are all my excuses and I'm sticking to them, hehe.

So while I was trying to decide what to practice on because it was Tuesday Chat day and no room to play with borders, I decided it was time to make a move on my box of 2 inch squares.  Had seen Cynthia Bunz's blog here and it inspired  me to get cracking.  Some of these fabrics are probably almost 20 years old so time to use them up.

They are coming along nicely.  Still far too many squares in the box, so might have to do some more yet.  Thought I might put a bright border around next.




Off to hospital on Monday 12th September to have the pesky gall bladder removed.  Hopefully all will go well with the recovery as I have these breathing issues.  Any prayers offered up will be most gratefully received.

Cats are still ruling the house and we are at their beck and call.

Bye for now and talk again soon.

Blessings
Clare