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

A Finish at last...

I can finally show you a completely finished quilt.  This is called "River"  and was a range of fabric we sold in our shop quite a few years ago.  It was always one of my favourites.  It was a real happy chance that I found this lovely border fabric so many years ago that goes quite well with it.  My heartfelt thanks to my friend Lorraine who quilted it for me and made a great job and to Lyn who stitched the binding on for me.  These are the heavier jobs I struggle with now.

I am very blessed to have such good friends.  This is all I have for now although I have managed a few other bits and pieces, I will save them for the next post.

Take care and thanks for popping in.  Hope all is well in your world.

Hugs and blessings
Clare
and I'm linking up to Cynthia at Oh Scrap here and you can check out some great quilting.
Also linking with Sarah here at Confessions of a Scrap Addict.  Such Fun to visit.

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.

Decision making

The layout has finally been sorted for my Applique Affair quilt.  Once I have them all sewn together I will take it to a couple of LQS's in search of a suitable frame and border fabric.  Needs to be quiet and yet enhance my blocks.  So glad to have got this far with it.  I wrote that about two weeks ago... the only progress has been the blocks are now in rows. 

Then I took Angie's (of quiltingreadersgarden.blogspot.com) advice, and will turn this spare block into the beginnings of a small medallion quilt.  I'm quite excited to get started on it, and hopefully it will  not become another WIP.  Angie's advice also included the wise words of just spending 15 mins a day on it and it will soon be finished.  I'm going to try that!

Apart from that I have spent a lot of time recovering from getting extremely tired after events happening for three weeks in a row.  It's been a learning curve for me about how my tiredness can build up on itself it I don't allow enough recovery time.  I also allowed myself to get very dehydrated which is also a bit of a no-no for me.  Oh well, we learn from our mistakes - all is good and Clare is much wiser - lol.

To finish off here's our daft cat Travis trying to fit into Kerry's slipper.   LOL.

Hopefully back sooner than last time.  Thanks for dropping in and take care.

Hugs and blessings,
Clare

Wine Country Quilts photos..lots

It was a fabulous show once more. Congratulations to all the committee and to those who entered their quilts.

These are just some of the Quilts on show. It was awesome.

Thanks for stopping by. Hugs.

Clare

P.s. trying to learn how to do this on my phone.