Nine patch and pressed tin

Aren't these tulips gorgeous?  If I could grow flowers like this I would be so happy - but that's about as daft as wanting to make a prize winning Baltimore Quilt - it takes dedication and hard work, neither of which appeal when the end result is a garden.  A scrap quilt however is a different matter!

These delicately coloured tulips were growing in Henderson's Garden Centre at Peka Peka.

It was stitching day with the Deejays and I am making good progress with my Wonky Log Cabin.

The quilt I want to share with you was pieced some time ago, before I started teaching the five inch squares class and I think I saw a similar nine patch in an old magazine, and I very nearly made it pastel.  I loved the idea of white with the colours and using only four coloured patches in each block.  It seemed logical to fill the triangles with more scraps and then the border just the reverse of a half block; no complicated maths required!

I showed the top one evening at Wellington Guild and afterwards Esther Woolaston came up to me and said she would like to quilt it for me!!  I was thrilled and couldn't accept fast enough!

Esther used a simple grid which sits so well with the design.  Scraps of course, the light blue smudgy one is my dressing gown and I was so pleased with the squares in the border, that one fabric had so many colours it just finished the quilt nicely.....

Do you ever see designs - you know, using your quilter's eyes - and just have to photograph them?

A couple of years ago I was in Featherston with a friend to see the end of a marathon, or some such energetic running event, we were in the RSA hall and it is a total gem.  The walls are pressed tin -

It must have been four years ago, my how time flies -

Something very clean and simple about the lines - could be a quilting pattern?

One of the Shut-in Stitchers is making a quilt for her young son, using the nine patch plus plain square, like the Moonlit Garden quilt I did with Kaffe Fassett.  We are running short of suitable fabric, it is red and white - but, no flowers and so much patchwork fabric has flowers; she also equates light red with pink and that's out too.  So I had a fossick through some of my fabric and have sorted out a few; I shall take them in and help her cut out a couple of blocks of each - those that pass the test of course!

It must be the electric light, they are not as orange as this.

On Saturday after lunch we went along to Pete's Emporium, I wanted an egg poacher gizmo as I just can't master this stirring the pot and lowering in the egg - mine ends up as strings.......  and while we were there I saw this -

Photographed very artistically on the window cill of my sewing room - look at that mock orange! it is smothered with flowers and the perfume is heady!

Anyway, this square I saw advertised on an American blog site, priced at $US39, but this is $32 NZ, no dearer than the ordinary ones.  Will it do what it says?  Time will tell!  I will give it a trial and let you know what I think.

I must charge up my iPad tonight - tomorrow I am taking my ten year old granddaughter and a couple of her friends to the local mall - not my favourite place at the best of times - I shall have a couple of coffees and see if I can get to the next level with Angry Birds while they explore......

Here's another worthy saying from my old diary - "It is easier to offer objections than to get busy".
Someone has been peeking at me finding reasons not to do the weeding........


Nice talking with you, thanks for stopping by

June