Junez Scrapz

Star and stitching

2012-02-27T21:02:00.000-08:00

Botch-up duly repaired! I have started on the straight line machine quilting, and am trying to remember whether the binding is in one of my containers - otherwise I am sure I can find something suitable.

Tuesday is the day I get together with some friends to stitch - and talk, drink coffee, laugh and share ideas - you know, the usual thing we quilters do. I went to a class, I think at the Picton mini symposium, where the Bernina lady, Diana, taught us how to make a bag from felt, lined and quilted and decorated with felted things. Through no fault of Diana's, mine has languished until I showed my friends last week, Jan and Jann helped me find some bits and pieces and then Jan took it home looking like this -

She returned it a week later, looking like this on the back -

And this is the front -

Complete with beads and stitching and beautifully sewn together with variegated thread. Aren't friends marvellous!?

I have stitched more blocks of the four patch and plaids

I was auditioning fabric to use for the half block where it steps down, then when I had sewn enough for another row I started thinking about possible borders -

I removed one row and put a strip of calico with strips of the plaids in horizontal rows, then in vertical rows, then I tried out staggering them like piano keys......

You can see that some of the blocks have a distinctly creamy look.

I also put out lots of pieces of plaid and ikat fabrics, all with glorious colours and left them up until my friends came over.

It was then unanimously decided that no border was needed. I have removed the ikat and put in alternatives using spare plaid squares - and I like that much better.

I will leave this on the design wall until I have finished quilting the baby quilt, then I can start putting it together.

Rain was promised today and it has certainly been much cooler but no rain, so I have watered the garden and found this glorious patch of colour.

Tomorrow would be a good time to do some gardening, but best before I get my nails done........

I have a new App for my phone, quotations - and today's is "I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult". Rita Rudner - well it beats the Girl Guides diary!

Nice chatting with you, thanks for stopping by

June

Builders and Botch-ups!

2012-02-23T21:08:00.000-08:00

It seems ages since I last blogged and this picture is neither about the builders or the botch-ups - mine, I hasten to assure you, not the builders - I felt I wanted something bright and cheerful and positive on top of the blog, and here it is - my glorious Orange Monster!

It is so appropriate that the builders are converting my bathroom at the anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake - I now feel a decided empathy with the people - not that my deprivation can remotely be compared with theirs, but getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom now means, slippers and robe on, unlock the back door, take the key to the sewing room, cross the decking being careful of timber and other aliens in the way, unlock the door, negotiate around ironing boards and the spare dryer to the toilet - mission accomplished reverse the procedure back to bed - all the while trying to keep my eyes closed so I can fall back into my bed and into the arms of Morpheus.

My little bathroom is slowly taking shape - at one stage this is the sight of the corner where the shower used to be -

But enough of dust and dirt and noise - I have finished my Wonky Log Cabin - whoopee.

I enjoyed hand quilting it, though it has taken much longer than I thought - probably because I kept finding other things to do in the evenings........ and I readily admit the stitching is nowhere near as small as other quilts I did twenty years ago - I can't run as fast either!! but as a friend pointed out, we can still wear the same earrings!

I tried an arty photo of the quilt, draped over one of the seats moved off the decking - and yes, that is my iron bath in the background!

As for the botch-up, well I decided to put a quilt sandwich together ready to machine quilt. I had a large piece of Warm and Natural and was trying to cut a piece the right size for the baby quilt - when somehow I managed to cut the top -

I think it must have been folded over and caught under the batting - anyway, I am auditioning 'stick-ons' to cover it -

I like the star shape but it is too dull ......

So maybe a heart -

Or the other side -

That's a bit dark, so perhaps something brighter -

Yes, I think that's the one - catch a falling star maybe?

I have made more blocks of the four patch and plaids -

Some of them are looking a bit stark to me so, you see the 'ribbon'? that's a piece of calico that I dyed with tea and I think I shall make some of the blocks using that.

There's much more I want to share, but enough for now, thank you for your encouragement.

Back soon
June

Mobile Library and More wips!

2012-02-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

But first, I have been moving things around in the house - out of necessity of course!

This is where I usually have some flowers and if it is going to stay I think a new or at least a clean pot will be required!

I am not a fan of pot plants but I have a friend who used to live in a block of flats........but that's another story. Anyway she ~~dumped~~ kindly gave me a dozen or so plants she had rescued.......

With my customary benevolent neglect, two of the plants that she put into my bathroom have just blossomed, figuratively speaking. This one was a dead looking stick.

I think they both need occasional watering and no direct light.

This one was somewhat cramped under the pedestal wash basin - I think it's enjoying spreading out.

Now the reason for their change of scenery is that I am about to have some renovations in the bathroom, said pedestal basin is badly cracked - and has never been level; and the huge cast iron clawfoot bath is a waste of space now that my granddaughters no longer want to spend hours in bubble baths, as well as being a glutton for hot water and a monster to get in and out of - so the lovely Debra who also designed the renovations for my minute kitchen, has come up with a great design to accommodate the best elements of a bathroom plus the laundry space which was the original toilet...... Debra is also a very talented quilter!

The funny thing is now that I have removed the pot plants and all the bits and pieces from the tray over the bath, it looks so much nicer! Clear, clean lines - I shall hold that good feeling when the builders start dismantling everything next Monday morning at some ungodly hour!

There has been quite a bit of talk lately on Kiwiquilters - (I tried to put a link in but Yahoo is not responding) about giving quilts away - and sometimes getting them back, or not.......

I told earlier of a quilt I made that my son admired, but didn't really want and didn't ask for it, I just gave it to him and a few years later rescued it from his airing cupboard and now use it as a curtain - well, previously when he was flatting I had made two very basic, big squares quilts from curtaining fabric, machine tied which were used to cover the old sofas

........fast forward to a meeting at Pinestream quilters when a request was made for a quilt to put on the floor of the Mobile Library bus, so that's where it has ended up, a win-win situation!

Here's another example of a win-win situation, teaching at Arohata. K. has a love of paisley patterns, so we searched out as many as we could find, she put them into simple four patch blocks which she then sashed and added just a narrow border - to great effect -

Next time I shall have to get a chair for my friend to stand on!

I mentioned earlier that I was making zillions of four patch block from my tin of squares and I had an idea what I wanted to do

I like the strong zig zag effect and the contrast between the 'pretty' blocks and the plaids, many of which have a pinkish blush to them.

I have been sewing while watching a dvd I borrowed from the library but which I shall return with a few words......"Shroud for a Nightingale" one of the PD James collection, with the lovely Roy Marsden as Inspector Adam Dalgliesh - and the darn thing kept freezing in the last scene!!!&$%# I tried gentle cleaning in the approved direction on several occasions, but no, it would not finish the scene! How frustrating is that!

I am enjoying reading through Webster, dipping into it - and finding so much that reminds me of earlier, more formal days. As for the quotes, well, according to Thomas Haynes Bayly, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." but Alexander Pope writes, "Say, is not absence death to those who love?"

Nice talking with you, enjoy the lovely weather today, I think a walk is on the cards.

June

Sevens and Stonestead

2012-02-05T16:27:00.000-08:00

Look what I found at the bus stop in Petone when I called into Go-Bang for my coffee on Friday!! I asked permission, which was granted, and I even asked what team they were supporting - Yeah, right. I was told, ever so politely, that it's not actually about football........

They could have been the inspiration for my recently completed top and back - whoopee, all the bits and pieces are used up -

No way, those colours are all wrong - red, not orange! Anyway, you get the idea.

Saturday was a day and a half; prison teaching in the morning went very well with two very able helpers, another newbie and different designs being tried - a good morning with chat and laughter. Then lunch at Kaizen, which turned into a very long affair when another friend joined us, all good until I tried to use my phone! What's this? no service until the account is paid!! This necessitated a quick dash into the office........

Mea culpa! it's the office mobile account and when I paid online I put the account number in the reference box instead of the code box [or vise versa] anyway the money was sitting in their suspense account. We got it sorted and the first message was from my son [also my boss] saying if I was doing nothing special, come to dinner and bring your other son - which I did - never one to turn down my daughter-in-law's cooking or their large screen and Sky sport!!

So I was very late home and too tired to write my blog.

Sunday was another full on day, starting rather later than planned because the weather was unsettled and had been solid rain all the day before so we weren't sure the exhibition was still on.

What a great setting under the trees for the quilts, Devonshire tea/coffee next door and the shop with its distinctive range of fabrics - what more could one want?

Here are some of the quilts, in no particular order-

No surprise that I love hexagons, this is hand pieced by Joan Bray.

In complete contrast, "Starburst Uprising" by Jan Nankivell - I am such a fan of straight line quilting.

As you can see this is the back, the quilt is "Time of the 9 Patch" by Sharon Siacci and I love to see old linens used for the label.

We were invited to vote for our favourite quilt and after much thought, I opted for No. 14, "Cushions, Curtains and cut up stuff" by Adrienne Dreaver-Hill -

Sitting at a table placed under the beautiful trees, were Elizabeth and Jan, fund raising for the Shut-in Stitchers.

That's Jan, obviously enjoying a joke. They are selling these amazing threads, the proceeds of the sales go to the quilting programme, as you can see from the label. The majority of the supplies we need are donated by quilters from all over, but we do need money to buy batting, boards, rulers, threads, pins etc. etc. and as these two ladies are no longer able to come into the prison, this is their much appreciated way of helping still. We keep a photographic record of the quilts made, so I took along my albums to share. You can imagine how many photos there are!

While I was at dinner with the family, the subject of English grammar came up - I probably criticised something on the TV - so a lively discussion was enjoyed - yes I agree the language is constantly changing but that doesn't mean all changes are for the better. I cannot be comfortable with a plural for "you", then a word meaning query was raised so I gave my opinion (ahem) and asked for the dictionary - and look what my son handed to me -

It's the 1980 Edition and I covet it!! I was allowed to bring it home..... It is wonderful! There is a Manual of Information on modern English usage and, oh you should see this - The Secretaries' Guide - how to do everything from setting out letters, how to address MPs and clergy etc. etc. - the section on personal appearance finishes with this gem - "A pretty and charming woman, neatly dressed, is an asset to any office". "Mad Men" indeed! It so takes me back to my training at Portsmouth Commercial College and my years of working in the UK!!

Also, of course, it has a section of Popular Quotations, so I will share some of these with you now I have exhausted my school diary.

I have chosen the binding for my wonky hexagon quilt -

It is machine sewn on and trimmed and tomorrow when I meet with some quilty friends, I shall hand sew it on the back - then the big decision, what next??

My goodness, the first quote from Webster is "No one knows what it is that he can do till he tries" Publilus Syrus.

Nice talking with you and I do so hope I can get back before too long - so much to share!!

June

It pays to read the labels!

2012-01-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

On a trip to the UK in 1993 I saw a beautiful plant, just a single stalk, looking so elegant at the back of a flower bed at one of the stately homes I visited. I found out the name, leonardis something or other, and back home I located it at the garden centre.

I thought it would be perfect in front of the bay window, so I bought three plants, and two salvia plants - I loved the idea of the richness of deep blue with the orange. In they went and I was right, the situation was perfect. The poor salvias didn't survive long, but the orange monsters thrived - and were cut back after flowering - don't they look so neat and tidy!

Then, they took off -

They made for an interesting view out of the window - but did attract bees of all shapes and sizes.

So they were cut back several times and eventually were dug up and transplanted to the garden at the back of the house where they have thrived once again.

That's just one shrub, number two is off to the left and the middle one has not survived the transplant and my later weeding. I gave some seedlings to a friend and she has had no luck, but see what I noticed recently - I accidentally broke off a piece when weeding, so poked it in the ground -

You can see I'm not an obsessive gardener and that is the dreaded bindweed - would you believe I am saving the seeds of the granny bonnets? but how vigorous is the orange monster. And on reading the label I found it grows 2m by 2m........ Anyway, the front garden looks like this now -

It is just perfect for reading the paper and browsing the gardening catalogues, g&t in hand!

I have managed to do some sewing in such a busy week, I made the last of the sawtooth blocks of the red/black/white quilt, and put the top together -

Avert your eyes Jenny, she tells me she doesn't do 'random'. Well this layout has some assistance from the wind. Recently we have had some weird weather but one day was very warm, so I had the sewing room door wide open, and very windy so the blocks were scattered around a couple of times.

I have earmarked a black self patterned fabric for the binding and am presently piecing all the left over strips as part of the backing. Three quilts using the same fabric is enough for me!

I went back to the Dowse this afternoon, had a coffee and another look at some of the exhibitions I mentioned earlier.

"Living Halls" by Fiona Jack is so interesting. It comprises 49 paintings. After WWII halls were constructed as memorials to honour soldiers killed in action rather than traditional memorials as were built after WWI. They are complex spaces built by communities to symbolise their grief but also to solve a practical need for a place to gather for everything from dancing to voting.

Here are two of the paintings that particularly appealed to me -

And this one

I have finished hand quilting the Wonky Hexagons, now to chose the binding, then it's on to the baby quilt - think I shall use embroidery thread and big stitch as the backing is flannel, then I need to pin the next sandwich to machine quilt and stop looking for patterns for the Shut-in Stitchers because I keep finding things I want to try! I did get some bargains at Spotlight, mainly pinks and purples, which are drying on the line as we speak.

Lots I want to share with you, but that's enough for today; maybe I should concentrate on small and often........ and wouldn't you know, the diary tells me "Lost time is never found again".....

Nice talking with you
June

Golly Gosh!

2012-01-18T23:16:00.000-08:00

This block is one of the delights of a woollen quilt I bought several years ago from a second hand shop in the Hutt. All they could tell me was that they got it as part of the contents of a farmhouse in Hawkes Bay.

When they were small, my granddaughters thought this was a spaceman.

The whole quilt, actually not a true quilt as there is no lining, is backed with what appears to be curtaining fabric.

I would say it was a kitset but the maker then added a couple of embroideries of her own - one is this kiwi!

There is also a Father Christmas -

Together with a Christmas tree, decorations and presents -

And the last two I want to show in detail are a dutch girl -

And lastly a little doll of a girl -

So here's the whole thing - I do wish I knew more about who made it and who was it made for.....

It was featured in the New Zealand Quilter magazine some time ago and we so hoped someone who knew about it would see it and get in touch. Anyway, it has found a good home with me!

I have found time to do some stitching. I finished piecing the red/black/white blocks, went through the scraps to piece one more and am presently sewing them together - the wind blew many of them off the design wall so they really will be totally random when joined as well as when constructed!

There had to be one mistake, didn't there -

and I did unpick and correct it.

This is a pleasant block to piece, I use the method of making flying geese with the large square and four small ones.

In my tidying up and scrap sorting by size to start with - I'm not sure if I can face colour sorting as well at this stage, I came across a pile of small squares - obviously samples because they are all plaids and stripes. I have vague recollections of getting them, possibly on one of my trips to the UK when my nieces took me to some bargain type places.

Anyway, I love using squares and am at present wondering about a sixteen patch with an unpatched plaid..........

Just an idea, but it has possibilities.........

Oh, and to close please some assistance - what is this plant? it's another bird borne freebie.

I thought at first it was borage, but has no strong scent to the leaves - I had to prop up the flower as its natural position is bending over. Isn't it lovely?

The evening is young yet and I intend to continue hand quilting, the end is in sight, and I have many TV programmes on the hard drive to watch and skip through the adverts - that way I get to watch several programmes in the one evening.

I think I shall look elsewhere for some quotes, my Girl Guide diary is somewhat uninspirational - and not particularly funny either! Today it reminds us that "Success requires pains and brains".

Nice talking to you, and welcome to my new followers.

June

Forgotten decoration and Carlucci Land

2012-01-13T00:38:00.000-08:00

How could I have missed it? Every year I find at least one decoration left behind when I pack them up, this year would be different I decided, I would be methodical, go room to room. The cartons sat neatly tied for a couple of days and then my son came round and offered to put them up in the roof space.

This entails moving the cabinet in the hallway - first removing the lamp and other ornaments, key container etc. and putting them into my nearby bedroom while the ladder is lowered. Then everything is put back - including this which I had put on my dressing table in the first part of the exercise! It is now on top of the wall cupboard in my little office - remind me in December where I put it please!

I went to the cinema this week, to The Empire, in Island Bay. It's been ages since I went over to that part of Wellington so new to me is Carlucci Land and these amazing - er, installations?

On the other side of the road was this monster -

The main part of the park is fascinating too, big rock climbing areas and this part that reminded me of Middle Earth -

The children we could see from the road looked to be having great fun.
We saw Tin Tin, in 2D as I get vertigo trying to cope with 3D - and I loved the film, a real romp.

Much of my time this week has been spent trying to get order into my sewing room with the result that I can hardly get in the door now. There has been much internet talk on organising the scraps, but where do I start? A few years ago it was easy, pop the scraps into baskets, they look so attractive lined up on top of the cupboards.....

I could have sworn I kept to a different colour in each basket - at least there is one of solids

at the time I thought it a good idea to buy some plastic stackable storage boxes - with wheels so they can be moved easily

At least I can see what is inside them, unlike the solid baby bath type of container - oh dear, there are more of those under the table

Not quite all scraps, the one on the right is actually full of fabrics put aside for backs of the tops already made - always supposing I can remember which goes with which - but also the bindings -

In the top corner of this last picture you can see a partially empty plastic container, it is large and shallow. one of a pair I bought to put under the bed to store clothes etc. They have been emptied and I thought would be good receptacles for the scraps from the baskets - the job was taking a long time - but I did have some company -

I shall have to rethink, I feel as though I am rearranging the deck chairs.......... I need a proper system.....

I recorded the film Julia and Julie and have started watching it, well Julie has challenged herself to do something each day.......... maybe I could stretch it out a bit, make it each week - a basket of scraps a week, sorted and reduced to set sizes? Squares and/or strips all ready to go on the next quilt?

Like this block, which I think has potential! Two oblongs of patterned fabric, each with two squares of, in this case, calico on top; pinned and diagonals marked on the calico -

Sew on the diagonal, flip the calico aside as needed, then sew another seam about half an inch or so away

Cut off the half square triangles and join the pieces into a zig zag.

Rows could be good, contrasting hot and cold colours maybe; or black and amish........ and the little half square triangles could make a border.........

We are back into the prison in the morning, I shall have to have two alarms - one on the chest of drawers well out of reach I think.

And our thought, how true, "A word of encouragement is a fine tonic". Thank you for reading my blog and giving me words of encouragement.

June

Summer? and more tidying up

2012-01-08T23:59:00.000-08:00

Everywhere I look these days I see the beautiful pohutukawa trees, and the local primary school has adopted it for a logo - how appropriate.

It is indeed an emblem of summer, though since the beautiful weather we had on Christmas Day, it has been a trifle cooler and then wet yesterday - my fault, I watered the garden the evening before!

The last time we spoke I was struggling to make sense of a mish mash of blocks that I had unearthed on one of my dives into the storage drawers.

When I found them, they looked like this -

The basic idea is good, sashed four patch blocks in sizes that would fit together..............in the end I managed to make a sort of order -

Squinting at it improves the overall effect!! If I put some polar fleece on the other side, the cats will love it!

In the same drawer was a pile of blocks and the pieces to make more, it is of a definite colour scheme, red/white/black - I showed a top I made earlier as a sort of strippy, not sure how I shall put these together.

I just love the way the block looks so different depending on where the light and dark fabrics are placed - if you remember, this block was one that my friend Yvonne from Picton showed me [how long ago Yvonne?] you cut all four pieces from each fabric you plan to use, label them a,b, c & d and put them into different bags. Then you shake the bags and take out one piece from each and these are the one that go to make your block. Totally random - and if I picked out the same fabric for piece a and d, well that was the luck of the draw.........

There are twenty five blocks on the wall, and fifteen more waiting to be stitched - maybe sashing with sort of stars for cornerstones, or an alternate block - snowball?.......... and while I am working this one out, what shall I do with all the little squares which are two patch blocks at present, from using them as starters and enders.

The carton is quite deep - I have already made one large quilt from these blocks which I showed some time ago; I am leaning towards 'square in a square' using a plain fabric and a tartan - then staggering the setting............

I have been watching dvds while I sew, both musicals - in the lounge I wallowed in La Vie en Rose, the life story of Edith Piaf - what a terrible childhood she had! I just love her voice - hey ho, ITunes, here I come!

In my sewing room I've been watching "Carmen Jones" with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Bellafonte, made in 1954 - my, how time flies! I had the lp, my kid brother and I bought an electric record player to share which was in constant use. I found I was still word perfect!

I'm not quite sure when these vintage fabrics were made, probably about then -

The fabric is a shiny polished cotton with that lovely crisp feel - and you thought black and white and lime green was a modern combination!

This next piece is a quilt pattern on its own!

Thank you for your comments and emails, the thought today isdesire" "For the thing unknown there is no desire- or another version, "What the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve over" - or maybe not!

Nice talking with you
June

Teapots and tidying up

2012-01-03T00:04:00.000-08:00

How's this for a teapot tree? I couldn't resist the look of these in another great Jackson Street shop, Coffee Creation - I really couldn't justify another teapot, though I am very tempted by the look of the orange pot with the metal lid and how about some of their other crockery?

You couldn't be down in the mouth looking at these - and I did get some good advice about the kind of coffee that might suit me, and it does. They have lots of other goodies, teas galore and nibbles too.

I am getting into the very bad habit of late to bed and late to rise but I did get up early Friday morning to get my nails done -

I found it so difficult to photograph my own hand - see the pinky waving with the effort? Anyway, it's in an attempt to encourage strength in the nails and stop the splitting - having paid good money for this result I will put gloves on when doing the dishes and gardening. No more of this hanging out the washing and oh dear, look at the weeds, I'll just grab a handful or two........

There's been quite a bit of talk lately on Kiwiquilters [the online quilting group] about tidying the sewing room, getting things organised etc. which I also do from time to time. One day I came across a pile of half rectangle triangles that a friend had given to me......... I started playing with them and making them into blocks -

Some I kept separate and sashed them, others I joined - without having to be precise -

I then put them all together, sort of flowing the colours across the top, and used up the last of the hsr in the border -

At the moment it is the photo I use for wallpaper on my computer - so I can enjoy the many favourite fabrics in it!

When last I posted I was working on the second rectangle of vintage plus pale blue after I cut far too much up into three and a half inch strips - well that is a complete top

It fought against every border I tried, so it doesn't have one; I have also pieced a back plenty large enough in case the situation changes.......

The day before yesterday I found a pile of fabric, can't really call them blocks. A sort of "what on earth was I thinking of" pile - I remember making them, four patches in several sizes and they were supposed to fit together............. however they break my now golden rules of scrap quilts which must either have good strong dark/light contrast or stick to a colour scheme - see what I mean

What a mish mash!! But I am too mean to throw them away - and no, the women in the prison would not be interested! so I shall attempt to put them together somehow. Watch this space!

I have been indulging in my Jane Austen dvd collection. I love the Sense and Sensibility film with Emma Thompson and Hugh Grant, then I watched Andrew Davies' BBC adaptation which was different but just beautiful and I loved the settings. I am now almost finished watching another BBC production, dramatised by Alexander Baron which, imho, falls far short of the other two. Of course, this now means I shall have to re-read the book!

Harking back to my comment about throwing away the four patches, the thought for today from my diary is, "Waste is a crime." Maybe I paid more attention to these saying than I realised!

Great talking with you. Thank you for the encouraging comments.

June

Tree and tapestries

2011-12-29T01:29:00.000-08:00

Despite the cloudy weather it is still too light at after nine o'clock to get a good shot of the tree - but you might be able to make out the 'snowflakes' on the window - another momento of my Canadian trip.

I hope you all had a very pleasant time over Christmas as I did. We are pretty laid back these days; there were more of us than usual but even with my small house, it was no problem. I can't remember another year when I have had both front and back doors open until bedtime with no worries about the wind!

My two sons were here, plus one daughter in law, two granddaughters, my son's mother-in-law and a family friend who would otherwise have been on his own.

We spent much of the day outside playing boules, tennis on a stick, badminton and practicing golf chip shots - the amount of laughter made up for the lack of skill I think. It was a wonderful time together.

My son and his family are settled into their new house and during the move came across a blanket I embroidered over twelve years ago for the first granddaughter. I agreed to go to a class at Nancy's in Wellington to keep a friend company, and we used wool to embroider a woollen blanket, using mainly bullion knots....

Diana, Amy's other grandmother, drew for me the symbols for her name which I put on the blanket

Somehow, someone washed the blanket - and probably not by hand - which has caused it to shrink ........

I think I shall have to take off the binding and re-size the lining - and in the photo there appears to be quite a lot of colour bleeding - after all the hours of stitching I am reluctant to abandon it - what do you think? is it worth saving?

This afternoon I had a few errands to do - I just love Wellington at this time of year! Well, anytime of course but now it is so empty it is a pleasure to go out knowing you can get a car park just about anywhere. I finished my errands, made a detour into the office after receiving a phone call from my boss [my son] and attended to business, then decided I had earned a coffee so went to The Dowse where there is one of my favourite coffee bars, and while there had a look at some of the exhibitions - I shall have to return to do them justice.

But I did get a good look at the Gordon Crook tapestry exhibition, 18 Maritimes. These works are based on oceanic and nautical themes -

They are each displayed in the wooden frames, reminiscent of portholes to me -

Some of them are based on microscopic organisims

I find it fascinating to examine and enjoy these minute works of art, such a change from queen size bed quilts!

Talking of which - well, this is maybe a large single, it is made using a small amount of the feature fabric and because of this I take it into the prison to show that it is possible to extend the favourite fabric by the use of complementary coloured/patterned fabrics. I started off with an irregular piece of fabric with figures of children - totally unreal, but pretty -

Some of the pieces had to be cut at odd angles, so I completed the block a la crazy patchwork and used alternate blocks of sympathetic fabric - many of them also vintage, but some reproduction thirties

I understand we are in for rain tomorrow, good because the garden needs it and with a clear conscience I shall spend the day sewing - I am having problems with the latest pale blue and floral scrap top, so I shall have to reconsider - and guess what the thought for the day is? "Method saves hours of wasted effort"

I have been watching a dvd of Mansfield Park, a BBC version which I am enjoying. One of the books this month was "An Old Captivity" by Neville Shute - it's ages since I read anything of his, he has a quite unmistakable style that I enjoy - this one seemed to finish all of a sudden but that could have been because I was reading it on my iPad and not holding an actual book when I would have known that I was at the end - if you follow me.

Nice talking with you, thank you for your comments and feedback.

June

Quilts, cats and earthquakes

2011-12-22T23:38:00.000-08:00

This is another 'decoration' that stays up all the time on my bedroom window cill because I like the way it reflects and refracts the light - and get a load of the little mosquito houses at the bottom!! That's what I was told they were when I bought them on my memorable trip to Canada all those years ago.

I collected the office mail this morning and dealt with a couple of things, then off to the bank and on the way drop off a few things to Vinnie's. Would you believe it, I bought a women's magazine last week - first time for yonks - because it had Jim Hickey on the cover and he is a favourite of mine; I got my copy of the Listener in the mail yesterday, together with - you guessed it, a copy of the same magazine.

I often mention my design wall, and show many works in progress displayed on it - so here it is unadorned -

The covering is one that used to be available by the metre and was stuck on by the builder who made it when the studio/garden shed was built. I copied the idea from another quilter friend, it is double sided and on wheels so that its secondary function is to shield the stationery cupboard that holds my fat quarters -

You can see there was once a sort of system of colours or types, like conversation prints or pansies.....

Something that has proved popular with the Shut-in Stitchers has been panels. The first one has two panels joined with an interesting use of striped fabric.

The next was a piece of highly coloured curtaining, so it was bordered with complementary colours and quilted for a successful child's quilt

That wavy line is on the Bernina machines we use and is much liked by the women. The photo was taken in my garden, being held by a couple of friends.

In a much more subdued colour scheme is one of my tops made using some odds and ends of mostly vintage fabric, inspired by the one that looks to me like a gendarme -

Here is a close up - see what I mean

I am taking an awfully long time to hand quilt my wonky hexagons, but sometimes there are difficulties -

I put my needle down for just a minute - but that was enough for Floyd - he has me well trained!

We are not going into the prison tomorrow - not our choice, we were informed that quilting has been cancelled until January 14th - but I shall get up early and get into the supermarket. I did intend to go after I had been to the office, but all I did was drive through the carpark which was packed solid then came home - and worked in the garden so it will be early to bed for me tonight.

I am sure all our thoughts are once more with the Cantabrians suffering through more earthquakes. While I write this I am playing the music on my computer, and the song right now is Bruce Springsteen - My City's in Ruins........

Nice talking with you,
June

Prison quilts & Expressions

2011-12-21T01:12:00.000-08:00

Only four more sleeps - said the notice outside the nearby coffee shop and this is another decoration, which might be recognised by some local quilters.

A few years ago - and really that is what Christmas is all about to me, the traditions and fun from past years - a friend of mine was asked to teach this wall hanging at a local shop - so she worked out her pattern and then asked a couple of friends [I was one] to be guinea pigs one day.

It was great fun and I am very happy with the end result - and with the actual making because the other friend was such a fast stitcher, that they had ironed out any problems before I got to that part of the pattern!!

There has been some conversation on Kiwiquilters, [a yahoo group] about the two programmes for teaching in New Zealand prisons; one in Auckland and the one I take part in, here in Wellington.

The quilts vary considerably of course with the skill and patience of the maker, the latter being sometimes in short supply!

The first quilt I want to show you took some while for us to gather together all the fabrics, lilac, pink, purple and greens were wanted and sewn together in a traditional way -

This photo was taken when showed the quilt at a local club meeting.

The next one also took some while to gather all the fabrics, this young woman wanted blues - any blues. and she showed the tenacity of a real patchworker in the way she put them together, I think -

The choice of piecing and the fabrics used remind me of some of the Gees Bend quilts, here is a close up of the left 'block'

And here is the centre -

And the right hand - though come to think of it, the quilt was probably used the other way, with this next block at the foot -

Rather wobbly because of the difficulty of holding it still - by my granddaughters in my sewing room!

And talking of my granddaughters, they have moved house this week which is one of the reasons I haven't been able to blog more often. I am thankful that they are only half a mile or so from their previous house, but moving is so stressful at the best of times. The week before Christmas is not to be recommended........ I was able to help by having the family over here for the evening meal which gave us a chance to try the Christmas Cake I had baked the day before. I use the recipe from my Goodhousekeeping Book, 1958 edition which I brought out to New Zealand when we emigrated. It is a recipe I just love so I really need people here to help eat it!

These days I don't do a lot of knitting, but thought I would share this blanket -

It dates back about forty five years - yoiks - when I was President of the Hataitai Kindergarten Mothers' Club - actually it was rather funny, I was invited along to a meeting and there was a misunderstanding, perhaps the accent confused me - anyway, the meeting I showed up at was the committee meeting, not the actual club - and by the end of the evening I was the new President, without ever attending a club meeting!!

Anyway, we were asked to make blankets for the orphans in Romania - sound familiar? - so we knitted peggy squares and joined them with crochet. After we had finished I carried on and made one for myself - you can see it was well used by the amount of darning on some of the blocks.

Today I went along to Upper Hutt, a few miles up the valley, to buy a particular Christmas present for one of my granddaughters, mission accomplished I decided to look in on "Expressions" the Art Gallery and also have a coffee there.

The current exhibition was on Dolls, a bit off beat like most of the exhibitions at Expressions but well worth a look, it is open for quite a while yet. Some while ago there was another exhibition at the Dowse in Lower Hutt of Malcolm Harrison's family of dolls - and the exhibit today that caught my eye was of Huttette at 21 by Vita Cochan. Huttette is the name of the baby doll in Malcolm's family. So here she is, all grown up.

Beautifully made and the embroidery, particularly on the bag, has me seriously contemplating getting out my threads........ But not until I have finished hand quilting the wonky hexagon, and then the baby quilt - and what about hand piecing the extended nine patch? Maybe I'll content myself with admiring the work of others.

I am sure the Hobbit fans out there have enjoyed the teaser trailer, I have more photos to share, this one from the beginning of the shoot up Matamata way -

Last week a friend told me my son's photo at the end of the blog wouldn't open, I have no idea why but if you are having trouble like that, please get back to me and I will investigate.

The thought for today, "It is easier to be critical then to be correct" - don't think I quite agree with that!

Nice talking with you,
June

Christmas decorations, Barn door and doll quilt

2011-12-14T00:18:00.000-08:00

Granddaughter Molly came over after school on Monday, shinnied up the ladder to the attic and handed down the box containing the tree and other decorations, then helped me put them up. This is the one that Carol mentioned, she made one too. I think it was late 70s or early 80s, about the same time I made the snowman -

He has a large polystyrene ball for a head and his body is over a tin, golden syrup I think. Bit daft when you come to think of it that we cling to the northern hemisphere idea of Christmas with snow........ if you enlarge the wreath you will notice the seams - I had to turn it round to show the back as the front is very, very faded!

And my last one to share, is one of the very first decorations we bought in the early 60s, we bought two at great expense as a treat, one silver and one gold and they are carefully wrapped in clingfilm, placed in a plastic meat tray and tucked into a suitcase type carton from Vance Vivians - for those of you not native Wellingtonians, that was THE men's shop.

The same day that I saw the brick wall, I came across this barn door which I feel looks as though it should have a quilt arranged over it - the sort of thing Kaffe Fassett does so well - and we don't have to go to Europe!

There were many very pretty weeds and grasses growing in the gravel too.

Here is the third and final of the quilt tops I put together with the blocks given to me at the end of my tenure as President of Wellington Quilter's Guild [in 1995]. The autumn blocks wanted to be arranged like this -

I was pleased to find the border in my stash and here is the back, I used some vintage fabrics - one that I can't bear to cut and the maddest orange you could wish for -

Here's a close up of the panel,

Now I couldn't cut that up, could I?

But this little doll quilt was all cutting; I made it for my first granddaughter, Amy, about ten years ago, she used to love sitting on my lap while I sewed on the machine and she handed me the next piece from the basket of scraps -

My son, the cast driver, is back - they were rained off and cancelled the last three days' shooting so no more great photos for a few weeks, but here is one he sent from Te Kuiti, early morning with the misty cloud still hanging around - isn't this country just beautiful?

I have to chuckle at the words of wisdom for today - "Don't make excuses - make good".

Nice talking with you, thanks for the feedback.

June

Jingle Bells and Quilter's Eyes

2011-12-10T01:27:00.000-08:00

I went to a Garden Centre recently with a friend and couldn't resist this as my 2011 Christmas decoration - which will probably stay up all year.

I love the rather tacky look of it, bells and big beads or crystals hit the spot with me - I have sun catchers up at most windows and love the rainbows that move across the room.

We also bought some plants, on impulse for me which is my usual behaviour - used to make my late husband roll his eyes when I came home with more purchases - "And where am I expected to put that?".

He loved a very planned and ordered garden, and I still miss all the beautiful fresh vegetables he grew - even though it made the summer extra stressful bottling and preserving all the produce. I still have a pot of jam I made in 1979!

My friend and I shared some of the multibuy 4 for $20 specials, which wasn't really a saving as I hadn't planned to buy any - but I got a beauty - a Helianthemum Wisley primrose - never heard of it before but it's for dry places which increases its chance of survival as it is in a pot on the kitchen hatchway.........

Thursday evening was the meeting of the Wellington Quilters' Guild - on the way in to the Church Hall I had to admire the painted door -

Great to have a sense of humour about these things...

Our speaker for the evening was Claire Regnault, Senior Curator History at Te Papa who gave a slide presentation - is it still called that ? - on Unveiled, 200 years of wedding fashion. Now that's an exhibition I shall definitely be visiting.

Members were asked to bring along their wedding dress on a hanger, which several did.

Such a great variety and some lovely stories were shared.

More tidying up in the sewing room and I found I had several fabrics with dragonflies featured -

No idea as yet what I'll do with them, but no doubt something will occur to me....

I came across this old brick wall in Petone recently, part of a building that had been demolished perhaps and immediately it reminded me of a quilting design, free motion, like stones.

And here's a close up

I wonder if there is anywhere I can find out whether these are individual bricks and when they were used.

Now, here's the second of the three tops I have made using the blocks presented to me at the end of my two years as President of the Wellington Guild. As I said last time, I sorted the blocks into colour families and had great fun placing the blocks. I must say the measurements were many and varied! so I decided to sash them all, with a different fabric on each of the four sides - I did wonder at first whether I would have enough appropriately coloured, I needed 72 ........

Here's a close up showing a little rocking horse button a friend put on her block.

And here's the back, ready and waiting.....

Thanks for stopping by, and for your emails. I love the thought for today, "Many a false step is made by standing still."

June

Glacier, Mile a Minute and more........

2011-12-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

My son had a day off, so in his words he hopped on a helicopter and went for a ride. Then down to earth he went for a boat trip - and this is the lake at the edge of the glacier - and those beautiful, beautiful chunks of ice are at the edge - and are about one hundred feet high!

The boat couldn't get any closer, too dangerous, but what a stunning sight. To me they look like jade.

From the sublime to the .........here is a mile a minute top I made ages ago, just emptied one of the scrap baskets and started joining small pieces together, then larger, then the logs - a sort of everything but the kitchen sink attitude.

I can pick out various pieces from other quilts and some that friends gave to me -

The purple with gold squiggles on is another very floddery fabric, I remember I starched it so I could sew it more easily.

And now here are another couple of pieces of vintage fabric for your enjoyment!

Isn't this an amazing fabric! It has rock 'n roll, black and white type minstrels and mexicans.

The next one is pure colour -

When I did my turn as President of Wellington Quilters' Guild I had a reputation for liking bizarre fabric! I used to travel around quite a bit and made a point of visiting little shops in more out of the way places - I came up with some fascinating purchases and I used to show them off at the meetings - which gave a laugh to those who didn't share my love of the weird and wonderful.

There was a tradition for a member of the committee to organise an appropriate block for the outgoing President, which was done all hush hush and then presented at the AGM.

The word that went around for my block was that I had this "bazaar taste" in fabrics, so make a block with many different kinds - one poor newbie actually did that, her block had cotton, poly, flannel etc. etc.

This is the stack of blocks I took home and started playing with -

In the end I made three tops, one using all the blue/purples; a second using all the autumn colours and the third using what was left over!

The only one of the three, so far, to be quilted and bound! The sawtooth border used up all the odds and ends - believe you me there was quite a discrepancy in the sizes of the blocks so quite a few are tip-less!

Here it is draped artistically on one of the couches. I shall show the other two on another occasion because next I want to share with you a work in progress. I showed the top made up of rectangles of vintage fabric with calico, well there were many left over so I teamed them up with a pale blue -

These are joined in groups of three patterned and are just hanging on the design wall. I have a feeling I want to border this one, so am auditioning possibles -

The one on the right echoes the pattern in the blue/purple, but could swamp the whole thing; the next one is delightful, such a pretty pattern and colour, but not strong enough; the blue floral stripe might be used in a very thin strip - I am leaning towards the extreme left -

What do you think? And do you audition fabrics like this? it's a part of the quilt making that I love - amazing what I find when I start sorting through the cupboards......

I'll close with a photo my son took from the helicopter ride over Mt Cook showing Mt Cook village in the top centre with the water running from the glacier and forming Lake Pukaki where they were filming. If you click on it you should get a larger picture.

And the little diary tells us something that we all know, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

Nice talking with you, and thanks for your comments.

June

Lake Te Anau, Picture quilt and Prison

2011-12-03T14:30:00.000-08:00

Maybe I should call this one "Inspiration for Embroidery" - I remember a class or course with that title some years ago or is it a book? anyway there are many various textures in this shot.

I think if I had to tackle it now I would use several techniques - on second thoughts I'll stick to using fabric and colours I love to make quilts.

My granddaughters used to love making pictures using fabric paints on calico. When they had quite a collection ready we auditioned fabrics for borders and then put the blocks on my bed to arrange the layout.

I should have remembered Floyd considers my bed is his territory -

I volunteered to sew the blocks together and they chose the backing from my vintage stash -

I think I got the bottom row the wrong way round, can't have two Grandmas together - where's the unpick?

Here's the backing fabric

The session at Arohata Prison yesterday went very well; the class was smaller than it has been because several of the women have been released and they were the ones who had been coming for a long time. The newbies are settling in well and I had special fun showing how to make four patch blocks from two squares, then half square triangles and a couple of variations - it was just one of those teaching moments you grab!

I also took along two quilt tops, lent to me by Heather, which she had made using only cotton shirts she had bought at Op Shops. Jenny has pictures of them on her blog of the 23 November, Stitching Monday. I want to encourage the women to continue with their quilting when they go home and show what can be made if they cannot afford the more expensive quilting fabric.

Next week I shall take along some of the samples from the class I teach. One of the very basic blocks is the double four patch - here is one I had great fun making using dozens of my five inch squares and every red I could find -

This is draped over my design wall with the sunlight hitting the top right corner

Some familiar fabrics in this part........ but maybe less familiar are these next two - these are from my vintage stash and I would really like to know more about them,

I love the clean lines and bright colours of this and the next one -

Such strong lines and geometric shapes, you can almost hear the stamp of the feet in the dance? Not something I am in a hurry to cut into - but then I don't see me wearing it either........

Remember the Spreading Chestnut Tree?

Well I am so glad I photographed it when I did because it is no longer on that spot. The construction of the new Civic Square is well under way and this tree appears to have been a casualty.....collateral damage, isn't it called?

Unless of course it was moved......

At least it is immortalised on my blog!!!

I am off to my book club meeting this afternoon. I have read "The Life of Pi" - first time reading off the kindle app on my iPad - so the whole thing is a new experience and I am looking forward to it.

My little diary is so full of worthy sayings, "Rebuke with soft words and hard arguments" - could that be a hint about the meeting this afternoon??

Thanks for reading my blog and for your comments.

June

Tekepau pub sign, Mt Cook and lupins

2011-12-01T02:22:00.000-08:00

I can't resist sharing these photos with you, just received from my son. The first one is a sign on the front of the local pub at Tekepau

I wonder if anyone claimed the free meal?

Then this great shot of Mt Cook. The base camp is near Lake Pukaki I believe

The water looks so milky, jut beautiful - not sure whether extra large for the photo is a good idea.....

And the third one shows the lupins in all their brash glory

This post is really scraps of information and inspiration!!
It's past my bedtime but I just wanted to share these with you.
June

Milford Sound, Lake Te Anau - and more scrap quilts

2011-11-30T00:24:00.000-08:00

Last week with snow expected to low levels, my son [who is a cast driver with the Hobbit somewhere in the South Island] had a couple of days off and he drove three of the cast for a cruise on Milford Sound, two and a half hours out to the sea.

I have forgotten how high he said the cliffs were with the waterfalls but they look wonderful, don't they?

I have had a very busy and enjoyable week - office, family, friends - what more could I want?

I have been trying to go for a walk every day, I do so need the exercise and my Inner Brat has woken up and keeps prodding me. The first few days it was not a pleasure, I am so unfit!, I flopped into a chair on my return just thankful that the torture was over. However - by the end of the week, I couldn't believe how good I felt after that walk - really full of energy. Then I let it slide for a couple of days, but the brat started nagging today - 'a little bit of gardening yesterday is not enough - get moving those legs'. Do you have a conscience [or brat] like mine?

Anyway, one of the many plusses today were the flowers in bloom and the bird song, and this hedge that had no flowers yesterday -

Such lovely old fashioned roses and the bumble bees were having a great time, but they appear to be camera shy!

Did I mention earlier that I had a few small pieces from a quilt one of the women is making in the prison? She didn't think they were worth keeping, so I played around with them -

I tried out various sashing fabric

The pale greeny fabric was interesting with the squiggles on it, in the end it is pinned ready to quilt with a flannel backing

It is just the right size for a cot or pram cover and will go to the hospital or Bernardos - after I have shown the Shut-in Stitchers what can be done with small pieces.

I showed the yellow borders quilt, well it is now quilted, and that one too I backed with flannel

I have almost finished hand sewing on the binding, I quilted in the pale yellow sashing using a decorative stitch from my Janome

I used variegated thread to add a little interest - and talking of interest - silly me to put it on the floor to take a photo, because Basil just had to come along for a look-see -

I had a bit of a tidy in the sewing room the other day, and came across a packet with some beautiful panels of hand batiked cats - I think I bought them in the UK on my last trip

So I had a quick look into one drawer and came up with some compatible fabrics

Then I will have to put on my thinking cap and come up with how best to show off the cats...........

Having mentioned Lake Te Anau I will finish with one of the photos my son sent, this was taken on one of the days that Windy Wellington lived up to its name - and beyond! Boy, even my little low slung car was rocking in the wind.

Thanks for your comments, it's such a pleasure hearing from you.

The thought from my diary is, "Unpunctuality is slackness - nothing else." - My unpunctuality usually happens when I am ready early and think I have time to do something, which takes longer than the time available. Me slack? never!

June

Wallflowers, Log Cabin & Farewell to Paradise

2011-11-22T21:50:00.000-08:00

I love Wallflowers, their colours and their scent appeal to me - and they don't have thorns!

Yesterday a friend came to visit and while I pegged out the washing, she snipped off the straggly stems - to encourage more flowers.

The quilt I want to share today is one that always makes me smile and feel happy, which is probably more about when and how I made it than the actual quilt - the Quilt Police would have a field day!

I had been quilting for many years when my husband John died in 1997, about this time of year. For the next two years though I continued to go along to the prison to teach quilting every Saturday, at home, I read comfort books - mainly Georgette Heyer - and never touched my quilting.

I have some marvellous friends who used to have stitching days over long weekends, and they would invite me to join them; which I did - though on autopilot - and when I returned home I put the bags and machine back into my sewing room, and picked up another book.

The one day I woke up, looked at my large empty house, and gave myself permission to bring my sewing machine up from the spare bedroom and put it on the dining table and I started sewing.

I had several metal coat hangers full of fabric strips, held together with safety pins. I cut these strips using a plastic strip bought from the first quilt shop in Wellington, Patchwork Annie. In those days we didn't have access to all the wonderful rulers around today, so Robyn got in a selection of plastic strips and one took my fancy, it was a little under one and a half inches wide.

I actually started to make a nine patch doll quilt, so I took the strips and joined them in threes, two dark and one light and vice versa.

I then cut them into one inch pieces - oops - wrong size! I ended up with rectangles instead of squares.

So, I decided to use the rectangles as the centres of a log cabin block, sewing rounds of light onto the nine patch blocks that had dark in the corner, and vice versa!!

I can remember sitting there listening to the television or the radio and happily sewing from the pile of strips in my lap.

I did so enjoy sewing these blocks, no thought except was the fabric in my hand dark or light?

I did square off the blocks so that joining them together was easy, but not agonised over!

The dark fabric at the bottom of the centre block is one that I bought in about 1965. It is polished cotton and I wanted a dress with a scoop neck and full skirt - scoop neck from a stiff polished cotton? I don't think so! But pieces of the fabric appear in many of my quilts.

Sometimes I even used the same fabric for a whole round.....

And most times not - but I still feel good when I look at it !!

I also want to share with you another piece of vintage fabric that I planned to take along to Fabrications

It's a distinctive blue with these strange stylised figures that remind me of an artist whose name I can't remember!

All the men? with yellow shirts have the number 78...... Then we have orange pants with slightly less hair

And pink pants with even less hair -

I would be very interested to know more about this fabric and its designer if anyone knows. I have looked in all my books on the subject but can find nothing similar.

I will leave you today with a quote from the diary, "Prestige is built on quality" and with a photo my son sent that he captioned, Farewell to Paradise.

I've just got to get back to the South Island.........

June

Fabrications and bushfires

2011-11-19T01:37:00.000-08:00

This photo was taken 'on the drive down' I think somewhere around Te Anau, my son is not very forthcoming about exact whereabouts - but it is making me want to tour around the South Island again to enjoy this magnificent scenery.

I don't wish to label myself, let's just say getting up in the morning can find me a trifle grumpy at times - so the thought of a 5am start - even with these surroundings, a chance to watch a sunrise and a coffee to boot, would be something of a trial......

Last evening I, with many others, was along at the Horticultural Hall in Lower Hutt helping to set up the "Fabrications" event that was held today. I was disappointed to learn that Leimomi Oakes was unwell and not able to be there so I left at home the several pieces of vintage fabric I had intended to take to ask her opinion on. Fortunately when I got home I photographed them, so that today when I arrived after teaching at the prison, and found Leimomi well enough to be there, at least I could show them to her.

I am hoping, and will suggest quite strongly, that at least one of the local guilds asks her to come to a meeting so we can all bring our textiles for her to see - and help us learn more about them.

This is one I took, a fun piece from the 60s or 70s

This next one is a little more difficult to place, it is quite floddery -

Definitely from the jive era, maybe the Fifties?

I mentioned that I have a sewing bag that my sister in law, Christine, made for me and which I use to carry around my tumbling blocks, I thought you might like to see it. When Christine was out here from the UK for a visit she went to a class at Thimbles & Threads on a stack and whack technique I think, and this fabric was what she used and had left over -

On the inside are pockets, both fabric and plastic

I think the idea is that you can put it over the arm of an easy chair and the solid piece in the centre acts as a pin/needle cushion.

And goodness me, who would have guessed, it also holds an unfinished piece of cross stitch - something about giving one's children roots and wings - this dates back to the time I had a 'thing' about rocking horses ..........

There is a small quilt I want to share; with all the talk today of the mine disaster a year ago, I was reminded of other natural disasters, in particular the bushfires in Australia. Remember the photo of the fire fighter giving a drink to a koala? At that time I started playing with some five inch squares and doing a square in a square, but applique - which is not my favourite technique. I machined the squares and unconsciously found I was choosing a definite colour scheme .......

There's a small amount of green left

I know I am going to find it difficult to sleep tonight, my mind is full of the people I met today and the quilts I saw - just being around so many like-minded people is a great buzz!

Trust the Girl Guide diary to keep me from getting ahead of myself, the thought for today is "Beware of short cuts to success."

I enjoy talking with you and thank you most sincerely for the emails and comments.
Have a good weekend.

June

Otago on location, tumbling blocks and more strings

2011-11-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

What wonderful clouds - and can you see the cherub blowing? top right, I am sure I can see a face....!

Another shot from my son, somewhere in Otago on his way down to Dunedin - though when they got there, after a day of rain, this is what the site looked like -

I mentioned Art Quilts which some of my friends make, it's a thorny subject sometimes, you know, one person's art.......... like the cleaner recently who scrubbed off what she thought was a dirty mark in the gallery and it turned out to be part of the installation.!! ouch!

On one of my recent walks I came across two young men sticking posters on a wall - and from across the road, it definitely looked like a piece of Art -

Could be a quilt pattern, or a mosaic.....

I have contemplated doing Bonnie Hunter's Mystery quilt - but then again, I do have enough projects on the go - projects, I hasten to add, that I am enjoying doing - just need a few more hours in the day.

Like this scrap, mainly vintage, tumbling blocks - work in progress...

You can see parts are still in units, I was checking out how much more I need/want to do

It's a good project for taking to meetings, it is all in a roll up case my sister in law made for me.

You see the bright green in the centre of the photo? the one with the little white pattern? that's one of the first fabrics I ever bought by mail from America. It was when Quilters Newsletter had the shop, Quilts and Other Comforts I think the name was. At that time we couldn't get much green here, so I sent away for a pack of greens and I still have bits and pieces in my scrap bags.

The completed top I wanted to share is one I made after a friend organised the Block of the Month for Pinestream Quilters. We were asked to use bright strips with black and white for the corners of the snowball block - I decided to make one for myself, using really bright brights!

I used some of the half square triangles from the sew and flip corners to make a little block for a corner stone

I think the quilt looks rather like paper lanterns.

I had an unexpected trip into Wellington today, a chunk fell off one of my fillings when I was cleaning my teeth this morning and I was lucky to be able to see my dentist straight away - I was due for my check up next week but didn't want to wait in case I ended up with toothache....... as a treat I went into Whitcoulls and found a couple of DVDs to ease the pain - my dentist did find a very awkward filling to do next week! I noticed a boxed set of Lark Rise to Candleford - but that was very expensive...... hmmm depends how uncomfortable the procedure is next week.....

Tomorrow evening I am on the roster to help set up Fabrications at the Horticultural Hall in Lower Hutt,
which promises to be a great event. I shall be going along on Saturday after quilting at the prison and am taking a couple of pieces of vintage fabric to see what the expert says about them. Might see some of you there.

Our thought for the day is so apt for bloggers, "Think before you ink".

Thanks for dropping by and for your comments.

June

Straight Furrow on Location and machine repairs

2011-11-12T21:46:00.000-08:00

That is some straight furrow! and the photo is courtesy of my son who is a cast driver on location for the filming of the Hobbit.
He went for a walk during lunch break one day and sent me some stunning photos.

I have friends who do beautiful art quilts, as opposed to my scrap quilts - not getting into an argument here :)) but I can see them interpreting this with rusted silk fabric and crusty embroidery stitches.....

It's been a busy, busy week. My son stayed a couple of nights before flying down south, not that he's any trouble, in fact the only 'motherly' thing I did was show him how to operate the washing machine! He took me out to breakfast both mornings so I was unusually early into the office, and then he was gone!

Some good friends came over from Nelson and we did a Movie and a Meal. Isn't it great when you can carry on as though you saw them a few days ago instead of months. We went to The Lighthouse in Petone [of course!] I love that cinema, and saw "Midnight in Paris" which we all enjoyed very much. Afterwards she confessed that if she had known it was a Woody Allen film she wouldn't have gone, and he said that if I had mentioned that it was sort of time travel, he wouldn't!! So ignorance was bliss for them and their prejudices didn't stop them enjoying a lovely film.

We then had a lovely meal at the Curry House on the corner and I have enough for two more dinners....

During the week I had to collect two sewing machines that had been repaired for the Shut-in Stitchers, which is the name for the quilting programme at Arohata Women's Prison. The authorised repairer is Glen. I have been to the shop often over the years taking machines in, some of which are beyond repair and sometimes Glen is able to fix it while I wait. Also over the years I have become pretty adept, as have several of the other tutors, at doing minor repairs - usually it is the wrong bobbin, or incorrect threading and often lack of cleaning!

As you can see,Wellington Sewing Services has a huge range of machines of all shapes and sizes. And look at the display of oldies on the top shelf.

The shop is large, and through the archway is fabric and wool - how about this for the doll who has everything?

They do have a children's section for knitting with special patterns that are achievable in a reasonable time. The first thing I tried to knit when I was about twelve, was a jumper with a band of Fair Isle!!

Now sewing for children is something that I have noticed is much more popular and there are some lovely outfits from quilting fabric -

I know that many of the backs and borders on my quilts are made from fabric I bought to make clothes for myself. Maybe I shouldn't be too quick to forget sewing, I see that Maxi dresses are back for the summer and think how much yardage they take?!

There was one display of quilting fabric that took my eye, who could resist these Fat Cats?

There is also a border print - and in this picture is one of the Fabric Figurines; this one is subtle, the others were bright and funky.

I took a friend with me, Jan - and I can tell her what she should do next!! Make the bag with the fabric bought on our trip!

Jan makes the most amazing bags, she might start with a pattern but always personalises it. I look forward to seeing this one, I covet it already!

I am on the last side of quilting the Wonky Hexagon and have pinned the little yellow baby quilt/table cloth - and started machine quilting - it jumped to the top of the pile because it is small.......

I have already made another top - using up some of the three and a half inch strips I cut for the yellow one, they are an awkward size in a way, a bit chunky for use in a block - so this is very simple. I cut calico squares to separate pieces double the size of the squares - if you follow me....

I like the fresh look, and of course the vintage fabrics...

It might have a calico border and I have a lot of strips left for the binding - some of my favourite fabrics -

And particularly this darker one -

Time for my curry and vegetables and back into the sewing room, I've finished the entire collection of "The daring buds of May" and tonight will watch again a beautiful film on Maori TV, "Seraphine".

My worthy thought for the week is "Things ill got had ever bad success" - I am sure that could be re-worded in a more elegant way!

Nice talking with you, thanks for your comments

June

Chestnut tree and Web of Charms

2011-11-06T02:15:00.000-08:00

Isn't this a magnificent specimen of a "spreading chestnut tree" ?

I can't help myself singing that song I learned at school - complete with arm gestures. The tree is between the Dowse Museum and the Town Hall complex in Lower Hutt - and I must consult the plan as I do hope it stays there after the construction of the new town square.

Do you ever look back on a quilt you made years ago and wonder, what was I thinking? Or perhaps you go ahead and do something that on reflection was a question of ignorance being bliss?

I decided I wanted to make a charm quilt and my understanding was that it would be one shape and no two pieces of the same fabric. I think the charm quilt came into vogue in about Victorian times when many young ladies vied with each other to have the most variety in their quilts - about the time that the crazy quilts were made of entirely impractical fabrics.

I chose the hexagon, done the English paper piecing way so started cutting pieces from my scraps and yardage - earlier I showed fabric that had a 'bite' out of it which means it must be in the quilt.

I decided on the size of forty across and fifty down, making a cool 2000 - and this was some time before the year 2000!

After I had exhausted my fabrics I still needed about 600 so I put the hard word on my friends, including those from my golf club who didn't do patchwork, but had spare fabric from dressmaking perhaps. There is even one piece of pale blue with silver that was from a bridesmaid's dress. The papers were cut accurately but I often cut the fabric with scissors knowing that accuracy wasn't important

Both sons were on their big OE so I was able to spread out the completed hexagons on the spare bed, roughly into colours -

I then pinned a flannel sheet to the wall and started to arrange the hexagons, securing them with brass pins, starting with the palest in the centre -

I tried not to agonise too much, just get them on, then stand back -

The colours seemed to follow naturally, with enough contrast to stop it being boring -

I worked on this for a week or so -

Until it was all pinned, ready to start sewing

I then removed the pieces from the sheet by threading them onto a needle and thread, with a large knot, in batches of 25. I wrote on the paper back which row and whether top or bottom half and then started sewing them together.

At the time I was playing a lot of golf and became well known around the 19th, identified by the red biscuit carton I carried with me -

I stitched the rows of hexagons, and kept them tidy draped over a coathanger -

When I had sewn all the rows, I joined the rows into two halves and then into the whole, then I sandwiched it on a trestle table, letting the weight of the quilt hang down as I worked from the middle up and then down; I tacked the layers together so that it would be ready to hand quilt.

The backing is folded over the edge of the front so that the thread didn't get snagged by the batting. I started to quilt and it seemed natural to do so as a large cobweb - particularly so when I discovered, right in the centre that I had used the same fabric twice! Shock horror! So I embroidered a spider on one of the patches to make it different!

All the time I was intending to finish off the edges by turning the backing under and slip stitching the top and backing together -

but as I quilted towards the outside I realised it needed a border. So, I went to the fabric shop and chose a very dark tone on tone purple - it wasn't exactly easy to put the border on, I mitred the corners and appliqued the main part onto it - I even had to patch the backing as it was just a little short on one side!

The quilt won Viewer's Choice when it was shown at the exhibition of the Wellington Guild held at the Botanic Gardens back in 199?-

This photo was taken at the last exhibition of the Wellington Guild, in the category of past winners - and it shows the quilting rather well.

You can perhaps understand why I wasn't keen to make another one but chose to use some left over hexagons as the centres of my machine pieced Wonky Hexagon Log Cabin.

I joined a local book club and went to my first meeting today. I love reading and am looking forward to finding new authors and meeting new people

The thought from my Girl Guide diary is "Everything worth while has its risks"

Thanks for stopping by and your feedback.

June

Windows, washing & more strings

2011-11-01T01:16:00.000-07:00

This is the stained glass window on my front door.

I just love the simple design and the touch of red colour - which is why I chose that colour for the door; it is also considered good feng shui.

It occurred to me that there are many similar houses around Petone, so I am planning to use that as an incentive to go for walks with my camera. I very much need more exercise.

The second window is slightly larger and is on the south side of the house.

The little ledge is the perfect spot for my 'houses', some of the ones on the left still contain alcohol I think. The first ones were those on the right given to us by my sister in law, I found the General Store in a second hand shop in Kilbirnie - just love the cat licking up the cream, and the little brown one to the left is intended to hold potpourri.

I might have opened the floodgates of fabric buying after my indulgence at the Waikanae exhibition. After we had finished at the prison last Saturday a friend and I had lunch at Kaizen, and did some shopping finishing up at Spotlight where we made a beeline for the specials. I took all that was left on the bolts of the purple and splodgy orange - both colours that are often requested by the Shut in Stitchers.

Here they are drying on the line - had to take a photo to show off the lemon tree and the marvellous colour in the self seeded geraniums and cineraria.

I am on the last row of quilting the blocks of my wonky log cabin but haven't touched the hand stitching of the extended nine patch and talking of progress - well, the yellow and green quilt that has given me so much angst lately is now finished.

I changed my mind so many times - maybe the moon or the planets are in funny positions! something was addling my brains, that's for sure!

I fluffed around, then took the bull by the horns yesterday and just sewed a couple of rounds and decided enough is enough!!

It could be a table cloth, or as I have sorted out some fine flannel for the back, it might go somewhere as a baby quilt; the birth was certainly difficult!!

Now this next quilt was a joy from start to finish, another strippy one made from mainly vintage fabrics. I was given a pile of squares of various sizes so used one cut in half for the two corners; it is simply called Summer Strings -

I made the binding extra wide as I used the material from one of my late husband's shirts, excellent cotton.

You can see that both corners of each block are the same. I thoroughly enjoyed hand quilting it and just love all those old fabrics.

With asparagus in plentiful supply, there is now no reason I cannot enjoy my favourite meal of steamed asparagus and a poached egg - I now have four different egg poachers!

On the left is the pair of orange rings - useless, as the egg just disappears under the ring. On the right is the fancy gadget I ordered from Avon with full written instructions and as yet unused; the green fish?? were presented to me by a friend and also have yet to be tested - will they stay upright if they float? and the sort of ladle with holes was found to be skulking in the drawer of kitchen gadgets and forgotten about. Do you ever do that? I think it is meant to hook onto the side of a saucepan but that could be difficult as all mine have lips for the lids......... Maybe I shall have to persevere with the spinning water; goodness, if my son can do it.......

Oh my gosh, the thought for the day is "Envy hates the excellence it cannot reach".

Nice chatting to you, thanks for your comments

June

Mary's Block and mind changing!

2011-10-27T20:31:00.000-07:00

But first my death-defying balancing cat!

I mean to say, check the centre of gravity on the little old push chair [don't you just love that plastic fringed sun shade?] how on earth is it staying upright? Floyd is no lightweight.

This is in the corner of the spare room - actually my granddaughter's bedroom and judging by the toys, it is time we had another clean out.

I'm sure you know of Mary's Block, even if not by that name, it is so versatile and fun to do. It is one I include in my class for five inch squares, I cut and joined the pieces 3.5 inches by five and 2.5 inches by 5, then slice down the centre -

as on the left. Reverse one of the cut pieces and resew. Put a 4.5 by 5 rectangle right sides together and mark the stitching line on the back -

If you use a bias square to mark the stitching line, each will go from a corner, touch the end of the square and off the side. Sew on these lines and cut between them -

Then I started playing with the little blocks -

I first considered a nine patch, top left of the picture, but it was a bit clunky, so then I tried halving the centre side patches which I liked better, then I decided on something different - but what borders?

The first border was too wide, so I halved it and took out the bright plain.

But that wasn't right, so

I tried another border

So eventually, this is the top -

Which I altered again before I sewed it up - but not yet quilted!

It looks quite subdued, so the real colour is probably half way between the photos!

If you are into Op Shopping, then Petone is the place to visit! We already have St Vincent de Paul, the Sallies and the Red Cross and now I see the SPCA is to open a shop.

Sadly though The Children's Bookshop is closing today; I believe Malcolm wants to retire and no-one was prepared to take it on; understandable in this economic climate. Over the years I have bought many books there for my granddaughters and I valued his advice, so have a good retirement Malcolm, you will be missed.

Remember the yellow and green quilt I was working on? Well, more changes, it went from this

To maybe this

And this is where I am at

But don't hold your breath!!

It's been such a busy week with office work, an evening club meeting, a surprise invitation out to dinner - and I never turn down one of those and helping a friend re-organise after she had some house alterations done and tomorrow morning it's off to the prison, so this evening I am into the sewing room..

That is not exactly a promise - I have just read today's thought - "A promise is a sacred thing".

Nice talking with you, thanks for stopping by

June

She Who Dares, Wins

2011-10-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

That is the name of a quilt and it is not an allusion to a certain game with the odd shaped ball that is being held tonight - thought come to think about it, please oh please, whatever gods may be, let the ABs win!!

This is the quilt in question -

It was made some good long time ago when Lorraine Moran was in the country and taught this class. The title refers to the choice of fabrics, we were told to bring our boldest and brightest - though nowadays they look a trifle tame!

The quilt is also rather faded because I use it as a curtain over the back door, it used to be for warmth but since I had the old double doors taken out and a new double glazed one installed, it is more for privacy - and a place to hang another quilt! The background as seen in the top left corner is nearest to the original colour.

I hand quilted it according the the fabric pattern.

I just love that whacky pink

Maybe they are meant to be pomegranates.

My grand daughters came over yesterday and stayed the night, they both had some mending that needed doing - and these days we just get the Work Box down, I took advantage of the opportunity to tidy it up -

What a hoot, thread to darn stockings no less, called Darneze!! Lots of gizmos in the lid of the box, including a button hook my mother gave. The big wooden darning mushroom was made by my son at school and the little black one that looks a bit like some maracas, I bought on my visit to Canada - of which I have spoken before!

They seemed to enjoy their mending session and then later cleaned the windows in the front of the house and helped with more pruning in the garden; they are lovely girls.

Do you ever start gathering fabric for a quilt and then sort of lose your way? that's just what I did recently. See what I mean -

I had lots of vintage florals out for the Floribunda, so started cutting strips - actually three and a half and I meant them to be two and a half!

I decided as I have lots of pale yellow to use that as the alternate fabric - making the whole thing a sort of Square in a Square -

More or less? I love the centre fabric.....

I think I know where this is going....... so with a bit of luck, I can get into the sewing room for the day tomorrow and stop waffling!!

Oh dear, wouldn't you know - our thought for today is "Be modest in victory and cheerful in defeat."

Blogger is driving me nuts, so I'll say cheerio, thanks for visiting

June

Mile a Minute, Boldly I Went and birds

2011-10-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

One day I decided to tidy my scraps - by colour - I had a lovely time and finished up with several baskets holding my idea of colour sorting. Country, bright, autumn, pastel, jewel and at the end I was one basket short. The pile was of black and insipid as opposed to pastel, so I made a Mile-a-Minute quilt.

Other people call them Crumb quilts, or Bloke's blankets but to me the Mile-a-Minute is so apt remembering the weed that was the bane of my husband's life.

I have no idea what the proper name of the weed was but it grew everywhere on our hillside section and resisted our efforts to contain it.

Here is a detail

I've made several quilts as a result of tidying the sewing room, I'll look them out to share - just today I was putting a top and its pieced backing onto the pile of similar objects when I happened to notice a piece of fabric that is just crying out for me to design a quilt around it - what do you think?

Maybe something along the lines of my Something to Crow about quilt? Maybe I could adapt the house blocks and/or tree blocks; I think I'll leave the horses to speak for themselves.

The main quilt I want to share with you is called, "Boldly I went" - if you remember Star Trek on TV in the old days you will remember the voice over.........to boldly go.......well, I have remarked before that I am something of a pedant, and I could hear my English teacher [language teacher as opposed to literature] dinning it into our heads that you did not split the infinitive! One of my sons remembers this tirade well, said he had no idea what an infinitive was but he would make sure he didn't split it or he would have his mother after him! However, he will be happy to know that I have finally let this go now that I have read a marvellous book, "Woe is I" by Patricia T O'Conner.

Anyway, that's how my title came about! I seem to remember several of my friends were making log cabin quilts, I decided on a black and bright block and started chain piecing. After only a dozen or so I realised I didn't want to make them all the same size, so I did some simple math and ended up with this.

Blocks of different sizes that I liked the look of, I had the earth and some unknown planets, so I made several more and put them together like this.

I like the red planet

Just to the left is the nova, and you can see the great quilting done by Bary Scott when he used to live up the coast at Te Horo. I told him the story of the name and he suggested spaceships and stars in the black using a variegated thread and each planet had a different design.

I had this marvellous shoe fabric just waiting for the right place, I couldn't cut it, now could I? so it made a great back

No flowers on my blog today, but I thought I would share these with you, late this afternoon I heard a bird singing and there, on top of the demolished kowhai was this bird -

The thrush was singing his little heart out - it was glorious! I listened for ages and then got my camera, he was still there.

As I turned to go back into the house I glanced up at my neighbour's roof, there was a starling sitting on the television aerial, as they often do, but he/she was belting the daylights out of this large twig - I have never seen this before

See the next photo shows it is much smaller -

I wondered if it was because the starlings nest under the roof of this house and perhaps this piece was too big to get under the guttering??

It must be spring!!

Here's another pompous thought for the day, "Progress must be well ordered to endure." I suppose it is true but it does sound a bit preachy.......

Nice talking with you
June

Shopping bags, the Mall and Antique Quilt

2011-10-16T01:27:00.000-07:00

The young kowhai is looking pretty good, the Tuis have left it alone. The probably feel it is too near the ground and wouldn't take their weight. I am cutting back the shrubs behind to give it room.

Underneath are three clivia, one was given to me by a friend and two I bought; her plant flowered straight away and one of mine is too. You can just see it nearest the trunk of the kowhai. There is also a geranium, gosh I love the way they take - I just poke cuttings in the ground - my kind of gardening. There is also a healthy looking plant that I don't recognise, so it is probably a weed.

I brought my granddaughters over for the day on Friday. We had lunch at Go Bang so I could buy some more of the delicious Pic's peanut butter and then home to tackle the garden.

They both worked so hard; we weeded, huge clumps of couch grass and the bindweed that's showing itself again after the winter, we pruned and swept. Amy was able to cut back the orange monsters, alias Leanardis something or other, she cut them back by a third which will give plenty of room for them to grow and flower at their usual 2m x 2m - you probably realise I didn't read the label when I bought them......

Perhaps it would be better if I didn't try to do six months gardening in one day, I do know I ached all over afterwards!

Here's the shopping bag I told you I had knitted from the same Indian cotton fabric I made my first Quilt as you go.

As you can see, there is plenty of room for celery and a leek, plus the apples, bananas etc. It is not exactly elegant but very fit for its purpose!

Here's another bag I made recently from some of my vintage fabric samples. The pattern uses french seams and the handles are most secure. I just love that fabric!

It is great for library books or dvds.

Another day in the week I picked up my granddaughter Molly and one of her friends and delivered them to the Mall. I shall spare you my usual rant about Malls - we arranged a meeting place and time, so I headed for the nearest coffee bar and sat down to play patience on my iPad while I drank a cup of warm, frothy milk...... ugh. Anyway, I received a tap on my arm and a very nice lady commented on the iPad - and we were away chatting like long lost friends and suddenly it was time to pick up the girls!

I did notice an area where flax weaving and painting were being taught, I asked permission to take a photograph - the children were entranced, such a happy group.

Now that's what I consider a good use of a Mall!

I mentioned that I bought an antique quilt while I was in Canada. I was staying with my friend in Toronto and we went to A Celebration of Quilts which according to my diary, just blew me away. We met many friendly quilters one of whom recommended a particular antique shop and there it was!

It is hand pieced and hand quilted and bound with the same little print of the alternate blocks. Some blocks had more than the usual two fabrics.

I just love this black and white.

Here it is again

Even a gingham

And a plaid - the bottom piece is the right size, it is only the angle of the photo but she did cut off the point of the triangle - but wait until you see my Amish churn dash - later!

I draped the quilt over the back of the couch to show the quilting design, an all over Baptist Fan.

I spent the afternoon piecing a back for the Puss in the Corner class sample, using a selection of large fabric for children while I sort of watched/listened to series three of Auf Wiedersehen Pet, filmed fifteen years after the first two series. Most enjoyable. This week I plan to put the sandwich together to start machine quilting.

Thanks for stopping by and for your lovely comments and emails.

The thought for today is "Well begun is half done." You mean I have to spend another back breaking day in the garden?

June

Nine patch and pressed tin

2011-10-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

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

Helicopter, High Summer and Hexagons

2011-10-07T02:09:00.000-07:00

This was probably taken in late spring or early summer judging by the flowers - you don't often see a helicopter hovering just beyond the edge of your section, now do you? We were living in Roseneath and I think the helicopter was needed to lift the piano when our neighbours moved house. There was no access down the hill and it was a very long, narrow path up to the road.

I never tired of this view, that's Shelley Bay across the water, Massey Memorial on the point, the edge of Somes Island and Eastbourne in the distance.

I think that belonging to a quilt club [actually I belong to three] is a great way to meet up with like-minded people and it gives a great opportunity to try out patterns you wouldn't normally. Like this one, I can't remember the name but the quilt I saw was done in batiks and I thought I would give it a go using some of my vintage fabrics.

You can see it has bars of plain, four down and one top and one bottom, with the patterned fabric showing through - so these were the start, but I didn't really like it, so took off the top and bottom bars and used lots more pattern......

The batik I used for sashing shows up quite tan in the photo, but from the close ups you will see lots of different colours -

You can also see more of my beloved vintage fabrics -

You can also appreciate how pleased I was that the batik repeated so many of the colours in the blocks

I call it Vintage High Summer.

Have you read any of the Linley Dodd books? They were favourites of my granddaughters and I well remember reading one about the cat that caterwauled in the tree - we had fun competing to make the most awful yowling howl - well, today I heard that sound and there was Basil, out on the decking defending his territory from a neighbour's young cat.

The young cat was all bristling tail and twitching whiskers - the noise was so awful, I had to laugh - dear old Basil who hides under the table at sudden noises was being the defender of his kingdom!

Have you ever made a quilt, given it away and not taken a photo of it? This photo is the best I can do for such a quilt that I want to share -

When I was a member of New Judgeford Golf Club I used to take my stitching with me, something to do in the 19th waiting for my husband to finish socialising........ and one day I was given a large parcel by a friend who said that a friend of hers had been making a quilt, her family didn't like it so she wasn't going to finish it - she even said she would throw it away. My friend stopped her doing that and said she knew someone who would love it.

She gave me the top about half finished, but most of the "flowers" done so I set to and finished them, I appliqued the top onto plain dark brown and hand quilted it. The quilting was done after my husband had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, I sat for many hours in hospitals and various waiting rooms. It was good to have this to work on. We also attended a group for the caregivers of cancer patients and I finally completed it there.

In the group was a lovely woman who admired the quilt, she had always wanted one, so it gave me immense pleasure to wrap this one up and pass it over to her. A good outcome for an unwanted quilt.

*****************

During the week three people have left fabric at my house, one person put it in the carport by the car door so I couldn't miss it! So, whoever you are, a great big thank you, I shall be taking it along to the prison in the morning.

The class has several newbies as two others have already gone home, two more due to leave before Christmas. I have spoken to the Shut-in Stitchers and they are happy for me to show some of their quilts, so to finish this evening, here is a Mile-a-Minute top, queen size, draped over a table at our recent Club meeting.

Persephone {not her real name!] had made several black, white and one other colour quilts during her time with the class and this one used up all the leftovers.

Don't you just love these very worthy quotes from my old diary, "Get a move on, effort must precede reward".

Nice talking to you, thanks for stopping by.

June

Strings, scraps and Nova Scotia

2011-10-05T01:56:00.000-07:00

How's this for an idyllic spring day? Not like today; Windy, Wet Wellington just about describes it.

The photo was taken one day last week as a friend and I sat in the garden enjoying our Devonshire Tea at the Stonestead cafe next door to the Sawmillers Quiltery. That was one happy flock of chickens - just look at the high stepping rooster, and all the doves in the background. I shall have to return when the tree is greened up.

My granddaughters were here after school on Monday, I got Amy to hold up some of my quilts so I could share them with you. And here is the very first Quilt As You Go that I ever did - the introduction is so that you are ready to excuse the less than perfect result!

It is made from strings of Indian cotton - my neighbours did piece work for a shop where they imported the fabric and then made circular skirts etc. the resulting edges, strings and selvedges were put into bags ready to be dumped - until I discovered them.

My friends and I joined the strips into long ropes that we wound into huge balls and then we knitted or crocheted bags and rugs - I still use the shopping bag which is marvellous for vegetables.

Anyway, the quilt -

It is very faded, it was once so vibrant I used it as a Christmas decoration by hanging it over the banister in the foyer of our house in Whitby - folded so you couldn't see the corkscrew of seams on the right!

I joined the squares in the more or less usual way with the seam on the back, then I had to flatten them by hand sewing the seams, and then I covered the seam with some delightful bright pink poly fabric - which again was hand stitched.....

Floyd was taking an interest in the proceedings - I think he was waiting for Amy's toes to reappear!

Now I want to share a holiday snap, from that momentous time I spent in Canada - though my initial contact wasn't good; I flew from England and I phoned from the airport to confirm my reservation but it was the last stop for the bus and by the time I got there they had let my room! The manager wanted to put me in a motel miles away and got a taxi for me, I protested strongly so it was suggested I settle for a nearby guest house. The taxi driver was such a nice person, he said he wouldn't be happy for his wife to stay there, so he drove me around and tried a couple of places and got me a bed for the night at "The Cambridge Suites" a very new place that was not fully open.

The Houseman was also very nice, he did some shopping for me, bread, coffee & milk as it was pretty late by then - luckily I had eaten twice on the flight!

Next morning I rang Air Canada to reconfirm my onward flight and I mentioned the dishonoured reservation, and asked if they had places that were kept for crew - my call was passed to the Supervisor, Bill Shakespeare - I kid you not, I couldn't forget that name, could I? He was marvellous, I had an apology from the Manager of the first hotel - Bill thought I might not want to go there now, so had confirmed a room for me where I was. Fabulous place with a microwave which was a great novelty in those days.

The next day my quilting contact picked me up and took me on a tour, we ended up at the Mayflower quilters meeting that evening. This is the photo taken sometime that day.

My reason for sharing this particular one - I suppose I could have cropped me out of it - is to show the scenery. Isn't it just lovely - and take note of the little churches -

here is something else I bought to put on my Christmas Cake and remind me of the trip.

Aren't they just such fun! - Back to quilts -

Another scrap quilt I made was with flannels, mainly squares but also strips and it is extra cosy for this sort of weather -

And here is the back -

I quilted it by hand, using the 'big stitch' technique with embroidery thread.

I have promised myself a day stitching tomorrow, I spent all today at the office so my son will send a text if anything crops up. Right now it's back to do more hand quilting, while I watch a dvd of "Medium".

I forgot to share a thought last time, I love this one, "Few know how to be idle and innocent."

Nice talking with you, thanks for stopping by and for your comments.
June

Mixed Media, Nova Scotia and retail therapy

2011-10-02T02:03:00.000-07:00

This is the flower arrangement at the entrance to the exhibition in Waikanae put on by Kapiti Coast Quilters.

My friend Jann and I finished teaching at the prison, had a tasty lunch at Kaizen in the Pataka complex in Porirua and headed north. It was a beautiful day, everywhere were signs of spring growth.

Jenny has a full report of the Exhibition plus photos galore so I will content myself with showing you the results of a bit of retail therapy.

I honestly can't remember when I last bought fabric for myself and I have never, never bought a range of any one designer - so, hey if you are going to break the rules, you might as well go the whole nine yards!

I couldn't resist this packet of threads, they will be great for machine quilting some of my tops................

They are Rowan, amybutler - colours hand picked by Amy, so how could I go wrong?

This fabric just appealed and as I said to Jann when she was dithering a bit about buying something, "Be strong - go ahead and buy it"

Actually these fabrics look very much like some of my vintage fabrics so I shall have no difficulty finding fabric to go with them; I think they might need a bit of orange to give them a lift.........

I bought the thread and fabric from the Bernina shop at Raumati - they were one of the merchants at the exhibition.

We then went to the Mixed Media exhibition at the Kapiti Law Gallery where Diana Bahler, a friend from way back, had several pieces on display. There were also paintings and pottery.

I chose four of Dana's to share with you; she had worked on them at our group meetings fielding a plethora of advice from the rest of us....

This is "Woman Constrained" - the enlargement if you click on it will show more detail, as it will with any of the works.

This is "Written on the Wind".

I find this one very tender and almost sad, "Last Rose" and my personal favourite - "Ice Strata"

Diana has several other pieces in the exhibition, so there is plenty more of her work and the others for you to see. The Gallery is on the main street, on the left driving north, just before you get to Fibre Flair!
and the exhibition is open until the end of November.

My last blog was about Halifax and my visit there, and I had a lovely email from Linda telling me that the shop Suttles and Seawinds is at Mahone Bay - and it's still there and that the flower on the magnet is the Mayflower and it's the provincial flower of Nova Scotia. I then just had to have a look among my club badges and found these -

The Mayflower Handquilters - Nova Scotia. Did you ever swop badges when you went on holiday?

Now for a little quilt - made a lifetime ago, one of the first I pieced on the machine using squares that were given to me by a lovely lady who had a dress shop in Hataitai - you know the kind of small, local shop where the owner could tell at a glance if she had something that would suit you. Was her name Helen? I can't remember, but she never put me wrong - I used to call in just for a chat, so when I started on my patchworking she happily gave me some scraps -

Caravan Curtains quilt

The pale centre squares are actually tee shirt material and the striped inner border was a most unusual fabric - I once saw it as curtains on a very, very old caravan! I think it's the only quilt I ever bound with bias binding - because I curved the corners and it is hand quilted; one square at a time - it never occurred to me to join those lines of diagonal quilting!

Nice talking with you, thanks for stopping by
June

Halifax, sew & flip and cats

2011-09-29T01:41:00.000-07:00

This is a little magnet I bought in Halifax, Canada in 1987 - so the chip is understandable - it sits on the side of my fridge and I loop the handle of a little flax kete onto it, in which I put the pencil I need to write my shopping list.

And you need to know this why? I hear you thinking - well it's all to do with the great blogging community; I looked at one of my regular blogs, saw a link that looked interesting and then saw one that was headed something to do with the waterfront in Halifax - so I just had to have a look.

Linda has similar tastes in quilting and the magic connection is Halifax. Back in 1987 I did a round the world trip to see my brothers and sisters as both our parents had died since my previous visit and then I went onto Canada to stay three weeks with the woman who had been my very Best Friend all through school in England. We had lost touch after her divorce and then re-connected. The trip was arranged so that I could have as many stopovers as I wanted, provided I kept going west.

I'll tell you more about it later and I hope to have some photos because I met up with a quilt group in the village of Selsey where I used to live, they gave me an introduction to a quilter in Halifax who gave me one to a quilter in Montreal................

To quilts now, the Four plus three quilt I explained last time is a variation of the Exquisite block, the latter has a sew and flip on opposite corners not just on the one. This is one I teach in my class, my sample is another flower garden -

Then later I teamed the block with a four patch for this result -

Halifax was the first place I saw antique quilts for sale, I was just blown away - and right at the end of my trip I found THE antique quilt in Toronto, no question I had to have it - three cheers for plastic fantastic. I will get a photo and show later.

Believe it or not this next photo has a link to Canada too - here is Basil showing his large tail which is the reason for his name, Basil Brush, sitting on the "Tree Skirt" under the Christmas tree -

That is actually a skirt - see the patchwork around the bottom? In those days I was a size 12 which is why I now have found another use for it! I bought it at Suttles and Seawinds - the most amazing quilt shop in ****Bay - I shall have to look it up. The shop took up an entire house, upstairs and downstairs - I wonder if it is still there.

Just so Floyd doesn't feel left out, here he is helping himself to a feed when I left the lid open - I had only turned around to fill his plate, but hey, why make do with a little plate when you can have the whole lot!

Here's one of the tops I made when I started sewing again nearly three years after my husband died. I moved my sewing machine upstairs to the dining room table, got out my scraps and started piecing. My son called round and was horrified to see me joining lots of tiny little pieces, he was quite sure quilts should be made of big pieces - I had plenty of them, didn't I!

The thing is they were all the bits left over from using five inch squares so I sorted them into similar lengths. I started with the row four from the right - yes they are tiny. Here is a detail

As the pattern is a version of Chinese coins, I call it Pounds, shillings and pence - or Lsd for short!

Such excitement in Petone earlier today, a convoy of flag bedecked cars drove along Jackson Street, horns blaring - Samoan supporters were on the move!

The weather here today was so good, you really can't beat Wellington on a good day! I could have done some gardening, but managed to find enough to do elsewhere.......

I must have known what the thought for today is, "Systematic thinking must precede action."

Thanks for dropping by, good talking to you
June

Billy and classes

2011-09-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

I thought you might like a close up of the "man servant", named with gusto but a decided lack of originality - Billy.

You will note that he is very much his own person and quite happily sports an ear-ring! This 'flower' is actually a bunch of quilting patterns but seemed made for him - and a perfect match to his corrugations!

He even wears his maker's mark -

I have spent some time in my sewing room these last couple of days trying to find suitable fabric for one of the Shut-in Stitchers. She made the classic mistake of loving some very distinctive fabric, piecing it to a cot size and now wanting more to enlarge into a single bed size but nowhere can I find any in my stash and there was nothing at the prison either - dark, saturated colours with lots of black, sort of like a batik. She has made some fabulous scrap quilts so this time it will test her ingenuity to come up with a solution - or we just wait and see what comes along!

The name Kaffe Fassett conjures up beautiful colours and patterns and I believe he visited New Zealand earlier this year. I was lucky enough to go along to his class the first time he came here. We received details of the class and the sizes to cut our fabric; I felt his recipe was a bit on the clunky side so cut my pieces smaller, my colour scheme was based on one fabric I liked - I even invited friends who came round during the week before the class to add to the pile from my stash, so I had a good amount to choose from.

Here I am at the class [concentration is making me hunch my shoulders - but I like my haircut!]

The 'starter' fabric is to the left of the deep red nine patch, and here is the finished flimsy, called "Moonlit Garden"

This next quilt top is from my five inch squares class, the smaller version of postcards - as the baby quilt was that I showed recently - and they send me photos of little Amy enjoying floor time on it.

A work in progress, there are always so many flower fabrics among the five inch squares - oh and the belt above the quilt was an Op shop find and my granddaughters love it with all its sequins.

It's called "Butterflies in the garden" and yes, once again a batik ties it all together.

My last show and tell for this evening is one I made from 'starters and enders' joining squares - I just loved the fabric I chose to separate the panels; not a batik this time but dig those crazy patterns.

Sorry I seem to cut off the top which is a repeat of the bottom - and I am sure you will agree I had to call it, "Bordering on the Ridiculous!".

We are heading for an election I think, so maybe we should take note of today's thought - "Those who govern best make the least noise"

Thanks for stopping by, nice chatting with you.
June

Serendipity and Barbie

2011-09-24T20:43:00.000-07:00

This flower bed was once full of weeds plus an overgrown Pineapple Sage, it gets very little rain and was something of an eyesore. Then I spotted this handsome lad at the garden centre at Peka Peka and had to have him! My visitors arrive at the front door with smiles on their faces.

I had a really full, fun day yesterday. The teaching at the prison went very well, I think I am getting through about pinning and pressing - with help from an unexpected source. One of the women who had been, shall I say somewhat reluctant to take advice, suddenly started telling the younger ones to listen to June: "Measure, pin and press!!"

Another of the women who is leaving to return home this week wrote a card of thanks to all the volunteers and people who help with the programme. She said her Saturday mornings of quilting kept her sane.

So a big thank you to all who support us in so many ways.

We finished by 12.30 so I drove back to Petone to buy a coffee and some lunch before attending the meeting of Capital Quilters, I had some quilts from the prison that I wanted to show at the meeting. Petone was as usual full of people and I had to go into the back streets to get a park - but it was meant to be, because as I walked to the cafe I saw this sign

So I walked a little further to get a proper look -

No mistaking that face!

So I followed the arrows and went into the building.

It is an absolute treasure trove! I told you I like looking at girly things, well where to start?

Colleen Scrimshaw was sitting at the desk and we chatted about her collection. The toys on this side are for sale - see the All Black and the Maori warrior?

Round the far side are for display and drooling over only! If you are interested in fashion and clothes design, wait until you see the doll of Elizabeth Taylor when she played Cleopatra - the detail in amazing.

Colleen is only generally open at weekends but if you ring her on 04 9700 299, she is more than happy to open up for visitors. I have no affiliations, just found it by accident - I think she has been open only a few weeks and I very seldom walk down that side street - but I think it is well worth a visit for anyone interested in fabric, sewing and fashion.

The club meeting was such fun, good to catch up with many members I hadn't seen in a while; as usual the display of work was fascinating - such talent these ladies have. And the speaker is an expert in Baltimore style quilts, her work is beautiful - all in all it was a great day.

Serendipity is the name I gave a quilt I made and which is included in my 5" squares class - this is the basic shape.

You start off with two squares, one four inch and one three inch. Put the smaller square onto the larger, mark the diagonal and sew - before you sew the second seam, measure from the corner two and a quarter inches and that is where you put the second line to sew on.

This is vital, because you need the resulting small half square triangle to be 2.25 inches so that four of them sewn together will result in a four inch square.

I made a whole stack of these blocks light on dark and vise versa and then I started playing with them.

I decided on the design I wanted to use, and then played with the half square triangles for different borders, until I was happy with the result - which is more than I am with the placement of these little photos to show the whole process!!

Never mind, I am sure you get the idea.

So here is the quilt finished, pieced by me and quilted by Bary Scott who used to have a studio at Te Horo.

I wouldn't call myself a rugby fan, but earlier today - hey, did you remember about the clocks going forward? thank goodness my computer and my iPhone don't wait to be told! - anyway, I wanted to watch a favourite TV show, "Location, Location" and then found myself watching the rugby but quite happily, because I knew the final score. Just as well, because at the start it looked as though it could go either way!

I can't help chuckling at the funny thoughts in this old diary, "Let the shipwrecks of others be your sea-marks"

Thanks for stopping by and for your comments
We'll talk again soon
June

Chinese Whispers and Darth Vadar's pencil box

2011-09-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

Nothing says spring more clearly to me than the kowhai blossom, particularly against a clear blue sky.

I remember a time when I wasn't quite as flattering about the blossom - a friend, Ronnie, sat near me in a design class and she took this flower as her inspiration. I remarked that her design looked just like Caspar the Friendly Ghost!

You have to be good friends with someone to be able to say something like that about their work.........

I have just come into the house from my sewing room and am enjoying a glass of pinot noir - I am exhausted and shall be off to bed early. My sewing room is tidy!!! Floors swept, rubbish removed and all the fabric tidy - or at least out of sight. I even sorted through several plastic containers - I discovered I have one full of mending type fabric, zips etc.

There are two piles of quilt tops, those with backs already pieced and those without - oh and a smaller pile of backs that don't seem to go with any of the tops........

This is the third, and last, canvaswork panel I helped make at the 127 Group, again designed by Gill Williams and called Wellington; Capital City

My panel was the BNZ Centre - otherwise known to the locals as Darth Vadar's Pencil Box. It was the most difficult for me of the three panels. Trying to get light reflections was a challenge; of course when it came to the little domes and the artwork at the base, I made no attempt to keep the correct proportions.

Here is a close up

Have you ever seen a quilt at a show or a meeting maybe and thought you'd like to make one like it? Then when you get home and start sorting fabrics some of the details are less than clear, but you press on. I did that when I was stitching with friends and one of them was hand quilting a scrap quilt, I thought the pattern was railroad crossing maybe. No problems with me doing one, so at home I sorted a pile of strips into different lengths, joined them and then cut into three inch columns.

I found a sort of burgundy coloured plain fabric for the squares, and put everything up on the design wall - oh dear, it didn't work. The zing I noticed in Sandy's quilt was missing from mine - it wouldn't even be revived by fancy hand quilting in the plain squares.

Now, I thought maybe a flower in the square, but I don't do applique if I can help it - but, aha, I remembered a fabric I had bought from Shaws years ago, I located it, fussy cut some squares and sashed with the three inch columns - and this is what I ended up with -

It's named, "It's a Jungle Out There" - I was watching re-runs of TV series at the time.

I couldn't waste the squares I had previously cut out, so made half square triangle blocks with the sewn strips, and came up with this setting -

Sandy and I showed our so-different tops at a club meeting - and she said the quilt she thought she was copying was actually quite different, as she found out when she got a photo of it.

Yesterday was the meeting of Pinestream Quilters, Jenny of Romany Quilters always does a great write up so I will leave it to her but the last item on a very busy meeting was the presentation of two Bernette sewing machines to me as Convenor of the Shut-in Stitchers quilting programme of Arohata Prison. These machines come with a walking foot each which will make such a difference to the quality of the quilting. We are so grateful to Pinestream for their generosity.

Tomorrow I will check with the women and if permission is given I shall be able to share with you some of the quilts they are making; thanks to the marvellous team of volunteers and the help of quilters who donate so much lovely fabric.

Not quite sure what to make of the weekly thought from my diary, "Be sensible, though sympathetic".

Thanks for dropping by
We will talk again soon
June

Is this tiled floor from Christchurch?

2011-09-21T02:09:00.000-07:00

I have to share this photo of a cineraria plant - these plants self seed all over the garden and it was a source of annoyance to my sister-in-law who lives in the south of England. Her cineraria plants are carefully nurtured and kept in the glasshouse over the winter so when she stayed out here she was very envious of the abundance in our garden.

You can see some of the flowers to the left.

Now the tiles, I was going through some more photos when I came across these - obviously I was looking with my quilter's eyes, as Bonnie Hunter says. And then it hit me, several years ago I went to Christchurch and whilst there enjoyed a Flower event - not sure how else to describe it. There was a path of flowers - and I am sure they were in the Cathedral - and floats on the water.

And here is the third one

Does anyone know if they are from the Cathedral? I suddenly had this awful feeling when I realised that they may be destroyed and it brought the whole disaster back again. I know, lucky me, I don't have to live with the results every day; strange how something like this can hit a nerve.

Wellington is my city, I've lived here ever since we came to New Zealand. First Roseneath, then Whitby and now Petone and I am pleased to share the second of the canvas work panels we were commissioned to make, this one Gill called "Multiple Viewpoint".

My contribution on this one is of the windsurfer off Oriental Bay, with the city buildings behind. My son is a keen photographer and once again I used one of his photos as my pattern.

I find something very soothing about stitching on canvas, similarly with hand quilting. I used to teach canvaswork, one class featured a bargello pattern in a square using lots of colours and just the one stitch; and the other was a cushion using one colour and lots of stitches to create an Aran pattern. Canvas work seems to have gone out of fashion, but no doubt it will return in some form or another.

Also several years ago, a woman acquaintance who was an artist with pastels and paints, asked if I would swap one of my quilts for one of her works. I very much admired her work and said I was willing, should she ever want a quilt of mine that I was prepared to let go.

And it happened, here is the quilt, an Attic Window - the moment she saw it she said that's the one. I had made it in a class when I stepped in at the last minute to take the place of a friend whose mother was ill.

This was taken in the lounge of our house in Whitby - when we were having the kitchen re-modelled! Just in case you thought I usually kept kitchen pots on the lounge floor!

And here is the pastel she gave me -

I am very happy to have this hanging on my wall, sorry about the flashback but I think you can appreciate her work - those gorgeous feathery sort of flowers?!

I do like this thought from my diary, - "Look back and give thanks. Look forward and take courage."

Thanks for visiting, we'll talk again soon.

June

Camisole and Crackers

2011-09-18T01:47:00.000-07:00

I know, this is classed as a weed, the good old onion plant, but it still looks so pretty between the rosemary and the er-um climber.

Their perfume will make up for the less than sweet onion smell.

I am having more problems with Blogger, not sure if anyone else is and I have spent ages today trying to find a solution. People who have my blog on their list of blogs they follow are not getting updates and it all happened after I put up the list of blogs I follow.

If you are not getting my updates please let me know.......

The camisole I want to share is one given to me by my sister; apparently her mother in law made it. I love the little pintucks and inset lace.

Here is a close up of the lovely inset -

The block from my class I want to share is Cracker. It works well with five inch squares as each block needs two strips 2" x 5" of the colour, I used brights, and one of cream. Then one bright square and one cream square, 4.5" each cut in half diagonally.

The bonus from cutting two inch strips from the five inch squares is all the one inch strips which I used for a double border -

Earlier I had made the same pattern using cotton curtaining and somewhat larger blocks, striped fabric works well; this one was made for the Wellington Women's Refuge, one of the Outreach programmes of the Wellington Guild -

The thought from my Girl Guide diary is so relevant with all the rugby fever around, "Without rivals we may become indolent."

Nice talking with you
June

Horrockses Dress and Canvas work

2011-09-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

I haven't done any more stitching on my extended nine patch but thought I would show you the dress I wore on my way out to New Zealand.

Well, it makes a change from a flower! This photo was taken at the Botanical Gardens, Sydney on the last port of call before Wellington. You can see the pattern quite clearly and understand why this particular piece of fabric has special meaning for me.

I had intended to post a blog yesterday evening, but I had a phone call from a friend - we haven't met for a while as she works long hours so we had plenty to talk about and before I knew it the evening was far advanced and there was not time to do anything except get to bed. Saturday is the day I cannot lie in because of teaching at the prison. Things went well today and I have brought out another couple of quilts to show at Pinestream Meeting this Thursday.

Before I got hooked on quilting to the exclusion of almost everything else, I belonged to a the 127 Group and we did various kinds of fibre art and were lucky enough to get commissions to do a series of canvas work pieces.

The first one was Vale - Wellington, designed by Gill Williams

Here is a plan showing who did which of the pieces that made the whole -

My contribution to this piece was the Michael Fowler Centre

Much of the wool we used was dyed using vegetable dyes and I worked from a photograph.

Just to include some quilting, here is my 1001 Nights - have you ever joined in with a group event for making a quilt in a night? Capital Quilters [the Lower Hutt guild ] used to run these and this was the pattern they chose, Arabic Lattice I think it is called - well, I was travelling quite a bit at the time so used to pop my little Elna Lotus machine in my car, plus a box of the fabric, tools etc. and when I stopped making calls on Quilt shops, I had the rest of the time until the shops opened next day to sew to my heart's content.

I used that time to make all the four patches and do lots of cutting; the main sewing took place one weekend when my husband was away playing golf - so Quilt in a Night it certainly wasn't!

It was pretty tricky to put together with all those partial seams!

So this time I'll finish with a flower picture -

I know it's not coriander but don't tell the polyanthus! the pot was just handy when I brought this plant indoors, it has survived the snow and the hail storm so thought it needed a little pampering. And what about that supercilious driftwood dragon!? And the plastic bird has been around a long while, it is the kind you put water in and then blow to make warbling bird calls!

The thought for Week 2 was "Have not thy cloak to make when it begins to rain."

Nice talking with you
Have a good weekend
June

Op Shop treasures

2011-09-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

Not an Op Shop treasure but a latent treasure - these are the buds on the little self seeded kowhai tree - in quite the wrong place of course but I do not care if it grows over the lawn and I have cut back the nearby bushes to give it room to grow. I'm not even sure if it will bear the weight of a Tui should one decide to have a meal!

I have been spending a lot of time in my sewing room - trying to get some order into the chaos!

I know it didn't happen overnight and I shall only rectify the problem one small step at a time - maybe I should put on blinkers then I wouldn't get sidetracked.

I have been checking out my tops - in the US I believe they are known as 'flimsies' and organising backs for them. I came across one back and I can't for the life of me remember which top I made it for........

Here are some more of my sewing tools -

Top left is a brass thimble & needle case, underneath it beside the golly is an aluminium case advertising Coca Cola; the yellow box holds little cotton reels and a needle threader and the green & gold tube to the right holds needles.

The quilt - which was featured in the NZ Quilter magazine, was a happy purchase from a second hand shop in Lower Hutt - sadly no longer there. All they could tell me was that it came from a farm in the Hawkes Bay. I wish I could find out more. I think that it was a kit with the felt applique pieces cut out - the maker put on the kiwi. It has no batting but is backed with curtaining.

These next are tea cosies -

The top two are purchases and the crazy patchwork one at the bottom was my sample for teaching beginners at Onslow College night classes in the eighties!

The last is a hexagon top I bought from the Sallies; it was machine stitched very roughly onto a pink poly sheet, so I took it off and have very intention of finding something more suitable for it.

I have never seen a hexagon quilt stitched together quite like this - and do click on the photo to enlarge it to get the full beauty of these fabrics -

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is crimpelene, and the black and tan would be unforgettable, here's some more

and another

I love the sheer exuberance of this top!

I have been reading more of my Girl Guide diary - even then I wrote in it most days. I went to the cinema a lot, no TV of course and in the village we had a cinema and in the next town, Chichester, where I went to secondary school, there were three and they all changed programmes three times a week. I must check out "It Happened in Flatbush" my comment was that it was stupid and a waste of money!

The thought for week 1 was "A little 'ginger' is good for all of us." which would have resonated with me as my nickname was Ginger!!

Talk to you again soon, thanks for stopping by

June

Cats and extended nine patch

2011-09-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

I said the kowhai had started to bloom, and here it is - how quickly that happened and already the Tuis have found it.

And a first today, I heard the unmistakable sound of a wood pigeon flying over; I didn't see where it landed but there are quite a few large trees around.

Maybe it's because I had two sons but I have a weakness for girly toys and couldn't resist this cradle when my friend decided she didn't have room for it. My granddaughters have loved playing with it, we made new quilts and a mattress for it from my stash - and now Basil displays great balance to get in and out of it as it is a rocker - but it is in the living room and that is his domain.

Isn't that a lovely table cloth? an Op shop find.

Floyd, on the other hand, considers my bedroom and my sewing room as his special areas. I brought home the suitcase I use in the prison, it was too heavy and I wanted to exchange it for something a little lighter - while my back was turned, Floyd took possession -

He doesn't look very comfortable but it was on my bed, so fair game!

I have expressed my love of scrap quilts but so that you realise I am not totally one eyed I want to share a quilt - OK for the purists, a quilt top! - made with only four fabrics and three of them are in the border!!

At first glance it looks sort of woven and that's because I sort of fussy cut it! I just loved the fabric and wasn't I lucky to find the faded black, blue and green to match for the borders -

On a recent tidying up session in the sewing room I came across this battered carton -

See the number on the top right corner? - 141 - when I moved from Whitby to Petone I did all the packing of my sewing room - with a little help from my friends but I mean I didn't leave it to the packers!

Each carton/container was numbered and entered onto a list and this is what it contained

- blocks and associated paraphernalia to make an extended nine patch, including plastic templates I had made and a photo of an antique quilt of the same pattern. The reason the project had ground to a halt was that I couldn't decide on the background fabric, then some friends came round and had a fossick through the cupboards and suggested this one -

I have pinned it ready to sew but I'm making no promises as to when this will be, I haven't finished quilting the wonky hexagon log cabin - though come to think of it, this will be easier to take out to a stitching day......

It's been a while since I did hand piecing like this - I put all the blocks onto the design wall, not in any particular order and found I am one short, so of the fabric in the bottom of the box I have chosen the beige with little palm trees, there are several pieces, and I hope I can get the four squares out of the remnant of lilac dress fabric. It is all that is left of a Horrocks dress I wore when I came to New Zealand in 1958!!!

All the fabrics in this quilt have very special memories for me, you will see the yellow with strawberries I pieced to put into another quilt -

I have recently come across a pile of my old diaries, one I used as a child was a Young Folks Diary for Boys and Girls - Scouts and Guides; each week has a saying - very worthy and it is full of the kind of information no doubt useful in games of Trivial Pursuit; for instance the 16th week after Trinity is Ember Week and the thought is, "Opportunity comes in vain to the man who is unprepared."

Nice talking with you,
June

Where did the ten years go?

2011-09-11T02:59:00.000-07:00

I feel that Forget-me-nots are appropriate for this day - don't know about you but Nine Eleven is so vivid I have great difficulty accepting that it was ten whole years ago.

My alarm is set to switch on the radio, I usually manage to sleep through quite a lot of talking but that particular morning enough permeated my dreams and when I heard the announcer say something about sport or weather, I sat up in bed and shouted at the inoffensive piece of machinery to stop rabbiting on; how can you mention sport when a plane has hit a building! where man, where? So I leaped out of bed and turned on the television - and stayed glued to it for the rest of the morning. I think I knitted, I did something to keep my hands busy.

I hope you have enjoyed your weekend, quilting at the prison went well, very busy. I must check and see if it is ok for me to post photos of some of the quilts the women have made.

Floribunda is finished, well it is a top and I have changed my mind about the backing, the table cloth was too thin so I have found some vintage pieces that I think will look great - I actually had thoughts about sandwiching it this weekend........

I like the batik as a border, sort of echos all the colours. I used mainly vintage fabrics from my stash, this one was actually a dress - and not pure cotton - but I loved it and have photos of me wearing it on my trip to the UK in 1980!

And this one is a fabric my 12 year old granddaughter bought a few years ago at an Open Day - then decided a few weeks ago that perhaps I should have it, she doesn't want to make another quilt at the moment -

When I showed the blue string quilt on my bed, you might have noticed the quilt on the wall over the bed. This was made English paper pieced method, a good idea as I was using silks - old ties and offcuts of dressmaking fabric. The background is a furnishing fabric, I just loved the colour - so here is "Ties in the Sky:

The next quilt is a sort of warning that labels are very important - I made it from pacific fabric and love the design, Jewel Box - I took it along to one of the group stitch-ins, laid it on the floor and put the fabric that is the inner border down as a full border - a friend walked past and said Yuk! She was of course quite right, I was being lazy and knew it needed a pieced border, so on went the checkerboard which I do like.

It was long arm quilted for me by a friend who wanted to learn, she was working in a shop at the time and they put in the batting -

It looks ok here, I shall take another photo later, because they used wool batting and I forgot, so when I washed it - well, crinkled is putting it mildly.

Always something more to learn, as Anton Chekhov put it "I expect I shall be a student to the end of my days." or maybe I'm just a slow learner!

Nice talking with you
June

2011-09-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

My kowhai tree is coming into bloom - such a shock when I looked out the bathroom window last evening and the tree has a decidedly yellow glow to it. Not much use trying to photograph it today, the wind is perfect for drying washing but not for tree snaps....

So here is a shy little camellia taken when the weather was calmer -

I do want to put in better photos of a couple of quilts I showed recently, first the Quilt as you Go string made with compressed batting - it was so fuzzy, here's a better one so you can see the individual fabrics -

Also, the Nod in the direction of Kaffe Fasset - I said the fabrics were bold and bizarre and they just looked washed out when I checked out the blog, so here they are in full strength -

These photos were taken when I had sandwiched the back and front, but not quilted it, here is the other side and this time you can see the half square triangles left over from the front -

Well, you do have to click on it to see the enlargement.

Sunday was a beautiful day, sunny but pretty icy, so I went for a walk with my son along the bank of the Hutt River into Lower Hutt and the Dowse Museum and Cafe Reka - we enjoyed coffee and cake and I was amused by this range of jewellery for sale -

Cuff links using Scrabble pieces and the tops of the keys from an old typewriter.
We walked back through the park, passed the fountain that is causing the Council some headaches I believe - whether or not to upgrade

The little boy had a remote controlled boat - but look at big sister's body language, she really doesn't want to be there!

I think I have mentioned that I like words and am something of a pedant - not, I hasten to add that I think I am infallible - but I loved these two signs I saw in two separate supermarkets -

I think the Manager has had many complaints about the spelling........... and this one from Pack 'N Save, not to be one-sided -

I want to share with you another of the techniques from my class, I call this one Figure Eight. You take a square and sash it on all four sides,

Cut the square into quarters and reverse two of the small squares -

You can see why it is called figure eight! I adapt the thickness of the sashing to the size of the square, one and a quarter is my choice for a five inch square.

I chose to use different colours for the sashing, not always the same all round each block depending on the effect I wanted. I also slashed the border when moving between the two fabrics.

I made one large block for the back, with a few extra fill ins - do you realise I bought these fabrics to make blouses for me.........?

One last quilt for today that I want to share, is another early effort. I wanted to make a log cabin, but not strictly regular. A friend from the golf club gave me some fabic, she said she had this lovely skirt I could use, but then she cut it up with scissors into roughly square pieces - but nothing was on the straight of grain. I think she had the wrong idea of what quilters want! Anyway, I cut these bits down a bit and they were the centre though not necessarily in the centre -

Pinned to the curtain in place of a design wall, and now finished

It is hand quilted like a huge net - Maui was trying to hold back the sun as it raced across the heavens. You can see I quite like the effect of a slashed border to move between the different border fabrics.

This evening I am off to the Wellington Quilters meeting where members will be sharing the results of their Symposium and our recent Solstice classes. I have my bag with several quilts from the Shut-in Stitchers so I shall be able to get photos of them, one for the maker and one for our album.

And how's this for encouragement from Teilhard de Chardin, "It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though limits to our ability do not exist."

I like that thought!
Good talking with you
June

Strings galore

2011-09-06T01:20:00.000-07:00

Isn't it amazing how the flowers bounce right back, the coating of snow doesn't seem to have hurt these polyanthus - maybe it just killed all the bugs.

I had a pretty busy weekend, prison on Saturday where the class went well and we have lots of quilts and tops to take to Wellington Guild meeting this week for Show & Tell. We get so much support from quilters it is a buzz for me to take work along so people can see what happens to their donations of fabric.

Earlier I mentioned that I have been doing string or strip piecing for a long time, here is proof positive - my office in the family business, several years ago.........

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a typewriter - not a computer - on my desk, with its own strip pieced cozy; on the back of the chair a quilt and two little ones on the wall.
At least the typewriter was electric.........

Now in the eighties, no self respecting quilter was without string pieced, quilted garments - I had this jacket, and I remember feeling conspicuous wearing it until I got to Cuba Street in town, when I was overshadowed by some of the regulars........

And the back view

Also it was reversible, inside out it looked like this

You can see that Quilt As You Go is no novelty for me! Though I did make one recently and learned a valuable lesson - do not use compressed batting!!

Ah yes, this one shows the binding not sewn on - boy, that was not easy and some of those joins are almost lethal. I need to hammer the batting down to make it possible to sit on the quilt.

See it is finished - I love the back, those old fabrics - four pieces are part of a rather worn embroidered table cloth - I'm pretty sure I had those in a proper pattern...... I must have moved them around as I joined them - oh well............

One of the things I did early on was cut out the shape of an apron - yes, this was in the days when it was ok to wear an apron to protect your clothes, use as a basket, wipe noses or mop up blood etc. etc. - I then covered the base with strips; first in the traditional vee, my Christmas apron - a big lop sided and that's before having a tipple!

Then with the strings fanning out from one position -

Then I wondered if it were possible to change direction on the one apron -

And it was, and then another vee - chevron I think it was called, different colours -

After teaching on Saturday, a friend and I went to Pataka, had lunch at Kaizen - and they were having a day celebrating all things from Wales. They had a display of handcrafts -

Two hexagon quilts and the Celtic knot that we were told was very old, and samples of embroidery. As we ate our lunch we were serenaded by the choir, unaccompanied and just lovely to hear.

I couldn't resist snapping this lady draped in a flag, what a great emblem it is!

It seems ages since my last blog, so I am rattling on a bit. Will close now and attend to pressing matters like answering emails, sending promised photo to a friend, doing the dishes.......

My thought for today comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "There are not days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination."

We will talk again soon, thanks for stopping by and for the lovely comments.
June

Strings and another class, update on Bell block

2011-09-02T01:40:00.000-07:00

Have you ever seen a plant like this before? It is a bamboo sent to me for my birthday by my niece. I was so surprised when I saw it - and amazed that it seems to be thriving on just water in that little black vase that is filled with pebbles.

Good feng shui I believe and I am all for all the help I can get. The little crystal tree was given to me by my granddaughters for Christmas one year, rose quartz which also has such good vibes.

About the Bell Block quilt, I have not heard back from England, so emailed the NZ contact - between them we should be able to find out the names of all those who contributed blocks.

I have put the borders on my Floribunda but will wait until I can bribe my friends to hold it up so I can photograph it - a small drawback [getting in my excuses early] to using some of the old fabrics, and I do mean OLD - is that they are not all the same weight and they distort - but nothing I am sure that cannot be quilted out!!

I thought I would share with you an old string pieced quilt; this one was done using pages of an earlier publication, the Radio Times. and all the blues I could find, taking blue from blue/green to purple -

It's been on my bed for about twenty years - in the winter it is under the down duvet - well, I feel the cold!

I ran out of the right blue for the borders so put in a little corner block -

As you can see I also used the scraps for binding. I hand quilted it using a design from a great book of Amish quilting designs - I liked the idea of a square in the centre of the cable, seemed to go with the block design.

In the early years after my husband died I had to push myself to do things, it was so easy to curl up with a book after work - my security blanket books that I had read many times - I found it good to go along to the prison for teaching and one day in a shop I saw a quilt that attracted me - the colours of course - so joined in the class.

However, how do I put this politely - the woman taking the class had obviously just made this one example ............. it was a Kaffe Fasett design and his was made with two colours, pink and blue I think, cut into strips then sliced on a sixty degree angle at random before being joined.

One of the students complained that she couldn't get a good join at sixty degrees - well, you all know the secret, you find the quarter inch seam corner, pin and sew from there - we were told that it was soooo difficult, but not to worry, do the best you can and we will slice half an inch off each side of the strips!!

No way, so I joined mine at a forty five degree angle, cut off the extra half square triangle, and then used them on the back.

No delicate pastels for me, I used all my bold - some would say bizarre - fabrics and separated them with black sashing. It is called "A nod in the direction of Kaffe Fasett"

The back, once again, used all the left overs -

I quilted it on my Bernina using the wavy stitch - a bit hit and miss on the diagonal - aren't those fabrics fun!

I am having a big more techno trouble, all to do with passwords - I want to download some books on my iPad but keep being told the password is wrong. So I set about changing it - and am still waiting for the verification email - blogging is a pleasant way to pass the time while I wait. Think I'll go and tidy the sewing room.....

Sage words from Isadora Duncan - "You were once wild here. Don't let them tame you!"

Thanks for stopping by, I do appreciate you comments and emails.
We will talk again soon
June

Where were you 31.08.1997?

2011-08-31T03:30:00.000-07:00

It's a date I cannot forget, my late husband's birthday, we were in England visiting relatives while he was in remission - and Princess Diana died that morning..........

This is Molly, one of my granddaughters, aged ten and enjoying stitching on my 'new' old sewing machine. This Singer was given to me by a lovely lady, Wendy, who used to help teach at the prison but who has since moved across the ditch. She gave me the machine when she left and I feel so fortunate to have it.

This is the model I bought when we first came to New Zealand; no money, clothes dear, fabric cheap and a young neighbour who willingly taught me to sew - perhaps influenced by the presence in the household of two boarders, young men who had moved to Wellington to join the civil service ..... [At school I did domestic science for only a year before I was streamed to maths and science] - so it was a win/win situation. And I am still sewing.

I mentioned the Margaret Millar class at Symposium '93, she taught it afterwards for those of us on committees and I had a great time. We did all the preparatory cutting before the class, then played with hundreds of variations of settings - this is the way my blocks wanted to be arranged -

It's not a large piece, so I was able to use all the leftovers for the back -

One of the quilts I made for my five inch squares class resulted in a lot of half square triangles in blues, so I got them out to play and decided on one of my favourite blocks, light -

Or dark

Some of each. But how to arrange them?

To sash or not to sash, a bit static - so how about

That's better but not quite right

That's it - I like having more dark blocks. They all have the same centre piece

Oops, that's just pinned - but it is a finished top so I will find a better photo later. Once again the batik works so well for the border.

I have come to a decision about my floribunda, I made four more blocks for another row and have cut the two borders - surprise, surprise one is a batik! I will post a photo when I have sewn them on.

And I haven't forgotten the quilt I want to make with the fabric my son brought back
from Italy but I have been using small squares for starters and enders so I now have a large number and I am considering making them into four patch blocks, putting a dark square around and then a light square and then staggering them............. however, I might not have enough four patches sewn, so if I do the Italian top first............

Thank you for stopping by - as Jean Cocteau said "This sickness, to express oneself. What is it?" and that was written well before the internet!
June

What's in your workbox?

2011-08-28T02:05:00.000-07:00

Well, this is what's in the tin that sits next to my sewing machine -

I was looking for the little gadget to thread elastic or ribbon - didn't find it, but found all this plus a layer of dust.
Don't you love that little Swiss army knife [top left] which is also a key ring; the scissors are dinky. Lots of little brushes for cleaning the machines, not sure about the eye shadow bud, handy to have a pencil sharpener, but pegs and paper clips? I think the eyedrops are from a symposium, and the hand cream - and those neat looking brass screws are out of the cardboard to hold curtain samples. I am sure I will find a use for them someday - but when was the last time I put in a zip? and six pincushions? This reminds me of the game where "all girls together" take out their handbags and see whose holds the most!!

Remember the lovely flowers I got to housesit for my friend ?-

They really were beautiful but are now down to just this -

Close up like that, it makes me think of Jaws or some other horror show!

Have you ever been to a class that disappointed you? Oh dear, as a teacher maybe I am unwise to ask that question, however we can all improve so I will continue. This was several years ago and one of the local clubs had some spare money so they brought in an overseas tutor - no names, no packdrill - isn't that the expression?

This person was advertised as the expert in strip piecing and I had been a fan of this type of patchwork since I started. I had made a couple of quilts and some aprons to try out changing direction I was really excited about being able to learn more.

I decided to use plain fabric for a change - at the class we were told to cut strips of various widths which took us until morning tea time, then we had to join them with a straight seam into long, long strips - that took us to lunchtime.

After lunch we started joining the various widths to make a piece of fabric - understandably this required a lot of ironing - where was the Gofer? Oh my, she had set up her machine and was joining in..........

By afternoon tea time we still didn't have a useable piece of fabric and I was not in a good mood........ at the end of the class we were given a few photocopied patterns - spider web etc. etc. and told to use these to make templates using our 'new' fabric.

When I got home I tossed everything into the back of the cupboard with a few well chosen but unrepeatable words and forgot all about them.

Then I learned that Margaret Millar was coming over to teach at the Wellington 1993 symposium - I did say it was some time ago, didn't I? I was interested so bought her book, resurrected the strips, finished them off and made some blocks using Margaret's basic techniques

This is my "Jungle of Delight" - and wasn't I lucky to have that border fabric in the stash I think it came from Evans - actually the colours are not quite right, the quilt is much more red/purple than blue - the bits left over went into the back -

Which I like very much, it reminds me of a 'modern' painting.

More recently a shop donated some fabric for us to use in the prison, in the carton was a large piece of bargello which none of the girls was keen to try to use, so one of my stitching group unpicked a seam to make two smaller units and I had great fun finding matching type fabrics from my stash and making two lap quilts ready to donate to one of the retirement homes around -

And this one

I hope you have been able to enjoy the milder, sunny weather over the weekend.

My thought for the day which clearly explains the number of UFOs around, - "The artist finds a greater pleasure in painting than in having completed the picture." Seneca

Thanks for stopping by
We'll talk again soon

June

Floribunda

2011-08-26T03:18:00.000-07:00

I can't claim to be a keen gardener, I enjoy sitting in the garden, looking at the flowers and trees. I love it that birds feed off the blossoms and the scraps I put on the bird table; scraps not being exactly accurate, bread, oats, over ripe fruit and a spoonful of peanut butter - not, I hasten to add, the delicious Pic's brand that I eat, but the gooey, bland kind you get from the supermarket. In turn they make a mess of the plants under the table but they present me with many freebies - after all I am quite sure I didn't plant them all.

One I do know I planted is this hellebore because it was given to me by a friend when I lived in Whitby and it is the only plant I dug out of the garden to bring to Petone - it had been sulking for nearly three years, and has at last started flowering. Perseverance pays off!

I showed you the first four blocks of my Floribunda quilt, well it is now complete as large as I am going to make it

I spent some time today looking for possible borders, after debating whether it needs one - I am still undecided but had a selection I considered -

I just love the cheddar, red and white - but it is way too strong and swamped the quilt, I am leaning towards using the batik - third from the left at the top, with a narrow yellow border -

The batik has lots of colours, it could work - or I could just bind it in the yellow - I shall sleep on it - but you are welcome to give your opinion.........

I do have the backing, in keeping with the use of vintage fabrics -

It's a painted gingham tablecloth

Sorry I meant to turn her the right way up!

And talking of backings, I found the chicken fabric I bought in the UK on my last trip - good heavens was it really as long ago as that?

Delightful fabric but not right for the rooster - so I have found some rather brash cheater cloth to use

Much more in keeping I think!

Mark Twain had a thought for the day that I can relate to - "Life does not consist.......of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that are forever blowing through one's mind."

Thank you for stopping by, we'll talk again soon.
June

It's a girl!

2011-08-24T00:31:00.000-07:00

And here she is, Amy McPike, better than any flower to open my blog

Isn't she just gorgeous? Not really a relative, though her grandparents are very close friends and Amy is their first grandchild, so of course I just had to make a quilt! No surprise that I chose lots of five inch squares and put them together with a gender free sashing - I did think of other colours, but as we didn't know whether the baby would be a boy or girl, it was green or yellow - for me, that is.

I did audition a yellow border but went for the dark one instead.

The cats on the climbing frame just made me smile. There is plenty of scope for I spy and other stories if distraction is needed! I hope the quilt will have lots of use.

And now for something completely different, you might remember Patricia Moss from Suffolk in the UK put out a call for New Zealand quilters to make a bell block to be made into a quilt for exhibition at the Birmingham exhibition and later the quilt is to be given to Christchurch.
One of our Arohata quilting tutors, Catherine Watson, is on an overseas tour, she visited Birmingham and sent back photos of the quilt.

And of our two blocks, first Catherine's

Then mine

I shall look out for news of the quilt's arrival in Christchurch. Did you make a block?

My creative thought for the day is - "Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life." Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I am sure those who survived the earthquakes would agree with that.
Thanks for stopping by
June

Something to crow about!

2011-08-21T02:57:00.000-07:00

The sun came out for the second day in a row and so did he petals on my lonely anemone. I just love that rich colour.

I have been tidying up in my sewing room today, actually it's just an excuse to fossick through some of the baskets of scraps where there are so many gorgeous fabrics and the ideas keep coming.

Recently I did the same thing and came across a pile of fabrics, obviously ready to cut and stitch - fortunately there was an envelope with them and a few scribbled measurements. I started making the blocks

The instructions said to quarter them and rearrange - but I found that I like them as they are, I like that uncluttered look, so I put them all together and found a narrow border

I even have the binding and backing sorted - should the day ever come that I put it all together!

Another time I came across a place mat - or it might have been a tray cloth - in an Op Shop, and it just had to come home with me. Who can forget the colours of the kitchens back in the sixties? This beautiful rooster just had to have his own quilt -

I used the 'No seams match" block to surround him, with plenty of vintage fabric so he feels quite at home -

I haven't sorted out the backing yet, but I seem to remember buying some chicken fabric from a little shop in Selsey when I visited England a few years ago - perhaps that would be a start - and think what fun it will be searching for it!

My thought for today, "The only limit to our realisation of tomorrow will be our doubts of today." Franklin Delano Roosevelt

We'll talk again soon
June

More squares and cats

2011-08-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

I just love these little daffodils - I bought them in pots a couple of years ago, left them with my daughter in law when I went on holiday, took them back when they had finished flowering and planted them - then forgot them!
A geranium plant had smothered them but when it was cut back, they were fine. Such a lovely bright spot - obviously they thrive on neglect!

It has struck me that many quilters have cats, as I do, so I thought I would introduce you to the two who choose to share my home.

In order of seniority, there is Basil -

He often sits with his paws crossed! When I adopted him from the SPCA in January 1998 they thought he was about three years old - he has a large tail so was named after Basil Brush.

Then there is Floyd who was a kitten and has to share everything I do - ah yes, put a quilt down and he will find it.

I wanted to show you also the small four patch quilt that is now quilted - yay!

I used a stitch on my Janome 6500 and variegated thread, I have used this decorative stitch before and no doubt will again.

And another quilt of squares, this time I came across it in an Op Shop, so brought it home. It had been badly washed and the turquoise material had bled but a gentle wash with a colour catcher has almost remedied that.

My granddaughters and I are in the process of putting buttons on to tie the squares - don't you love those colours? nothing subtle about this top!

I have several tins of buttons, so we shouldn't run out!

I think I shall do some hand quilting this evening, I have a boxed set of "Auf Wiedersehen Pet" that I am looking forward to seeing again.

Thanks for stopping by.
June

Puss in the Corner - in the snow?

2011-08-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

I couldn't be the only person who didn't show a photo of the snow - and it truly is snow, here in Petone. Or rather was, but there was great excitement for a short while!! There's my lonely little anemone in the succulent pot probably regretting that it didn't keep its head down a couple of weeks ago and the basket of seedlings was given to me by the ladies of a Waiwhetu Church group after I had given them a talk on the Shut-in Stitchers of Arohata Prison. Must put my wellies on and dash down the garden to plant them one day soon, though it is a bit of a bog at the moment - they are probably happier where they are.....

I really enjoy teaching my class on getting the best out of five inch squares, when I had no access to my main stash and was forced to use the squares - or stop quilting but that wasn't really an option - I often found myself looking at blocks and thinking, there must be an easier way! And it wasn't just speed but often the blocks turned out to be more accurate - like this first one I want to share with you; Puss in the Corner.

I am sure you know the one I mean

It's perfect for five inch squares; one for the centre, another cut in four for the corner posts and two more, each cut in two for the borders. And then you join all the fiddly little bits

So, I decided to sew first and cut afterwards - join the three squares that will be the borders and the corner posts, with the latter in the centre, like this

Now you slice it in four, it doesn't matter which you do first but I find to cut straight down through the centre block is shortest and easiest

You can probably see that I have cheated, it is only folded - and then you cut the other way, horizontally and you will have four pieces to sew around the centre block using a partial seam

You are not fooled by the different fabrics I know, I have put a pin in where the partial seam is stitched and it is then quite simple to continue anti clockwise with the other three border/cornerstone pieces.

One of the Shut-in Stitchers had made several quilts, all from squares - set as a love ring - and refused to try anything else - until I showed her this and she was amazed to discover that all the seams met!

My sample top is called Bright Eyed Baby, let's just say it is not a restful piece!

I have been making quilts from squares for such a long time that it feels strange to be using chunks or long strips, but that is what I am doing now.

I have been tempted by the quilt Floribunda on Bonnie Hunter's blog and here I am making half square triangles using a tool I had forgotten all about and making four patch blocks from long strips. http://quiltville.blogspot.com/

Yes well, the blog address should not have gone there - still lots to learn!!
And here are a few of the blocks, using all sorts of plainish yellows and big vintage flowers,

Change of subject, can't think of a link except that I love quilting and also words and cryptic crossword puzzles - and in particular those compiled by Donald Harrison, an Aussie [which it helps to remember with some of the clues] and I couldn't help but think of the wide range of the clues he uses. There was one, Tyrone might? and the answer was, Power. How many people nowadays remember the old heartthrobs? I must check him out on YouTube - and the other clue was "Single seed holder in new music player? Answer IPod.

My thought for the day is "Go out on a limb - that's where the fruit is". Will Rogers

Thanks for visiting and for your comments, I do so appreciate them.
We will talk again soon

June

Too nice to cut, fabric and flowers

2011-08-14T03:32:00.000-07:00

Aren't they beautiful? Just the cheerful note that is needed on this bitterly cold day. I have lived in Wellington since we came to New Zealand in 1958 and have never seen snow in the suburbs such as we have today. On the flat here in Petone we have had sleet, huge, flat, fat snowflakes that melted as soon as they hit the ground - it has been the perfect day to stay home in the warm.

Yesterday I taught my 5" squares class at the Pinestream Quilters' UFO Day and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I am having trouble with the photographs, so will continue with the text and hope to be able to insert them later.

Looks as though we have success! This is the end of the hall where I taught, you can see the six busy quilters and the wall of some of my samples. One the left is a pile of the sample tops I have made to demonstrate one way of putting them together.

It is always intriguing to see the different fabrics that are used in the blocks and how this changes the result. I loved these Delectable Mountains.

Ages ago I bought a piece of Indonesian batik and knew I could never cut it up, so it was the ideal piece to use on a double sided small quilt to use up some marbled fabric pieces. One of the groups I sewed with had a marbling session, great fun, and we all ended up with a small piece of every different attempt - these were put away together with some rich dark blue fabric and I forgot about them.

So one side is the bird picture and the other is the postcard variation using the marbled pieces. And you are so right, I shall never again use white batting in a dark quilt, so please ignore the bearding!

Here's a closeup -

And another

And the marbled fabric

I think each one is a picture, it's amazing what you can make of them - rivers and landscapes.......

On the green block, second from the left on the bottom row I had to add a piece of batik to the marbled fabric as it was just an inch or two too small - did you spot it?
There is one more small quilt I wanted to share with you tonight, before I lose patience with the slowness of downloading the photos - maybe too many people are sharing their photos of the unusual weather......

This one I made a long time ago and it has been well used by my granddaughters, both as their quilts and then for the dolls. It is made of one and a half inch squares - for some reason when my friends were making their two and a half inch squares into quilts I decided to leave mine for later when I would be able to think of something special to make - I would just run up a cot size quilt in the meantime - this little undertaking actually has six hundred squares in; the border has faded a lot as have some of the squares.

One of the reasons for sharing it, is evident in this close up

You see the cheddar yellow with the strawberries on? It is a favourite fabric and I had to join two strips to get a few one and a half inch squares!! A true patchworker, eh?
Time to go I think, blogger is playing up, so keep warm, and keep stitching!
We'll talk again soon
June