Waiting In The Wings

Thursday, April 26, 2018

Sort of Improv Ad Hoc but definitely utility

I still haven't even begun to formulate a plan
for the AHIQ project of scale and time has almost run out!

However, four more blocks were added yesterday to Mardi Gras,
eighteen in total now, another eighteen to go! I need to make a concerted
effort to have these finished within the next two weeks.


For some reason I only took individual shots
of three of the blocks.






These are  only meet the criteria of Ad Hoc
in that strips are pulled out of the bin in an ad hoc manner, you can
see that not all the strips are even width and there is the odd
slip up in the placement in one block!

The above is the sum total of stitching over the past week.
I'm in the throes of sorting fabrics and trying to find a good
chunk of time at my desk to make a list of quilts to be finished, and in
order of importance.  Future projects need to be listed and this is the
difficult part, there are so many but not enough time!!

In the garden the Autumn colours are taking centre stage, in
addition to camellias at this time of year my hibiscus are in bloom,
I took these photos below this morning.








I have more but they can be saved for another post.

I'll end this post with a photo of my helper who decided I didn't need
to neatly fold any more fabrics for the basket, she would have
her afternoon nap in there, and she was not moving for anyone!


I'm off to visit 
to catch up AHIQ posts.


Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Waltzing Matilda aka Rainbow Blur

I now have this quilt top finished and all ready
to be hung in the closet waiting to be quilted.

My quilts have names and as this one was based on the
travels around Aussie by Anna Maria Horner I'm calling it
Waltzing Matilda!
This will be gifted, I have someone in mind but just in case
they read my blog I'll not mention the name.

You might remember I reduced the block size so mine
is 60" x 75", at the limit of my capabilities at the moment.


The pieces are a great size so it goes together pretty quickly.
Below is one of my favourite squares 10" finished and
making up a part of the 15" finished block,


but my all time favourite fabric from this range is below


three yards are tucked away in my stash!
You  can see it's a large pattern, but glorious!!

In my last post showed a photo of the lovely poppy fabric from KF Collective,
a Philip Jacobs design, I love to see the fabrics from these three guys
in strips, two clean up cuts below


they play so well together, every time.

 Now, one of the blogs I read is by Maria Cook 
at
Maria works magic with indigo fabrics, beautiful rich and moody blues,
but one day she had few little pieces on her blog in cream/white. One of these
gems showed three little girls skipping and wow, I was back
with my friends all those years ago in Lancashire! Within a few minutes
of spotting this it was mine.


Here are the girls photographed on a piece of black felt.
Measuring 4" x 7.5", I'll mount it and have it framed.

Although we're now in Autumn here one of the pleasures of this season
is the view from where I sit at my machine


one of my early flowering camellias, it's always a joy to
look up and see this, a great way to rest the eyes.

It's link up today 
with
Linda and Julie
hosting
Sew,Stitch,Snap,SHARE
hope you'll stop by and visit them.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Moving along

Moving along but at a pretty slow pace unfortunately.
Plagued again with health issues leading to
an urgent cardiac appointment last week, rheumatology this coming
Saturday and the icing on the cake will be a visit
to the Orthopaedic Spinal clinic,
I'm also waiting now for a CT Cardiac Angiography.

Due to the above my Anna Maria Horner quilt has
not progressed as I would like but with
chain piecing the blocks do go together easily.
The two bottom blocks are stitched and then sewn to the bottom 
of the 10" finished square then the three on the left are stitched.
There are two 5" finished blocks and a four patch.
These change block by block 



you can see here below how the order of squares and four patch are moved around.


So, I have two rows of blocks stitched and the bottom two
just placed on the wall ready for stitching, gives
shows pretty well why the quilt is named Rainbow Blur.


I'm trying to be better organised with planning my quilting projects
and tomorrow is allocated to putting together the backing
for Frog Frenzy and sending it off for quilting and hopefully finishing
up the third row of Rainbow Blur.

We had a massive storm here overnight, lots of damage in both Islands
and Auckland (where I am) was really badly hit, I think I managed to sleep
for around only 4 hours! We knew we were into Autumn but
surely not yet into Winter, temperatures have fallen dramatically.

Leaves are covering the lawn, but look at the colors


and also spotted this morning


a disorientated Mrs Tiggywinkle, I fear the poor
little thing may be unwell given that it's out and about during the day.

A few new Kaffe Collective fabrics to finish up the post



I love the poppies!

An early bed time is on the cards for me, hoping to
catch up on sleep.

Enjoy the rest of the week and happy quilting.

Maureen