It's finished!

I finished the red hearts quilt a few weeks ago and it's now hanging in our hallway - I'm very pleased with it (apart from some mistakes in the label which I only noticed after I had sewn it on!)

Confetti !

It has taken a while but I have finished my quilt and love it ,so thank you for all your blocks!You can see how slow I am by the sight of the unfinished Christmas quilt! I have discovered 505 spray and it has speeded up the layering .

Good wishes to all my quilting friends.
Margaret

100 Day Creative Challenge Update

100 Days.... almost!

I nearly got there and then we went on 3 1/2 weeks holiday in the South Island, dropping Devin and Acacia off at their universities and then doing some sight seeing. The wheels feel off after about 3 days on holiday. I have 92 blocks made and have been home 10 days and have not started the last 8 as yet.... but I will. Here they are thus far:

 

The last one I did on holiday is not quite finished - you can see on the left side - it's currently a big hexagon that needs trimming down to a circle and appliquéing on.

 

There are a few blocks I hate but there are many I love.

 

It was fun, stressful and challenging all at the same time. A great experience.  Some days I would have several ideas of what to do and then the next no idea - the previous days unused ideas seeming all wrong 24 hours later.

 

It is certainly going to be a very unique quilt!

 

Joanne.

Fresh Fig Relish

I've been trying to keep the birds away from our Fig tree for the past week after tasting a friends chutney - she uses a very old recipe. The plastic bags seems to help so I've managed to gather enough figs for a double batch of relish. It's a 2 step process. Day 1 is complete. Tomorrow I'll boil it until it looks right - my friend says it is more like half an hour than 3 hours!

A Great day for a Quilter

Yes as Susan mentioned, I had an exciting day today.  I entered a quilt into the local regional competition. I won first place in the Contemporary Quilts over 1.5m and Second place for Hand Quilting. Needless to say I'm absolutely thrilled.

Change to content of Blog

Hi All
I was just thinking I should mention that since we have completed our one year of quilting I have had a number of you requesting doing another quilting bee for a year. I just want you to know that I have got something up my sleeve but I just need a bit more time to be ready for it, usually the start of winter is a good time to get something up and running.
In the meantime, I am happy to expand our blog content to more than just quilting, i.e. knitting, gardening project, cooking, preserving or just anything that you have been busy with and want to share.
Susan

Knitting!

Hi All

I have been rather tardy with my quilting lately as summer in NZ is way too hot to be handling too much fabric so I have turned to knitting for now.  I decided to make a patchwork blanket to go with a 'quilt as you go' quilt I am planning to make in the coming months. I chose the same blues/greens/greys & whites as the fabric I bought for the quilt. Jackie, you might recognise the fabrics as you were here in NZ with Joanne when I bought them and then again you might not as that was the day you arrived and hit the ground running around the quilt shops before going on to Hawkes Bay.  Here are the stack of squares I've knitted so far... I need 88 in total!!! So will be a while yet.

 

 

As well as knitting these squares, my son asked me to knit him a winter scarf as he has moved to Wellington for University and it is much colder there than up here in Auckland, not as cold as the South Island but definitely colder than here. The squares have been put on hold and the scarf is growing really well. I got the basic pattern from Joanne (thank you Joanne, Jason will be very grateful in cold, windy Wellington this winter), Jason chose the colours, chocolate brown, forest green and red burgundy and then he decided he wanted random width stripes. My mind is so neat that I really have to force myself to keep making sure they are different widths! Not an easy task!!! Here it is so far... (why do our toes ALWAYS want to sneak into the photo???)

 

 

It's about 1.3m so far. I think 2m will be sufficient, maybe not that long, will start trying it on me at 1.5m.  We have had the most lovely summer! weeks and weeks and weeks of hot, sunny weather. Not much rain at all which is very surprising for Auckland! I finally got around to organising some geraniums for my balcony. I wanted real terracotta pots not the plastic ones but they are so expensive and take ages to weather and give a rustic look, so I went on TradeMe (like eBay) and bought a whole lot of used ones for the cost of two new ones! Fab bargain. This is now my view from one angle of the balcony. I just love the deep reddy/orange flowers, they make me smile (and Wendy's bunting, see Wendy, I still have it and use it).

Wendy, I am expecting to see your 'circles' quilt on here shortly and Joanne, I think you have about 70 odd green circle blocks to put on the blog  too! Joanne did a fantastic job of completing 100 days of producing different blocks with a circular theme, such dedication! Well done Joanne, you are an inspiration to us all. She also has some other news to share from a trip out today... I will let you share that Joanne...

Anyway, that's me, believe it or not, after 8 years of study I have to do more!!!! which I should be doing now and not blogging. I have 8 banking modules to finish by the end of the weekend as am on a course for 3 days next week where I will be using what I have learnt (or learning what I thought I had already learnt!). There are 8 exams and you have to get 80% to pass and only 3 attempts to pass! each exam has randomly selected questions too meaning no two are the same, so you can't learn from the one you failed... aargh! (Luckily, I haven't failed one yet, 5 down 3 to go, better get back to it!).

Susan x

A 100 Day Creative Challenge for you

Hi all, I have started a 100 Day Creative Challenge. I am working on 6" white blocks of fabric with the themes "green" and "circles". Two friends (organising and) doing it are 1. drawing shoes and 2. taking photos of road side trash each day.

I'm enjoying it so far - I started with something really basic to get me going - and hope to have a quilt by the end of it! If I last 100 days and add a big white border it will be a decent sized quilt.  Worst case a cushion or cat blanket! It's going to be a great way of just playing without having to stick to a pattern.

Anyone want to join in? The challenge is open to all. Lucy is going to start soon :).

Here are my day 1 and day 2 blocks:

 

Joanne.

Finished projects new and old.

The quilting has bought this quilt alive.  I am really pleased with how it has turned out and looking forward to getting the other quilt that I made from the other half of the jelly roll quilted.  Every time I look at these quilt, it is hard to believe they have been made from one jelly roll.  I made these quilts about 3 years ago, but like everything we move on to 'new' projects.  It is great to at last have one of them out and on a bed.

 

 

This is the other half of the jelly roll that I used to make this quilt.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first batch of crab apple jelly, picked from my apple tree. 

 

I made this quilt the other day.  I have had this fabric for over 6 years.  I bought it when I visited my friend Deirdre who lives in America.  We went to a wonderful Amish town called Shipshewanna.  I just had to have this fabric with the Jack Russell dogs on as it is so like our JR Alife.  This is the same quilt top pattern that Susan made on her holiday's last Christmas for a friends baby.  A great size quilt that goes together in no time.  I just need to get it quilted now!



 

 

What I have been up to...

Hi all

I am currently laid up with Sciatica! Have been resting flat for 10 days already and am very frustrated and bored. Frustrated because I was in the process of finishing one job and was due to start a new one on Monday. However, this has been put back a week, I just hope I will be able to start the following Monday, as good as the firm is about being understanding at the moment I cannot expect them to wait indefinitely. I am currently seeing an Osteopath and going for acupuncture next week, I am also doing regular exercises as prescribed, taking magnesium and moving about as much as I can until it becomes too painful down my lower left leg. I am up to just over 5 mins but am hoping for fast progress next week, fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I am able to use the computer without any discomfort so thought I would put some photos up of what I had been working on.

These are some drawstring bags I recently made for gifts. Wendy showed my how to make these years ago and they are still one of my favourite things to make. I don't know if you can see it but the blue and white one has tiny blue and white china beads attached to the end of the drawstrings that I bought in Shanghai. When I give these as presents I sometimes put a small packet of tissues, hand cream, lip gloss and nail file in as they are handy on the bedside table, other times I might put sewing things in as I have one that holds the sewing items I use the most, or I might make some cookies and put them in there (in a plastic bag first though), just depends who it is for.

 

For Christmas this year I plan to make lots of these little Christmas boxes and fill them with candy as gifts. I bought the pattern at the Quilting Expo in Melbourne earlier this year:

Last Christmas I went home to England for a month. Whilst there I bought some Tilda fabric squares from Coast & Country quilt shop.  I love visiting that shop as it is out in the country rather than in a town and next door is a lovely deli/café with good country food and coffee. There is something very special about going to these sort of places around Christmas time as they are always decorated so beautifully and feel so homely and welcoming.  Sally stocks a fabulous range of Tilda products which is why I particularly like going to Coast & Country. I find the Tilda range of fabrics are always so fresh and crisp and make me smile when I look at them. I decided to slice the squares into various width strips and then join them in rows. This is it so far:

 

I am thinking I might put a wide white border around it with a red/pink bias. Just need to take it to a quilt shop and decide there.

Seeing Joanne's Inner-City Quilt finished has inspired me to get on with mine.  I also started mine in Shanghai but hadn't touched it for a few years. As you can see it is still really small but I will probably not make it quite as big as Joanne has made hers. I have been furiously stitching more blocks and so have about 30 more to add. I might be able to do that lying down, we'll see.

I have been enjoying my time in the kitchen recently too, although that has ground to a halt, I am so glad my 17 year old has been on school holidays, he's been brilliant running around and doing things for me. He even went off and did the groceries this morning! I think he will be glad to go back to school tomorrow for a rest! I am also glad he knows how to cook or it would have been never ending takeaways for the last couple of weeks. Anyway before all this happened I had been experimenting with pancake recipes and tried Lemon Ricotta ones and Gingerbread ones. Although we liked the lemon ones it took quite a bit of time and multiple bowls to prepare the batter, whereas the Gingerbread ones took one bowl and were very quick to put together. Here is a picture of our weekend brunch:

Gingerbread pancakes, bacon, caramelised apples in cinnamon & nutmeg (homemade), Greek yogurt and Lemon Curd (homemade from the WI book you gave me Wendy)... Yummy!

Well that is about all my news for now. Hope you are all well and healthy!
Susan

Better late than never...

Hi All

I just noticed the add a photo button is back! whoopee! At last I can attach a photo of Mum's (Karen's) Around the World Quilting Bee quilt top for you all to see:

 

 

Susan

Susan and Joanne last week

Last week Susan came to stay Sunday - Friday.  We stitched flat out and did some good homestyle cooking. We both had so much we wanted to achieve. When one of us got tired the other pushed us to just finish x.
Susan was on a mission to get a Dr Who Tardis quilt together for Jason to take to Uni next year. Jason had found one someone had blogged about making online. We nutted out the dimensions and then she was off at a fast pace. We stopped for quick lunches outside because the weather was like the photo below all week:

Frostie and Marmite helped us...

 



Then there was a Tardis quilt top:

 

It took us ages to figure out the lettering but we got there in the end.

 

 

Jason's quilt was so cool and Devin liked it so I decided to make Devin one too.  He is also off to University next year. The week turned into a Tardis production line - not that I was going to start a new project as I have 8 others on the go plus my knitting - that's not including many UFO's! I so wish I didn't need 8 hours sleep a night.



 



Susan also hand tacked together her big bright Kaffe quilt, she pieced on our Maraetai beach trip, ready for hand quilting in a bright pink pearl 8 thread.
I pinned together my big orange "One Fabric" quilt and finished and pinned together my small Inner City (symposium winner) quilt. I want to hand quilt them both so I now have plenty to do. I'll practice my machine quilting on the Tardis on the Handy Quilter frame and domestic machine I have borrowed and have set up in the kids lounge. Bating for it arrived from Fabric.com today (cheaper than buying locally and Quilters Dream Cotton is not available here), so no excuses now.
There is nothing like attending a quilt exhibition and having a quilting buddy over to get you motivated. Keep quilting, Joanne.



NZ Biannual Quilt Symposium

Hi there from down under. Catherine and I met up for the day at the recent biannual NZ Quilt Symposium. For the first time I entered a quilt into the judged exhibition. I got the shock of my life when I won the Amateur Traditional section. Here's a photo of my quilt.

It took me 5 years to hand piece and hand quilt it. It was fun making the blocks as every one is like a new quilt with different fabrics and I could stitch them on planes trains and in the car. Putting it all together was a long slow job.  I over achieved on the number of blocks I needed so have just finished the top of another the same and about 2/3 the size!

I haven't decided on my next hand pieced project yet - they are great to have when travelling. Joanne.

You have all been busy. I am was inspired to tackle the Lone Star UFO....nearly there now. You are all looking well!  I am off to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham  on Thurs. Do you remember Carole Brown Joanne? She is going on Friday so I will call in again!!!!! I am promising myself only to buy fabric for a specific project!!

Still lovely here despite the odd shower.

Mx

Whangamata Retreat

Hi All
Just checked out the blog to see Jackie's lovely summer photos and Wendy's lovely quilting projects.
Last month Susan, Joanne, Claire (a friend of Susan's from Australia) and myself spent a weekend at our beach house in Whangamata.  It was a great weekend of sewing and also managed a trip to Waihi to a quilt shop and a spot of clothes shopping in Whangamata.
Last weekend in Taupo it was the New Zealand quilt symposium where Joanne was signed up for some classes and I spent a day with Joanne viewing the beautiful quilts and seeing Joanne's City Block quilt win her section.  Fantastic.  I will let Joanne put a photo on the blog of her in front of her quilt as I know she has a few of them!!
Anyway a few pictures showing what we were all working on at Whanagamata.

Darcey's quilt and book pillow

Hi Ladies

A few of us must all be thinking the same.  I have missed my envelopes of fabric arriving each month and reading the blog to see what everybody has been up to.  I do drop into the blog every know and then just to see if anybody has added anything.  Really good to see some new postings.

I have at last finished the final baby quilt, until my friends decide to start round two!  I have loved making them all, and they have all been very well received, which is why we put the work into these projects.

The book pillow was from a recent purchase, 'Growing up modern' by Allison Harris.  I really wonderful book with 16 fantastic projects.  Aimed at children, but I personally would adapt to any age- young or old.

We have just had two and half weeks of amazing weather.  I don't think I have eaten so much BBQ food in such a short space of time.  You could sit out in the evening until 10 pm and not need a cardigan, a real summer for a change.  Even though the rain is very needed for the garden, it is a shame to see the temperatures drop, but it is still warm and we do need some rain, the water butts are empty.

 

 

 

Having worked on baby quilts for the last 18 months I was very excited at the prospect of starting something new, but the UFO stash called, and I am quilting a quilt I made about 3 years ago using a jelly roll.  It is from the book two from one.  Very pleased with the stencil I am using and I always quilt using the anchor pearl cotton.

 

 

 

I hope you are all enjoying the season that is with you?  Keep up the blog, it is great to share.

 

Wendy  xx

Summer is here....

Summer has finally arrived here in The Netherlands....


Time for sitting in the garden...

for enjoying the lovely colours....

for eating the local strawberries (Eton Mess)....

and for making a summer quilt....this one is for baby Isabelle Clara born on 6th June.