Blog giveaway - just because I can

Recently I made up an order for some hand dyed silk ribbon but when I completed the order I realised that the ribbon was the wrong width.

I have decided to have a giveaway of the hand dyed silk ribbon along with a lovely pansy silk print.

If you would like to have a chance to be the owner of this giveaway just leave a comment and I will pick a winner after I arrive in Seattle on Monday.

This prize is lightweight and will fit in a regular mailing envelope so I am happy to bear the cost of international postage.

The silk print is approximately 4 x 5 inches and there is more than 2 yards in each of the bundles of silk ribbon. They are dyed in the softest pink, cream and blue.

Love to hear from you if you would like to make this your own.  You could even claim it so you can give as a gift to friend who loves making craft items.

The flowers that bloom in the spring

The flowers that bloom in the spring tra la,
Breathe promise of merry sunshine —
As we merrily dance and we sing tra la,
We welcome the hope that they bring

Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado

I probably think of these lines from The Mikado every new spring season when the different flowers start to bloom.

Claudia from Mockingbird Hill has once again invited participation in her 'Favourite Things' Saturdays and what could be more favourite than having poppies growing in your own garden.

These ones are particularly special because of their unusual apricot colourings with soft yellow centres.  The petals have folds in them like concertinas and that adds to their specialness. I can spy them from my bedroom window and watch their progress and that is rewarding too.

Thanks, Claudia, I look forward to linking up with other bloggers this way.

My bags are packed..........

My bags are packed, well they should be, but they are not.  However preparations have begun and that is good.

I was out the other day and when I came home I found that my lovely sister, Linda, had been making a travel present for me.

A pair of fabric luggage tags and a suitcase handle sleeve.

I just love items for luggage that make them easily identifiable amidst the many others coming off the plane.  These will be absolutely ideal.

I leave for Seattle, WA on Monday to spend Thanksgiving with my son, David and his lovely family.  I am really looking forward to it and I really had better get those bags packed!

A little bit of excitement

In recent times I have had a bit of a blitz on using up Kiwiana theme fabrics that have been given to us.

There was the strippy one, the midnight madness one and the lasagne quilt.

I still have another one tucked away in the cupboard waiting to be quilted but in the meantime I had designed and made this quilt top and was showing it to some of our quilting friends, when one of them asked me if she could buy this quilt top to send as a gift to friends in England.

At that stage it still needed to be quilted by Linda.  She has now completed the task and you can see close ups some of her wonderful quilting abilities here.

Another project completed and I am just a little bit excited to think that this quilt is winging its way to England and to a new home.

In the meantime we have been given more Kiwiana fabric scraps - the imagination continues to be stretched.

Secret Project Revealed

 Our secret project was revealed today.

The recipient, our dear friend, Maxie, had her 80th birthday today.

Instead of having our Sweet Peas meeting at our home we all met at a local cafe for coffee and muffins and had a lovely time shared together.

Maxie was totally oblivious to her friends in our group collaborating to make this quilt for her.

We each made different blocks for the quilt then I pieced it together and Linda machine quilted it.




Maxie loves handbags and we called this quilt "Bags of Love".  She was a little overwhelmed but very appreciative that we should have made this for her.

The original pattern comes from Green Fairy Quilts and you can buy it here, if you are interested.

I actually did some crazy quilting

Been a while, but yes, I actually did a bit of crazy quilting recently.

I wrote about our secret project recently and tomorrow is revealing day.

It has finally progressed from quilt top to being machine quilted, bound and label in place.

Embellishments have also been added where appropriate.

We are amazed and pleased with the outcome and feel sure you will be impressed to when we let you see more images.

This is a group project and participants were asked to make this particular block in colours of their choice.

No surprise that I should have made one in autumn colours.  I pieced it crazy quilt style and Linda did stitch in the ditch for me when she machine quilted the block to give it texture.  I added stitching, sequins, hand dyed motifs and a cameo I just happened to find in my stash.

Been a while since I have done some crazy quilting and I'm happy to say I was pleased with the outcome.

I am looking forward to posting the image of the finished quilt once it has been presented to the recipient.

Spring Fever

Yesterday we had a touch of spring fever and spent quite a bit of the day in the garden.

The weather was lovely, a touch of coolness in the breeze to stop us from getting too hot.

Linda wrote about all the lovely plants we bought at a local church fair and yesterday, with some help from our friend, Debbie we all set about various chores to bring our garden into order.

I dug up pansy plants, pruned them and Debbie gave them a new home in another part of the garden.  The place vacated by the pansies is waiting now to be planted out with flowers for summer, cosmos, marigolds, petunias and livingstone daisies will mingle with the grandmothers bonnet, alstromeria, dahlias and daisies that are already established.

Linda was busy preparing a vegie garden and planted potatoes, beans and titivated the edges with replanting of more pansy plants.  The pansies volunteer in our vegie garden every year.  Popped in around the edges of the garden they make everything look very pretty.  Plans are afoot for lots more vegies to find a home there as well.

My photo today of banksia roses does not do justice to all the work that has been happening.  These lovely miniature roses are another of my favourite things - perfection in miniature - so pretty.

Always a favourite with me

Thank you, Claudia, for inviting us bloggers to participate in your Favourite Things Saturdays.

One of my all time favourite things will always be these mountains.  We can see them from our house (except on overcast days) and there's always somthing about them that adds interest to our lives.

These mountains are to the south of us in Tongariro National Park in New Zealand.  They have had particularly good snowfall this year and even though we are into late spring the snow is holding on.

I am going away for four weeks shortly and by the time I come back most of the snow will be gone.

My favourite mountains will be missed but they will also be something I can look forward to coming back to.

In Between Quilts

This is the quilt top that CiCi was busy cat scanning for me recently.

I call it an 'in between' quilt because it somehow came together between other quilting projects.

While working on other projects I have been sewing together 2.5 inch squares at the end of every seam.

Every time I need to stop to iron I iron these as well and put them back in the pile to be sewed into 4 patches.

By the time the main project is finished I have a pile of 4 patches for another sewing project.

In this case I added fabric from a couple of fat quarters from my stash I was able to put together this generous size lap quilt.

It has been a nice little stash buster and is destined to be a community/charity quilt.

Best of all sister, Linda, said she will machine quilt it for me.  Can't wait to see how she is going to fill in all of the spaces with her magic style of quilting.

In the meantime I have more 2.5 inch square awaiting my attention and quite a bit of stash left to be busting.

Who doesn't love surprises?

Yesterday I went to the letter box without any expectation of there being anything special inside.

However, I was in for a surprise.  A nice brown paper parcel marked to my attention.

Back to the house to share the contents of this mystery parcel with my sister - 11 fat quarters of yummy fabric, some with a definite cupcake theme.

Somebody must have been reading my recent blog entries, I think.

It wasn't until after I opened the parcel that I noticed the Christmas stickers.  Maybe it was an early Christmas present?????

Thank you to Paula, for your kindness in sending me these lovely fabrics and for giving me such a wonderful surprise.

Now my challenge is to work out something very creative to do with them...............

I forgot

The other day I finished a quilt top and I draped it over an arm chair for contemplation.

I went out for the evening and never gave it another thought until I came home and there was CiCi cat scanning it for me in true cat style.

Maybe I was being punished for not staying home and giving her my lap to sit on and so this was the next best thing................

Angel in Disguise?

Our brother, Norman, has been visiting from Christchurch.

He asked if there was any jobs we would like him to do for us.

We had some hedge plants that needed weeding and could he do that for us.

Well, yes, he could, but he did not just stop there, he went along the whole length of the hedge carefully pulling out any form of vegetation that was not worthy of existence and everything looks a whole lot better.

It really was a labour of love.  I am sure only an angel could fulfill such an arduous task.

This is not the first time our brothers have appeared as angels in disguise.  In May brother Alan was here with Norman and they pulled out a tree for us.  You can read about it here.

Favourite things

 Claudia at Mocking Bird Hill Cottage is asking us to share our favourite things and one of my favourite things in life is having a cat sleep on my lap in the evenings.

CiCi loves to sleep on my lap, preferably with her back to me.

It took a long time to persuade her that this was an okay thing to do but now she has got there it is a very pleasant addition to evenings at our place.

For readers who don't know, CiCi was a stray that was hanging around our place when we moved here.

It took a long time to coax her into our lives but now she has decided we are okay as an adoptive family and has established her own little routine in our lives.

Can you remember..................

Can you remember the days before the Year 2000 when there was international concern about whether our computers were all going to crash and die at the turn of the century?

I was office manager for a government department in Sydney, Australia at the time and contingency plans were the item of the day just in case everything fell over.

In the end all was well and we were saved from a crisis that does not bear thinking about.

In the quilting world someone thought up this idea that it would be nice to do a swap so that participants ended up with 2,000 pieces of fabric to commemorate the Year 2000.

I participated in two of these swaps - one for 2.5 inch squares and the other for 3.5 squares.

Postmen in many countries must have been kept quite busy with little packages containing 20/30 pieces of quilting fabric as they circulated the world.

Most people sent some sort of fabric square to identify their set of blocks and I probably have enough of the these squares to make a quilt on their own.

It is now 2012 and these 4,000 squares of fabric have been patiently waiting for me to do something with them.  They even survived a relocation from Australia to New Zealand.  I left lots behind but not my Y2K squares.

                                                                                                                  
Yesterday I looked at my stash of squares once more and this time I took the plunge and started to make something with them.
I laid them out in rows and added a square of red to the end of each row.

Result - one granny square!

Just a very, very small beginning but I have over 20 little stacks made up to continue the process and so finally, finally I am starting to use some of my Y2K stash.

It has to be said that I could make a LOT of granny squares from the stash but at least I have made a start.

Nearly there..........

I think I am nearly done with cupcakes and polka dots.

I made another reversible apron using most of what was left of these fabrics, but I have to admit there is still a remainder lurking in my stash.  I think I will have to find a scrappy quilt project to add it too.

I am also done with making aprons for the moment.  It has been fun, but time to move on to other things.

I am just as happy with the result of this one and like the different look I was able to give this to my previous effort.

This is the reverse side.  I was able to include shallow pockets across the bottom of the skirt and was quite pleased with how they turned out.

I must give credit to Rob Merrett of The Perfect Apron for the inspiration for this creation.

Thanks for popping by to take a look.

A few of my favourite things

Mockingbird Hill Cottage is asking people to share a few of their favourite things.

I live in the southern hemisphere and so we are coming into spring.

One of my favourite things at this time of year is to see all the new growth as the perennial plants come back into flower.

We were very fortunate to buy a property that had a lot of well established plants and we reap the benefit year after year.

Never get tired of seeing just some of the bounty of favourite things that keep coming back.

More about cupcakes and polka dots

After completing my cupcake and polka dot quilt what was I to do with what was left.

An apron project had been suggested so here it is.

Because I was making the apron with pieced fabric I needed a lining to cover the raw edges of the seams.

In the process of creating a lining it occurred to me that maybe I could make the apron reversible - like two for the price of one.

So this was the result.

The fabric for the reverse is quilters muslin and is more creamy in appearance than the photo shows.

The polka dot fabric is nearly finished but there is more to come with the cupcake fabric.  The story will continue.......

Secret Project

A secret project has been happening at our place.

Today I stitched the last row in place and thought I would take a picture or two (without giving the game away) to put on my blog.

No sooner had I laid the quilt out on my bed than Kaiser was there in want of a fuss.  It is uncanny that the cats in our house always seem to know that there is a new quilt in the house that needs to be christened by them.

In the end I was able to take a picture of just a very small part of the quilt.

I have enjoyed piecing the blocks and rows together and it was a relief when they finally fitted together just like the pattern said they would.

While I was piecing the secret project together I sewed together pre-cut pieces of cupcake and polka dot fabric at the beginning and end of each block and row and at the end I had accumulated quite a number of new blocks for the next project.

I am not quite finished with cupcakes and polka dots, yet!

Better than yesterday

The winds have not abated so going outdoors for more pictures was not an option.

Fortunately we have a makeshift design board that was big enough for me to pin the quilt top too and photos have been taken.

Linda has said she will quilt it for me so I am expecting it to look rather special when she has finished working on it.

These cup cake blocks which go down the centre of the quilt look a bit lost at the moment but I feel sure Linda has a secret way to make them pop and give them the prominence they should have.

More about cupcakes and polka dots

On 27th September I wrote about buying fabric for a cupcake and polka dot scrappy quilt inspired by fabric scraps that had been given to me.

Maybe these fabrics should have gone to the bottom of my unfinished projects pile but I kept thinking about them and decided to take the plunge and make them up.

I have been using lots of the polka dot pieces along the way but the original cupcake fabric somehow got lost in the midst of the project so I guess I will have to keep going until that is used as well.

This quilt top is finished but I do believe that there is enough fabric left for another quilt with a similar theme.  Oh the dilemmas of a quilting life.

I took the quilt top outside to photograph but it was too windy to get a good result so I will have to try again tomorrow, that is, if the forecast rain does not come too quickly.

Another scrappy quilt

Trying to de stash can be a challenge but while there are scraps to hand we will continue.

I was reading Pleasant Homes blog and she was saying that sometimes she likes to make a scrappy quilt without using a pattern.

She starts with a couple of small rectangular pieces, joins them together and then sews irregular strips in log cabin fashion until the blocks are approximately the size she wants. They are then trimmed to the same size and sewn together - no sashings, no borders.

I thought I would like to try the idea but instead of starting with a couple of rectangular pieces I wanted to use some orphan blocks I had made called Boston Squares.

If you follow the link you will see there is an easy way to make these triangle blocks without actually having to start with triangle shaped pieces.

I had been practicing the principle but had not used the blocks so decided to use them as centre pieces for my scrappy project.

I enjoyed the project and even got to machine quilt it as well.

We have a friend who has taken on sole custody of her grand daughter and think that this would make a nice scrappy I Spy quilt for them to share and enjoy together.

Midnight Madness

For a number of years now, sister Linda has hosted Midnight Madness quilting nights for the Taupo Quiltmakers.

The finished quilt is a mystery to the participants and they cannot resist plying Linda with questions in the hope that they might get some idea of the outcome. So far Linda has been successful in keeping the outcome a secret.

When the ladies have completed the first block component of their quilts Linda reveals a finished quilt she has made herself so the ladies can at last know the outcome.  They have never been disappointed and have a lot of fun on the road to discovery.

This year Linda chose a scrappy quilt Stars and Strings and I made up a sample quilt using Kiwiana scraps.  Linda machine quilted it giving the scrappy blocks a corrugated effect - very striking.

One of the things I love about this block is the different images you can get depending on how you look at it.

To the left we have a definite starry block

 or you can see intersecting diamond shapes

or a squarish shape like this.

I really enjoyed working on this project and if you like to pop across to Linda's blog you can see the different results from the actual Midnight Madness evening.

Don't forget to scroll down and look at Linda's own version of this quilt and the wonderful quilting she has done in the star part of the blocks.

Cup cakes and polka dots

Recently I was sorting through my scrap stash and thought these fabrics went well together.

It thought they would make a nice quilt and I could call it Cup Cakes and Polka Dots.

Only problem there was not enough fabric to make a quilt so what's a girl to do?

Go shopping, of course!

In this case, on line to The Fat Quarter Shop.

In no time at all the postman popped a package in my letter box and now I have lots of fabric to go with my small scrap stash.

The packaging from The Fat Quarter Shop was so nice I did not even take the fabric out for a week or more - I just enjoyed looking at it.

A bit of a dilemma when you are trying to reduct your scrap stash and you end up buying  more fabric in the process - nice fun, though!

In case you were wondering.................

On the 5th September I wrote about the Ugly Duckling challenge I was participating in.

The other side of the coin was me handing in my ugly fabric which is featured to the left.

On Thursday night the results of the challenge were revealed.

There was a mixture of results - place mats, a handbag, an arm chair sewing caddy, a covered coat hanger, the apron I made and, of course,  the result of my own piece of fabric -

a table runner.

I really admire the way Janet picked out the colours from my fabric and matched them to red, green and black - it was more than I could have done.

A fun exercise - I enjoyed participating.

More Stitching

There seems to be no end to the possibilities of quilt projects from our stash of fabrics on hand.

A while ago I was given some fabrics from a range by Moda called Harvest Home.

The fabrics have been patiently waiting for my attention and now, finally, I have found a project for them.

This is just the beginnings of a quilt for me and the name of the block is Granny Squares.

It gives the appearance of having been worked with triangles but the trick is in the trimming of the blocks when they are completed.

Each block takes me about 40 minutes to complete but I am enjoying the process.  The variety of fabrics within the range gives me lots to play with so that each one looks different but has a common border to give uniformity.

Let's hope it won't be too long before I can share the finished quilt.

Ugly Duckling Challenge

Our quilting group put out a challenge for those who were interested:-

From your fabric stash choose an ugly fat quarter, put it in a brown paper bag and hand it in on quilting night.

The co-ordinator numbers the bags and then hands them out to someone else in the swap.

You take the bag home and make something 'beautiful' out of the ugly fabric.

You have to use at least 50% of the ugly fabric in your project.

I dislike plaids, so guess what I got - a piece of plaid fabric featured in the centre of the image above.

I had several ideas in mind but finally settled on making an apron inspired by the vintage pattern pictured here.

From my stash I found a piece of rust red fabric and with a bit more searching found some broderie anglaise.

It has been a while since I embarked on a project like this but I did enjoy the process.

I added a pocket so that I could use more of the ugly fabric.  I did have some left but have definitely used more than 50%.

At the end of the day - an apron.

I hope the recipient will consider her ugly duckling to have been transformed into swan.

As a footnote - I really, really did not like the piece of fabric I handed in so I wonder if I will consider it had been appropriately transformed when it come homes to me.

Stacked and ready to go

Something warm and cosy about a stack of quilts.

This is only three quilts, I know, but with a special purpose in mind.

I have just put labels on them today and now they just need to be packed and sent off to our great-nephews.

We hope they get to treasure each having their own special quilt.

More musings from my bedroom window

Further to my entry about sights from my bedroom window I thought I would write about the rhododendron bush that catches my eye every day.

It has been growing amidst our hedge row and this will be the fourth summer we have lived here and up until now this shrub has been a sorry sight - producing a few buds but never coming to flower.

In my opinion, I thought it needed to be taken out, but as if to spite me this year it has come in to bloom with the loveliest of shades of yellow.

This morning I went to take some photos of the blooms and there in the midst was a bumble bee doing its business.

If it is good enough for the bumble bees then I think this shrub may well have given itself another life.