Wednesday, October 31, 2012

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................

Monday, October 29, 2012

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.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

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.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

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.

Monday, October 22, 2012

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.

Friday, October 19, 2012

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.......

Thursday, October 18, 2012

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!

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

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.

Monday, October 15, 2012

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.





Monday, October 01, 2012

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.