The creative (coffee) juices are flowing again!

Yesterday I picked up my new replacement coffee machine, so I am all coffee-ed up at home now.
I love the name of this machine. I am nowhere near being chic in any way, shape or form. I might have been in my younger days - who knows - but those 'salad days' are long gone!! Now I quilt. Can quilting be described as chic?

A Hard Day At The (Quilting) Coalface

Today is one of those days where I know life is good. I went out to my friend Janice's place ( a leisurely 15 minute drive into the country on a perfect late summer/early autumn day) and spent the day sewing. At 9 am this morning I still hadn't decided what I was going to do. It was a choice between sewing more blocks for a Single Irish Chain quilt or piecing a background for the Jacqui Karl class I am doing in May. So I loaded up the two fabrics and the already made blocks for the Irish Chain and a pile of fabric for the background. When I arrived at Janice's we started straight into the coffee (which was great since Janice has an espresso machine and mine died and has gone back to the shop. I am waiting for a replacement so I have been without decent coffee for over a week!)

After being coffee-ed up I decided I would work on the background. The idea was to make a piece to put a dragonfly onto. It needs to be already quilted before the class starts. My idea was to cut straight strips of uneven sizes from across the width of the fabric, sew them together and cut vertically, then sew them back together in a jagged fashion. Janice suggested I cut the strips in a free-form curved fashion and this is the result (none too flat I might add!)

Then I cut strips vertically and sewed them back together. I had to keep trimming bits off so the thing would lie flat. Not quite finished yet but I like what I have done. Guess what? It is not going to be a background for the dragonfly. I have decided it will be a quilt in it's own right.

Janice made a delicious lunch of chicken breast chunks and chickpea salad. Sitting on the table were a couple of mini bottles of wine and a bottle of non-alcoholic Bundeberg. I was allowed to choose so I had a lovely glass-sized bottle of Jacob's Creek Chardonnay. Janice had the other wine and the Bundeburg was left behind. She said (tongue in cheek) that she noticed I had NOT chosen the non-alcohol one. "No contest" says me. I don't often get offered wine at lunch. I know when I'm onto a good thing. Janice's excuse was that she was trying out the theory that free-motion quilting goes better after a glass of wine!

Here is the progress so far:

To round off the day nicely my friend Frances came to dinner (as she usually does on a Saturday night) and I sewed the rest of the binding of the second community quilt while she pieced together the log cabin blocks of her community quilt. So now both of mine are now done, already for club next week-wahoo!! Picture of the second community quilt tomorrow - I need to go to bed now after a hard day at the quilting coal-face :-)

I forgot . . .

. . . that I found the pins. In the mess!

One is done!

I thought I would have both of my community quilts done by last Saturday but life (and work) got in the way. One is now done. This top was pieced by another member of Cotton On Quilters for her son, but she never finished it, decided she didn't want to finish it and donated it for a community quilt. I added the blue border, basted it and quilted it. I had hand stitched down all but about a metre of the binding and there it sat! For over 2 weeks! Kirsty over on two time leaves made a post this week titled "Drowning In Failure". That title pretty much summed it up for me, nothing done for ages!! (the story of my life?)

I had my Friday night group last night and I decided that this was the time to get it finished.

I also got the binding on one side of the second one done. I wonder how long it will sit? Better get it done by club next weekend. Which is Easter. Which is the start of the holidays. Yeah! Which is just as well because I have just realised I have booked myself up for just about every Saturday for the next couple of month! All for something quilty of course. The house work will just have to sit and sit and wait.

Today: Off to a sewing day with my friend Janice. She makes wonderful, innovative quilts, has won awards for them, and she now has her own blog, Quilts, Grandkids and Delphiniums. I invite you to go visit.

Next Saturday is Club day. We are having the Head of Art from the school I teach at to come and give us a basic colour theory lesson.

Saturday after that is a get together for members of my online yahoo group Kiwiquilters.

Saturday after that is a class with well known and international award-winning NZ quilter Anna Williams at the Cloth Shop printing photographic images of flowers onto fabric to make a wall hanging. This will be completely new to me!

Then I have one Saturday off.

First Saturday in May I am going to a big regional show and tell day organised by Rose City Quilters called "Tote & Gloat".

The Saturday after that our club is running a workshop by another well known NZ tutor Jacqui Karl (no link for Jacqui. I don't think she has an internet site).

So I am going to be a very busy bee and more stuff will sit unfinished! Oh well, never mind.

I have lost my........

pins. I know I had them at the community quilts sewing day. Now I can't find them. They must be buried under the mess in my sewing area. Either that or they have left home and run away!

Standing Up For Sewing

I was checking all my blog reads last night and was admiring the new sewing cabinet that Helen has shown on her blog Patchwork of Mini Grey . She was talking about now being able to sew sitting down. My goodness she sewed standing up! I asked her "Don't you know that the only reason all of us (un)famous quilters didn't get to feature on Simply Quilts is because we can't sew standing up!? Can any of you other lovely quilting bloggers out there sew standing up? Perhaps in the days of deep vein thrombosis we should all do it that way.

Bobbin Failure

I tried to make this post last night but my computer lost its internet link, so I decided to go to bed instead since the resident computer expert had retired for the night. Some people (who shall remain nameless) think I may have writer's block since I haven't posted since 10th March. I assure you, the words are still as plentiful, just not making it to the computer. ( TOO MUCH MARKING LAST WEEK!)

Look what happened to me in the weekend:

I was winding thread and didn't think about what I was doing when it was finished. I pulled the bobbin up, instead of left then up, and the end came off! I guess they don't make parts like they used to. Just as well I have a case full of bobbins, so I could keep on sewing. I have been quilting the two community quilts that I started a couple of Saturday's ago. I now have to do the bindings and I should have had them finished by now, but work keeps getting in the way of the weekends - oh and a fabric buying trip last Saturday also meant not much sewing got done.

I know I am not supposed to be buying fabric this year (or any year for about the next thousand) but there was a new Quilts Japan magazine waiting for me at The Cloth Shop over in Palmerston North, so I decided I would have a nice day out on my own. I came back with 6 metres of fabric for the background and borders of our next raffle quilt at the very reasonable price of $10 per metre. I was very happy to get that. I won't bore you with the details of the other fabrics that just had to walk out the shop with me, but the good ladies of Arthur Toye's had just unloaded a new shipment and temptation grabbed hold of my wallet and flung it at their cash register! Well, okay, here is a photo of a lovely graduated fabric I picked up:

The President Won!

It was our Community Quilts sewing day today and to add a bit of interest to the day I decided to donate a quick raffle prize with the proceeds to the Cancer Society. Guess who won her own prize!! How come I when I win it isn't Lotto? (First division of course - not much to ask for is it? You know I could just quilt all day instead of having to go to the work house - Yeah Right!)

Here are some of the ladies busy stitching:
And here is Georgia Rose enjoying some of the finished quilts:

Fabric Amnesia

Lynne from kleinmeisjequilts made a post about a great fabric for the border of her quilt which has been on her shelves so long she has no memory of buying it. I commented to her that I have lots of fabric on my shelves that I have no memory of buying. Is it Fabric Amnesia? I know I've got them but I don't know where they came from and I don't know where they're going either. At the moment they are just happy living at my house.

My string blocks have come to a rather sudden halt. I have made 5 more blocks since my last post but marking and prep has had to be a priority this week. Mereth of Pages from me asked: "Do you think you'll use up all your cut pieces? No matter how much I piece I never seem to empty a drawer completely." To my surprise I have nearly come to the end of the 1 1/2" strips that I had in my icecream container. I thought I had heaps, but obviously not! That's not to say that I don't have heaps of scraps, just not already cut and organised ones. Now I am cutting up my 3" strips in half to use. And I'm feeling really good about it. It's great to get rid of some of those scraps that have been hanging around for years and outstaying their welcome.

To finish a photo. Not a quilty, but quilty related. Last Sunday I went up to the Wintergardens here in Wanganui to take some photos of the huge begonias that are flowering in the glass house at the moment. I need some images of flowers to do a workshop with Anna Williams next month. The outside garden at the Wintergardens is currently designed to look like a typical Kiwi back yard complete with shed. Of course my back yard looks just like this - NOT!

Here is one of the begonias:


PS: The shed is not real!!

Thirtyfive percent done.

Thanks everyone for your comments on my recent posts. Don't we all love feedback!

I have done a few more string blocks this weekend and I am over one third done! Our local quilt club is having a community quilts sewing day next Saturday and I am hoping to get 64 of these critters done by then! But, I have heaps of marking and prep to do for school this week, so I'm not sure if I will reach my goal. ( A little calculation tells me I will need to make 8 a day - not going to happen. I wonder if I can get 48 done instead?) Anyway, this is the progress so far:

My friend Joy, who tells me she is really enjoying my blog, (Hi Joy, here is a challenge: leave me a message!) wanted to know if I was foundation piecing these. No! I dislike foundation piecing with a passion because I don't like to take the time to rip out heaps of paper and have a big mess to clean up (well bigger than what I had before - it probably wouldn't get cleaned up since the mess I already have isn't going anywhere anytime soon!).

What I have been doing is grabbing any old strip of fabric and sewing them either side of a black homespun strip until I have enough 'fabric' to cut out a square using my 8" square ruler. A little "photo tutorial" follows! The colours are not great, all 'blued out' (and I haven't got the inclination to fix it up with photoshop - I need to go and have my Sunday afternoon zzzzz...)

The strips sewn together:
See that pink strip on the bottom? That is from a kit for a grandmother's fan cushion that I purchased at least 25 years ago!

What it looks like on the wrong side:
With the squsre ruler placed ready for trimming:
Edges trimmed off:
I'm so a*** that I am saving the wider trimmings:
To make these (who knows what they will turn into!!):

I have done a little sewing!

I have finally got a little sewing done. I am such an organised person (sometimes - see previous post on the state of my sewing area!) that I have all my scraps pre-cut into different widths from 1" up. These have been annoying me lately as I now want to organise my scraps by colour instead of size. I've been inspired by the heart string blocks everyone is making over on the Quilt Mavericks blog, so I have decided to make up the 3 narrowest widths (1", 1 1/4" and 1 1/2") into string blocks using a 1" finished strip of black across the centre:

I'm quite pleased with how they look considering a lot of these scraps are from when I first started quilting (way, way back) and a lot of them are dullish country type colours. I used to buy scrap bags before I got sensible and bought lengths (yardage to you USA quilters) and some of these scraps date back over 25 years!.

These blocks are just stuck on my design wall at the moment, not yet sewn together. I am cutting them 8 inches 'cos that is the size of my square rule, so they will end up as 7 1/2 " finished. An odd size but I guess it doesn't matter with this type of block. (why the square ruler is not 8 1/2" I will never know!). I have made 12 and I guess I will need about 64 to make a decent sized quilt, so I am 20% there.

No wonder there is no sewing going on around here!

It has been a beautiful weekend of hot sun and relaxed afternoon sleeps, interspersed with cooking Roast Lamb for Saturday Night Dinner, Sunday Lunch at the lake cafe, grocery shopping and about 10 loads of washing! So you think that's why there is no sewing going on around here? Ha! Have a look at this photo of my sewing area:

You need to look very carefully. See the office chair I use for sewing? See the white foot pedal under the table by the chair? That is where I sew with my Elna. The foot pedal is in the right place. But where, I hear you asking, is the Elna? Now look at the top right hand corner. Can you see where my Elna is? It moved! The cords unplugged themselves and the Elna moved!! How dare it, the cheeky thing. The cords and the Elna are not making the connection. I can't reach my Elna from my sewing chair and if I could, it wouldn't go, - no connection, no power! Not only that, the space where my Elna should be is cluttered up with 'just a few' stray objects. See the chair and long table in the left of the picture? That is my cutting area. The green cutting mat can hardly be seen. In fact, every available horizontal surface has clutter. Have a look from this angle:

See how bad it is. The only thing on my design wall is an ironed blouse which my cleaner did last Wednesday for me. It hadn't even migrated to the wardrobe. No wonder there is no sewing going on around here!

Anyway, I have had a little (emphasis on little) tidy up. I moved the machine back to its rightful place and connected it up - everything else looks just as bad! And some sewing did get done today. Frances, in collaboration with Janice is designing a block of the month for any of our club members who want to do a sampler at our Stitch'n'Baste morning techniques training session. Frances also asked if we could make an extra block to go toward a community quilt as that is our focus as a club for the next couple of months. So I decided tonight I would at least make a couple of blocks:

The top block is what it should look like, and the name of the block is 'Crockett's Cabin'.







Oops, the bottom block is supposed to look like the same arrangement as the top block. Oh, dear!




Have I "designed" an original block, do you think? Or do I need to do some reverse sewing?

Go visit Pam Holland's Blog and see the Tentmakers of Cairo

I've just been watching some video that Pam Holland has taken at the Australian quilt convention which is on in Melbourne this weekend. It is the next best thing to being there.

Pam has uploaded some video onto her blog, of the section of the show that Jenny Bowker has organised. Two men from Cairo are demonstrating how they do their applique tent linings (I think that what the tentmakers originally made but please correct me if I am wrong. Tents to me are those canvas square things with poles from my childhood that were put up at gala days for the afternoon tea tent - but that is another story), although these are smaller pieces aimed at the tourist market I think.

There are several videos to watch but the best two for seeing some of these applique pieces and the applique process are called movie ACQ5.mv4 and ACQ movie6. The applique pieces are rough cut (not an exact shape!) and then held on the surface of the quilt/wall hanging. Then the edges are turned under and stitched with what looks to me like a mattress needle - really big! Just amazing to watch and I recommend you go visit and watch too.

These wall hangings remind me of a little piece I purchased in the north of Thailand when I visited a few years ago. I must dig it out and take a piccy of it. At least you will have something to look at since my quilting has dried up! Actually I did do a little bit of stitching tonight while watching Antiques Roadshow. I did the last flower on a block of a BOM by Beth Ferrier called Simple Pleasures. I'll get the camera out tomorrow.

Here is the addy for Pam Holland's blog. I'm not sure if it will automatically come up as a link. I haven't learned how to do that yet. But I put it in the link section of the post as well, just in case. (Janice? Is this how I do it? Where are you when I need you????? - asleep of course, at this time of night, which is what I should be doing.)

http://pamhollanddesigns.typepad.com/

UPDATE
Janice has explained to the little chain link button and how to use it. I think I've got it right now - thanks Janice

Postcard from America

This postcard arrived today all the way from America. It was made at my request by my internet friend, Lynne, in return for me sending her a pattern for the quilt I designed last year for the Triple F challenge for my local quilt club. Pretty cool eh? It is satin-stitched all around the edges - I'm impressed!

I have visions of getting postcard from all over the world in exchange for patterns I have designed. Since I have only designed a couple that are in pattern form I think it will be a while (like decades) before my vision is realised don't you think??

PS: I forgot to say that the postcard is dated 14 Feb and today is 20 Feb, so it took less than a week to get here. That is pretty good.

First visit to a quilt shop.

My friend Frances' new grand daughter had her first visit to a quilt shop with us last Saturday. It was Amy's first day fabric shopping in Palmerston North since Georgia Rose was born and the wee girl slept through the whole experience! Never mind, we will get her trained up eventually.


As you know it was my 50th birthday last Monday. We went out to dinner on Saturday night to celebrate and Janice made this lovely cake for me. One candle for every 10 years. The cake was apple and cranberry and was very delicious. I can't remember the last time someone made a birthday cake for me and it was a lovely surprise - Thank you Janice. Quilting is taking a back seat very much at the moment. The weather is too hot and when I get home from work all I feel like doing is reading my book. Although I did write my President's piece for our next club newsletter last night and we have a meeting tomorrow night to form a committee for our next biennial exhibition in 2008. So I guess that kind of counts for quilting, doesn't it??

(I've just taken the exclamation mark off the title of this post. I have used one in the last 3 posts, way ott!!!!)

Half Century!

I hit the half century birthday on Monday and it is the only half century I am likely to score! I got these delicious quilting pressies from my friends and the chocolate is from he, of Honey Bunch fame, who surprised me by buying the chocolate, wrapping it and making a card without me knowing. A small present, but big in meaning for me as it is the first time he has done this on his own. Who says teenagers are self centred? (Well, not all the time anyway.)

The fabric is from a newish quilting shop in Masterton called Quilter's Lane. Their stickers are very stylish. I haven't been there but after seeing these lovely pieces I plan to go there next holidays. The ruler is an Omnigrip 6" by 24" and the tin at the bottom is Tin Box Sampler by Moda with "A Day in the Country fabrics by Fig Tree Quilts.

Not much quilting has been done around here since school started (make that NONE!) but I plan to get started on cleaning up my sewing area and gathering together some blocks I have for our club's up-coming community quilts sewing day in March. I also have heaps of strips and I'm thinking of making some string blocks as well.

PS. A friend asked me if I felt depressed at turning 50 and I don't! (It seems some do) But I remember I did when the big three-oh came around. I thought I would never get an opportunity to have a baby and I got quite down about that. But I did eventually get that opportunity and he, of Honey Bunch fame, is the result. I've got the chocolate to prove it!

EQ6 is installed!

Finally I have EQ6 installed and I have worked my way through the first lesson and watched the 'Getting Started' videos. So far, so easy. But I can see that I will be spending even more time on the 'puter and even less time at the machine! Aargh, there is no hope!!

My new computer area is ready!

Finally, my new computer desk and chair is set up with my computer, so I can compute any time I want! I have yet to install EQ6. I will probably do it tomorrow night, since today has been a busy day. This is what it looks like at the end of my kitchen bench:


He, of Honey Bunch fame, is offering to install EQ6 tonight, but I think I am too tired. He will install it in a flash and I won't have any idea of how he did it! Since my kid is smarter than me how come I can't inherit his hair? (Blonde, thick and wavy instead of brown, fine and straight as a die)

I didn't make this quilt top but . .

. . . I did quilt it. I got this quilt from a quilting shop in NZ called Grandmother's Garden about 3 years ago in their birthday sale. I think it must have been rejected class sample because it came already pin basted with the binding sewn on and a tiny wee bit of hand quilting. It has been sitting around my place for a while, so I decided to take it with me to Symposium to quilt during my UFO class.

I had the use of the Bernina stitch regulator. I marked the feather wreaths with a stencil and a blue washout pen and then free-motioned them. Not bad for my first feather wreaths. The colour in the second photo is closer to real life.

So another one bites the dust and my total of quilts "finished" this year is up to 3.

Thanks and web rings

Thank you to all you kind people who loved the piece from my Symposium class - and not one of you mentioned I had the spelling of Symposium wrong in the title (it's fixed now). Aren't you a polite, well mannered lot? The piece is quite small, about 11" by 16". I haven't got to working anything more on the second part. At the moment it is just a rectangle of fabric quilted with a rainbow thread in horizontal and vertical lines, which I will then embellish, but I want to undo the quilting and do it again so it shows up more. (Some of my friends will remind me that I have a talent for undoing quilting.) I probably won't resume work on it until next week. The third part is just an idea in my mind. But I am determined that it will not be another UFO.

You may have noticed the SC Quilters logo that has appeared on the side of my blog. I have joined the Southern Cross Quilters web ring, which has been recently set up for members of the said yahoo group. I'd really like to be a part of the Quilt Mavericks ring because yours are the first blogs I read when I started this whole bloggy, digital penpal thingy - and I love your styles of quilting. So I guess I had better get there and ask if I can join. I promise I won't be broken hearted, downcast and sulky if you refuse. Honest!