Quilts, Grandkids and Delphiniums

Better Late etc

2011-05-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

Some months ago I celebrated my 60th birthday with a 7 course degustation and wine matching dinner cooked in my kitchen by local chef Dean Wong. He had offered to cook to cook and serve a dinner for eight people as a fundraiser for the local school and we were the lucky highest bidder for this wonderful prize.

He and his apprentice arrived at 9.00 am on Sunday and took over the kitchen until about 12.00. The team that came back at 6.00 that evening included Dean's father - chief washer-upper! It was a fabulous meal and a very exciting way to celebrate a milestone birthday. We were all treated as though in a very high class restaurant with wine chosen to go with each course and each course beautifully presented. As well as the 7 courses detailed below Dean provided THREE amuse bouche offerings: Asparagus Velouté and Steak Tartare and a third which I am ashamed to say I cannot remember. Certainly a night to remember!

The Menu:
1. Trio of mushroom soup french, field & brown or button
Johanneshof Dry Gewurztraminer 2008

2. Seared snapper with avocado potato crush, asparagus hollandaise sauce
Domain Road Riesling 2009

3. Smoked cured venison with mango-kumara salad & red wine reduction
Okahu Chambourcin

4. Double Lamb Cutlet with potato rostie & broad beans lamb jus
Locharburn Pinot Noir 2008

5. Medium-rare roast duck breast with potato tian, turned courgettes & cherry compote
Cottier Pinot Noir 07

6. Angus eye fillet of beef with potato puree, french mushrooms & green beans
Barwick Black Label Shiraz Cabernet

7. Chocolate & olive oil mousse with raspberry compote
Okahu OBJ Port

Some Success

2011-03-30T19:57:00.000-07:00

Remember this quilt? It was done for a challenge for our club quilt show. The Quilt Show was a couple of weekends ago and this quilt won first prize in the challenge to my genuine surprise. I thought the faces were a failure as, close-up, the close quilting makes the little girls look like old ladies with wrinkles.

Now this quilt, which also won first prize in its section, I did think had a chance. It was done for a different challenge in the same quilt show. We were to choose a magazine ad, in any magazine except a quilting magazine and make a quilt inspired by the advertisement. I chose this ad:

And here is a closeup of the very close quilting and the edging which I made by cutting bias strips with a wavy edged blade on my rotary cutter and then I zigzagged it onto the edge of the quilt.

To develop the idea for the quilt, I scanned the picture of the ad and took it into my art programme on the computer. I then played around with various filters and chose one to use as inspiration. There were a few that looked possible:

The middle option looked like snippets which is a simple technique so that's what I chose to do but I'd like to have a go at the first option sometime! Maybe with fuzzy wools appliqued to a surface....

Nursery Quilt Part 1 made

2011-03-30T19:18:00.000-07:00

So, the first part is completed. I know the cat is facing the wrong way but it didn't really matter and it saved getting my tracing box out. Oh, ok, it was a mistake - alright? I haven't sewn the edge of the applique down, I will do this at the quilting stage and at the moment I intend to machine blanket stitch the edge of the applique because it is a nursery quilt. Making this section took an hour from choosing fabric to a final pressing. It doesn't look pressed does it?

I actually chose fabric for the whole quilt - I am going for a scrappy look but keeping to mostly primary colours with a little cream and green. I'm going to keep track of the time taken to make the whole quilt just so I have some idea of what to say next time someone ask "How long does it take to make one of these?"

Nursery Quilt Part 1

2011-03-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

Part 1 - Centre blocks: Cat, Flower and Checkerboard
Cat - finished size 8" x 10"
Cut background fabric 8½" x 10½". Cut one cat from the pattern (download link below). Cut one circle from the pattern (this circle pattern will also be used to cut the centre of the flower). Use the picture below as a placement guide.

Flower - finished size 6" sq
Cut background fabric 6½" x 6½"
Cut four hearts from the pattern download link below. Cut one flower centre from the circle on the pattern.
Use the picture on the downloaded pattern as a placement guide.

Checkerboard - finished size 4" x 6"
Cut three2½" x 2½" squares in one colour and three in another. Sew together in checkerboard pattern.

Pattern and instruction files can be downloaded from here

Please let me know if you are making this along with me. Warning to those in the USA - applique patterns must be printed out on A4 size paper otherwise they will not be quite right. And set Adobe Reader to print to A4 and not scale the pattern as it prints. I know we can get Letter size paper here, I'm hoping you can get A4 size paper there!

Monthly Nursery Quilt Project

2011-03-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

I know, its been a long time but I'm not making apologies or excuses. I'm just going to post you a free pattern.

I am the newsletter editor for our quilt club and part of what I do is a monthly pattern that eventually makes a quilt. I thought you might be interested in playing along at home. I might even make it too!

Here is the EQ7 pic of the whole quilt:

I will be publishing the blocks to complete this nursery quilt in eight or nine parts over the next few months.
I have designed the quilt in EQ7 using two teddy bear blocks (with permission) from Denise Russart’s quilting site: Just Quiltin! This project will be available for download from her site as an EQ7 file and she has other projects available to download for EQ6 or EQ7 also.
The other blocks used in the quilt are all available in EQ7.

Part 1 - Centre blocks: Cat, Flower and Checkerboard
Part 2 - Spring in Baxter’s Garden
Part 3 - Pinwheels
Part 4 - Flower in the Grass
Part 5 - Large Setting Blocks
Part 6 - Baxter at the Beach
Part 7 - Sailing Boat
Part 8 - Strip Blocks
Part 9 - putting it all together - but I will only publish this if I get requests to do so.

The applique patterns used in this quilt are shown with a dotted line seam allowance. Cut on this if you plan to do needle turn applique. If you are going to use raw edge fused applique cut on the solid line.

My 60th Birthday

2010-12-10T11:42:00.000-08:00

I turned 60 a few days ago. We had a fabulous family weekend - and the family joined together to buy me a kindle. Here are a few pictures of me opening gifts. I'll blog more about the weekend later but I know Nadeeka is keen to see my reaction to the gift she was part of buying.

Gluten Free Rosemary Scones

2010-11-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

I made these the other day and took a couple to quilt club today. Ruth asked for the recipe. They are very yummy. I found the recipe on one of the gluten free blogs i follow and adapted it a little for New Zealand tastes.It is dairy free (because it uses soy milk but I imagine it doesn't need to) and egg free as well as gluten free but it is very easy to make and amazingly moist. It freezes well too. The applesauce replaces the egg.

1 c. almond flour (I used one cup of unpeeled almonds, ground in a little food processor so it wasn't really flour texture, more a mealy texture)
1/2 c. brown rice flour
1/2 c. tapioca starch
1 tsp guar gum
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
generous tbsp of chopped rosemary
2/3 c. soy milk + 1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce (I used stewed apple processed in the little food processor with a tbsp of soy milk)
1/4 c. rice bran oil (or whatever you usually use for baking)

Preheat the oven to 410-420 degrees fan bake.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together well. Mix lemon juice with milk and allow to stand a little. Mix applesauce with oil and cut into the dry mixture. Add the milk with the lemon juice and stir well. This is a fairly wet mixture, like a muffin mix. It may be put into greased muffin tins or scooped out onto a greased or lined tray. Bake for 12 min until nicely browned. Makes 10.

Now, because every post must have a picture and i don't have pictures of the scones, here is the little quilt I finished at quilt club today. It is about 8"x8" and I don't know what I'm going to do with it...

Only just large enough

2010-10-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

I measured the quilt when I had made the final trim, ready to bind - it was exactly 24" tall (if you use one of my rulers, its about 1/8" short with the other but we won't tell the judge). The rules of the challenge state that each edge must be between 24" and 36" and that it must use a recognisable amount of the challenge fabric. The tree leaves/flowers are cut from the challenge fabric.

The sky was partly quilted and then unpicked, completely quilted and unpicked again. So this is the third quilting for some of the sky. The grass under the tree was quilted and then quilted again over the top - so that is quilted twice. The faces have been quilted and unpicked too many times to count and I'm still not happy with them but I don't really know what to do about it now. Closer quilting helped as did using a smaller needle - it took me three lots of unpicking on the faces to realise that the stitches looked wrong because they were dark and that was because even though I was using a pale thread I was using a large needle which was leaving dark holes.

Apart from the quilting (which I am finally very happy with except for the faces), the biggest success was the small dark blue interior border. I made that by folding a piece of 1cm wide blue ribbon in half and sewing it down with a double thread and wide zig zag stitches. It made a big difference to the overall design. I'm also pretty happy with the silver nutmeg and the golden pear.

I hesitate to post this

2010-09-14T02:40:00.000-07:00

because the faces aren't finished yet... I've unpicked and resewn the shading on Aimee's face three times and its still not right. Jess's seems to be going more easily but I'm not so far down the track on her face yet.

Stones Finished

2010-09-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

So, I've finished the small A3 size quilt I started in Chris Kenna's workshop on Saturday. I'm rapt with the quilting and now that I've learnt how to do these contour lines with a neat back to the quilt I will be using a similar technique to finally quilt my large Delphinium I quilt. Hopefully in time to submit for Symposium next April.

Chris taught us to start with five small (0.5 stitch length) stitches before starting the row and finish again with another 5 small stitches. This produces a much neater back than using the automatic stitch finishing on either of my machines. Chris also suggested using an envelope turn to finish the edges rather than a binding - bindings can be proportionally too large on such a small quilt. To do this you take two pieces of fabric each the same width as the quilt and each about 2" or 3" longer than half the length of the quilt. Put the quilt face up on the table. Place the pieces of fabric face down on the top of the quilt matching the sides and top and bottom of the quilt so that the extra lengths overlap in the middle. Fold back 1" on both overlaps so that the edges will be finished when turned. Pin in place. Sew a 1/4" seam around the outside edge of the quilt. Turn to the back. Press, making sure the backing does not show from the front. Slipstitch the opening closed. Finish with a row of stitching 1/4" from the edge.

Another thing I learnt from Chris was the motif used on quilting the sky. I should have done it smaller and it definitely needs practice to make it smoother but I'm glad to know how to do it.

Workshop with Chris Kenna

2010-09-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

I'm off today to the second day of a workshop with Chris Kenna. We are making landscapes from our own photos. I really enjoyed her discussion on *looking* at a photo properly, finding out the light source, working out what the colours really are.

This is yesterday's work - Terry's photo on the right, my pieced version on the left. Today we layer and quilt it before adding an appliqued focus piece. My focus piece will be the stones with their dark shadows. Others will add branches or trees to their landscapes.

I had a little nut tree

2010-09-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

I'm making progress. Here is a link to the original posting on this quilt

Symposium

2010-09-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

Next year is the National Quilt Symposium - these happen every two years and next year's is in Queenstown, one of New Zealand's premium tourist destinations. I registered my interest directly after the last one as I have for the last three but I didn't really think I would be able to go. I didn't get to the last one in 2009 either. However, the cards fell right and my good luck was to be invited to join Helen in the motel room she had booked months ago. So I'm going! and I'm very excited about it too :-)

We thought that it would be a good idea for the girls from Wanganui to have a t-shirt so we shopped yesterday and found a red singlet tunic that suited us both. NB: we don't know of any other club members attending symposium but if you are reading this and you are attending and would like a t-shirt - please let me know!) The shirt we chose has a picture on the front (black, silver cityscape) but it was getting difficult to find exactly what we wanted so we decided that we could put our logo on the back. We chose a singlet tunic so that we could wear other t-shirts under it and hopefully could wear it every day. I played with our Cotton-On Quilters logo on the design programme and came up with something I thought was fairly decent. I printed a couple out on to transfer paper and ironed them onto plain white cotton. Here is mine, sewed on with two rows of (stylishly) careless heavy black stitching.

Quilt Show Challenges

2010-08-28T20:57:00.000-07:00

Our club, Cotton-On Quilters is having their bi-ennial quilt show in March 2011. We have three challenges - two of them are open challenges so if you are interested please contact me and I will sent you the information. One of the open challenges is Make Us Smile - size to be A3 size (12"x16").

Here is my entry for that challenge. I know its not stunning. But I made the background as a demonstration of weaving at our club one Saturday. It was a large weave so that it was quick to demonstrate. Then I wondered what I was going to do with it. This is the result - and its an entry!

Did it make you smile?

The second challenge I am working on is only for club members. We are to use this fabric:

and make a quilt that is no larger than 36" on any side and no smaller than 24" - Any subject. My quilt is going to illustrate the children's song: "I had a little nut tree, nothing would it bear, but a silver nutmeg and a golden pear. The king of Spain's daughter came to visit me and all for the sake of my little nut tree".

Here is my working drawing with a piece of tracing paper on top. The tracing paper has the lines for my background pieces and the tree. The working drawing was put together in an art programme on the computer then printed out full size:

And here is the background and tree pieced. The flowers have been cut from the challenge fabric and placed on the tree but not sewn down yet. I will quilt the background before I sew the flowers, golden pear, silver nutmeg and girl's faces on the top. I am going to use photos of my grand-daughters for the faces, not the clip art ones shown in the working drawing.

I will put a border around this part before I put the faces on and I'll stitch the words of the song on the border.

A Finished Boat

2010-08-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

All finished apart from the label which I will do on the computer this morning. The quilting would have been a bit smoother if I had taken the Juki off the Swiftquilter but I didn't, I used the Pfaff instead. Also, if I had tidied my sewing table and spread some silicon around it might have slid a bit better too...

Oh, well.

Further Development

2010-07-29T02:19:00.000-07:00

I had another happy few hours in the sewing room today, working on the boat I started in the unstructured piecing workshop. Here is progress. I have pieced boat sails down the left side and across the bottom using the method we were taught for the stars.

The top and bottom borders are not yet completely pieced or sewn to the rest of the quilt top. In fact the medium triangle in the top right hand corner is just folded and pinned to the dark one. I am in two minds about that, whether it should be a light one with the dark as in the bottom left hand corner. I welcome your comments :-)

A Weekend Workshop

2010-07-25T01:15:00.000-07:00

I've spent the weekend at a quilting workshop run by our club, Cotton-on Quilters. Griet Lombard taught 16 of us how to piece blocks without a pattern or a ruler! Check out the club blog in a day or two. I'm sure there will be pictures of all the blocks made by the class.

Griet showed us how to make a star, house, tree, boat, cat and girl and boy figures. But I didn't get that far, once I had made the boat I got stuck on it, making a frame and more stars to go with it so I didn't make the boy and girl figures. I intend to make another border or two for the boat before I'm finished. I was really pleased with how the colour palette turned out on that. And yes, I know the flag on top of the mast is flying the wrong way and the prow is at the wrong end of the boat - I was all set to rip and resew that but they persuaded me it was ok to be wrong....

Dressing Up

2010-06-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

We love an excuse to dress up. We check out our favourite second hand clothes shops, we buy cheap accessories from the $2.00 shop and we hunt down the perfect pair of shoes or shoelaces or wig. We have shirts printed with logos! Because there are four of us we are very brave about walking down the street or entering a venue looking ridiculous - why should we care? We've had our fun, putting the outfit together!

Last Saturday night was the Rotary Club's changeover night and the theme was Better, Bolder Brighter Blue. SuperRotary Man, the Bold Blue Bustier, Blue Freak Hair and I would have taken prizes for the best costumes if such had been on offer! You might have noticed that I am not as brave or as bold as the others, but man those blue shoes had the highest heels I've ever worn! Terry is standing on tip toes in the photo of us together!

Roll on Thursday - another Rotary Changeover; theme this time - midwinter Christmas!

A Global Quilt Project

2010-06-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

I received a letter from Amy Allen, The CEO of Global Change Inc, the other day asking for a couple of quilt blocks to be made for a fund raising quilt. These are the two I have made, 9.5" sq and 12" sq. They both have New Zealand birds in the centre and are surrounded by fabric from a New Zealand fabric jelly roll my son gave me for Christmas. The darker one is the larger, both blocks have 2.75" centres.

The quilt is being made to be auctioned in conjunction with World Toilet Day on November 19th and squares are to be received by August 31st. If anyone is interested in being part of this project, email me and I will pass on Amy's letter. My email is not clickable unfortunately, as it would be harvested by spam bots, but you can read it and type it in :-)

A trip on a jetboat

2010-06-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

For Christmas last year we gave Sarah, Aimee, Jessica and my father, vouchers for a jet boat ride on the Whanganui River. We booked the Havoc trip to the Flying Fox with Brent Firmin of the Spirit of the River Jet Boat Tours. This is a one hour trip up the beautiful Whanganui River, one hour at the Flying Fox for coffee and muffins and a little tour around and then another hour back on the river. Unfortunately it rained on the day we went this time. That only meant we didn't get many photos, we still enjoyed it and it did let up a bit while we were at the Flying Fox.

The two girls and Sarah were given a ride on the flying fox - half way out over the river. There is no road access to the house, all people and supplies are brought by boat or by road to the other side of the river and then winched over on the flying fox.

And why am I just showing you these photos now? 4 months after the event? because the camera we used to take these photos was, um, mislaid, until very recently. Until I had to get the backpacks out for our trip to Sydney actually. Last time they were used was, oh, in January for a trip on the river I think!

Shoot for the Stars

2010-06-06T19:24:00.000-07:00

I have been giving all the little ones in my family a bed quilt on their fifth birthday. Andrew happened to get one much earlier in his life plus he has the quilts his brothers were given when they turned five. So I decided he could have a wall hanging instead. I asked what his passions were and heard about rockets and spaceships. I am still experimenting with woven quilt backgrounds and spots look like stars so this has lots of woven spots and a spaceship - and the globe shows Australia as that is where he lives. Happy Birthday Andrew!

Andrew's mother Nadeeka has blogged about his reaction to the quilt.

Two Excellent Trades

2010-06-06T16:58:00.000-07:00

Terry and I celebrated our 40th Wedding Anniversary in February this year.

We decided to treat ourselves to a red table setting - red for a ruby wedding and red for a large family gathering at Christmas. We found a lovely red tablecloth and red and cream runner but although we searched for a long time we could not find the table mats that we wanted. I decided I would have to make some but I haven't had much time for sewing over the last year or so and I wasn't hopeful I would get them made any time soon.

Then a lovely lady from Canada wrote asking if we would consider a trade. She wanted some delphinium seed and wondered if we would like to take something from her Etsy shop in exchange. We don't normally do this but she asked at the right time, offering the right thing. Elizabeth of Lilybeth Goodies has made me 12 table mats and 12 napkins. I chose the fabric for the mats from an online source and Elizabeth took it from there. (Oh, and before you tell me that I've set the table wrongly, the small knife and fork are on the inside because they are for dessert - pancakes with feijoas and almonds and greek yoghurt).

They are beautifully made - Jennifer and I spent ages last night trying to work out how the mitred corners on the napkins were done. Just imagine it - 48 tiny little mitred corners on those 12 napkins! Amazing! I'm totally happy with the trade. Thanks Elizabeth! I hope you get as much pleasure from your delphinium seed as we will from the work you've done for us.

And this is our dining room with the table set for Sunday night dinner. Can you see the other new addition? Yes, the doors have arrived from France - but they haven't been installed on the cabinet yet, that's for another day :-) Aren't the colours perfect? It was very exciting when they arrived all beautifully packed in a wooden box.I will show you more and better photos of the doors when they are installed on the cabinet.

Here is a picture of the quilt in its new home - Christine writes that its perfect with the colours of her room. So that was a happy trade too!

Woven Quilts

2010-04-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

I bought a new book recently, Simply Stunning Woven Quilts by Anna Faustino. So I treated myself to a play in the sewing room since I have now finished the most pressing of my UFOs. I still have UFOs and I intend to work on them before starting any other major project, but a little little quilt for the charity quilt auction at our club's next show was a 'refresher' before getting back to work. Here is the woven background and the finished quilt. It is called "Dusk over the Valley" and is A3 size (about 12"x 16")

Rooster Quilt Finished

2010-03-24T10:17:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately I don't have a very good photo of the whole finished quilt yet but there are some good detail photos. AND its FINISHED!

If you want to check back to the beginning of this project, they whys and wherefores, here is the link:
http://nana-jan.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-project.html

To see the progress photos, click on the rooster link in the label cloud on the right hand side of the page.

Something Creative to Show!

2010-02-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I haven't been sewing so I haven't been blogging but this was fun! I took a 16 hr weekend workshop with Craig Winton and made myself a ring.You can see more of Craig's work here.

There are a number of processes to making a ring like this.
Choose your stone bearing in mind that larger is easier.
The Shank:
You need to determine the size of the ring, cut the silver shank to length using a little fret saw (it was already shaped thankfully), roughly shape it to bring the cut ends together. File the ends to make a nice tight join, solder the join using a blow torch, borax flux and 'hard' solder. Wash it. Pickle it. Wash it. File it, sand it. Shape it on a mandril with a leather mallet. Shape it on an anvil. Sand it again with the aim of hiding the join completely. File a flat piece for the stone to sit on. Put the shank aside and make the setting.
The Setting:
Measure the circumference of the stone. I chose a relatively small stone which made it harder to work with but it was circular which made it easier than some of the irregular shaped stones others chose. Measure the height of the stone to determine the height of the setting. Cut a piece of silver sheet to length and width. Shape it as well as you can to your stone's shape. Solder the join ('hard' solder). Wash, pickle, wash, file, sand.... You have now made the setting wall. Roughly cut a piece of sheet for the base of the setting. Solder the setting wall to the base ('hard' solder). Wash, pickle, wash. Cut the base close to the wall. File to exact fit. File, file, sand, sand, sand until you can't see the joins.
The Ring:
Solder setting to the ring shank on the flat area you filed on the shank (using 'easy' solder this time!) Wash, pickle, wash, file, then sand with 3 grades of sandpaper making it perfect, no visible joins, no visible nicks, no visible dents which will show as darker areas in the silver. Set the stone in the setting. Using a small wooden pusher, push the silver wall of the setting evenly over the stone. Using a small metal tool, gently tap the silver down evenly so there is no gap between the stone and the silver. Stamp the shank with a sterling silver mark. Polish the ring with two grades of polish on Craig's electric motor polisher.
All done!
Wear with pride!

Little by Little

2010-01-10T01:29:00.000-08:00

Some more before and after pics of progress - which is slow because we have a guest living in the sewing room at the moment and I can only get in there when she is away tramping for a couple of days.

More on the Rooster

2010-01-02T14:13:00.000-08:00

Back in March last year, before normal life was interupted, I started a new project. This may refresh your memory if you don't want to follow the links to my earlier posts:

I continued for a few more weeks but have done nothing on it since May 2009. I found other more urgent work to do when I had time for sewing.

However, now it is the urgent project as we have had word from France that the paintings for the doors are finished and the doors won't take very long to make. Aren't they fabulous?

So I had better fulfill my part of the bargain and finish the quilt! Today I spent a couple of hours working on the tail feathers of the rooster. You can see a before and after comparison above.

Success!

2009-11-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, I finished on time, just. Terry has written a blog post on our trip to Wellington and you might as well read his, as he is a better writer than I am. I am hoping that Chris will post his photos of the day on Flickr so that I can borrow one or two for you. I know he took one of Jessica's lovely wide eyed reaction to the quilt when it was first held up for her to see. Here is the finished quilt, front and back.

The back of the cat quilt

2009-10-25T20:11:00.000-07:00

Here is the finished back of Jessie's cat quilt. It is made of fabric I bought for this quilt and didn't use for the front as it didn't fit with the other fabric so well - and some of it isn't cats, its dogs or monkeys but I thought it was cats when i bought it! Those are 17" squares with 3/4" sashing. The green outer border will mostly be trimmed off but as I am going to quilt it on the swiftquilter I need a generous edge. Looks like I might get it finished in time for her birthday on 8th November! Yayy!

Jessica's Cat Quilt

2009-10-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day after a loooooooooong drought! (see here for the other one). I know, I'll explain. While Terry was away on a business trip for four weeks, he took my camera. I don't like to post without pictures so I didn't post much, just one I think with a photo taken on my phone. Then as soon as he got back we had our grand-daughters to stay and after that I had minor surgery (all is well, it just took a while to recover from the anesthetic). So I haven't been quilting much and I haven't been thinking too well either! But now I am back doing both.

When my grand-children or my niece's children turn five, they get an "I'm Five!" quilt from me. Jessica is about to turn five and she has asked for cats. Unfortunately, because of all the interruptions to scheduled life we have had this year its not the fanciest I'm Five! quilt I've made but I hope the lovely fabric will make up for it. Here is the unquilted top. I'm going back out to the sewing room now to make a backing out of all the fabric I bought and didn't use in the top!

A Paper Quilt - it just grew!

2009-10-20T18:04:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, during the school holidays, we had Aimee and Jessica to stay for a few days while their parents took a break from parenting. One of the things the girls love is to have free rein of the craft area. They have a table, a good stock of art supplies and Nana within cooee in her office. One morning they painted beautiful pictures. The next day they decided that the craft area was their office and they needed a door for it. The craft area is in an open mezzanine but I have a curtain wire I sometimes put across when it is in use as a guest bedroom and Aimee decided they could hang a door from that. So, while Jessica continued to paint pictures, Aimee started taping them together to make a door. When Aimee cut holes in paper sheets to make windows, Jessica painted the cutouts with wavy lines which she said were writing.

Essentially, it is a paper quilt - it took the girls two mornings to construct as they had to wait for some of the paintings to dry before they could finish it off.

Here are some of the blocks and both sides of the finished quilt.

Sarah is making progress

2009-08-24T01:19:00.000-07:00

I don't have my regular camera at the moment so this was taken on my cell phone, however, it shows the great way the jacob's ladder blocks dominate the quilt. Can you see the colour scheme is brown & cream with touches of blue, green and turquoise. And the quilt has grown a little bigger than the 60x60" one I designed. It will be 84x96" when finished. The white lines across are where the flannelette sheet on the wall shows through. Sarah still has to buy the fabric for those strips and they will be a mix of light and dark batiks. She has raided my stash and completely depleted it of brown and cream for the 5" squares and the larger pieced blocks. I felt that was fair exchange for her company and that of Aimee and Jessica for a long weekend. Aimee and Jessica also sewed jacob's ladder blocks on the sewing machine this weekend, Aimee made hers into a bag and Jessica left hers here for me to make into a bag for her.

Sarah's Quilt

2009-08-10T21:26:00.000-07:00

My daughter Sarah needs a quilt for her bed and she asked me to design something in neutral colours, easy to sew but original. This is what I've come up with, a 60"x60" quilt which can be made larger with a border or two if necessary.

When I design using EQ6 I don't bother to scan my fabric as I work with many different scrap fabrics. I use fabric in the design that is close to value and hue to what I have. I have chosen this range from my large collection of 5" squares.

I intend the design to be a guide only. The rows of plain squares are 5" squares, so they will be easy - just sew them in a row. Then there are a few strips of differing widths - not too difficult either! The three pieced rows are of 8" finished blocks and 10" finished blocks. they are made up of half square triangles and 4 patches. A few 9 patches could be added for variety or quarter square triangles! Because of the casual nature of the design, if the rows of finished blocks are not quite 60" then a strip added between blocks or at the end of the row will not look out of place. and if the finished row is not 8" or 10" deep then an adjustment to one of the strip rows will take care of that. I have a workshop this coming weekend "Sewing outside the Square" with June Nixey and the blocks I make there I'll give to Sarah for this quilt.

Tulip Quilt

2009-08-01T15:57:00.000-07:00

At the recent National Quilt Symposium in Wellington there was a bit of controversy over their policy to restrict show entries largely to "original quilts" - always going to be tricky with so many quilts being based on traditional blocks and quilting patterns.

However in an attempt to give others a few tips on how to make an 'original quilt' two of us from Cotton-On Quilters have been giving a mini tutorial at club meetings for the last three months. In the process I have been making this quilt to demonstrate the steps I use.

Here are my notes from the first two lessons:

Designing original quilts from a photograph - the photograph you choose must be one you have taken yourself or one you have permission to use. I will be using this one which my husband Terry took of tulips in our garden.

My original quilts are mostly done using the same method. I like to make the background pieced with curves and the foreground pieces with raw edge appliqué. I am listing what I do so that you have a basis to work from. If you want to use a different method of appliqué or to sew the fine detail before layering and quilting the quilt then that is fine too.

I find a photograph with a strong foreground item (in this case a group of tulips but it may be a person or animal, a tree or building, etc) and a background with some strong lines between different coloured areas. The photograph may have other items that I am not interested in and they can be taken out during the planning stage. I study the photograph, and decide what parts I want to use. I may at this stage trace the photograph and work from the drawing or I may work directly from the photograph. The next step is to enlarge the drawing or photograph to the size of the finished quilt. You can do this by taking it to a photocopy shop or by projecting a transparency of the work onto a wall and tracing it or by scanning it onto a computer and printing it out from an art programme. My art programme will print out a large photograph or drawing onto a number of A4 pages which I then tape together to give me my pattern to work from.
If you don’t have an art programme that will do that on your computer there is a site on the internet blockposters.com where you can upload your photo and choose the size you want it printed. Then print on your own printer – again onto a number of A4 pages which you tape together. Or you can download a free programme to do the job from here.

Once the pattern is sized up to the size of the finished quilt the next task is to make the pattern pieces for the background. I have done these a couple of ways – but my most recent method is the easiest to explain.

Cover the paper pattern with press’n’seal and trace the background sections onto the press’n’ seal with a ball point pen or felt tip. If the quilt is very large it may be easier to work in sections for this part. Draw the background in easy curves or straight lines, not too many sections – fine detail can be added later. Carefully peal off the plastic wrap and cut into sections – I use the rotary cutter for this. Lay the press’n’seal on the RIGHT SIDE of the fabric for each background piece and cut around each piece with a ¼” margin (just eyeball it, don’t get paranoid about it). Sew the pieces together, clipping curves and pressing after each seam.

Now look at it and decide what items from the photo you need to add to make a more detailed quilt.

The foreground pieces (tulips and leaves) can be traced the same way using press’n’seal. If you are going to use raw edge appliqué as I usually do cut them out of fabric that has a sticky backing (vliesofix or steam-a-seam etc) without the ¼” margin. If you want to needle turn appliqué the foreground pieces cut with a margin as you did the background.

Apply the foreground items to the background using your chosen method. The detail can be sewn on at this stage as surface embroidery or sewn on at the quilting stage.

Here are three progress photos as the quilt evolved:

You can see I have rearranged the tulips into a more pleasing composition and I have started to add detail, shading etc using free motion stitching on the tulip heads and on the leaves on the right hand side. I usually use coloured pencils to draw on the fabric and then use the pencil colouring as a guide for my stitching. The pencil will wear off over time but the stitching will not.

The Lentil Policy Document

2009-07-29T17:49:00.001-07:00

Apple: is attempting to cook MoF lentils
Button: Whats "MoF"?
Apple: Ministry of Food - it's a cafe in Wgtn
Coin: or... Minister of Finance lentils. They'd be produced through an innovative PPP model, and provide more tastiness per lentil than under previous administrations
Apple: There is no evidence yet that the Partial Pressure Pot will increase the tastiness, tho it should reduce the cooking time, although not as much as the more expensive full pressure pot approach. However, if we add additional condiments at the beginning of the process we may see an improvement in tastiness
Fluffy Chick: I think you need to raise the analysis up a level and start asking why you would want to cook lentils. Lentils are just one option within a range of food groups. Further analysis is needed to determine if this is in fact the best value for money food group.
Seagull: But value for money is just one measurement paradigm. I think a framework for analysis is required to determine the best tastiness assessment criteria and the acceptable levels of input to achieve any minimum levels established.
Fluffy Chick: Personally I think that we can safely assume that lentils will not score well regardless of the framework or criteria we try to develop. I think we just go with something like this.
Drafter: the girls
We recommend that you:
note that lentils are disgusting
agree that you will never cook lentils for us
But this may just be my personal view :)
Apple: i think you guys are spending way too many resources on the issue (with a distinct lack of problem indentification). The initial process was appropriate and provided a positive outcome for the limited target audience. Lentil supply was outsourced to the lowest bidder (who, being a specialist supplier was also able to offer high quality), the intended outcome was well researched (I have eaten lentils at MoF several times) and the eventual product was of a high quality. The unindented outcomes (gas) have been identified and will be rectified in subsequent batches (I'll rinse the lentils first before cooking).
I, at least, didn't get caught up in the theory and successfully operationalised the concept. Anyone else who would like to contribute to quality control is welcome to come over for lentils. =)

I know, its been a long time...

2009-07-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

But I have a good reason: after the girls left to go home with their mummy and daddy, we had a week and half of comparative peace and quiet with only Kenza staying here (the horticultural student from France). Then, the weekend before my niece Mary was due to arrive with her two youngest children to stay for 5 days, Terry's mother was discharged from hospital but was not well enough to go home on her own so Terry brought her down from Auckland to stay with us. Mary arrived the day after Mum did, Mary's two older children unexpectedly joined us 5 days later and Mary left with all 4 children a couple of days after that. Terry has now taken Mum up to her home for a few days to keep a few appointments but is bringing her back here later today.

Because of the number of people staying and the care some of them have needed, I've had no time to quilt - or the space as Kenza is living in the sewing room.

However, I do have something quilty for you - more specifically, for those of you who edit quilt club or guild newsletters. I have edited a few of them over the years and have put together a small collection of original quilt clipart which I am happy for you to use for non-commercial purposes. They are of various sizes and you can download them from here.

http://www.delphinium.co.nz/QuiltClipartGallery.htm

What I'm doing instead of sewing

2009-06-05T20:45:00.001-07:00

http://aimeejessie.blogspot.com/

A Moulin Rouge Party

2009-05-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

Working on the border

2009-05-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

I've really enjoyed getting engrossed in the white moulding of this door - I've used two layers and three shades of white, pale blue and a less pale blue to build up the different shades to give the moulding its 3-d effect. I've hand tacked the green outer edge to the centre background piece and then stuck the moulding pieces down over the join, ready to be raw-edge appliqued to the quilt.

It will improve with stitching of course.

And I think it may be nearly time to stop referring to the original picture and start making the quilt into its own piece of art.

Mum

2009-05-06T10:41:00.001-07:00

Four weeks ago my mother rang me early one morning to say that the ambulance had come to take her to hospital. She died three weeks later. It was a great shock to all of the family as we had no idea she was ill apart from the increasing pain she was feeling in her spine. We understood this to be from degeneration of the spine, which is not normally a terminal illness. As test results were revealed over the next few days, the family gathered in Auckland - her three children (my brother Mark flying home from England), her grandchildren and great-grandchildren(from all over New Zealand). We all spent as much time as we could in hospital with mum and in my sister's home with dad, supporting and comforting mum, dad and each other. The strength of the family gathering and just hanging out like that was amazing. We went through the acknowledged grief cycle together over that time: denial, anger, depression and finally, acceptance. She didn't live long enough to leave Auckland hospital for hospice care and the staff in her ward were very good to us all, making it very easy to stay with mum as long as we wanted to each day and, especially, all of her last night.

The funeral was a chance to say goodbye and to pay tribute to our lovely, patient, kind, thoughtful, clever mum (I learnt my sewing skills from her). We played a series of photos of her, all I could collect together from various sources, at the service:

And after the funeral, my 4 year old grand-daughter Jessica borrowed Terry's camera and took some great pictures at the wake:

A Comparison

2009-04-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

This is my concept picture of the splashback wall before we started building.

And this is the finished wall.

A Little Further

2009-03-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

And Now?

2009-03-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

I think I'll add some more netting to the background, maybe some white.

How's it going so far?

2009-03-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

A New Project

2009-03-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

Quilters often have many projects in a half finished stage - and I'm just one of the crowd! I'm starting a new project today. A couple of years ago we travelled to France to attend a wedding. While there we spent some time at the workshop of the bride's father, Roger. We would have loved to bring home a piece of his furniture but it would have been very costly, so we compromised. We would buy a suitable piece of furniture and Roger would have some doors painted with his trademark scenes. In exchange, we (I) would make them a quilt. They had seen the quilt I had made as a wedding present for Caroline and considered this a fair exchange.

Roger's Workshop:

The Dresser we bought for the doors:

The quilt I made for Caroline - and if you want to know why I made her such a strange quilt you can read a bit more about it here.

We heard from Caroline a couple of days ago with exciting news - her first baby is due any day now! And she also sent pictures of the paintings that are going to be on the doors her father is making for us. So I must get on with our part of the exchange. And here is the pattern I have printed for my quilt. It is one of the pictures that Roger uses for his furniture.

I use PhotoImpact for my artwork and it allows me to print out posters by choosing how large the poster should be (in this case 80cm x 110cm) and it prints the picture out on a number of normal size pages (16 in this case) for me to stick together to make a poster. This poster is then the pattern I work from, tracing the pieces onto tracing paper and then reversing them onto the back of vliesofix (wonder under) to make up the picture with fabric pieces. It will be raw edge applique, the same as Caroline's quilt. I might try to piece the frame though.

The Centre Block

2009-03-04T10:49:00.000-08:00

Hi Anne! Hi Nava! I recognise Nava's name as being one of the participants in this Round Robin - are you another Anne?

Okay, Anne and Nava have asked how did I do the centre block. It is made up of four blocks with careful placement of the stripped pieces. Each block is made up of a centre square and four pieces made of strips sewn together. I made two of each stripped piece - actually I made one twice the length and cut it in half - and then laid everything out before sewing each of the four blocks together. I've taken these pictures from the design in EQ6 so that's why the fabrics don't match what I eventually used. They are just approximations of the colour I had in mind.

I'm sure you know how to put that block together but in case anyone wants to know here is a little tutorial: start with the centre square and one stripped piece. Sew a partial seam stopping half an inch from the edge of the centre square. Go around the block adding stripped pieces as you would a log cabin and end by finishing the first seam you started.

Anne has since emailed and told me that she is a beginner quilter and asked if I would tell her the sizes of the pieces I had used to make the block. Here is my reply to her:

The blocks are 8" finished. [As you are new to quilting I'll make this comment (someone told me once and its something that really helped me designing my own stuff): ALWAYS work in finished sizes. Work out finished block sizes, finished piece sizes, THEN add your half inch for seams (1/4 inch for each edge).]

ok, so the blocks are 8" finished. The centre squares are 1.5 x 1.5" finished so the stripped blocks are 3.25 inch x 4.75 FINISHED = 3.75 x 5.25 before sewing together. I just sewed strips together in random widths to make a piece at least 11" x 4" then cut that back to 10.5 x 3.75 than cut that in half lengthwise. Make sure the first strip you sew in each one is the dark background strip.

If you want to make it easy on yourself, use 2 x 2" (2.5" before sewing) centre blocks and then the stripped blocks are 3 x 5 finished, 3.5 x 5.5 before sewing.

A New Round Robin

2009-03-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

You may have realised that I'm not getting much time in the sewing room. I decided I needed to give myself more incentive to ignore the office work and make time to sew. I didn't want to enter any major competitions oir challenges, although they have deadlines to meet which would make me do the work, you need to spend too much time to meet that deadline. Round Robins though, a series of deadlines, with smaller amounts of work each time, that would work.

And then my friend Helen asked at club for volunteers to participate in a Round Robin Exchange with some quilters from the U.K. who visited her a few months ago so I put up my hand to be part of that exchange.

The rules for the center block are:

Everyone makes the centre block. This is a is 16” square when finished. Please then turn the block on point and add to this 16” block 4 corner triangles to make a finished block about 23” square. Please make sure there is a quarter inch seam allowance especially at the joints.

Mmm, no guidelines as to colour or style. A search through my scraps... I don't have many large pieces of fabric, its all fat quarters or smaller, so no large triangles, I'll have to piece them. Mmmm. I'll see what I can draw up on EQ6...

Well, I've done it Helen, ready for the next step!

What do you think? Challenging enough?

Its practically finished!

2009-02-25T23:55:00.000-08:00

Office

Exercise space and tv room

Flower Garden

Lounge

Front porch with Hopscotch!

My new chair - 39th wedding anniversary present from Terry

A 60th Birthday Quilt

2009-02-18T16:54:00.000-08:00

You may remember Terry had a 60th birthday some months ago. At the party I had some cream and blue fabric rectangles (bricks) prepared with freeezer paper backing and a pile of fabric crayons and fabric felt tip pens. I asked guests and family members to draw on the fabric bricks which many did - some did more than one. Over the past few weeks when I have managed to escape to my sewing room (since it became a sewing room again and not temporary living quarters) I've sewn the bricks together into a wall with scrappy brown and fawn fabric brick pointing.

I printed the party invitations on fabric and cut them up to make every second block on the top and bottom rows.I also started to sew a diamond border but I've got bored with that (no surprise to those who know me and my piecing skills) and the other two borders might just be squares.

My niece gave me the fawn, brown and blue fabric for a Christmas present in 2007 and said that it was to be a quilt for Terry. So it will.

I'm looking for input from you - should I persevere with the diamonds or will the squares look ok?

Row by Row finished and in its new home

2009-02-16T18:49:00.000-08:00

I don't think I ever showed you pictures of the finished Row by Row. Here it is, in the place it was designed for. The club members who each did a row of this quilt were asked to use a particular picture that I gave them for inspiration for colours and subject. I used the same picture for the colour scheme for our new rooms. And the size of the quilt was decided by the size of this wall space.

You can see in the corner of the room, a preview of the tiles that are being laid today. We laid some of them out last night to see if we still liked them. We did, good job.

Here is another view out of the new folding doors with Teacup sitting there hopefully:

And another view of the splashback - now with shelves in use:

And upstairs in the new office the floor has been plastered in preparation for industrial vinyl to be laid on Thursday - which means we can move in this weekend - wow, at long last! You can see in the far corner where my desk will be I have used some of these to put up photos of my grandchildren and their parents. On the red wall at the entrance to the office I have photos of my niece and her children.

Downstairs we have different colours

2009-02-11T23:16:00.001-08:00

The painters did come

2009-02-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

but not on the 12th, they arrived on the 29th and we now have colour on the walls upstairs:

and the glass man arrived too so we now have a glass splashback in the kitchen! The photo behind the splashback is one Terry took at the Bason Botanic Gardens.

We went to a wedding

2009-02-01T21:30:00.001-08:00

We went to a wedding on Saturday. A garden wedding and I knew it would be hot because Terry knows the weather god and Judith had asked him to use his influence and make sure it would be a lovely day for her daughter's wedding. And therefore I knew I would need to wear a hat to the wedding. Not many people did but as I have fair skin and I can't wear sunblock because it makes me go funny I had to have a hat.

I chose my outfit for the wedding, a black and turquiose and hot pink skirt I had bought recently, a new black top and relatively new black shoes. I would just need to buy a hat, black, turquoise or pink, plenty of choice!

But I found out that a new hat would cost more than a new outfit and I would get a lot more wear out of a new outfit. I already had this caramel hat and matching shoes that I bought for my daughter's wedding 15 years ago and had only worn that once. So I bought another outfit to match the hat. :-)

It was a great wedding!

Terry picked fresh blackcurrants this morning

2008-12-31T15:07:00.000-08:00

So I found a recipe here on Gluten Free in South Africa and modified it:

GF Blackcurrant Muffins
for 6 large muffins or 12 standard size
100g butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
3/4 cup vanilla sugar
1 cup soy milk with 1 tsp cider vinegar
1+ 3/4 cups gluten free flour [I used a mix I keep made up in a jar of approx 3 parts brown rice, 1.5 parts tapioca, 1 part soy, 1 part LSA, 1 part buckwheat]
1 tsp guar gum
1 tbsp baking powder
2 cups fresh blackcurrants
A couple of tablespoons of quinoa flakes and 1-2 tbsp sliced almonds + more for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

In a bowl, whisk the wet ingredients
in another bowl mix the dry ingredients thoroughly
gently add wet to dry
Fold in the blackcurrants.
Fill a tray of 6 silicon muffin moulds.
Sprinkle some sliced almonds over the top
Bake for 35 - 45 minutes until the tops are springy when pressed
Cool 10 minutes before turning out.

These are wonderfully tart and a beautiful tender cake texture.

Temporary Steps

2008-12-31T14:58:00.000-08:00

Our new dining room has large opening bifold doors and we are still in the process of deciding whether we want steps down to a paved area or a deck at floor level. In the meantime we wanted some temporary steps which Terry has built out of scrap timber. They are very solid and extremely stable. What's the betting they last a few years? I wouldn't be surprised if they even got a coat of paint sometime...

Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2008

2008-12-31T14:50:00.000-08:00

The painters will come on the 12th January

2008-12-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

and the flooring will be last of all but they will have to work around us, we've moved in. And I am very very tired! So are the two electricians who worked 10.5 hrs on Saturday to get the groundfloor electrics all installed... it looks like a lighting showroom now!

I have a new camera

2008-12-16T20:13:00.000-08:00

The scoffolding has gone:

and the maple wood has been installed in the kitchen:

New Front Entrance

2008-12-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

mmmm... I think my camera is failing

2008-12-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

Temporary Living

2008-12-07T10:12:00.000-08:00

For Elizabeth who came to see the delphiniums this weekend but said that what she really wanted to see was my sewing room - and I told her there was no room for sewing at the moment because that is where we are living.

Temporary Dining Room - near the sewing room door

Sink bench on the left, cutting table on the right - now storage for appliances and food supplies. In the bathroom beyond you can see my crockpot and microwave - they are in the bathroom because there is an extractor fan in there and I hope that will keep food fumes out of my sewing room

Cutting table in the foreground, bed and our clothes piled on the sewing tables

Cutting table in foreground, clothes on hangers in front of the swiftquilter. A new project printed out and pinned to the design wall - already curling from age and nothing further done on it since printing out...

More Chaos and Some New Kitchen

2008-12-05T19:58:00.000-08:00

Its a lovely day

2008-12-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

Enough Room

2008-12-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

My kitchen has gone

2008-11-24T18:42:00.000-08:00

Fate says No to Christmas Cake!

2008-11-20T10:05:00.000-08:00

Words and no pictures this time.

Did you ever get the feeling you were not supposed to be doing what you are trying to do? Because I can't eat wheat I have to make my own Christmas cake each year. I don't really like it much but I want to be able to eat it if I feel tempted and I do usually, to be part of the tradition, part of the family get-to-together and all that. So I make a gluten free cake every year and I eat a couple of small slices. No-one else cares either way that its gluten free because its mostly fruit anyway.

And because I don't really care for it I just use whatever recipe has been published in the paper around the time they reckon you should be making your cake. This year the recipe was for a boiled fruit cake. Ok. it looked easy and easy is good when you are living in chaos and your kitchen has been reduced to the basics.

So I found what supplies I had - lots of lovely organic, sulphur free dried fruit. I bought the sherry the recipe called for. I boiled up the fruit with sugar and butter and jam. I let it cool and added eggs, sherry, spice, flour and baking powder. I double lined the cake tin and heated the oven. I poured the cake into the tin and carefully carried it to the oven - and dropped it splat on the floor! The special baking tin with the removable bottom dropped its bottom and the cake was all over the place. Well, organic sulphur free fruit is expensive, there was no-one around, the floor was washed that morning (Wednesday, cleaning day) and it was going to spend 2 hrs in the oven... so I scooped it onto a plate, rearranged the paper lining and tipped it back in the tin. Strike 1.

While it was cooking I rang my mother (tip of the month, ring your mother). I mentioned that I was making my Christmas cake and using a boiled fruit recipe. She said she had never really liked boiled fruit cakes, they didn't have the 'life' of unboiled ones. Strike 2.

So, the next day, Thursday, I thought the cake was pretty small, I had a lot of dried fruit left and I am soon to pack my kitchen up into boxes. Lets see if I can make a cake that hasn't spent some time on the floor however brief. I mixed up another one and offered to let Terry lick the mixing bowl - I had the spoons. He said thanks. After a couple of tastes he said no thanks, he didn't like it. Strike 3. Well three strikes and you're out but what was I going to do with all that uncooked batter? I decided to cook it anyway certain that after three strikes nothing else would be allowed to go wrong.

The cake had been in the oven about an hour when the power went off. After 10 minutes and it hadn't come back on I was getting anxious about my half cooked cake so we rang the power company. Oh, yes, we know its off, no we don't know why - best estimate is back on in 5 hours! Strike 4.

We drove into town and finished it off in Jennifer's oven. I also bought ingredients for dinner which we had while the cake cooked. I bought ham for Terry which he didn't want and he didn't want the salmon I bought for myself either but that doesn't count as a strike against the cake, just against the week.

So if you visit and I offer you Christmas cake you get to choose which one.

Guess Who

2008-11-13T18:01:00.000-08:00

not a builder, not *any* tradesman, not me...

and messier

2008-11-10T17:47:00.000-08:00

Entropy! or: We're getting in a Mess Here!

2008-11-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

A Finish, Another Start and Some Progress

2008-10-29T11:31:00.000-07:00

New driveway retaining wall finished - next step tarmac

New Front Entrance started - old deck demolished

New Extension - looking into the dining room (ground floor) and office (top floor)

New Extension - looking from the other side at the new laundry and back porch.

Where the top storey meets the present house, the dormer windows will be completely removed so the two gable roofs meet at right angles in a valley.

The Plans

2008-10-24T19:34:00.000-07:00

And Another Storey

2008-10-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

They're coming inside!

2008-10-20T23:20:00.000-07:00

Ground floor frames are up

2008-10-16T16:13:00.000-07:00

Two work-gangs: new drive & house extension

2008-10-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

Jasmine's picture

2008-09-30T20:49:00.000-07:00

My seven year old great-niece draws the best pictures! They are beautifully designed and have lovely detail. She sent me this picture of herself playing soccer last week with her stepmother and little baby brother in a baby buggy in the background. I think that may be her older brother playing soccer too but I'm not sure about that. Look at the sun wearing spectacles! And the lovely action of the players.

Anyway, I wanted to make her something special with her artwork and decided to look at the t-shirts in town to see what I could find. I found a long tunic with a vinyl transfer in four parts so I printed two copies of her picture onto a t-shirt transfer sheet and ironed them onto fine white cotton. Then I sewed them onto two of the sections on the t-shirt. I used the small stipple stitch on my pfaff machine and I used embroidery tearaway on the back of the t-shirt fabric to give it stability while I stitched. Do you think she'll like it? It looks very large but I think its meant to be worn with leggings and maybe a belt.

Gluten Free Brown Bread!

2008-09-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

Kate of Gluten Free Gobsmacked posted a recipe for a great Gluten Free Brown Bread the other day and tried it, as she specified, in a loaf tin however it took a lot longer to cook than 30min and it stuck to the tin although I had oiled it. I had to break it up to get it out of the tin. But it was very yummy and I have been having the broken pieces spread with jam in a bowl with milk and yoghurt and a banana for my breakfast every day this week.

So I decided to try it as a flat bread which is how I make my brown rice bread every week. It came out beautifully. I made one tray of the brown pepita bread which has a lovely heavy 'brown bread' texture and flavour and three of the brown rice which actually taste and look like a white bread. Because I make 3 or 4 trays of the 'white' bread a week all mixed up in one bowl and then divided between the trays, the trays are not always evenly loaded and some of the slices are thicker than others. When it comes time to make a meal I often split the thicker slices with a sharp knife and make sandwiches. All the slices are frozen as loaves in plastic bags.

So here are pictures of a tray of uncooked dough, the cooked loaf, the brown bread cooling and the last two white loaves cooling with the first two loaves stacked ready to freeze.

A Happy Village

2008-09-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

I spent the whole of Sunday in the very pleasant company of 19 other Cotton-On Quilters. We attended a workshop run by Dianne Southey who was teaching Karen Eckmeier's Happy Villages.

The villages are made of zig zag shapes inspired by the tetris game. You cut your pieces first from a limited number of fabric squares and then place them randomly, jutting up to each other (or overlapping) on a cotton batting square. Then you cut rooves, steps, doors, balustrades and windows etc and the village magically comes to life. All the pieces are glued on with tiny dots of glue instead of using vliesofix or wonderunder. To finish it, a piece of tulle is placed on top of the completed piece, backing underneath the batting and all the layers are pinned and then quilted. Mine needs a bit more quilting and I cut the tulle from the sky area after I had quilted around the outside edge of the village. It also needs binding.

I don't know if I'll do another village - too many small fiddly pieces but I might use the glue instead of vliesofix sometimes. I'm not sure about the tulle over the finished piece either - it changes the colours too much but I am considering using it over an appliqued, raw edged background with uncovered motifs over the top of it.

NANZQ Quilts Aotearoa

2008-09-10T03:37:00.000-07:00

I've entered 3 quilts in NANZQ Quilts Aotearoa this year and I heard today that 2 of them have been accepted. Its a juried show and the best reason for entering is to get the judges' critique on your work. I think its funny though that the quilt I like best was the one rejected. Now we are all waiting for next week, 17th September to hear how the judging went. I'm not expecting to win a prize though, the competition is very hot and I'm happy to just have my quilts accepted.

These are the three I entered: Orange Vase, Delphinium II and Delphinium III. Delphinium II was not accepted. The judges' comments on Delphinium II were: "Nice background, great colour combinations, flowers need grounding to inner border." I guess I have to wait until after the judging to get the comments on the other two.

Freshening up the bedroom

2008-08-30T20:57:00.000-07:00

Over the last week, Terry and I sanded down and painted three sets of drawers and a chair for our bedroom. Our room is very large but because of the shape of the roof and the rafters, there is not much of a wardrobe and most of our clothes are in drawers. Because we've never bought a bedroom suite, the chests were a motley collection: inherited, gifted and bought second hand or new all at different times. Only two match.

The most recent items we've bought are a white dresser with a blanket box on top of two drawers and two white chairs. We liked the lightness the white pieces brought to our room so we decided to refinish some of the older and more tired looking chests with white paint and new handles. We also painted an old chair white, the sole survivor of a dining set our family used up as they grew.

The two taller matching chests of drawers we acquired from my parents about 20-25 years ago when they were redoing their room. I remember helping my dad when he made them about 50 years ago from kitsets so its lovely to have given them a new lease of life.

More gluten free food

2008-08-22T22:43:00.000-07:00

I know I've been blogging more about food than about quilting lately, that's because I have not had much time to quilt, but no matter how busy I am we still have to eat. And because the food is better for us if I make it all from scratch, that's mostly what I do.

Terry spent today at a International Plant Propagators Field Trip and I spent most of the day in the kitchen. Tomorrow we are having friends to dinner and Terry will be cooking his 'famous creme brulee' again. So it was decided that the meal would be a French dinner - with me to cook the coq au vin. So I started that today. I also cooked four trays of the gluten free flatbread I make most weeks - that's double that recipe.

I've been looking for a good low carb, high protein muffin. I found this recipe and adapted it as below to test:

Breakfast Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup pumpkin
1 cup apple
3 bananas
4 extra large eggs
1/4 cup oil or butter, melted
1 teaspoon cinamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup almond flour
1/4 cup flax seed meal
1 cup soy flour
1 cup raisins

Directions:

Mix first five ingredients together. In another bowl, mix the remaining dry ingredients together. Mix wet ingredients with dry. Spoon into 18 muffin cups. Bake at 210 deg C for 25 minutes. per muffin: 172 Cal, 10 gm fat (1 gm saturated fat, 3 gm poly, 4 gm mono) 18 gm carbohydrate,
3 gm dietary fibre, 6 gm protein)

Not a light muffin, not a sweet muffin but flavoursome and not too solid. More a carrot cake texture. Would be yummy with cheese if your diet allows. I ate two and froze the rest for future breakfasts.

I did a couple of hours office work this afternoon and then started to wonder about dinner. I fancied something with eggs and maybe chickpeas so i put those two together into google with the word recipe and found this. Again, I adapted it to suit what I have on hand (and can eat) and I've just eaten this yummy salad.

Chickpea & Quinoa Salad with Soft Boiled Egg & Croutons

Serves 2

For the Dressing:
4 tsp olive oil
4 tsp. lemon juice pinch salt freshly ground chilli flakes

For the salad:
1/2 cup cooked quinoa
2 eggs
1 cup chickpeas, drained and rinsed
2 cup chopped baby spinach
2 spring onion, chopped
2 slices bread made into croutons with 2 tsp butter

First, make the quinoa. Make a big batch so there will be some to put in the fridge for future meals. Put 1 cup quinoa in a pot with 2 cups water. Bring to the boil and boil for 5 min. Turn the heat off and leave for the grain to absorb all the water. Fluff up with a fork. While the quinoa is cooking, boil the eggs. I like them medium hard, not really hard but cook them they way you like them. Spread the butter on the bread and cut into tiny squares. (I used the gf flatbread I made this morning.) Place on a plate and microwave for 2-3 min, checking and stirring after 1.5 min then every 30 sec. When they start to brown stop cooking. Now mash about half of the chickpeas with a big spoon or fork and mix with the remaining chickpeas. Stir in the quinoa. Make the salad dressing by whisking the ingredients together. Add half the sald dressing to the quinoa and chickpeas and stir. Assemble the salad on individual plates. First the baby spinach and spring onion, with the rest of the salad dressing over it. Then the chickpea mixture. Top with a soft boiled egg and sprinkle with croutons.

More about Quinoa Porridge

2008-08-14T02:16:00.000-07:00

Quite a while ago I posted a recipe for Quinoa Porridge cooked in a crockpot (or slow cooker). I still eat a version of that most mornings. Most mornings its there in the crockpot all cooked and warm and yummy. But if I've forgotten or not put it on to cook for some reason the night before, I can still cook a pretty good version in the microwave, provided the mixture has some quick cooking cereal in it. For instance, the mix I am using at the moment has some quick cooking, quinoa cereal in it or sometimes I have quinoa flakes. The microwave method doesn't work if you only have the rice flakes and the whole grains, you need something that will absorb the liquid fairly quickly so that it doesn't boil over.

To make a yummy very nutritious breakfast porridge for two mix: 6 tbsp whole grains (quinoa, brown rice flakes, amaranth) with 2 tbls quick cooking cereal (rice, quinoa), 1 tbsp LSA, 1 tbsp rice bran, some raisins or other dried fruit or nuts with 2 cups liquid (milk, soy milk, water) and cook in covered dish on high for 5 min, then on low for 10 min. Serve with milk, cream, yoghurt, honey, jam, syrup, stewed fruit....

To make this even easier, I make the mix up in large batches and keep it in an airtight container. Then for each person I just measure out 1/3 cup mix and 1 cup liquid.

Finally, some sewing time and a Finish

2008-08-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

The last two weekends have been spent with family and during the week I've been busy in the office, even working through my normal sewing day on Wednesday. So when I finally got time to sew today my sewing room seemed like a strange place to be. But I settled down and finished this little piece. I'm very pleased with the result too. You can't see from the photo but it is very closely quilted all over. The quilting on the black and white background is the first time I've tried the fan type of stippling. I toned down the red shadow too - does it need more deepening do you think?

We're expecting Robert and Jennifer to arrive any minute for Sunday night dinner. I'm cooking fish, dipped in egg white and rice bread crumbs and pan fried. I'm also cooking steamed broccolli with spring onions and capsicums and oven baked kumura chips made from Gluten-free Goddess' recipe. Before that we are having cheese, rice crackers and pickles with beetroot crisps. And what is for dessert after this feast? Well, I might have to let Terry blog about that on his blog, after all, he is making the dessert - and its wonderful. I know because we had a helping of the practise run for breakfast!

More treasures!

2008-07-21T17:08:00.000-07:00

Look what was waiting for me when I got home this morning! A parcel of treasures from Nadeeka and her boys, Hamish (9) and Nuwan (8). Remember the quilts the boys made while they were visiting me? Well apparently that sewing day was the highlight of their visit to New Zealand. Nadeeka says: "Nuwan wrote a beautiful essay about his trip to nz - it was ALL about how he made the quilt with you :-)" and "..the boys go to after school care every Tuesday. They offer craft activites - but you know, that's not what my boys usually go for. But the first Tuesday after our trip, Hamish ran to me to show what he did at after school care. I tell you what, its just so.. unhamish like. He's done it all himself! He is happy to make it a present to you." And Nadeeka also filled up the parcel with some wonderful speciality chocolates... aren't I lucky?

Hamish's pincushion is very nicely finished and such a pretty colour. Nuwan's essay is actually an extremely well written tutorial on how to do fused, raw edged applique:

Making the Quilts

When I went to New Zealand I went to my grandparent's house and my grandma told me how to make a quilt.

First you choose a large picture and trace carefully around the outside. Following that, you trace every body part separately onto a special piece of paper. Next you cut them out but not on the lines. Cut 1 cm outside the lines. Then iron them on to the back of the fabric of your choice. Afterwards, you cut out each body part along the lines and peel the paper off the fabric. Finally you stick each body part to the background fabric in its place. You choose a piece of fabric for the back of the quilt and and any piece of fabric for the middle of the quilt. Sew the three pieces of fabric together with a sewing machine.

When I finished my quilt and came back from New Zealand I showed my class and my teacher was very impressed.

By Nuwan Whyte

Not bad from an 8 yr old and written 2 weeks after the lesson!

Treasures

2008-07-20T18:57:00.000-07:00

We had sole charge of our two little grand-daughters for a week so nothing much happened on the blogs or in the sewing room until this weekend when they returned home to Wellington. It was a lovely fun week. Terry and I shared the day-to-day care and entertainment. Both girls were charming!

As you can see, the little A4 size quilt has now grown to twice its size with borders added. And its still not finished. It needs more quilting and I'm interested to see what sort of edge finishing it will have. I'm not sure about the red shadow under the bowl either - I might darken it down with some black paint.

My other project was to freshen up a recycled zipped sweatshirt. It cost me $8.99 at "The Mill" and its 80% cotton, in excellent condition. I appliqued a few foxglove spikes on the front and I think it will become a favourite this spring.

The Magic of Stitch

2008-07-08T00:12:00.000-07:00

Our quilt club meets monthly and in the morning of each meeting day we hold mini tutorials. Each month one member demonstrates a skill or technique that may be new to other members. For instance, drawing up a grid to sew 30 half square triangles all at once, or using a paper foundation to make a mariner's compass.

A few weeks ago I demonstrated how to use your sewing machine to scribble on your work. This piece on the right was my demonstration piece. I had found a piece of clip art (below) which I used as a pattern because it shows where the shading should be on the finished pot. I took a fused, raw edge appliqued picture like the one on the left along to club and I showed the gathered club members how I used coloured pencils to draw my shading on the fabric and then just coloured over my pencil marks with free motion embroidery stitching on the machine, swapping threads as necessary to add life and detail to your fabric picture.

Eventually, the two sample pieces will be finished with borders, quilted and added to my growing collection of A3 sized quilts.

Gluten Free Recipes

2008-07-04T21:10:00.001-07:00

The thing I've missed most since I've stopped eating cheese, potato, corn and wheat are savoury treats. I've tried a number of cracker recipes and this adaptation of this recipe is the best I've made. It has a nice nutty flavour and it makes about 70-100 crackers depending on how big you cut them. I think you could increase the LSA meal and use less brown rice flour if you wanted to.

LSA Crackers

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cups gluten free flour blend (I use 1 1/3 cup brown rice flour, 1/3 cup tapioca flour)
1/3 cup LSA meal
1 tsp salt (can use herb salt if liked)
1/4 cup oil
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup sour milk (I use soy milk and lemon juice)
1 large egg

Directions:
Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add milk, oil, and egg and mix thoroughly to make a stiff dough. Roll the dough very thin (it will completely cover two oven trays). You will need lots of flour on your rolling pin as its a sticky dough. Cut into squares. Bake at 200 deg C for 10 min. Remove the lightly browned crackers and bake remainder for further 5-10 min until all lightly browned. Let cool and store in airtight container.

When I made the crackers in the picture I used ground linseed instead of flour on the rolling pin, that's what has given the grainy look to the crackers.

And here are my favourite apple muffins - not too sweet but lovely and moist. An excellent breakfast food.

Apple Muffins

Wet Ingredients - mix together in one bowl:
1/2 large tin apple slices
1/4 cup soy milk with a squeeze of lemon juice
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil

Dry ingredients - mix together in another bowl:
1 1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/4 cup LSA
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1/2 cup vanilla sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp mixed spice
1 cup raisins or chocolate chips or walnuts

Add wet ingredients to dry and mix just enough to combine, do not overmix. This is a very moist mixture. Spoon into 12 large paper cases in a muffin tray and bake 25 min at 175 deg C.

All I need now is a good recipe for brown rice tortillas - anybody know of one?

Little by Little

2008-07-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

I've spent a little time in the sewing room - just enough to put the borders on the Row by Row - and only that because its club day tomorrow and I want to take soemthing for Show and Tell. The first pic is my computer generated idea of the outer borders I would put on the centre rows, the second pic is the actual finished top. Not a finished quilt yet, still to be layered, pinned, quilted and bound.

So what have I been doing if I haven't been in the sewing room? Mostly office work.

Last week we sent out 400 plant list brochures to people who had bought plants or seeds from us in the past two years. I laid out the plant list pages including photographs on my computer and sent it as a pdf file to our friendly local printer. We then folded all 400 and put them in prepaid envelopes and posted them. I also spent a few days putting the plant list on our website here. And there were a couple of advertisements to design for garden publications.

I spent some time researching and found a free desktop publishing programme for Terry to use in his new (reprised) role as bulletin editor for his Rotary Club. He is hoping to encourage other members to take over the job and if we can present them with a free desktop publishing programme and a template for the newsletter already laid up in the programme then it will be easier for them to learn this skill.

I found an free email checker which checks all three of my email addresses (don't ask) and pops up the subject line of anything new. I need this because Terry and I share an inbox. We both need to have access to the business email, and if he has Thunderbird (our email programme) open I can't access it so I don't know if an email I'm waiting for has arrived or not.This way I do.

I've been hanging out washing on my new clothesline! Its fabulous, its in the best place in the garden, down by the cherry tree. It gets lots of wind and sun and its huge! And you can see the washing from the kitchen window so you don't forget its out there and leave it too late until its all cold and damp again.

Row by Row Progress

2008-06-05T14:26:00.001-07:00

Now that the blockage has cleared in the sewing room I am working on the Row by Row that the ladies at the quilt club collaborated on. Here is the last progress I made on it, laying it out with some joining rows. And this tells the story of how it was made.

I've now joined it all together and I've taken a very poor photo with my phone camera so that I can play with borders in EQ6. Here it is without borders and underneath there is also a picture of suggested borders taken from the quilting programme. What do you think? worth going ahead with or shall I play a bit more? the fabrics I've used in the borders are fabrics from the programme and are just suggestions of colours, I'll choose fabrics close to those colours from my stash.

Mm, the more I look at it the more I think that instead of the extra 1" dark strip at the top (necessary to bring the measurements to the right length for the strips of 3" squares) I'll use a similar strip of turquoise at the bottom to bring some of the luminous light it there and 'bring home' the turquoise in the borders.

Finishing a UFO

2008-06-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

Do you remember a few weeks ago, I had some nice ladies come to visit my Swiftquilter? And I made a quick quilt to put on the frame so that we would have something to play with. Well, the quilt has sat on the frame ever since, with the quilting barely started but as long as the quilt was on the frame I couldn't use the sewing machine for anything else. And I wanted to use it as that Juki is *the best* at free motion quilting.

Yesterday, finally, I had the time, space and most especially, the will to finish quilting that quilt! I took the opportunity to pracise some McTavishing - which I haven't done before but I've got the book so I had a go and although its not exactly like hers the result is something I like. I alternated rows of my version of McTavishing with rows of vines and a couple of rows of feathers. Each row was different as I tried out different methods. I tried doing the vines and feathers with and without sewing a central stem first and I quilted the vines with and without sewing central veins on the vine leaves.

Boy's Sewing Day

2008-05-28T00:01:00.001-07:00

Class was convened again in my sewing room today. We only had today as they leave early tomorrow morning so it was a full on day but we got them finished. Aren't they lovely? The boys did almost all the work themselves, tracing the pictures, tracing the separate parts onto Appli-kay Wonder, ironing the Appli-kay onto the fabric, cutting around the edge and placing the pieces on the background. They chose their fabrics, designed their borders and pressed everything down when it was all in place. We then layered the tops to batting and backing and the boys did all the quilting, wavy lines across and up and down the whole piece. I made and machine sewed on the binding and Hamish asked for help to sew the binding down on the back after hand sewing just a few inches but Nuwan persevered and hand sewed the entire binding down.

Mr Potato Head was made by Nadeeka for little Andrew who had to stay in Sydney with his father. (He is badly allergic to dogs so couldn't come to stay at our place where we have a dog in the house.) It was her first piece of appliqué too and she asked for help to sew around the edges of the pieces as she thought sewing lines across the whole top as the boys did wouldn't provide a secure enough finish for a 2 yr old. She did make the finished appliqué motif into a pillow case for Andrew as apparently his favourite thing to sleep with is the patchwork cushion I made the boys about 6 years ago. I think Nadeeka is hoping that Mr Potato Head will provide an alternative so the cushion can be washed!

Its all Over - and it was Wonderful!

2008-05-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

We started with dinner at our local pub on Friday night - people started arriving at 5.00 pm and throughout the evening family and friends arrived in relays, ate dinner and left at various times. Saturday morning continued the pattern with more arrivals and people leaving to attend to various party related tasks. We had three sittings for breakfast (homemade waffles, hard boiled eggs and muffins), three sittings for lunch (soup, cheese, bread) and then it was time to get the shed decorated, make the punch and get changed for the party.
The party started at 3.00 in daylight and finished at 10.00 in the dark. It only finished then because we were all soooo cold! We had set the tables up in the first part of the growing house, thinking the plastic walls and a heater would be enough but it wasn't! As you can see from the photos, everyone collected their warm coats from the cars and huddled around the heater. But even so, I think most people enjoyed the evening. The food, provided by the lovely ladies from the local school was plentiful and good. The entertainment, masterminded by Sarah was, well, entertaining! And everyone joined in the 60s theme and wore minis or flower child outfits. Lots of wigs and long hair! Terry looked great in his beatles wig. And he was duly sworn in as a New Zealand citizen at a ceremony after dinner, surrounded by his friends and family, just as he had hoped. His granddaughters presented him with those two essential symbols of kiwi manhood - a black singlet and gumboots.
Then he cut the cake which Sarah and I had iced.
The next morning was another family breakfast held in relays - to eat up the leftovers. And they all departed as many had 6 hrs to drive home. Only Nadeeka and the two boys are still here with us and they will stay until Thursday.

I still love it!

2008-05-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

We've been so busy all day, cleaning up the office and its still only half done. But every time I had a reason, well alright, an excuse to go downstairs, I saw Maria's lovely quilt on the coffee table and every time I had to stop and stroke it and marvel! I can't believe she was able to give it away. And not only the quilt, she also sent some fabric, thread, applique circles all ready to iron on and a lovely scissors fob made by her daughter. I'm so lucky!

Now you know its Terry's 60th birthday soon and we are having a big family reunion and a big party next weekend. All four of our children are coming, most of their children and some partners too. My sister and brother-in-law, Terry's mother and brother - all coming to stay! Of course we haven't got room for them all to stay with us, various friends have offered to billet some of them but the young children and their parents are staying here. Nadeeka and her boys are allergic to dust which is the reason for spring cleaning the office as Nadeeka has volunteered to sleep on an air mattress in there. And it needed it anyway! So the whole place is being damp dusted and all the piles of papers are being sorted and most, apart from financial stuff, thrown out - we don't need it all now, everything can be found on the internet! I don't know what will happen if it ever falls over though...

its come! its come!

2008-05-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

Terry and I are spring cleaning the office - to get rid of the dust of years and we stopped for morning tea and to get the mail from the gate. Look what has arrived, all the way from Brazil!! Isn't it fabulous! Oh, I'm so excited - its just wonderful - and something I would never in a million years attempt! Thank You, Maria, thank you!! All those tiny pieces, all those sharp points! I can't get over it! And such pretty colours. Its just mind boggling! Doesn't it look gorgeous on my coffee table?

A Birthday Party

2008-05-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

My darling is turning 60 in a couple of weeks and we are having a family reunion weekend and a party for friends and family. 60 people are coming and the theme is the 60s. Our daughter Sarah and I have been planning and plotting and preparing for weeks. There will be games and quizzes and food and cocktails - all within the 60s theme. There will also be a photo show of Terry's life to date. I had to beg his mother for photos of his youth and then I spent a day going through the photo albums and boxes of loose photos that have gathered in the 38 years we have been together. This is the result:

Anne's Garden Three

2008-05-01T20:44:00.000-07:00

I made this just for fun. To give myself the day off. I hoped to get it finished to decorate the NANZQ stall at Tote and Gloat tomorrow but I have a sore throat after 7 hours in the sewing room. Do you believe its taken 7 hours and still not finished! I've only just started the stitching. And its quite small, about 13"x16". I should have taken the air filter out to the sewing room with me but I have washed nearly all the fabric that is in the sewing room (and which I assume is causing me allergy trouble) and I've been using the filter in the office while I package seed and its a pain to carry down the stairs. I hoped I wouldn't need it but I should have taken it.

Terry took the photo in Anne's Garden and this is my interpretation. I found the analogous colour schemes and small sizes of the previous two Anne's Garden quiltlets very limiting so I gave myself an easier challenge (well, it was a day off) - complementary colour scheme and A3 size (twice the original A4 size). I made three backgrounds before settling on this one. Its still not quite right but I was getting tired and still hoping to get it finished today. I gave up about 3.00 after starting at 8.00 am. Retired injured...

An Apology

2008-04-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

I have a confession and an apology to make. And a story to tell. I misled you but it was for the best of intentions and now that Margaret has received my Four Seasons Spring Swap quilt I will tell you the full story.

The Four Seasons Swap is run by Margaret and she organises the lists of people, assigning someone to make a quilt for every participant and a person for everyone to make a quilt for. It is not a direct swap so the person who will receive the quilt I make is not the person who will be making a quilt for me. It is run this way so that we can blog about the quilts we are making and the recipient will not know if it is the quilt they are to receive or not. And a lot of the fun in the swap is reading all the blogs and wondering if that lovely quilt is the one you will receive - or maybe this one or that other one! So because Margaret is the Swap Mama, she obviously knew who would be making her a quilt but she promised me she wouldn't look at my blog so I could tease you all with the quilt I was making. BUT the very first blog entry I made on the Spring Quilt, she was the very first person to comment. So I engaged in a little misdirection. Well a lot actually. I carried on making this quilt for Margaret but I blogged about something different entirely.

I had designed the vase of flower quilt in EQ6 and decided against making it but when I put the design on the blog as one of my red herrings it garnered a fairly enthusiastic response so I started making it and pretended that it was the quilt I was making for my swapee. I apologise for misleading you all. However, I get to keep this quilt AND the one that someone will be sending me!

Show Pictures

2008-04-15T12:11:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures of the show - or if you prefer, here is the link to the picasa album.

I won!

2008-04-11T20:54:00.000-07:00

Allow me a little skite? It was the first day of our club's quilt show today - and I won first place in two of the challenges. I won the Celebrating 20 Challenge with this quilt and the Limited Edition Challenge with this quilt. I was also awarded a Judges Merit for one of the delphiniums quilts. The Judge awarded 1 Judge's Choice and 5 Judge's Merits.

AND I sold two quilts - these ones here and here. Quite a successful day!

Terry is going to take pictures of all 223 quilts in the show tomorrow and I'll put them up on Flikr and make a slide show for you very soon.

I'm off now to get ready for our 20th Birthday Dinner this evening.

Quick Quilt

2008-04-10T20:20:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the Quilt Show! But before I can go and see who has won the challenges, I have some visitors coming to see the SwiftQuilter in action. And I had no quilt to load up to show them so I made a quickie top today. And as I have only washed my red, orange and yellow fabric, I had to make a red orange and yellow quilt. I think it looks like a boy's quilt, don't you? I wonder which little boy I can give it to when its finished. It took a couple of hours from pulling the fabric to finishing the border (well, I had to iron all the fabric I used) but I'm very happy to report that I only had a very mild allergic reaction to my sewing room today. Using washed fabric and having most of the (unwashed) fabric now shut away in bins and the cupboard AND my filter working away in the corner has made the sewing room a much more pleasant place to be. Of course, its all tidy and dusted at the moment because of the visitors coming so that will help too.

And look what I've got in my laundry - 24 boxes of dye catchers! My daughter Sarah found a bulk source of them for me and they arrived in the mail yesterday. So I'm working my way through washing all the fabric, pile by pile. I'm about 1/5 of the way through now. The cute wee squash sitting on top were in my organic fruit & vege box a couple of weeks ago. I love getting the box each week and seeing what surprises I have!