wow!

 Boy where does time go?

It was back to work last week after two weeks holidays and I find that I did very little. Usually holidays are my productive times but it was just a take it as it comes sort of holiday break.

I have been slowly adding to my main projects on the go. I have started the second Orange sherbet block and am on the final stretch with the Little Blooms quilt. Only 7 to go and as I am going to gift it to a good friend for her '0' birthday in September it needs to take priority to get it over the line. I love this quilt design so much I may make another one just for me.

I re checked where I was at with this project and it seems I am close to the home stretch on this one too. I need three more dresdens and about seven more stitcheries and it will be all done ready to sew together. I think this may be enough dresdens for me for awhile as it's about the 5th project I've done in the past few years with dresdens!

 

This is a close up of one of the extra stitcheries I needed to do. I really love Kathy Shmitz stitcheries and these tiny ones really appeal to me.

Well that's me caught up! Not much to show for such a bit blogging absence but I feel I don't want or need to do many projects and it takes a bit of thought to chose one I really want to commit to.

Here is a photo of our Daphne which has absolutely exploded with flowers. The perfume as you walk past is divine.

Bye for now and happy sewing.

Marina

June already!

 I can't believe May has passed by soooooo quickly. I must say my good intentions of hand quilting has hit a brick wall thanks to some pain in my shoulder and arm but I have turned my attentions to some woolly creations. A work colleague that I made the previous pink and green scarf asked if I could make her another. At first she requested sunset colours but when we looked on line she chose another pink with a splash of magenta and purple.  It came together quickly and just needs the little dangly bits made and attached.

while I was in the swing of crocheting I figured I should start my own project of a shawl type scarf. I started the pattern I had selected a few times and couldn't get it to work properly so decided to track down the pattern of a beautiful shawl that I had seen at a little craft shop in Healesville when I met up with Fiona and Liz. Through the beauty of online shopping it was promptly accessed and after a few rocky starts it was up, up and away. There has been a lot of frogging but I am being quite pedantic and checking my rows have the correct amount of stitches each time.

The pattern gets a little lost with the variegations but it's looking ok I think.

When I first learnt crochet from my mum I was taught that there was a front and reverse side to crochet. Whenever I look at other people's work it seems that it isn't a 'thing', and I put it down to my pedantic nature when it comes to crafting and the way I was taught lol.

The pattern above does identify rows by front and back rows - so it may not be just me?

What do you guys think?

This pic shows the front and back sides

Left is the front                                                                      right  is the back

would love to hear from others 

Have a great day

Marina

Saturday with friends

I had a lovely catch up yesterday at Patch and Quilt in Gisborne with sewing friends.

Most of us go back to when there  used to be quarterly get togethers at Mill Rose Cottage. They were great get togethers and where the city girls bonded with the Gisborne girls. Many of the originals  have moved on to other things for whatever reasons and there is still a small group that get together. Sadly most of the bloggers amongst us no longer blog, I think I may be the only one to and even then I seem to forget to get fotos of the day to blog about! 

Mary's shop is always a great place to visit and you can count on a laugh or two.

Sadly I didn't do much crafting as my water bottle leaked over the stitcheries I had planned to work on and it also wet all the pages in the folder of patterns. I worked a little on a stale project that is well on the way to a completion so it all worked out well.

A few purchases were made of course

This has only a few more rows to go..... My favourite scarf pattern, I have used many times. This will go to a work colleague. Barb was admiring the pattern which coincidentally was purchased from one of the early Mill rose get togethers. 

We both purchase this same hank of wool, not knowing the other had bought it so we are going to see if we can have a scarf complete by next get together. I have chose this design and Barb will be using the pattern above.

Of course some fabric loveliness came home with me too. I had admired this coloured Tim Holz fabric on Mary's instagram and had to have some. The other fabric just had to come home with me too. Can never have too many positive affirmations.
 

A happy Mother's day to all those mums out there.

Tonight the masses will converge for feasting and merriment lol

Happy days!!

Marina

May is for quilting

 The recent drop in temperatures have inspired me to do some hand quilting. The fact that I can't focus on what project to work on has no impact on my choice at all lol.

I have two quilts  that I got basted a while ago and this is the first one that I pulled out of the tub. When I first started patchworking I hand quilted most of my quilts as it was a matter of finances. I probably had more patience and arm strength to do it too. 

There is something so appealing about scrappy quilts and as I am quilting I am revisiting some of the lovely fabrics used -both mine and some gifted by sewing friends. 

It's quite relaxing and so far I've done 22 out of 112 nine patch blocks. I don't know how I will quilt the borders but thankfully I won't have to worry about it for a while. I know I will probably be over it by then and go for simplicity but you never know......plenty of time. The great thing about hand quilting is the softness it gives the quilt, that lovely snuggle factor.

It will make for some boring blogging but hoping it will be done by the end of May!

Happy days

Marina 

Thursday happiness

 It's a lovely Anzac day holiday today and I am hoping to get some time to prep some blocks for my Blooms quilt as I have run out of prepped ones. Always a lot of fun selecting fabrics.

Speaking of fun this week I got to catch up with two bloggy friends. Fiona (Bubz Rugz) is down from Queensland and we arranged a catch up. I thought it would be great to ask our mutual friend Liz to come with me for the drive.

It has been a few years since I have had the chance to catch up with Fiona and it was a joy to do so. Of course the time went by too quickly but there was lots of chatting and laughs had. I remember I caught up with Fiona, Michelle and Teresa in Queensland years ago and that was a wonderfully memorable catch up.

Michelle and Fiona are both making the Caswell quilt which  I made a few years ago and I very generously gave Fiona my pattern (after we both talked her into making it). I thought it might have been even more generous of me to give her my Celebrating Mary Brown pattern as she may like to make this one next but she was not very receptive and replied with a threat about sending me the Civil War Bride quilt patterns if I did.

Hmm some people? 

Thanks Fiona for the catch up and hopefully it won't be years between this and the next one. 

Here are the latest bloom blocks. They are such fun to make. I think I may be close to half way, I must tally up and see.

Hope your day includes some sewing.

Cheers

Marina

nearly all done

Holidays are over sadly but it's been a great week for labels and binding with some finishes to tick off the list.

Basket case is a big finish, label sewn on too...

The back is my attempt at a Liberty quilt but I wasn't quite happy with it so it made a perfect backing.

Tilda's Hometown  (adjusted) is done and will be gifted to a work friend.

This was quilted by a novice quilter friend. The larger quilting design has made it very soft, just like a handquilted quilt.

Don't these labels look pretty on their quilts?

Things will slow down, productivity wise but rest assured there will be crafting being done. 

Have a great day

Marina

Another Tick....

 The past few days I have been busy sewing down binding on my completed quilts. Which led to another job, that of sewing labels. 

I have quite a few quilts without labels but have a lot of doilies that I have collected to use as labels for my quilts so....... it was time to get to it!

The binding for this lovely got done. Trying to use from my stash so the binding was made from some greyish tilda that was in my stash. Not unhappy with it I must say, roughly half the binding is in each fabric.

two of my favourite blocks.....

Here is my little collection of labels ready to sew them on as you can see by the dates some are long overdue for their labels.

 I must say my stitching is a little higgledy piggledy but I can live with it. On other quilts I just used a pigma pen to write on the doilies and I always feel I was being a little lazy so I went the whole hog with these and stitched them, the stitching got neater with each label.

Do you always label your quilts straight away?

Just one more quilt to sew the binding down on and then that's it for my 2024 finishes so far. Gotta be happy with that!

Have a great day

Marina

April sneaking in

 Wow, April here you are... 

First week of the holidays is nearly over and what is there to show for it...

A lovely friend has purchased a quilting machine and offered to practice on a few quilts if I was happy to provide them. It is an offer too good to refuse.

They have been waiting to have the binding sewn down on them and then lo and behold I got a call from my local quilt shop that my two quilts were done and ready for collection.

The last two need to have the binding sewn on and down but here is the completed quilt...

I love a rolled up quilt showing off the binding.  The quilt underneath is one of the ones from the quilters.

the quilting design from the back.

This quilt has already been earmarked for a precious great great niece that is due in August. I hope her mum will like it.

I guess I'll be sewing binding for the next few days!

Happy days

Marina

What is new....

 Now that a few projects have been completed and delegated to different quilters I can share my new projects.

It was not easy finding the inspiration for a new project. I went through the projects waiting to be started and found a pattern that I had really loved and was keen to do. With everything I need at hand (after a little retail therapy) I was off and running.

this lovely pattern is by Irene Blanck, named Orange Sherbet. It was a project in an English patchwork magazine a few years ago and I was so keen to have it I subscribed to the magazine to get the pattern. That's why the pattern is just printed on paper. Irene has since put the pattern for sale on her website if you're tempted. I was very keen to use the same background fabrics as she used and it took some internet searching to find them, luckily at a couple of my favourite on line stores.

I started with the orange flowers and went with a mottled brown dot for the flower centres.

Tried my best to be as accurate as possible with the tracing on the back grounds and the flower petals. I think it paid off. Sometimes I can be a bit slapdash but this project won't be too forgiving I feel so it's slow and steady for me.

This week past I cut out the flowers for the centre blocks.  Here is one I tried out to see how the colours sat for me. I must admit I have toned the colours down a little bit, but they suit me so I am happy with them so far.

 

Second new start is another Irene design. Little Blooms.

In the pattern the flowers are pieced together like epp but one whole piece suits my purposes better.

Its always fun dipping into different fabrics to put a scrappy top together. Luckily I had quite a few background fabrics in my stash and it feels great to be using them.

Happy days as school holidays have arrived!

Two quilts have the binding to be sewn down, definitely on the holiday to do list.

some more applique to be done with some revisiting of projects on the go.

Cheers for now

Marina

PS thankyou to Suzanne and other commenters for your kind words. I couldn't reply to your comments so will do so here. Thanks

Long time between drinks.....

 Well it has been awhile. Life has been happening and thankfully crafting too.  It's a lazy Saturday and I felt it's about time to pay some attention to my neglected blog and update my crafting projects on here as I do like to chronicle them here.

I have been visiting my usual blogs but as they authors are mostly on instagram too it's easy to comment there. I do feel I've missed my blog too.

There have been some finishes here which you know means some starts. Gotta be happy about that.

Here are some progress pics 

Nine Owl and Hare stitcheries applied to my dresden top and is now at the quilters. I must say I really loved doing these stitcheries. 

Who's who in the zoo now just needs to have some borders done...... my least favourite part of a quilt.

My aussie animals top is done, finished differently to the pattern but that's the way I tend to roll.

A friend has kindly quilted it for me as a practice quilt as she is new to machine quilting.

and my hometown tilda quilt is done too again completed differently to the pattern.

Here is the progress on my little Kathy Schmitz stitcheries. I need to cut some more blades for the dresdens shortly as I have nearly completed those I had prepared. All the stitcheries are completed that I need for this project as are the backgrounds.

Looks like Dresdens have become a little obsession of mine. 

Well today I hope to get the binding sewn on the two quilted tops so that they can be called a complete finish.

Hope this post is not too photo heavy and that there are still visitors to my little blog.

Perhaps next time I can share my new projects!

Happy days

Marina