WOW 11th June

Hi Everyone,
What a.week this has been for me.
I was sewing away very happily on my LE border last Tuesday morning when a phone call from my manager at work turned my world upside down. "We have had administrators appointed"!!! At work we had all known for months that the company was in financial difficulty but it still came out of the blue especially as the last few weeks the company was recording great sales and we were all feeling very positive.
My sewing stopped, what would this mean for Steve and me was priority. Over the last week this has become clearer. I still have a job but now for the administrators, keeping the company going while hopefully a buyer is found. A conditional offer is on the table - but will they want me? - depends who they are and what they are selling, so I am updating my CV as we will all have to reapply for jobs if the sale goes ahead..
The bad news over.
We are have had an indian summer through our autumn months but Tuesday winter came with a vengance.
6 inches of rain in 24 hours but we got off lightly compared to Auckland and North Canterbury where my family live. No sewing got done, I was on the phone checking in with Mum and other family members.
Yesterday, a lovely calm day. Very wet underfoot but no damage at all, however I did discover that I have been too busy sewing to see what has been happening to our citrus trees.

Our grapefruit tree is laden and they are starting to drop. last year I made marmalde but we haven't eaten it all yet so can't see me making more this year!!!

This dwarf mandarin, ripe, falling and starting to rot on the tree. these are the easy peel variety and so sweet.
Guess I better get eating.

Our full size mandarin tree, now ready for picking, but ladders and I do not get on so our neighbour will be very welcome to visit.

Our Rosemary at the end of a raised vege bed. We leave it as late as possible each year to cut it back as  bees love it and in Northland they are rapidly diminishing in numbers, Flowering has almost finished though so time for a prune.
I'm so glad I am late blogging this week as I visited the links to Esther's WOW this morning and Kerry in Ontario's link gave me the answer to a problem that has been troubling me with my part 12 borders.
Thank You so much Kerry, Your advice about color value and using gray scale has been wonderful.
Here is how it worked for me today.

I didn't want to repeat orange stems on every medallion so went for a lime/yellow fabric for the other stems.
On it's own this fabric is quite strong but in such small stems it is lost, although it does just show up here but not with my quilt pinned to the wall.
I used Kerry's gray scale and this is the result.

Where have my stems gone!!!! My color value was wrong and it has been bugging me for days!!!!

I once again bit the bullet and took a color pen to my stems; a single stroke through the centre as they are only 1/8 inch wide and already stitched into place and for me impossible to undo and replace..
Back to grayscale for a final check.

Thank You Kerry. you solved my problem. Not what I wanted to do but now my stems  have a balance in this border. It has been a very hard background fabric to work with but the only way I could see to complete my LE.Never my intent, but now a must do. LOL
I have  the last two flower medallions still to complete for this border and then to attach my border and mitre my corners ready for the willow trees to be appliqued into place next month
I have this last piece of curtain sample fabric hanging next to my LE at the moment.

Where all the other samples were approx 8 inches square  this fabric is about a metre long and will be my willow tree's, The deepest of the bronzes I think it will be perfect!!!!

A last update to my future employment. A consultant from Workbridge dropped her card at work last week after hearing our news. Workbridge help find jobs for the disabled  but want to expand their services to the general community. My first thought was how can she or they help me.
However, I saw her this morning, they have conact with employers throughout Whangarei and guess what, my thumbs are classed as a real disability which I try to hide as much as possible as I can't grip or work with any heavy or awkward shapes. I meet her again next week, she will have done some background work and I am feeling so much more positive about the future and now just want to sew.

Cheer's everyone, Jenny