WOW Dec 18th

Hi Everyone, thankyou for visiting my blog.

Summer finally arrived in Whangarei, temperatures climbed to the high 20's Celcius and humidity is 90% +  not anywhere like it was in Rarotonga but we have adjusted and feel the heat anyway. Lovely to work in air conditioning and have customers say " it's so nice in here, I don't want to leave"
However this week we have been back to heavy rain, thunderstorms and very humid. Not what December a week from Christmas shoud be.
A couple of weeks ago we decided to buy me another run around for going to work as after my foot issue proving to be only trauma to my foot from using the clutch pedal with wrong seat position in a manual drive car I dodn't want it happening again as it has taken 6 weeks to come right.
A 1998 Volkswagon Golf has joined our fleet - now giving us 5 vehicles for 2 people. Something will have to go in the new year!!!

I love it, although the drive home from Auckland left me thinking we had bought a dog. We bought it off Trade Me, the NZ version of Ebay and it was as is where is. It did have a new WOF and Rgistration so couln't be too bad - could it!!!
It coughed, it spluttered, it lurched through it's low gears and had so little go I worried I would not get up the Bryndewen's, a hill range south of Whangarei.
Luckily Steve stopped in Wellsford, last town before the Bryndewen's and asked why I couldn't keep up with him - he drove it  from there - but - I still couldn't keep up with him once we changed cars - maybe it was only me!!!
Next day he gave it a full service and now it runs like a piece of clockwork - it is all it needed.

Have worked all week but have found time to complete all the poppies for my wall hanging.

Adrienne's poppy, stitched and padded, ready to place on my background

This poppy is from Esther Aliu's "Forget Me Not"  wall hanging BOM.
I have increased the pattern size so it is similar to Adrienne's poppies and reduced a few of the curves so it looks more of a match in style.
With 16 applique pieces this was the most complicated of the flowers to put together.
The second of Esther's Poppies.

I added an extra petal and a base behind so it is more similar in style to the other poppies.

Seed pod from Esther's BOM, has not photographed well, the green is the same as the bud below.

I have already edge stitched the center of the bud as I don't want to stitch this once the bud is in place as it will flatten the bud too much. Will be doing this to several of the petals on the poppies as well before they go into place.

Now I can play with them on my background.

This photo will be my guide for finally placing my flowers as am close to happy with placement and they have to come off while I complete the background stitching.
I am getting there. There are stems and lots of leaves to make which will fill the dark area's at the bottom of the wall hanging. I know that an uneven number of flowers is better with applique but my even number seems to be working.

Our new double glazed windows and ranchslider arrived last Thursday after DH had rearranged the garage to make room to store them. Saturday with the forecast for days of rain it was time for the new ranchslider to go in.

Old one out

 Time to build a new wall. 

New slider is smaller as we had found we had to keep the drape drawn behind the tv to be able to watch it. so  full width was not really practical.

Even more interior work to complete now.

I now have a couple of days off so once I link to Eather'sWOW it will be back to my poppies.

Enjoy what ever you are doing,

Thanks for dropping by

Cheer's Jenny

December Already

Hi Everyone,

Thinking if I am quick I can link my blog to Esther's WOW this week.
Have found my next quilting project, another wall hanging for our renovated house.
Well, hopefully will be renovated house. My DH has promised me he is taking January off and concentrating on finishing our many started but not completed projects - yes, he is a builder which explains everything, Lol.
But, I think it may take longer than 4 weeks so my fingers are crossed, especially as we got an email last night to say our new doubleglazed windows are ready for delivery - and we are no way ready for them!!!
Anyway, with my Faberge hanging for one wall finished I started thinking about another lounge wall.
I had made an inpulse purchase at The Warehouse of this lovely decor arrangement which fitted vases given to us as a wedding present 14 years ago perfectly.

The colours worked so well with the new wall hanging  that I realised deep reds would be the perfect foil on another wall and the only wall hanging I have ever sold came to mind.

Adrienne Walker's Papaver Pizzazz. or "Poppies"

I first  made this wall hanging about 5 years ago and it is the only one I have ever sold as my neighbour fell in love with it and wouldn't let me just give it to her as I wanted to.

The only photo I have of it. I was in a very metallic stage then and all my backgrounds had to shimmer and shine. It is still  the header on my blog although half the header has disappeared and I don't know how to get it back!!!

Thinking of the colours of our new lounge walls this is my background for my new wallhanging.

A deep black/blue that links to my faberge wallhanging. Fairy frost cream that gives me a wonderful shimmer and dark mottled red/black for the contrast

This wallhanging will go behind a 3 seater couch so I have added an extra panel at the left end and shrunk the depth, more Poppie's will be needed but I can mirror image or I am thinking of including some from Esther Aliu's Poppie's from her "Forget Me Not" BOM I have already enlarged her pattern as I think they will work very well.

Today I went and bought my 5 shades of red for the poppies.

They haven't photographed true as the dark areas are really wine reds not just dark as they show here.

The fabric on the right will be the predominate colour. 

Adrienne Walker designs are interesting, before I add my applique I have to bat, back and quilt my background fabric, in this case just simple diagonal lines stitched across the background fabric which gives a wonderful result. Being a wall hanging I have used Vliesline H640 iron on as my batting.

I used the deep red diagonal as my width so not to have a quilting line on it, but have had to adjust my widths to keep the matching diagonals also free of stitching. 

Half stitched and ran out of thread. A couple of days worrying can I still buy it as it is a gold/silver/bronze mettalic that I bought several years ago. Yay, Mettler still make it and my local shop had it in stock.

In the mean time I started on my first Poppy.

It's a while since I used this technique which I learnt at a Mary Transom course.

I felt like a beginner again but after reaching this point it all came back.

I traced my pattern onto fusible web, cut out and put my poppy together on baking paper. 

I fused it to a lightweight vilene so that I could machine embroider my vein lines and stitch any edges I want to keep raised once stitched to my background. I had to unpick all the veins on my light petal and restitch them as the thread I used on the deeper petals was just to dark for the bright petal.

The next stage was to trim and then pad my flower.

My first poppy is now ready to be appliqued to my background.

Linking now to Esther's WOW.

Enjoy your quilting or your Wednesday, whatever you are doing,

Jenny