Catch up time, again.

Hi everyone,
Nearly a month since I blogged, time has flown and not sure why but just haven't felt like sitting at the computer for any length of time. Fine days which have been few and far between found me outside trying to bring order to the garden ready for spring. Unfortunately though my thumbs took a hammering so was back to the doctor a couple of weeks ago for another cortisone injection as was struggling with prepping any stitching as well. Now that the cortisone has kicked in am back in the groove once again.
Before my hands packed up I got D Hill pin basted and made a start on quilting but hasn't been touched for last few weeks. Hearts Desire has been named  "The Ties that Bind" and will be going to  the Auckland Festival of Quilts in November, at present it is covering the spare bed and I am just enjoying seeing it finished.
Decided to play with a fun pattern I have had for a while but wasn't sure what fabric to use for it

In my stash found a fabric, though not a quilting fabric that I had bought because I loved the hydrangea colours and couldn't resist it.

 It's woven so has lots of texture and also shimmers so really appeals to me.

Not a good fabric for fussy cutting as no real definition so thought would try another technique and just trace the whole wing pattern onto fusible and see what resulted.

The wing background is the same purple as I used in D Hill and really pleased with how the colours flow.

Shows the fabric texture a little better.

Different wing stitched with a dark multi colour mettalic.

Have two wings stitched and two more ready to stitch so have started looking at backgrounds and again want to use my stash, this time an unbacked drape fabric that has been waiting for the right project, just have to decide which side to use.

No rush to decide but tending towards the lighter right side but

the wrong side has lots more texture.

My 16 Secret Garden blocks for August are completed though it took a while prepping them as my thumbs were at their most painful then. The little centers were so fiddly to cut out and kept dropping them while getting them in place but got there in the end.

Used a darker version of the fabric I used the previous month and made life easier by cutting my leaves as one piece and using my stitching for the definition.

Both my stems and the leaves are stitched with variegated threads, finding myself loving the softness I am getting from them and with the leaves it is hard to even see the stitching.  Centers are stitched with my favourite Maderia metallic No3 soft gold.

Have been concerned from the start that I won't have enough of my background fabric as with my reduced size should need 4 meters and only have 3.6 so changed this month to my second fabric.

It is a little darker but the same shade as the deeper tones in my block backgrounds so think it will work. Will use it for everything that looks like it is a border and just hope I don't need to remake those 40 little blocks at the end.

Here's how my design wall looks, can't bear to take it down as loving how it is developing.

Sooo in love with this pattern.

Yesterday the quilting group met and it was time to see how everyone had got on making their diamonds for Hexit and to work on trimming and stitching them into hexagons. So many fantastic diamonds had been made we divided into a production line of trimming, pinning, stitching  and pressing with others making up even more diamonds.

By lunchtime sixteen hexagons complete and we could get an idea of how it is going to look. So many different scraps and it is looking amazing. End of the session and twenty eight hexagons made, only ten to go so next month we will be stitching rows together.
This pattern by Esther is working beautifully as a group project and has been a great introduction to foundation piecing for some of the ladies as well.

Today I really should do some quilting on DHill but know that once I link to Esther's WOW for this week I will be printing out the new free BOM that she released yesterday and studying the pattern. I don't need another project but am finding it very hard to resist since seeing the Kaffe Fasset version, don't have any KF fabrics in my stash but am so tempted to buy some for it.
Until next time,
enjoy your own stitching
Cheers Jenny