Where has time gone.

Hi Everyone,

Have just realised I haven't blogged in over 2 months, where did those weeks go?
My sewing sort of came to a halt at beginning of April. My DH got a new job so we had two weeks to work on the house before he started, then like me he would only have 2 days a week off -at present I have Fri /Sat he has Sun /Mon off. LOL
Priority before winter was to put in the new double glazed windows.

Our old dining room windows, architraves off and windows ready to remove.

New windows in, how much more modern is this.

Luckily I didn't have to put them in place, being double glazed they are very heavy, my job was from the inside lining them up and cleaning up the mess afterwards!!!!

We had drapes on these windows but I no longer want them. They close up the corner so am replacing with narrow venetian blinds for privacy from the street. I have them - just waiting for DH to finish windows and install them!!!

After this.

Our friends have just completed a 3 bedroom extension to their house for her parents. 

Can you make my Mum a bedspread? Thinking I could work in a colour/ style spectrum and make a quilt I said, Sure what would you like?

A very simple one, I have found plain sheets that are a perfect match for her drapes and I want a lightweight

bedspread that goes to the floor and is reversible. Duck Egg blue one side and cream the other.

Okay - not what I hoped for but that took up another couple of weeks of my time.

May came and we had our first holiday together in 9 years.
My DH loves his Big Boy's car. We had been told about a group of car enthusiasts who organise what they call the "Gumboot Rally" a couple of times a year. In May it was a Coast to Coast scavenger hunt, race car themed. Raglan to Tauronga then back to Hamilton over a weekend. we signed up and added an extra couple of days as Whangarei to Raglan is 4 hours, same from Hamilton back home so lets enjoy a week away.
Steve's new employer's were happy to signwrite his car for him as they sponser some motor sport in NZ.
When we arrived in Raglan his car looked like this. It even looks like race car!!!!

Next morning at the start 50 cars from all era's of  motorsport

Am not going to bore you with all Steve's photo's but this is his dream toy, a Lotus Elice.

After the start, first task- have your photo taken with a fisherman in Raglan

These guys stood patiently at the wharf and had a great time as 50 people took their photo.
From here we had several hours driving wonderful backroads on our way to Tauronga.
Then a problem.

Hit a pothole and our  rear tire died. If Steve had put in extra wheel nuts suitable for the spare wheel no problem but his mag wheel nuts were smaller so time to call out the Bridgestone rescue team for a roadside tire change

Back in the rally and caught up with the others. Another must have, a photo of a team member at Life Rock.
Sadly, shortly after was this was the end of the rally for us.
The car died on us a couple of hours later, No drive at all. DH thought clutch had gone, he was going to replace it before the rally but ran out of time, did have new one with us though.
This is when my holiday really started.
Can't fix it on the side of the road, AA arrived, no photo as I forgot to take one of our car on back of truck.
Where are we anyway. NO idea as we  have been following our  route book and don't know the area.
Middle of South Waikato District, closest town and motel  in Tirau- No vacancy at only motel- they are building a new service station and are full of construction workers!!!
Truck driver knows a place about 6 km's away that should have room available.

The Okoroire Hot springs Hotel, built in the 1870 / 80's, Lovingly restored and added to over the years.
The bill was also up there compared to what we had planned on spending, but luckily we were able to cancel our planned accomodation which was some help.
Recently bought by Korean's it is undergoing a further upgrade especially to it's thermal hot spring pools which are the first concrete hot pools in NZ.
WOW, These people were the greatest in the world. Room to unload the car by our studio unit at the rear, a wonderful bar/restaurant where we over indulged that night, meeting and talking with the locals who make this place their own and also a couple who were celebating their wedding anniversary and have done so there for 20 years. Hotel also has it's own 9 hole golf course, tennis courts and volley ball courts.
Could understand the charges when we discovered all it's facilities.

The new owners recently bought this 1935 Rolls Royce, Fully warranted and registered it has never moved from its parking space since they bought it, just part of the look.

These giant Red Woods border the walkway to the hotpools

A five minute stroll through these trees are the hot pools.

Updating has just begun so they are now closed to the public but we were allowed to take these photo's

This next photo I think is very telling as

hanging in the dining room is this photo.

Opening day in 1878, not a lot has changed.

When renovation has finished what a fabulous place this will be.

Just had to take these photo's of these baskets hanging outside every studio unit

I had a fabulous time as I could only hand my DH tools as he worked on the car.
We did have two 4 1/2 hr trips in a rental car, hired to us by the Mitsubushi dealers in Matamata at a NO km rate. Back home, spend a night at home to take the gearbox out of my car the next morning and then back to fix our broken car. Another night spent with great people. Finally arrived home at 11pm 

A phonecall from my quilting group last week has stirred me back into quilting. "The show is next month, have you finished LE yet or what else have you made that you would like to show?" 

Owned up to having packed LE away for the time being. " Well Fabrege is finished, Poppies only needs last border and binding (forget the beading, it might or might not happen) and 12 DOC, I better get a move on!!!!

Last week I added border, binding and hanging sleeve to my Poppies wallhanging 

Now called  "Lest We Forget" it had been pinned on our lounge wall unfinished but while watching the Anzac Day services I just had to get my late FIL's medals from the drawer and pin them to my wall hanging as he served in both Africa and Egypt. It just seemed right to do so.

Not sure if I will get the beading done on the poppies before the show next month as my thumbs are really playing up at present but I am happy with it as it is.
At this stage I am going to bind 12 DOC tomorrow and add hanging sleeve ready for the show then see how much extra background quilting I can get done in time as main quilting is done. Baubles have had red  ribbon added for hanging and I have found little star buttons to hang them from, only four attached yet to get the ribbon length right. Next week should be able to 12 DOC is finished

While making the Ginny Beyer wall hanging Faberge I really feel in love with her fabrics and how well they work together. Ginny has combined with Craftsy for a free block of the month quilt along.
Not quite what I want to make but my WOW was that this BOM uses the border fabric I used as a substitute in my Faberge Hanging, and I could buy a 16 piece fat quarter pack of her new fabric's which are very similar to my Faberge fabrics. I was impressed as ordered on 8th May they arrived on 22nd May.

Got sidetracked this week with the new fabric's as they are going to be perfect for large cushion covers in the lounge and I have found a Ginny Beyer pattern I can reduce and use for them.
New fabric's always mean a new project - don't they?

This is the Ginny Beyer Wall hanging pattern "Facets"

A free download pattern from her website.

If I finally want to link to Esther;s WOW I neeed to close now and make the link,

Cheer's everyone, Enjoy what you are doing,

Jenny

12 Days of Christmas update

Hi Everyone,
It has been slow but steady progress the last two weeks.
Have completed the stitching on the first of my bells.

Stitching with a soft gold metallic thread has really brought my bells to life.
I had been putting off making my last four baubles as two of them kept posing me a problem as to what fabric to use. Nine Ladies Dancing and Ten Lords-A-Leaping.
Blue against my red bauble background was the obvious choice but I am using so much blue!!!
Finally my lady dancing is made.

A tiny scrap of sea green plus mauves gave me her dress

But for my lord -a leaping

I just had to go back to blues, his jacket is a very dark iridescent navy.

This was the fiddliest bauble of them all.

The last two I thought would be much easier, the piper only being two pieces

The biggest headache was what thread to stitch it with, It was only one shape with a black oval.

I didn't want a hard black outline but felt my gold mettalic might just be lost.

Searching my threads I found a black/gold metallic and it has worked, didn't on the black oval though so had to unpick and restitch with black thread.

Finally Twelve Drummer's Drumming.

Not Blue which would have been so easy !!! Mauve plus the fabrics from my dove has given me my drum.

I still have to do some finishing on all my baubles to round their edges a little more, that is going to be quiet but peaceful mornings work.

My 12 Days of Christmas Baubles are now complete.

So today I am starting my second Christmas Bell.

I have six days back at work from tomorrow and next Saturday 28th March I am attending a specialty threads and stitching workshop with Country Dawn so my sewing time will be limited.

Have bought a spare bobbin case and a cording foot in anticipation of a day that may well stretch my current  boundaries, am so looking forward to it. 

Cheers's everyone, I think I am still in time to link to Esther's WOW.

Jenny

12 Days of Christmas, Progress

Hi Everyone,
Has been a couple of weeks since I blogged. So much has been happening at work recently and my days off are now Fri and Sat so I always seem to run out of time to blog for Esther's WOW.
Today is Monday, I had been summoned for jury service but released at 10.30 am due to legal hiccups and have to report back tomorrow. Checked in with work and everything is fully covered so am taking lieu time for rest of day so will be ready early to link this week.
So how is my 12 DOC progressing.

I am loving how it is coming together. My border fabric has worked so well tying my fabrics together. The little green border brings out the tree and the words at the bottom, well they tell the whole story

"The stockings were hung on the chimney with care"

I decided to let the stockings extend to the bottom edge to accentuate the bottom border, also that border is  narrower than the sides and top to fit my finished size.

My tree is double padded. I decided to trim away the backing fabric and cut an extra layer of batting for the tree shape. My iron on batting is already in place, the wrinkles are from it releasing from my background as I manouver the fabric to stitch my applique. This will press out before I add my backing fabric.

The top corner's of my border. I was making my life so difficult, wanting to add charm squares and extend the small green border around them. I still might but when a friend said "just mitre them at present and move on to the next stage" I did, they are better than I thought they would be and I had spent 2 days worrying about them.

My parcels, well the only two fabrics I found that were right sizewise were the green and the red with stars.

The parcels without bows yet, their ribbons are commercial ribbon and I plan to make 3D embellishments for these ones, so not until it is completed..

My Peace Dove, I just love her and think she is almost the most beautiful part of Esther's pattern. The heavily overlaid gold fabric had only just arrived into store the day I went shopping and was sitting on the counter waiting to be checked off. I just had to have it!!! the body fabric has silver embossing.

My star, I wanted to move away from blue but nothing else seemed to work. I chose a blue backgound and now have to let it dictate to me.  I followed Esther's instructions for the star, I thought to a T.
My center was not the greatestalthough esther's method worked very well, hence the little gold circle to cover a multitude of my sin's, LOL
I know I want to hang my baubles on the tree but that  meant I had a big expanse of open space to each side of the tree in the top third of the hanging. I loved Glenda's addition of candles to her version of the quilt but they were not the right option to position in the top third.
I went back to pattern's I have collected over the years and found this one of Christmas Bells from
"Just Patchwork" which seems perfect.

I adjusted my pattern size to fit my hanging and am really happy, have a mirror image to make for the left side of my hanging. DH has not put up my design wall yet so I am using a piece of polyproplyne resting on my ironing board, hence some funny fabric angles in my photos.

Again, I did not want a blue bow but nothing else worked!!! I now have some back sewing to do as my ribbon moved while I was stitching it and it is not straight over the top 2 inches and it annoys me - a lot!!!
Bells to finish and then 4 more baubles to make.

I Love to hear from you and try to reply to all comments.
Cheers Jenny

WOW or rather Thursday 19th Feb

Hi Everyone, thanks for dropping in.

Am totally loving Esther's 12 days of Christmas but progress has been slow.
With eight baubles finished and four to go decided it was time to finish my tree blocks and applique them to my background fabric.

I loved my background fabric when I bought it but have had second thoughts about it ever since.

An icy blue with silver metallic snowflakes - and as I am working with gold metallic's will it work?

With my mottled trunk in place I stitched the tree this morning and am happy, too much gold might just be an overkill. Am I going to be a purist and cut out my background fabric from behind my tree, possibly as am thinking of double padding the tree to push it forward.

Went shopping this morning for my batting, for wall hangings I prefer Flieslina H640 iron on and I want to add this now before I stitch the lower applique. I also wanted fabric's for the applique parcels.

Have been unsure about my border fabric as I want to make this slightly bigger than the pattern so it fits the rod where my Faberge quilt now hangs. Looking for parcel fabric I found this border fabric.

I love all the stockings but will it work?

Reduced to this width of border, I love it with my background and tree.

You can see my background fabric better here, I think it is the blue version of the red fabric that Esther used for her 12 Days of Christmas. I will need corner stone blocks to make this fabric work perfectly for my border. Esther your video on charm blocks could be just at the right time for me

I also found the perfect  fabric for my doves wings, just arrived in store and not unpacked yet, I chose the perfect day to go shopping!!! No photo's so that can wait till my next post as I have plenty of prep work to do now.

Linking now to Esther's WOW before I run out if time.

Cheer's everyone, Jenny

Progress on 12 Days of Christmas

Hi Everyone,
My 12 days progress has been slowed down over the last week as my brother and his wife have been in town. They are doing a month long trip around the North Island and have stopped in Whangarei to catch up with us for a few days. Not staying with us as the spare room is still full of everything Lol, but they are spending every evening with us and we are a having a few late nights enjoying their company.
The house is the cleanest and tidiest it has been in months and this is wonderful to enjoy, also the reason for not much sewing.
Thought I would show how I finish my baubles. I can't handstitch well enough any longer to follow Esther's technique so this is what I have been doing.

As you can see I add my batting before stitching my applique. 

Once my applique is complete I use it as my template for cutting the backing. doesn't matter if it is slightly bigger.I then stitch from this side leaving the top open from the edges of the gold top segment which I have not stitched down yet

From this side you can see my stitching with edges trimmed, bottom point cut off and any excess batting removed ready for turning. My finger only just fits thru the opening but having my batting held in place by my stitching as well as being fused, turning is relatively easy.

A little more easing out of the seam needed but top edges have been folded in and then the gold top stitched around with blanket stitch to close the opening.

Have also completed my Milk Maid

Faceless as yet, I'm scared to attempt it but one day I will.

My red background fabric is very vibrant and finding fabrics that work well is harder than I thought.

today I finished my Swan a Swimming

For me the Swan was easy - but the stitching on the wing!!!!

After a couple of days pondering as my free motion stitching is not great I decided to draw the pattern on to my wing with a fine yellow marker,  it wasn't a  gold mettalic but next time it would be.

However with my metallic thread slowly stitched over top I am happy with the result.

so that is 8 Baubles finished, four to go.

The day before my brother and SIL arrived I was frantic, my old dining table topper had to go and is now some restoration work. What to replace it with, a search through my wall hangings found this one from a few years ago. 

Butterfly Garden

My first and only Bargello attempt so far. I picked the colours of the Hydrangea for this quilt, got the pattern wrong as I reversed blocks I wasn't meant to, in the end a totally differnet result with a horrible center 4 blocks from my first attempt at stitching a Bargello. However I learnt quickly and the rest of the blocks were much better. I decided to add Mosaic applique butterfly to hide the center stitching flaws.

Covered a multitude of sins in my first blocks- but looked very lonely so I searched my butterfly patterns for other options.

A foundation pieced butterfly for my middle size.

And an applique butterfly for the smallest size. 

The result on the table was this.

With a vase of artificial  Hydrangea's in pride of place, this looks much better.

This week I am finally in time to link to Esther's WOW so doing so now.

Enjoy your Wednesday, 

Cheer's Jenny