O Christmas Tree

 It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

It's almost Christmas, the house smells of fresh pine and the decorations are up. This year, the poinsettias are looking a bit tired, so for the first time I don't have one on my table yet. I do miss them, but was happy to find ruby silk peonies (above) I think they are beautiful and I have a whole vase full.

This is our cat, pretending not to notice our tree .

Whenever we are near, she assumes this 'position'

What Tree?

...and then nibbles the branches and attacks our baubles!

We have had to 'anchor' our tree into position so it won't come down when she tries to climb it

(which she has already attempted twice)

We've had unusual weather this month...cool, hot and then cool again. Today we are expecting thunderstorms and 30 degrees c.

It's too steamy for any serious Christmas baking at the moment, I hope it cools again so that I can get a few batches of peaches and a few other goodies baked next week. I have decided not to bake if it is too warm as cakes flop, yeast doesn't rise nicely, biscuits stale and things just don't turn out. This is so frustrating as I have so many great recipes perfect for this time of year...oh well, I will wait and see.

Do you Christmas Bake or Buy?

New Fabrics

Now is the time of year when, as well as finishing some WIPs (as the mood strikes me), I am also full steam ahead for next year's new BOM.

Each BOM takes months to plan, prepare and test. So, at this stage of development, new fabric is needed.

You know I love stash busting, but I also have to take into account what's new and what could be worked in with existing stash bundles (that we all have and want to use). And of course, new fabric is inspiring, and helps me feel motivated to finish!

At this stage of design, I always look at fresh fabric designs to see what will work with my own sketches and vision for the next quilt.


I'm super excited about the next BOM...I think it will be the best one yet...and I'm pretty excited about these fabrics too...

 possibilities.....

 a few vibrant greens ...

 my new fusible batting and some Kaffe inspiration

(for my coffee breaks)

fabric that wants to be put to use!

 

 some backgrounds

 some zingers...maybe

Two liberty prints in green. I ordered these because I am planning on making myself a green shirt, but can't decide between the two.

The last one looks very Christmas ferny, so I probably won't go with it...but who knows ...

 interesting accents...

Ah December, a month of endings and beginnings....

before I stop for the year to wind down and appreciate just how special Christmas is, I have so much to do. I am pacing myself and hope to get over my list of WIPs to finish by the end of next week.

Wish me luck!

An Applique Wedding Block

This is a block I made a short while ago for a wedding block. The idea being that I received the fabric in the post and, along with members in my quilting friendship group, we each created a different block using the same fabrics. This is the block I made.

I love an excuse to stop whatever I'm doing and create something new

(which may explain why I have so many WIPs, however as this was 01 block, I am glad to advise that I did finish it in one sitting!)

Here are my sketches and rule up

A heart theme was chosen (of course!)...

 Testing the pattern and deciding on which fabric where...

Creating the pattern ...

Applique...

the finished block design...

this pic looks a little gray, but it is green in real life

centre detail...

Heart detail

I am eager to see the finished quilt with all the finished blocks...it's still early days but when I have a picture to share, I will post it here.

a 6 inch heart

The best portion of a good man's life - his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. ~William Wordsworth

Can you spare the time to make a heart block?

 

You may be aware that New Zealand has suffered a major mining disaster at Pike River mine on the west coast of the South Island, resulting in the deaths of 29 miners.
 

Shirley Goodwin is calling on quilters from anywhere to send her a heart block: she is collecting these blocks and will make quilts to give to the miners' families.

 
Here are the block details if you want to make some:-

Cream background – calico is fine

6 ½” unfinished size (so they will be 6” finished)

Pieced or appliquéd heart or hearts

Any colours or patterns for the hearts. Some of the quilts will be for children, so children’s fabrics are fine too.

Please visit Shirley's blog HERE for her address

Some Yarn Shopping

The hunt for subtle colour tones in 100% wool - preferably coned, continues. I have been lucky to receive some suggestions already and the options so far have been great. It's something I will be looking into when I start my next afghan.

Now that I only have to join my last flowery afghan, I am missing my 'motif a day' spot. Something I have on my crochet To Do list has been a granny square sampler. A blanket full of granny square motifs....bliss! I am planning on 100 different blocks repeated 2 or 3 times ...depending on size. But what colour and what yarn?

For the blocks themselves, I will be looking through my crochet bookshelf and making up whatever catches my eye. It's such a shame to keep those blocks in a book!

Inspired by the quilting fabric Plume (right) I used the colour matching orbs on the selvedge and managed to find all the colours! Unbelieveable! The photo really doesn't do the colours justice, the pinks look reddish here. I can tell you it looks gorgeous in real life! I can't wait to get started.

Unfortunately I went to get my yarn at Spotlight. I'd forgotten how awful shopping there is (its been so long since my last visit). I don't know why I put myself through that disorganised, messy and understaffed torture. Obviously the store is busy unpacking Christmas things and making every effort to punish customers for trying to shop there with boxes strewn in walkways, passage sized trolleys parked in front of shelving rows, ridiculous queues and price check points "missing" from their towers with wires hanging out so that they look like vandalised phone booths. But the fun didn't stop there, once I'd made it to the checkout - the yarn scanned in at the wrong price..... hopefully I wont need to go back for a loooooong time.

This is something I picked up at Spotlight. It's a foam wreath. I have an end of year Festive Project I am making up at the moment that I plan to decorate it with some crochet. The price says it is zero dollars, and it's worth about that much - but it is selling for $6.50 which I think is seriously overpriced...and if I didn't need it to finish my 'idea' I would have left it behind. Oh well....

It's a good size for a door and I still have enough time to get it up before December. I also found a cute pack of bells in red and gold which I might place on the wreath as well. I will keep you posted.

After two hots days and feeling like my plans for Christmas baking were over, and feeling too hot and bothered to do anything constructive....it's cooled down and we've had some rain. Rainy enough for puddles and thoughts of steaming hot coffee and crochet in my tub chair.

It feels very unseasonal at the moment.

My succulents are thriving and seem to be OK despite the sudden changes in temperature.

Look at that pink!

Roses in Bloom

Lately as I go about my life, I have been seeing roses everywhere. On fences, overtaking other plants, creeping onto pavements....it seems that these last few months of extra rain have given roses everywhere a new gust of life after a dry, hot suffocating year of water restrictions.

This delights me as I have missed seeing so many things in bloom. I nearly forgot what I was missing out on.

These are some pictures from my neglected garden.

I have completely ignored them and they have come through blooming for me....wonderful.

You can see where my inspirations for design comes from. When winter comes, I want to be surrounded with these colours and shapes...

It's got me thinking back to my procion dying days. My quest for colour has reached critical point: I have been thinking of hand dying my own yarn for crochet work. It seems that yarn colour is so limited. Why is this???

I have so many ideas I would love to crochet through in subtle and natural shades.

If anyone knows of a supplier of wool who offers a significant colour range....please let me know!

I love this head - it looks as if I have flecked it with a paint brush...no, it's completely natural.

Speaking of crochet, although I have plenty to do already, I have started designing an afghan. Yes! My main trouble is with the colour selections so I am still working on that. I am working through sampling my ideas into blocks at the minute.

I have so much to do before the end of this year that I have created a list (this may not seem like much of a big deal, but it was for me). For one thing, I realised that I have A LOT of things to get done...and well as a LOT of things I want to do....so I had better get stuck in.

On top of that list is doing something about my *stash*

It's still rather big.

I read somewhere that my kind of stash was now referred to as a SABLE.

Stash

Above and

Beyond

Life

Expectancy

That's me!

I decided to only buy fabric for specific projects that I will use ASAP - but as you have already guessed -it doesn't work like that,. You see a fabric, you love it, you know you could use it in that as yet undesigned quilt...you think of your groaning stash mountain and have second thoughts...and then you remember how whenever you don't purchase what you love right there on the spot - it sells out!

What's a quilter to do?

a Hex to Share

Christmas is just over a month away...(how did that happen so quickly??), so now was not a great time to find a new project to fall in love with. But it's happened and here it is: a little HEX

This is little hex is addictive, and once you get the hang of it, you can whip it out almost anywhere and get it done whilst talking with friends or over coffee or in front of the TV or anytime really. I think it would be a great scrappy but also have visions of seeing it in all cream as a light throw. The beauty is that whilst you are folding, you are also creating the front and back at the same time.

I am thinking of adding some pre-cut batting into the centre of the hex to really make it puff, but it has plenty of 'effect' already. I am also going to see if turning in the seams will create a neat centre without need for a button to cover up the raw edges. In a word, it's charming. And you can put it away and carry on with it whenever you feel like.

It's not mine. It's been doing the blog rounds lately and I just had to give it a go and you can see my results below. Of course, you could also make singles for decorations: cards and buntings- but I still see a quilt out of this. The YouTube link below is courtesy of Ane Matos (if you haven't seen it before I suggest watching with the sound on mute).

I think I have seen this hex before though (perhaps in a book??) if anyone knows...could you please let me know as I would love to purchase the book I think this design originally came from.

Thanks to Ane for posting this on YouTube, it's always helpful to see it made before trying it yourself. Now my only problem is...WHEN will I find the time to fit in another WIP????????????