Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Another customer quilt & soup

sorry about the uncropped photo
You are not seeing double.......this quilt has featured on my blog before, well the same pattern.
Lois made this quilt for a gift for a relative living in her home country of Canada. But this is not the only quilt she has made as a gift to take over this year......no sir........she has made five others! Now that is giving.
For those of us who know Lois, also know she is often ( fondly ) known as, 'The cat lady".......see the cats in the house windows?
  I have quilted many flimsy's for Lois, & ninety % of the time there are cats involved, if there is no cat fabric, then I get asked to quilt cats, as seen on this quilt.
The pattern called 'Somerhill' is a Gail Pan design.
Thanks again Lois! I'm sure your family will be most delighted with your beautiful quilts.

I have been making roast pumpkin & garlic soup for a few years now & love it. But when I was roasting some veges to go with meat I got to thinking............I heard one of the ladies at retreat talking about sweating the leeks in butter..............
So here is my Roasted Thinking Soup..................
Roasted Thinking Soup.

Throw some whole garlic cloves (unpeeled, you just squeeze the gooey garlic out after it's been roasted)
in a large roasting dish with some oil.
Chop & peel pumpkin, carrots, kumera, I had a one small potato, so I threw that in too. Season with salt & pepper, toss through so everything has a nice coating.
bang it in the oven......turn the oven on! That helps them roast :0)
Turn a few times. The veges not the oven.
Slice one large leek, stick that in a pot with a good dollop of butter, set element to medium, pop the lid on & let the leek sauna begin! Keep an eye on it from time to time.
Boil the jug (make sure you have already had at least one coffee) find your chicken stock.
When the roast veges are nice & soft, squeeze out the garlic from the skins, add to processor along with the other roast veg. Pour in some chicken stock, add the leek & get your ear muffs.....& whizz!
Add as much chicken stock as you like. Maybe you like your soup real thick.

This has to be the nicest soup I have ever tasted........still there is something about Mum's vege soup!

.
  

Monday, May 28, 2012

In the 'Spotlight"

A new customer of mine Noeline won a quilting pack from Spotlight ( for outside New Zealand readers, spotlight is a chain department store selling fabrics). The pack included a Jelly Roll, wool batting & calico, not sure if there was anything else. Anyhow I bet Noeline was very happy to win!
But that was about to change..................................
The Jelly was awful, crooked, fraying, poor Noeline I was sure this would be the last we would see of her in the quilting world, but alas she persevered & with a bit of help, she finished the top. Noeline was even going to quilt it herself, but by the time she tacked it all up, she was.... I quote "OVER IT!"
Anyway Noeline & I decided on an allover curvy pattern to help smooth out some of the imperfections, I'll leave to up to you to decide.
close up of the quilting

calico back
   For those who have asked how I am feeling, much better thank you. I was back to full steam a head in the 'Quiltme' studio today. I will have another jelly roll quilt to show you soon, but I'm still catching up on the others that have already left the building! This is one of them!
Off to make butter chicken & Jasmine rice now......mmmmmm yum!


Sunday, May 27, 2012

Autumn leaves

So I went to retreat Friday afternoon & came home Saturday afternoon.......what a party pooper I am!! I went along feeling a bit of a cold coming on but with all the excitement of a 'once a year retreat' I thought 'she'll be right'!! Well as the evening progressed I felt worse, my poor roomies, listening to me blow my nose every few moments, still they can't have been too disturbed as I heard each one having turns at putting out musical notes! (AKA....snoring! very feminine snoring I might say. ) When you are feeling like this sometimes the only place you you feel better is at home.

I did get some done & finished this afternoon when I had put my studio back in order. So here it is. A layer cake from Brannock & Patek called "Remembrance". Quilt pattern from: "Layer Cake & Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts". by Pam & Nicky Lintott. Simple quilt, no waste of fabric, now it just needs to be quilted!................Add it to the pile Leeanne!..................
this is the layout I chose at retreat

.
This is the finished top.........nice don't ya think?
 This is the me getting fancy/ showing off photo! I might give this to my Brother for his birthday or my Dad.
Here is a line up of one side of the hall, good advertising for SewEzi tables & Bernina don't you think?
Ok back to work stuff. This is a quilt I finished for the Whangarei Patchwork & Quilters club. I understand Fiona made & donated this to the club & had me quilt it. The quilt called ' Road to St Louis' (?) will be 2nd prize at the clubs exhibition in August.


  Sharing a couple more blocks of Angel Story.
Of course these could all do with a darn good press & trim.................happy days!
Wishing you all a free breathing nose!



Friday, May 25, 2012

Hello, goodbye!

It has been two weeks since my last post, it is not that I have had nothing to post about, I have just been rather busy &  just this week our computer was in getting an over haul....very under whelming I might add!
So here is some of what I have been doing..................
sorry about the garden in the background, when the computer went for it's 'over haul 'our photo editing programme was  misplaced! ( if you want a close up, please click on photo's)     


sunbonnet Sue

School House
Drunkards Path - you got a sneaky peaky of that last post.
Bow Tie
Jacob's Ladder
Carpenter's Wheel
'T' is for Temperance
Birds in the Air
Honey Bee
Grandmother Garden
Counter Change Cross
Union Star
Confetti
Flying Geese

 


And finally  the last two blocks, my favourtites!...........................
Log Cabin
Dresden Plate.
So there you have it! You, see I haven't been mucking around :-)

This quilt was made by Kerryn as a sample for a upcoming class at my favourite wee shop
 A wool/poly batting was used and a couple of  reproduction ranges. I used mainly Madeira Poly neon threads.
I have loaded these plus more photo's om my Flickr page, the direct link can be found top left hand corner of my blog.

I made this Brownie the other day, I got the recipe from Leanne over at Cottage Tails . This is how she decorated the top, so did I !!!!
Well that's all for now now folks as I'm off to retreat today! Yippie, I can sew up a storm......catch you when I get back!

Friday, May 11, 2012

sneaky peaky Friday! he, he.....










Hi there happy quilters! just thought I'd be sneaky & share what I am working on as we head to the weekend......have a fabulous one, be kind to yourself :-)


Monday, May 7, 2012

May Day.......................

So what the heck have I been up for two weeks!.................ummmmm, lets see,
Turning the page on my calendar!
We are into Autumn well & truly here in Northland believe it or not we have even had a couple of frosts.
I have a few things to share with you, some will have to wait a couple of weeks....................




A book I finished, a bit quilty, lovey dovey, Amish mystery, a good read. Who else takes for what seems like forever to finish a book? I tend to only read when I go to bed, I get a few pages read & someone fills my eye lids with lead!



A gift from a special friend....this is a heat pack (AKA : 'wheatie')....but  it is just too nice to use! Makes a nice display on my treadle.





A customer quilt. Levonne made this fun quilt many years ago. These chooks were screaming at me to quilt feathers, please! But I couldn't as Levonne just wanted in the ditches done & around the chooks.


Another customer quilt. Meg has made this for her daughter. It is HUGE! 116" x 102" you are only seeing half here, that's the only way to have it fit on my line.




Meg chose this simple quilting.


A Movie I highly recommend "Temple Grandin" . ......fascinating!