Patterns and Colour.

Patterns and colour in nature at the moment.

Patterns in cut feijoas - can't eat one without thinking of you Pam! ( so that is often..they are yummy as usual )

Patterns in the firewood we are stacking in the woodshed.

Colour in the maple tree,

and the purple petunias

 golden vireya,

and red nerines ( there are pink ones too ).

Green and red in the Nandinas,

white little balls in the Japonica and green palmate leaves.

This one is for you Meg. Last year I showed you the buds of this firewheel tree ( stenocarpus ) and said I would show you the flowers and I never did till now. They are really amazingly designed flowers.

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Things I forgot to mention.

* Last week I finished all the Kiwifruit work I am doing on this crop till just before picking time which I think will be early this year due to the lack of rain. So that means I can catch up on tidying the garden. Last Thursday I spent in the front creek; as it is so low I didn't get my feet wet, while weeding.

*R is splitting a trailer load of firewood each day now and I help stack it in the woodshed. Leanne would Brent and James like to see some photos of our big splitter? ( with their welding skills they might be able to make one similar )

* I am tackling the fabric challenge like this. Make a list of EVERY idea that comes to mind however bizzare. Browse through my magazines and books at every spare minute or while watching TV. Keep looking at the fabric from different angles. Think curves - the rules say it must have curves. Think, think, think......

Orange.

These freshly picked and washed ( still wet ) oranges drying on a purple towel made me think...I've not used that colour combination in a quilt ( yet ).

Our oranges get eaten as is; juiced; cut into cubes and set in orange jelly; made into date and orange muffins; put in salads and shared with friends.

Our long weekend ( Labour Day ) ended up staying fine..despite what the forecast said....and I slaved in the garden digging out the agapanthus started weeks ago.( 4 tractor bucket loads full! ) That's as far as I am going with that for now. Right where I started this Hosta is looking so good with no tatty aggies beside it now. I will still need to sift through the soil for missed roots - less strenuous, before replanting anything new.

I finished reading "Remarkable Creatures, " by Tracy Chevalier and really enjoyed it. Based on the lives of 2 real people in the early 1800s, and set in Lyme Regis, UK. You might have been there Anne B ?

( also wrote " The Girl With the Pearl Earing," and "The Virgin Blue.")

Because I can't decide exactly what my next quilt should be ( or how to use the fabrics  - I haven't cut anything ) I have been continuing on with the blue and yellow trellis pattern table runner I am making by hand.

Still continuing the same Kiwifruit work with lots of bud thinning now.

New Quilt Fabric Selection.

It seems ages since I have had the delight of deciding on the colour scheme for a new quilt project. ( cause I've been using up scraps lately, I guess )

In May I'm doing a class at my P and Q group taken by Jill, one of our experienced quilters. I have seen her finished quilt made in blues and browns. ( pale blue to navy and cream to dark brown ). It is to be made in 2 colour ways so which 2?

Well, I've made red and green, and last year about this time I did yellow and blue and recently purple and green. I'm giving the purple and green little quilt away so maybe make another similar......... ah decisions. Another younger quilter, Helen, in our group, has her fabrics selected and cut ready - she decided dark wine reds and creams; they looked yummy!
We have to have ready cut fabric in 2 colour ways about 15 different of each - now my stash can't manage that so after seeing what I had I visited The Barnhouse to purchase fabric. I went with 2 possible colour schemes in mind and had it quickly made up because one just wasn't possible - very few teal coloured fabrics. So purple and olive green it is. Not bright green this time; olive to khaki or slime coloured greens.
I still haven't got 15 different of each but am working on it. Seeing the photos here helps. I can see I need more very dark green and very ,very light.
The photos show the fabrics I already had that were possibilities and the one with the brown background shows the NEW fabrics I got. Of my stash fabrics there are 3 piles; the ones at the front are large yardage, the 3 on the left are fat quarters and ones on the right slightly less than a fat quarter. I love what I have picked so far.Now I'm off to wash, iron and then begin cutting!

Meantime I am still patiently machine quilting the Fun Flowers quilt. I've only done about a quarter so far.
During this very wet week we had a rain event ( as they are now calling them ) on Tuesday afternoon ( more than 6 inches in a couple of hours )that caused a Big Mess, minor flooding which left debris and head sized rocks and the house gutters just couldn't cope.(R has cleared most of it away with the tractor grader blade ) I have photos but decided they were a bit depressing and it is fine again now so fabric pics were much nicer.
Other stuff - No buyers!
( photos enlarge by clicking ) ( do you like my colour choice???)
Happy quilting my friends. ( or blogging or reading Molly! )