Central Plateau, North Island

Central Plateau, North Island
View from a friend's farm

Saturday 20 May 2017

All The Leaves are Falling

 

Suddenly leaves are changing colour,  and branches  are  looking bareAutumn Leaves May 2017

The Final 6 blocks for the  Freefall QAL with Sandra at

mmm ! quilts 

are finished. How could 2 blocks give me so many problems? I undid 2 rows of stitching so many times, and still the last TWO points did not meet properly.One more row undone, measured, it might have been a smidgen over the correct  2 inch size. Trimmed, and all is well.WHEW, a huge sigh of relief.

The difficult one!!!

The H3 block that gave me some trouble

The final 6, with green and background fabrics reversed, and the last 2 blocks with half and half.

 QAL Freefall final 6 blocks

this is not the final layout , but they are all there.Hooray!!!

 

QAL Freefall layout, this might be changed again

The top blue half and half will be swapped for a yellow leaf, the lower row green and blue will be  placed on the left, and the top left changed to lower right, ( I think ) Meantime it can sit and play happily on the design wall, and tolerate a visit each day till I am happier with the layout.

Mother’s Day was quiet, until I received an email from Sandy over at

 Upstairs Hobby Room 

to say I was chosen by Rafflecopter, and have won the most amazing book by Carl  Hentsch,…. New York Beauties and Flying Geese.

How wonderful is that, I am sure Sandy heard my words of joy way up North. Many thanks to Sandy, for hosting this, to CT Publishing, and to Carl Hentsch.

Those batiks are going to be looked at, and no doubt added to, for some of these wonderful projects.

The eBook has arrived, and I will be off to the printers to have it printed onto really good quality paper, and spiral bound.

_________________________

Courtesy of the Internet….

And the winner is...

 

Jean M.

Do you run giveaways, too? Try Rafflecopter! It's free.

_______________________________________________

Quotation of the day, author unknown

“ Use every colour in the paint box,

and there will always be beauty”

Greetings from Jean.

Tuesday 9 May 2017

An Autumn Day in our Garden

 

Cherry Trees along the driveway

Come with me as we have a gentle stroll though the flower gardens  and trees.The Cherry blossoms have all gone,and golden/bronze leaves are glorious.

Cherry tree branches and blue skiesthrough the Cherry Tree branches

The ornamental grass has tall feathery flowers, and  sparkles like ice crystals in the sunshine.

Another feathery grass, with flower heads that sprkle in the sunlight

One deep purple snap dragon, all by itself, self seeded in the front garden.

snap dragon, a lonely one that self grew.

One of the many pink Alstromeria plants, a bee is in the centre flower. Buds still show a promise of more to come.

 Alstromeria providing a bee with some food

Last year a dear friend brought me a huge display of Luculia flowers, this is their photo,  and I fell in love with their beauty.So much so, we bought a small shrub. It is frost tender, so all last winter it has been protected, with a huge bucket. The odd leaf was burnt, but now it is thriving, and has stems covered at the end with so many buds.

Luculia flowers

Here  is the small shrub, that can grow to a tall tree in years to come,  hidden from any early frosts, the purple Tibouchina on guard on the left,  a tall handsome tree now, and the graceful red sage  taking its rightful job as a shelter on the right.

Tibouchina, Luculia, and red sage

Closer up, those buds are beautiful already.

Luculia buds close up

The Tibouchina shrub was a birthday gift some years ago.We planted it out in the open, it struggled with any cold morning, so it was moved, nurtured, covered each night in the winter, and now well over 8 feet tall. This is one lingering flower straight out of the Canon Camera.Sunlight and shadow in the afternoon.

Tibouchina close up ,SOOC

 

Quotation of the day, author unknown

“ The flower bud unfolds, showing so

gradually the hidden  beauty  within”

Greetings from Jean

Monday 1 May 2017

testing #2!!!

owl  reversed with one inch test square
Here it is with a one inch test square.
Testing #1 was deleted, as this one was slightly better. The one inch square is for correct printing size!!! And the owl is for something later in the year, but I needed to know now if it would be printable. It is!!! Thanks for all your comments, I am not that keen on one inch quilting pieces.