The View From There

One day last week the slab was poured for the new house being built across the road from us. The next day, wall frames were delivered. Yesterday morning as I was going next-door to photograph my quilt, I noticed that the walls of the new house were starting to go up:

I hadn't really noticed before, but since they cleared so many trees, we can now see the roof of the house behind theirs, in the next street over.

A lot more of the frame was erected during the day. Last night after they had finished working, we went over to see just how much of our house will be visible to the new neighbours.

This is the view through a window of what appears to be an en-suite at the front of their house:

They can really only see the roof of our house.

Standing at their front door, and zooming-in:

They can't see our front door. So even though we will be able to see their house, we don't need to feel like we are being overlooked by the neighbours.

We have also planted a few more things along that side of our garden, to grow up and help screen the view.

143,191 Quilting Stitches

As of ten o'clock this morning,

the quilting is finished:

For the photo I took the quilt next door to hang on the neighbour's clothesline, because hers can be raised higher than mine is. This quilt would drag in the dirt under mine.

A look at the back so you can see how I quilted the blocks and borders:

I've decided to bind it with blue.

I will add a link to Bonnie Hunter's final "Good Fortune" link-up when it becomes available.  Here it is!

Jean's Good Fortune

A friend sent me these pictures so that I could add them to the Good Fortune link-up.

This is a graffiti-covered wall in Melbourne:

Jean made Good Fortune for her grand-daughter, who loves yellow and loves this wall.

Jean used the wall as inspiration for her Good Fortune colour scheme:

Her grand-daughter loves it!

I will add a link to the final Good Fortune link-up when it becomes available. Here is the Link-Up!

Baby Plants

Some months ago at a market I bought an unidentified succulent that looked interesting. The leaves are a nice shape, and have attractive purple blotches on the backs. Since then it has grown, and it suddenly got a lot more interesting when this happened:

Tiny baby plants are growing from the leaves!

At least this allowed me to finally identify the plant. One of its common names is "Mother of Thousands", and it was scientifically Kalanchoe daigremontiana but is now Bryophyllum daigremontianum apparently. It is also potentially quite weedy, as it reproduces so prolifically. But it doesn't like frost so I won't be putting it outside anyway.

Getting There

Quilting this thing feels like it has been going on for ever,

but it is really only three and a half weeks since I started.

The photo may look like I'm nearly finished because I am working on the outer border. However I haven't completed the quilting in the centre of the quilt. The red and orange blocks are only half done.

Blooming Things

Dahlia "Mystic Sparkler":

The crepe myrtles are looking good:

Several salvias are already flowering, but this one with white flowers, which is the favourite of the birds, is just starting:

Canna:

And today, this arrived:

The "Bloom" templates. I found a seller in Australia who had one set left. Paying $8 to get them here from Queensland was better than paying nearly $40 to get them here from the US. Having the templates will make the Bloom Sew-Along easier to participate in.

Bloom Block Two

This sew-along is a real learning experience for me. That is a good thing, but it is frustrating not to be able to do something well straight away!

The first step this week was to sew thin stems in an "X" shape on the block. That was a complete disaster.

I didn't take a photo of it straight away, but this shot after I had scrapped it and used it for a bit of experimentation might give you an idea of how wonky, buckled, just plain horrible it was:

It seems I couldn't sew straight, or stop the work buckling, without some help. The back view will give you one part of my solution:

Stabiliser! I used some Floriani "Stitch N Wash", which stopped a lot of the buckling. The stabiliser can be torn away, or if left in it will dissolve when the item is washed.

The second part of my solution involved slowing my machine down to the slowest possible speed (which is very slow!) and swapping to an open-toed foot:

Going at this super-slow speed I was able to make tiny adjustments as each stitch was sewn. Looking at the photo I think gives a clue as to why it wouldn't sew straight - the the edge of the green fabric is only just under the foot, and it had a real tendency to be pushed aside by the foot (except where there was a dot of glue). That meant that instead of sewing along the right-hand edge of the stem, I would find that the needle was hitting the green fabric.

So here is my block, back view:

and front:

I only added the stabiliser to cover the stem area, but it made sewing all the other parts easier as well. On future blocks I will stabilise the entire appliqué area.

Good news! I found somewhere in Australia that had one set of Bloom templates left, so for our future blocks I will be using the correct templates.

Linked to Cheryll's Bloomers Party #2. Check out blocks by people who are not beginners at this sort of thing.