A Floral Mystery

How time flies!!
We've all said that before, I know, but when I realised that this is my first post for August (and it's halfway through the month) I couldn't believe it!! Seeing as I use my blog as a bit of a diary, that means theres's now a pretty big gap in my life :-)
A couple of posts ago I hinted at busy times coming up with the arrival of our first calf... well it's been all go since then. All of a sudden we are nearly three quarters of the way through calving - boy, have we been busy, but thank goodness, everything has gone fairly smoothly and we have lots of healthy calves and cows.

Sewing time recently has been spent finishing a quilt I made this year -I was lucky to make the shop sample for this year's Country Yard Mystery Quilt.
The fabric was a gorgeous Robyn Pandolf range, 'Fancy Hill Farm'.

I put together the quilt top a while ago but then needed to franticly quilt it in readiness for the grand reveal.

I sweated over the quilting - after all it had to hang in the shop so needed to be of a reasonable standard - and those of you who know me, know that I am still a "beginner quilter"!!
So I did a bit of stippling, free motion style. Then I carefully used the darning foot to go around the appliquéd and embroidered flowers.
I got stuck next, as my fmq wasn't up to fancy stuff in other blocks, but finally decided to use the walking foot to fill more gaps.

Megan made a second version, using a Nancy Halverson range. Here is her's (below), quilted by Leeanne (see more of it here).

As always, amazing to see two versions of the same quilt in different fabrics.

I've finished ONE more block of my Life Is Beautiful quilt. This is the project I pick up in between other ones - there's no time pressure or obligations with this one!!

The appliquéd heart appears grey, but is actually blue. There seemed to be more light than darks in the variegated thread this time.

 And it's back to Beanies by the Fire weather again!!!  We aren't as affected by the Polar Blast as other parts of the country (see here and here) - although we thought we saw a little snow on the hills in the distance this morning (??) - but for us it's still been pretty cold and miserable.
Once the farm jobs are done it's nice to come inside and stitch by the fire!