End of Month Opam and FMQ

I was going to say, here I am squeezing my end of month posting in at the eleventh hour but when I looked at the clock I realised I had heaps of time left in the month to post this -7 hours in fact!
I don't feel like I've been very productive at all lately; I have been busy sewing but don't have many finishes to report.
My 'local' had a mystery project night recently. No-one had any idea what they would be making; everyone was supplied with paper bags of cut fabrics and verbal instructions!! By the end of the night and after lots of guessing, we all had one of these -


A cool doorstop. This was a fun night.

And this is my second finish; a cushion. (I took the inner out for the photo as I couldn't get a decent shot). I quite like the effect of using an enlarged block for a cushion. This is 16 inches.

I have also continued the free motion quilting challenge being run by SewCalGal. This month the guest tutor was Anne Fahl. She commented that stippling was getting a little 'overdone and boring' and encouraged us to try different fillers. So in spite of spending hours practising my stippling and because I do believe there is a time and place for everything, I set to and tried her suggestions.

Auriifil 40 weight top and bottom. Lovely to sew with.

It was great practise to alternate the direction of my loops (Great Brain Gym exercises!) and to suddenly do straight lines for the stars. I was pleasantly surprised with the end result.

It does actually look pretty good in real life - it just looks like a messy scrawl here!
I filled in a 9 inch square on my fmq-sampler-quilt. I have a block a month
to fill for this challenge.

I commented to someone that I had seen none of these caterpillars below lately but the next day I found plenty on my plants - I just had to look a bit more carefully -

I always find the Monarchs very magical. Love seeing them.

 I took the photo below to show my overseas followers a bit more of the countryside where we live. This is the MOML resowing a paddock with grass seed after we grew a turnip crop for the cows this summer. You can see the flats that were flooded recently, and also our house and sheds in the middle section; in the left towards the back you may just be able to make out the cows grazing.

Man At Work

The same paddock - looking uphill.

 So there we are, nicely caught up. I wonder what next month will bring.....
Happy sewing everyone,