Scrappy sprouts, houses plus an Otter.

This is another one of those times when I say - where have the days gone, it's feels like it's ages since I last posted?! It's been busy here at our place, you know how it is, trying to squeeze everything in to days that I am sure are getting shorter all the time (well actually that's probably true as autumn is here and we are rapidly approaching winter!).

I was going through my photos this morning and realised that I had a few things that I could share.

The RSC colour for May is Green so over the weekend I spent a bit of time playing and making some green scrappy sprout blocks. I recycled some that Sue of Mother Patchwork had sent me. I had to do some unpicking and rearranging as hers were all left facing leaves and I needed some for the other side of the stem too! After playing with Sue's scraps, I did actually manage to use some of my own. Here are the resulting blocks.

Sorry about the glare. The sun has distorted the colours a bit much.

These greens are all quite dark and olive-y so if I get a chance I'd quite like to add some lighter greens to the mix.
As you can see I got a little impatient and just had to join some colours together - time will tell whether this was wise or not and whether or not the stitch ripper will be called into action - I quite like the purple on top of the green for now anyway :-)

This is the year's efforts so far.

This week I am linking up to Scraphappy Saturday. To see what others are doing with their greens visit the blog *here*.
I realised that I haven't shared my Friday's village blocks for a while (I initially talked about them *here*). I've been able to join a few blocks together. I'm using small floral-type scraps for these and I know some work better than others but in the end I think it will be ok! We have some challenge bits of fabric which I have to use as well, some of these are a little brighter than others so I've decided to put a bit of everything in this quilt - once again a good chance to rummage and play with my scraps.

These rows are incomplete and don't go on top of each other!

The blocks are nice and big which makes a change from the small sewing I often seem to do!

From time to time I pattern test blocks for Juliet of Tartankiwi...she has such fun designs and I enjoy sewing them up. (The mouse and squirrel cushions I completed earlier this year were blocks I had tested for her).  Recently I had some more fun with pattern testing an Otter block .... I love how this little chap came out - it took me about a week to decide on my fabrics but I am pleased with the decision in the end!

Most of Juliet's patterns are foundation paper piecing; I find her's go together well. I don't think the Otter is released yet but if you like it, I'm sure you won't have too long to wait.

Last post I offered an impromptu giveaway of a book and a few goodies. The random draw has taken place..... the winner was Janet of Carabou Crossing Cronicles..... congratulations Janet, and thank you to everyone who wanted to take part.

I have a fun few days ahead of me, something to do with hopping on a plane and seeing some wee girls :-)

Happy stitches

Friday Night and Weekend Sewing

By the time I got home after work and a big grocery shop on Friday it was nearly too late for any Friday Night with Friends sewing. I was determined, however, not to post until I'd sewn the binding on the Round Robin quilt I've been working on lately.

Finally this morning I got it finished and now, this afternoon, I've have a moment to sit down and write my post!

Yahoo, the quilt is nearly done..... just a bit of playing with the hanging tabs and writing a label and it will be done!
Thank you Cheryll for hosting Friday Night with Friends. I hope there was enough slice for all 30 of us who joined in...!

There's not been a lot happening in The (sewing) Palace this weekend; instead rather a lot happening in the kitchen.
We've had a fabulous feijoa crop this year; we pride ourselves on being good feijoa eaters but this year we're having trouble keeping up with them!

So yesterday I froze at least 6 kgs of pulp. This morning I cooked up some more into chutney...looking forward to trying this batch, it had dates and apricots in it too :-)

And YD did something with her chillies...they look good in the jar...

Last night I finished reading the second of two books I've really enjoyed lately; one, The Promise Girls by Marie Bostwick, and the other, My Secret Sister by Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith. Co-incidently both about families and sisters in particular. (The one by Marie Bostwick is a stand alone novel not connected to her others and not about quiting).(But enjoyable all the same!).

It reminded me that I have had a book sitting here that I was going to Giveaway here on my blog. I acquired a second copy of 'From here to Texas' (also by Marie Bostwick) which is connected to her Cobbled Court series. I have a soft spot for Marie after meeting her years ago on one of her book tours. She was a delightful lady whom I really enjoyed meeting.

Let me know if you would like to win this book...!

So if you haven't yet read this book and would like your own copy, let me know in the comments below. If there is more than one person interested, I'll do a draw for it at the end of the week.

I am happy to post to anywhere and maybe, just maybe, I'll pop a few other goodies in with it :-)

[I've been the lucky recipient of blog giveaways in the past, as well as kindness from blog friends so am wanting to keep the blog love circulating].

Happy stitches ♥

A new goal and a little progress...

I had a lovely peaceful day in The Palace yesterday and managed to tick a few things off my list. One of the things to-do was to hunt down a long forgotten project for this month's One Monthly Goal. Last month's goal still needs the binding but I did sort that yesterday and I'm so excited about finishing it that I know it will be done soon :-)
{I don't know about you, but when I go for a hunt in my sewing room, it's a lovely rummage through cupboards and boxes - it can take some time as I get lost in all my dreams!}

A few years back I led a 3-D cushion class...the sample was finished but I started on another one to demonstrate the blocks and techniques during the class.
I brought it home and worked on it a little, then stowed it away.
Now it's time for it to see some daylight!

Here is the centre

Some 3-D flying geese for the border

Have to find the pattern - cant remember if I need more of these bow-ties or not.

And definitely need more of the pinwheels.

Luckily the fabrics were all stored with these blocks, plus a small bag of bits - hopefully it won't take me long to work out where I am at with it and get a finish. This year seems to be turning into the year of the cushion for me!

Proof that I'm also making a little more progress on last month's goal.

I'm linking up to Elm Street Quilts for the OMG link up and to the Finishing Stitches link up over at Days Filled with Joy.

Yesterday I also assembled a couple more borders of my Evandale quilt... there are two more large-ish borders to go on this. The next border is the main event, I have a couple of blocks made for it but cant find a photo of them to share this morning so you'll have to wait and see!

At this stage it measures about 46 inches square.

As I'm hoping to start A Holly Cottage Christmas soon I thought I'd better catch up on last year's BOM, Anderson's Farm. The end of the year came so fast I didn't quite get it all finished. Close enough, but not quite! So I completed one more wee block that I'd missed :-)

This was one photo I shared last year but I haven't taken a more recent one.

I have it all up on my design wall and am gradually filling the gaps. I have a foal's head to find - I know I made one at the time but it dropped off before I could sew it on - and then the top panel to make. A friend and I realised it had no cows on it so thinking about adding one or two of those slowed me down a bit!

Tonight is Friday Night with Friends - I'm popping over there now to sign up... I know I have plenty to do for it, deciding on exactly what is my problem!

Happy stitches,

April scraps and almost a fail —

As seems typical with me, I breeze in at the first of the month (here in NZ) with a last minute post about my monthly goals for the previous month!
I sort of failed with the One Monthly Goal I had for April; to finish a Round-Robin quilt from Years Ago...... but I'm happy that I am a few steps closer to finishing it as the bulk of the work on it is now done.
I did get the quilt top quilted, here it is trimmed in the photo below —

— but I didn't get it bound...hence the sort of fail but not quite! Quilting this brought back all sorts of good memories for me, thinking about the friends who contributed each row, and also the scenes depicted. Here's a couple of sneak peeks but I'll show more when it's properly finished.

This was Mr Piggy, who we no longer have, but we do have a Miss Piggy!
I did a very small amount of ruler work but it was mostly random fmq-ing.

Hehe - different pig - same pose!

I'm linking up to Patty of Elm Street Quilts - thank you Patty for hosting us - click *here* to see how other bloggers went with finishing their goals.

I'm also linking up to Joy of Days Filled with Joy, for her monthly Finishing Stitches Challenge. Thank you Joy for encouraging and hosting us. 

Since I had only a partial success I hope I qualify for joining these link ups!

In April I also sewed up two blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The month's colour was Multi; rather than make a multi-coloured sprout block (My RSC block for this year) I added two new blocks to the Great Granny squares I started a few years ago.

Obviously it was a bright glarey day when I took these pictures so I apologise you cant really see the colours very well.
I now have 9 of these blocks - I had wondered if it might be a good place to stop but now that I see them together I think I will carry on - maybe a 4 x 4 setting will be nice... if I plan a bit better with my scrap colours for the rest of the blocks I may even end up with a cohesive looking quilt!

I'm linking up to Angela of soscrappy - thank you Angela for motivating us to rummage in our scraps and use a few up!

[EDIT; And I've just linked up to Freemotion by the River, for Linky Tuesday. Thank you Connie.]

The school holidays have ended and the girls have gone home. We had two busy fun weeks with them here. We are gradually turning them into farm kids and I love this photo I took one day while we were out the back doing some stockwork.

See them leaning? They were singing their hearts out!

Ok, gotta go - I have a quilt to finish!

Happy Stitches,