What next?

After a flurry of wee finishes recently, and being away three times in the last 5 weeks, I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start next in The Palace.

Yes, I wanted to carry on with my Churndashes but I wanted to work on something else as well.

I used the ever-helpful and very scientific method of standing in the middle of the room with my eyes shut, turning around three times, then picking up whatever I saw first.....

My Boxer floor cushion (details *here*) won the day!

He was already basted so I chose threads and started quilting straight away.

I stitched in the ditch of the dog using black, which gave me time to think about what to do on his body. A few lines here and there —

A lot easier to see on the back! —

Now I'm onto the hourglass blocks which are around the outside. I won't stitch in the coloured triangles of these blocks and that will save me time by not having to change threads.

So far so good —

I'm linking up to Andree of Quilting & Learning- What a combo! for Free Motion Mavericks. A fun and motivating way to get some quilting done :-)

I've done a wee bit of stitching at nights, and have completed this piece. It is to be made into something secret so this is all I will share for now —

This is the first time I have done a bullion stitch (the lilac petals below) - a bit scary, but as they say, a blind man would be happy to see them —

It's a while since I've done an update on my calves. My job as chief calf-rearer is at the point of redundancy and I will become on-call farm hand and also She who Needs to Catch up on all the Bookwork.

I have reared 122, and 107 of them are now weaned and happily grazing out the back of the farm. 

The last 15 will be fed for a while longer; their mums dragged the chain a bit with calving - always the way - so these calves have a bit of catching up to do.

I took this photo the other day after all the heavy rain we had overnight, which I mentioned briefly in my last blogpost. You can see that the river came 'well up' but we were pleased it didn't flood at all. These calves had higher ground in their paddock so there were no worries about their safety  —

This morning the cows went into the paddock next to the calves. While they did stare wistfully through the fence for a bit, they soon remembered that me and my feeder gave them a much better bellyful —

These four are supposedly weaned. While we sold all the beef heifers (girl calves) at 4-10 days old, we kept 4 back to raise for the MOML's father. To keep them happy they get half a bucket of the milking machine rinsings (mostly water!) every morning. Tomorrow they go to their new home so are going to have to do without!

Actually I tell a lie, I didn't raise 122. The older twins reared a calf each for their school Ag day.

They were nice and big by Ag day and led reasonably well. It was a fun day and I think the girls were proud to have their calves there.

Kaliah and Bella —

Saydee and Penny —

Weather-wise it wasn't the most pleasant of days, especially on the exposed 'top field' of the school but we all coped.

Here the girls are resting and eating lunch while chatting to their great-grandparents.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings for now,

'til next time,

happy stitching,