Triple Treat

Last December I completed a scrap quilt flimsy - I blogged about it *here*. 

It was inspired by Bonnie Hunter's Triple treat leader-ender challenge. Every year she shares a scrap friendly block pattern and invites followers to sew along with her in creating lots of blocks, using lots of scraps and maybe even making a quilt from them.
These blocks started with four-patches which were then sewn together with larger pieces. 

I used 2" squares rather than 1½" as suggested by Bonnie. I found that they were fun blocks to make - it was very satisfying sewing them all up.

I basted the quilt quite soon after finishing the flimsy (which is quite unusual for me) but it had sat waiting for attention ever since.

Until recently. To be honest, I realised that all my basting pins were tied up in quilts and I had none left for anything else!

I chose to quilt it with a basic meander/large stipple. I haven't quilted a big quilt with meandering before but I decided it would be perfect for a scrap quilt. The fact that I wouldn't have to think much, and that it wouldn't take long to clock up the miles also helped!

I got so excited to finish it that I even started sewing the binding on before I had finished quilting it!

Here it is when I'd first finished it; woohoo, loving it! —

And today I took it out into the wild for its official photo shoot —

A pieced backing —

I couldn't resist taking this photo in amongst the Loquat tree 😃

I have started another Scrappy Leader-Ender quilt. Not one of Bonnie Hunter's challenges, but one I saw at our Scrub Stitching retreat earlier in the year.

It is Bonnie Lass by Jen Kingwell —

Another easy and addictive leader-ender project that doesn't use up nearly enough scraps!!

'til next time,
Happy stitches,

Raewyn

PS Is anyone else having issues (again) with Blogger? All comments are coming through with no-reply email addresses. I tested by commenting on myself and even though it looked like I was properly signed in, my email came up as no-reply. OR is it a setting I've inadvertently changed?

Small Bag Makes

I nearly headed up this post with "Ditto" .....referring to a repeat of my last post, however I won't subject you to that again!

Yes time flies so there is plenty to chat about...

Some of you commented on the wee bags which I showed photos of in that last post so that is what I will start with here —

I had an urge to make some drawstring bags for knitting and crochet projects; just small ones to hold a few skeins of yarn for small projects.

I had a couple of FQs I had been hiding away for this purpose. This was the first bag I made —

I used *this online tutorial* - altered a little as I had fat quarters to play with, not yardage!

And I added a little zipped pocket for stowing away the tools that are always lost at the bottom of a bag!

I made the second bag a few weeks later and had completely forgotten what battings I had used for the body. I had improvised with what I had at home. The second bag doesn't stand quite as well as the first but it will do!

I did improve the zipped pocket though; it's not quite as bulky as the first. Both zips were in my 'zipper bag' and were ones that Mum unpicked from garments years ago. The grey one is from Dad's workpants and I think the red would have been a skirt!
I was impatient to complete the second so instead of purchasing some cord for the drawstring, I used a pair of long shoe laces that had also somehow ended up in my sewing room!!

Family photo - 

(I haven't measured these bags but I see the instructions say they are approximately 10"x6"x5" - not huge but a good size for what I wanted.)

Another bag I made was one for Miss Lily for her birthday.

It turned out pretty cute.

I hadn't made one of these frame bags before but it was very straightforward 😊

The base and main part are made as two complete parts - 

And then hand sewn together. It seems strong enough - time will tell!

The young lady was delighted and set about filling it straight away!

Still arranging things several days later - 

I have some of these —

— needing attention, so I'd best be off.

See you next time,

Raewyn

How to —

— write a blogpost after a 25, 32, 43, 62, 63, 64, 65 day break 😲

Day 3 - start thinking about content for next post. 

Day 6 - have another think about the next post.

Day 8 - realise the next post hasn't happened yet.

Day 9 - give oneself a jolly good talking to.

Day 12 - oh well, take some photos so at least there will be some content for the next post.

Day 14 - open up blogger and create a draft blogpost (no content, no title, but it exists).

Days 16-64 - continue to take photos of this and that, ready for the blogpost.

Day 55 - have an idea for the theme of the blogpost.

Day 61 - write a title for the blogpost.

Day 64 - start writing the blogpost.

Day 65 - sort through the photos AND complete a post!!!

As you may have guessed from my photos, we're part way through calving - we're into week 5 (I think). It's been heads down and lots of work but we're getting there :-)

I've also been struggling with a health issue, which reared its head in June but I realise now that it's been affecting me from February at least. (Just another Auto-Immune disease.) Physically I'm doing great (now) but mentally it's been a struggle with an inability to focus, concentrate, and settle to a task. Throw in a bit of anxiety and you get little sewing done and no blogpost for 65 days!!! I'm all good now though, just need to continue to get meds sorted and I'll be back to being a box of fluffies.

There will be more detail on what I HAVE been making in the next posts, but for now I'll leave it here.

Day 65 - Push Publish.

Hugs to all, and thank you for the messages I've been receiving concerning my whereabouts ♥

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

For The Birds

Several months ago when I put my hand up for the For the Birds bloghop hosted by Joan of moosestashquilting, I had time stretching ahead of me and I thought it pretty much guaranteed that I would have May and June for sewing all sorts of things, and plenty of time to prepare for the bloghop.

Fast forward to last weekend when I was blowing the dust off my machine and rummaging around looking for the project box which held my intended project!!

This is a project I've long wanted to finish. It started when I test sewed some cute wee bird on a wire blocks for Juliet, of Tartankiwi designs several years ago. I had an inspiration for a layout but at the time I didn't get a chance to do any more.

I sewed these blocks back in 2018 so they've been waiting for attention for a long time!

Luckily I had sketched my idea down and luckily it was in the box with the blocks!

As these are 6" blocks, I started by re-sketching with a 6" grid. That got me off to a good start and I started merrily sewing away.

I had a wee brainwave at some stage and thought it would be fun to put some pieced blocks in the background. But tone-on-tone so you would see them up close, but they wouldn't overshadow the wee birds.

This Seminole strip didn't work where I thought it might, but I adapted it for the bottom.

Of course I had very little of the grey to finish the fence post but I hoped I might get away with using my grey scraps to crown the top of the post — 

Finally after a bit of fudging and unpicking here and there, I have my completed top!

(The rocks and grass along the bottom are the second strip of Seminole I did.)

It still needs a good press and tidyup. This is not a large item - approx 30 x 24 and now that I've got this far, I'm excited to get it properly finished! Watch this space :-)

I'm so pleased that, in spite of a bit of last minute panic a few days ago, I committed to the bloghop. Thank you so much Joan, of Moosestashquilting, for hosting this and encouraging me to take a deep look at this UFO!

This is Day Three of the bloghop. The other participants for today are —

June 19

Patchouli Moon Studio

A Quiltery

Ms P Designs USA

Stitching Farm Girl

Scrapdash

And there is a full list of ALL the participants on Joan's blog *here*.

Thank you so much for visiting and reading along.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

And More Adventures

Warning - photo heavy!!

I have one more adventure to share, before I can (hopefully) get into some sewing and quilting!

You may remember that at the beginning of April, I was in Australia attending Scrub Stitching and road tripping with kiwikid Sue.

I was home for only 10 days before the MOML (hubby) and I set off on another road trip. We had a family wedding to attend halfway down the South Island.

We decided to drive down so that we could see a bit of the countryside. We decided 5 hours a day was good - lots of driving but it gave us the chance to stop and look around if we wanted, have a long lunch, etc etc.

Whangarei, near where we live, is in the north of the country (several hours north of Auckland city, if you know a little of the geography). 

Day One we drove to Taupo. We stayed on the shores of the lake, which is the largest lake in New Zealand. It was a bit cloudy but we still got a lovely view of the lake, and the mountains beyond it.

The next day we travelled to Wellington, at the bottom of the North Island. We stopped at Bulls for lunch.

Of course when you have a town named Bulls, it is full of bull....lots of puns and statues, etc.

And cafes full of bull. We had lunch in La Bull below and enjoyed it a lot.

We stayed the night in Wellington. To be honest, as rural folk, we didn't really enjoy Wellington. We're not used to cities, one way systems, no parking, cyclists and so on!!!

We were not far from The Parliamentary buildings; in between heavy rain we said hello to The Beehive, and surrounding area, but decided not to venture out to fight for our dinner - ordering pizzas to be delivered instead!

The next day was really when all the excitement begun. We crossed over on the Kaitaki ferry to the South Island. This was a first for the MOML and my only other crossing was as a child so we were looking forward to it and hoping that we would have a calm day.

Leaving Wellington Harbour-

There is a really good map *here* showing the route.

After the wide open waters of the Cook Strait we approached the Marlborough Sounds of the South Island.

We stayed the first night in the South Island at Kaikoura. We had a good little wander around, did some shopping (topping up our wedding outfits!) and finding somewhere for dinner.

Me being on a strict gluten-free diet means that we do have to choose carefully for all our meals and it's a great excuse to explore a town. But I didn't get sick so the efforts were worth it!

The next morning the sky was nice and clear and we had our first decent sighting of the Southern Alps. These run the length of the South Island and we were hoping, being autumn, we'd see some snow.

We drove to Fairlie, which is south of Christchurch and more inland. We had a wee walk around the township and I channelled my inner kiwikidSue and took a photo of the infamous Jock MacKenzie, sheep rustler and his mate. Fairlie and the area around it is known as MacKenzie Country. It's about the centre of the South Island.

The next day was wedding day. It was held in a rural setting and had a lovely relaxed vibe. 

Bridal Party-

The MOML and I-

Being May in the South Island, the day cooled down a fair bit and we were all pleased there was a heater in the marquee!

The next day we hit the road again - we headed further inland hoping to see Mt Cook. It was very foggy and we weren't sure we would see anything at all. All of the MacKenzie country farmland we wanted to see was hidden from view. and even Lake Tekapo was underwhelming. We nearly turned around there, having been to told that if you can't see the mountains from Tekapo, don't bother! However we carried on, past the nearly invisible Lake Pukaki - and then all of a sudden the sky started clearing! 

First glimpses!

We drove to The Hermitage and had a good look around (and tried our hands at a selfie)-

Then drove a little more so we could walk up to the glacier look out.

It was all so beautiful - well worth the drive, and we could have spent a lot longer there taking it all in. 

On the way back we had beautiful views of the lakes we had missed earlier on!

Travelling back through Fairlie we HAD to stop at the famous Fairlie Pie Shop. Every one we met said it was the place to go...there were queues way out the door (and it wasn't even lunch time!) which shows we weren't the only ones who'd been told that!.

We weren't disappointed. They even had small GF pies and GF Lamingtons so I was one happy gal.

We spent the next two nights in Christchurch and enjoyed exploring. Once again a case of leaving the car at the motel and spending the day walking. We clocked up 10 kms around the city centre and the Botanical Gardens. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Christchurch has lots of beautiful old stone buildings.

And this was a common sight - still plenty of work to do after the 2011 earthquakes.

We loved the Botanical Gardens. This photo shows the Avon River which flows through the city. There was lots of autumn colour.

From Christchurch we headed up to Picton - 

And the next morning we boarded the Awatere Interislander ferry to get back to the North Island.

It was another beautiful day on the water-

And this non-descript photo shows a pod of dolphins who accompanied us for a wee while-

(I was too busy watching to take a photo, and then it was too late.

You can just make out some splashes.)

We drove to Palmerston North for the night, where we met, at Massey University many moons ago.

Taupo again the next day - there was was more snow on Ruapehu than a week before and it was bitterly cold. Colder than we'd been in the South Island!- 

Waiouru was the first meal fail of our holiday - with half the cafes closed and no GF options....so it was potato chips, chocolate and coffee from the service station!

Our last night was spent back at Taupo. After the driving I enjoyed a nice walk along the lake edge. This area is known for its geothermal activity and you might be able to pick out a person in the bottom right of the photo? There was a small pool there by the rocks and about 6 people were in it, enjoying the warmth - they were in togs and I had my beanie and jacket on!!

And a frosty start to the day for our drive home (taken from the same spot as the very first photo)-

It was a wonderful holiday, all the more special as the MOML hasn't had a holiday for this long while the cows have still been milking for a very long time - if ever?

Now that our son-in-law is working on the farm we're able to do this a bit more often. I look forward to next year's jaunt!

Well done if you've got to the end of this. I know, lots of scenic photos, but that's what struck us as we travelled around.

No more holidays to catch up on so I'll be able to get back to quilting!!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn