End of January catch up.

I've been able to indulge myself in The Palace (aka the sewing room) this month. There has been the much needed tidy-up which led to lots of opening of and peeking into project boxes, and then rearranging them within the room. 

The biggest change has been installing another cube bookcase under my cutting bench. (Six cubes, on its side.)

I put one in for project boxes sometime last year and it has worked rather well, and after getting fed up with folders and papers everywhere - and all over the cutting bench - I decided to get another identical one for the other side of the bench to tidy up that area of my life.

Sideways bookcase #1 for project boxes—

The Palace also doubles as a Farm Office; the main hub for the farm accounts, animal and farm records, not to mention an ever increasing amount of Fonterra compliance paperwork (even online systems need supporting paperwork!). These all incessantly jostle for space with my sewing and quilting folders and paper stuff.

Of course I didn't measure beforehand and the big ring binders don't fit the cubes....(sigh). Thank goodness I hadn't found a new home for the large cube I'd been using and after a bit more rearranging, a new solution was found!

Sideways bookcase #2—

The start of the year always sees me doing some secret sewing for the shop, as we work towards our 'New Year's Launch' later on in February. 

However, while waiting for some fabric to arrive, I did have a chance for a little more personal sewing, making this quilt top for a soon-to-be-new-baby.

I started with a block from the new pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, Show and Tell.

And grew it a bit, adding to her suggested instructions for a baby sized quilt.

Here are two kiddos showing it off at the shop —

Hehe —

I then discovered the perfect fabric for the final border, and soon it was ready to be presented as a top. My attempts at outdoor photos (in the natural light) did not go well —

So indoors it came!

(Hint there may be more of this pattern sewn for the shop's New Year's Launch).

Apart from the extra fabric for the border, all the rest of the above baby quilt were scraps and bits and pieces - using those always gives me so much pleasure!!

And I've had lots more pleasure sewing more Leader-Ender blocks while tackling my other projects.

Back in October, I shared that I had joined in with Bonnie Hunter's Leader-Ender challenge. This year's block (July-July) is Four-patch fun.

I'm using any shade of red and have amassed 51 blocks to date—

I made a couple of blocks in the same fabric at the start but am now only using each fabric once. 

144 blocks will give me a 72" square quilt, and that is my goal at this stage. 

(I used 80 different reds for Mum's birthday quilt back *here* so let's see how I do this time!)

And yesterday a Squirrel sent me down a Rabbit hole. I have so much on my plate that I was not looking for another project, but I always relish the chance to pull out and play with some scraps (can you see where this is heading?!).

I saw Janice's finished Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt on her blog the other day, and commented that the block she had used was one I'd always admired (or something like that). Of course that little seed planted itself in my brain and sprouted into a baby squirrel!

Hence —

I was quite pleased with myself because I finally mastered the web piecing technique for making this block. I was shown it a few years ago but had not seriously tried it until now. It meant that once I had all my squares laid out the block went together very quickly (and efficiently).

Blue was January's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - I'll probably follow Angela's colour prompts, and make one a month.

I know this is getting photo heavy but I just want to show you my new chickens. I like to get a few every year to keep the supply of eggs going (their laying slows down as they age).

I saw some advertised reasonably local and couldn't resist grabbing them. On my way home I picked up Odie to help me unload them and he was as entranced as I was with them......

They bob their heads around so much that decent photos are hard to get, hence I caught this one for a selfie—

(Yes, I should have waited until he'd finished his snack!)

We call them Dr Suess Chickens but their official breed is Legbar. Apparently sometimes you have to trim the feathers around their eyes so they can see. 

They MAY lay green/blue eggs but we have to wait patiently for a couple of months to find out.

Cute, huh?!

And on that happy note, I will leave you.

'till next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Some Christmas sewing

In November, I shared a snap pouch which I said was a prototype for more.

It all began with a wee challenge with the Thursday sewers at the shop; we were given a wee stitchery pattern and two bullets of fabric (5"x 20") and a date to make something with them by.

The day rolled around and here is our Show and Tell.

Lots of beautiful creativity.

Here are the two snap top pouches that I made — 

You can maybe see that I was heading down a rabbit hole here; deciding to make pouches for the grandies for Christmas —

I completed six in time for Christmas - I had hopes to make another one at least but that didn't happen.

I stuffed them all with undies, chocolates and wee toys - they made a cute little additional gift.

(I think the stitcheries came from a panel for the A letter to my daughter quilt.)

Back in August we adopted McGeorgeous, a stray kitten my nieces had taken in. Getting into the Christmas spirit, I thought it would be nice for McGeorgeous to send a wee gift to Doug and Lizzy, his ex-room mates. Inspired by some scraps of Soft and Stable, and our rather worn cat-bowl mats, I whipped up a Christmas cat bowl mat for them.

I layered a FQ with the Soft and Stable and a random piece of (not very stretchy) t-shirt knit, cross hatched it all, shaped the corners and then sewed on the (bias) binding.

Coupled with a couple of cat bowls, it made a fun little gift. 

Doug was quick to lie on it, apparently, as soon as it was opened!

(One day I'll make one for our cats and see how well it washes and wears.)

You may remember in my last post, I shared a photo of a dress I'd just finished making, and said that a friend was making one using the same pattern at the same time.

We were both wearing them at a workday at the shop over the weekend so we had to take a photo. Suzanne was very creative in the making of her dress, using pieces of linen and a linen blouse for hers - check out the striped part of the skirt. You can see the neckline is the same but two totally different dresses!

Thank you for reading along!

'til next time,

Happy stitches,

Raewyn

Happy New Year!!!

Well I'm a little late to wish you all a happy festive and holiday season but we still have most of 2026 ahead of us, so I'll wish you a Happy New Year instead ♥

There's no big new year resolutions from me, but I do hope to be more bloggy this year - here's hoping that I can make that happen!

My dear Mum passed away just before Christmas (December 20) so it's been an unsettling time for us here lately. She had been in and out of hospital during the year with one infection after another, or too much fluid here or there but her mind was still working well so she enjoyed life until the end. She passed peacefully with my sister at her side. My brother and I had planned to travel down the following day - but sadly we were too late to say good-bye.

Mum at her 88th birthday celebration in October - we broke her out

of hospital for the day.

We had a wonderful celebration of her life on the 27th. It was a lovely family affair with a lot of extended family attending. Although we have a family policy of gate crashing each others' birthdays or celebrations and the core group of us see each other regularly, it was wonderful to catch up with some other cousins and family members who live a little further away. It was interesting how many of the stories and memories that were told overlapped - coffee and baking around the kitchen table for anyone calling in was a common theme.

A rare event, all the grandkids together at Mum's funeral.

And 5 of her Greats.
Only 3 got wet.

My original plan (before the world fell apart) for that lazy time immediately after Christmas and as we rolled into summer holidays was to finish up a couple of projects for myself that I had recently started. 

After spending time 'down the line' with Mum's funeral and doing a few related tasks with my sister, I decided it was still the perfect time to get on with these. 

(I'm sure most of you know how much crafting calms the mind and eases the pain.)

First up was the Sewing Space Station, which is designed as 'the ultimate travel sewing mat)  —

Unroll it to reveal —

A pocketed sewing mat......with a dangle bit and more pockets at the side —

A detachable pouch.

You can see how it works in this photo (unpack the pockets, and use the mat to rest your machine on) —

The pockets are a great size - one of the top ones fits a 6 x 12 ruler, the other fits A4 sized patterns (and a cutting mat if I find one that size!). The pockets at the side hold plenty —

The smaller pocket is designed to fit a specially made pin cushion —

Which is rather a cute design —

(Wonky photos!! I initially overstuffed it, and it wouldn't fit inside the pocket!)

I think I will still use The Pouch That Holds Everything with this mat - it tucks inside nicely when I roll it up, and I have it filled with a bit of anything that comes in handy when I'm sewing away from home —

This was a fun project, quite straight forward, but not a quick one! I started off with my main blue fabrics, and added extras in for a bit of variety. The pattern is by Ali of Arabesque, and the link is *here*.

Having finished that, next up was a project of a completely different kind. 

Yes, a bit of dressmaking —

A friend and I had a sewing day in December and had started dresses for ourselves but I hadn't touched mine since. I understood she had already worn hers so was determined to finish mine!

A quick model for the camera, and a husband who could 

not be bothered taking a photo!

The pattern was *this* one found on Etsy, the Feel Good Dress. A straight forward sew. The fabric is from Spoonflower of a Kiwiana design.

I need to get to bed so will leave this here!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

and a happy and productive 2026!

Raewyn