A little crochet, a little sewing

After a busy week it was nice to settle into my cosy chair and spend Friday Night with Friends working on my Mandala Madness CAL. I haven't worked on this for a while as my evenings have been taken up with applique (and so on) so I've been getting a renewed joy from making a little progress on it again.
I'm up to Part 11 (there are 18 parts and a total of 111 rounds); I've just measured and my circumference is now 3 metres!!! No wonder it is taking me several nights to get around one round!!

I finished the light blue and started the dark on Friday night.

For those who haven't seen me working on this before, below is a bigger picture. The CAL is well over now and there have been some real beauties produced. I'm hoping this will be another one by the end of the year!

On Saturday I joined in with the FNwF crafters from the northern hemisphere and spent some time working on my Mod Bear Paw QAL . We're supposed to be up to making the large bear block (Lorna is setting a cracking pace!) but I'm still on the bear paw blocks, now totaling 6! I've continued on using the 8 HST at a time method I showed *here* so they are coming together pretty quickly - when I get the chance to work on them, that is!

I still cant get a photo that shows my colours correctly - this one below is a little better.... the light coloured background is a light grey-blue-ish colour.

Thank you Cheryll for hosting us all on Friday night. Pop along *here* to see who else was crafting away with us.

With school holidays drawing to  a close, our step grand-kiddies who were staying have gone home. They had a great two weeks on the farm with many new experiences; so many animals to take care of :-) One of the highlights of the second week was their dad building them a treehut.

I was a little sad when the MOML had to limb up this Oak tree in the autumn.... the branches were getting in the way of the milk tanker when it came...but it gave a perfect shape and space for the treehut. It's had more sides put on since this photo was taken. The next time they come I'm sure it will be the perfect spot for spending their summer days!
I hope I have a long Sunday in The Palace today, the due baby I mentioned in my last post has arrived so I'd best get sewing his welcome gifts!

Happy stitches and thanks for visiting,

Feeling —

I'm feeling a little behind at the moment; August has come, there was no OPAM finish for July nor a July OMG completion either. There has been plenty happening though —
Feeling the fun —

I pattern tested these two cute blocks for Juliet of TheTartankiwi... she's now running a QAL for this new Woodland series - click *here* if you want to find out more.

Feeling the love —

Our Australian family has just been out to New Zealand for a visit to celebrate our wee grandies' first birthday. My how they've grown; they're such lovely little girls - not that I'm biased of course.

We do have to share them with other family members so are always so pleased when they get to spend time on the farm.

Our son and Saydee.

Kaliah enjoyed having her hand sucked by the calves.

Let's explore! We'll try our best to make farmgirls of them!

Feeling pleased —

Part 10 of Mandala Madness completed - whew this part took a while!

Feeling the rain —

How a lot of our time is spent at the moment.
On this wet and cold day the neighbour had offered to help us,
not be the official photographer!

Feeling ready —

Yesterday I managed a sew day and prepped the next Anderson's Farm block. 

Feeling frustrated —

On the same day, I was having a fun time quilting...for some reason this part
fell off. When it's not inserted properly it feels like you are stitching
with a shovel, not a needle. Off to the fixit lady, shame, I was on a roll!

Feeling proud —

YD finished her dog jersey.
Considering the pattern was a weird one to follow, this turned out ok.
She's onto another, and is making up the pattern this time!

Feeling cold — off to heat up some soup and stoke up the fire :-)

Happy stitches, and thanks for stopping by,

Crafting at our house

I wasn't on dinner duties on Friday night so I thought I had a nice long creative evening ahead of me.
At the end of the night 11 measely crocheted fancy looking bobbles is all that I achieved —

I could blame Timmie-cat and say it's all her fault I was so slow but I'd better own up and say it was a very tricky part of the pattern which took me a while to nut out..... using 2 colours at once was a challenge too!

So at this point in time I can say my Mandala Madness is growing VERY slowly.
To see what other FNSI-ers got up to click *here* - it's always fun to see what others around the world are working on. Thank you Wendy for hosting us :-)

I said earlier on that I wasn't on dinner duty so I'd best explain. We now have flatmates with our YD and her hubby moving in. They've left the big smoke and are living and working in Northland now -yaay!! They've made the downstairs area very cozy and it's just like a small apartment :-)

Nice to see the quilt I made for her DH lovingly used :-)

As well as sharing dinner duties I now have another crafter in the house.
YD's first completed cross-stitch project —

She figured out the french knots by herself so I was most impressed!

She's now full steam ahead on her first major knitting project; a jersey for her wee dog.
( I say 'first major' as years ago she knitted a scarf for her pet pig.) (Do you detect a pattern there!)

It's nice to have the extra hands around. These are starting to come thick and fast -

Yes, new calves, the 'spring' calving season is upon us.

The chorus goes something like "Will you feed us"

In between time I'm trying to get a bit of quilting done on the mystery quilts I'd basted in my last post. Too many distractions and progress is slow!

I'm using Aurifil threads for this one and I'm very happy
with how they are going.

Best get back to it :-) Till next time,

Happy stitching ♥

Friday Night With Friends

Friday night saw me once again snuggled in my chair with my crochet hook in hand.
I was very pleased to finish Part 7 of my Mandala Madness as I've had a couple of nights away from it and it is growing ever so slowly.

However, growing it is and I did make a more little progress into part 8.

During the day Nigel takes it over; the MOML says (quote) it's because Nigel has never had anything special made for him, and maybe now is the time (unquote).

I. don't. think. so.

I realised this week that I haven't shared my latest completed Anderson's Farm (aka Barge's Farm) block —

Block 5. (I needleturned the dog rather than stitching him).

While we don't have two sheep anymore, our farm dog does like to eyeball the one we do have and bark at her. She just glares back, just like the ones in the block below are. Totally ineffective!

A special thanks to Cheryll for hosting us all for Friday Night with Friends :-) To see what everyone else got up to visit her blog, Gone Stitching,

Happy weekending ♥

 

A Night In....

Yaay for some peaceful Friday Night Sewing Stitching Crocheting!! Last night I joined in with Wendy from Sugarlane Quilts and 31 other crafters for Friday Night Sew In.
I had a nice long evening in my cozy chair with the TV on and the MOML and a cat snoring breathing gently on the sofa.
I was determined to finish Part 5 of my Mandala Madness and here it is —

Part 5 completed, the pinky/red work.
This is now 20" across.

The rounds are getting a little longer to go around and I think my grand plan of catching up to the rest of the crocheters by the time the last clues are given out are pretty slim. At one stage I worked out I'd have to do 3 Parts a week to catch up but I think it would be even more than that now - oh well, I'll just have to relax and enjoy the journey (even more!).

Am loving this soooo much!

And because this is a quilty blog I'd best show a quilty picture! This morning I sewed up the last block of my scrappy-brown Fabulous Friday mystery project. This block as named by EQ7 is called Picnic Bouquet and is 18" square - a far cry from the tiny blocks from my last post - gosh the seams seemed so long!

Picnic Bouquet in scrappy browns.

A nice straight forward one to finish on. Below is my non-scrappy version of the same block. Next up is to sew them all together ready for the grand reveal in two weeks time. Aren't mysteries fun?!

If you'd like to see what others got up to on their Friday night, just click *here*. Thank you Wendy for hosting us all :-)

Thanks for visiting, 

have a happy weekend ♥

 

Party time and I was late!

Chookyblue invited us all to her place over the weekend for her annual Chookshed birthday; a weekend to sew and craft with friends from around the world.

I was late to the party as we had a surprise visit (well 24 hours notice) from YD and her hubby. So lovely to see and spend time with them. As they both work on Sundays it was a short overnight visit but that meant I was able to spend most of Sunday at Chooky's do :-)

I made some progress on my Fabulous Friday blocks --

Whirly-gigs,; these need sewing together and a stem and leaves added.

This is a mystery project we are doing at The Country Yard, where I work. This is my scrappy brown version used for testing blocks, sizes, instructions, etc. I had some catching up to do —

Butterfly blocks

"Filler blocks' - Snowballs and uneven 9-patches.

And upstairs, where it was slightly warmer, was a good place to spend the evening crocheting. I completed Part 3 of my Mandala Madness - yaay - still very behind - I know it's not a race but it is so addictive!! I've had the odd bout of undoing, changing colours, etc; that is my biggest problem, trying to decide what colour to use next. I've learnt to look at the whole section I'm working on rather than just the next round (each Part/section is at least four rounds worth).

The start of the next Part, one row of lemon crocheted so far,

This weekend in New Zealand is a long weekend as we celebrate the Queen's Birthday (a little late!) so maybe today I'll continue partying and get a little more done.....I have another batch of soup humming away in the crockpot so I'm sorted... :-) As well as a bit more Fabulous Friday sewing I need to prep the next stage of Month Four of Anderson's Farm. I've done the needleturn for it so far—

Yes, I know, my chickens are facing the wrong way......

Thank you Chooky for having us over, I know you had a wonderful weekend! Go *here* if you want to see what the other party gals got up to.

'till next time,

be creative,

Weekend stitching (and crocheting)

After a busy week it was nice to spend some weekend time sewing scraps..... it's been a while since I've joined in with the Rainbow Scrap Challenge on Angela's blog. May's colour was Green and I'm pleased to say there are a few less greens in my scrap stash now :-)

While I was hunting out some scraps I found my cat blocks; the 2 brown (February?) cats were put away partially sewn so I whipped those up then added a green block.... the 2 darker green at the top of the photo below are are ones I made last year- all good things take time!

Cat block pattern found on ohfransson's blog

I then pulled out my HoneyBucket Stars (explanation *here*) and swallowed up a few more scraps making another set —

Here are what I've made so far.

And then a few more 9-patches for my Omigosh! quilt —

Haha it will take a while to get enough for a whole quilt.... I'm sure I'll still have
scraps galore to make these for the next few years!

Not many scraps busted I know but I enjoyed the stitching all the same.(The colours in my photos ae a bit off sorry - they aren't as murky as they look!)

Before I went away I saw a new CAL (Crochet-Along) being advertised ... I thought it looked really cool but knew the timing was wrong for me to start it. When I got home though I was still thinking about it so have jumped in hook and all and am having a blast with it.

It's called Mandala Madness and is being run by Helen of crystalsandcrochet.  Below is Part One...so far they are up to Part 11 so you can see I have a fair way to go. It would be nice to think I might catch up by the time they get to the end but I'm being realistic; after all I had already done Part Two when I realised I'd missed a round and had to do a massive undo :-( {However it gave me a chance to rethink the colours I'd used}.

Part One of Mandala Madness completed

Already I've learnt so many techniques and stitches that I never knew existed! Helen has lots of really good tutorials on her blog to help us through and there is also an instructional video released with each part - so if you feel tempted to join in.......!

Look at that scrummy texture and dimension!!!

My SIL has told me off for causing her current obsession with crochet Mandalas; apparently I shouldn't have shared the link with her:-)

Earlier in the year I was signing up for Heidi's One Monthly Goal (OMG); making a goal that hopefully would be met by the end of the month. In March I had hoped to make Block 2 of Snowflake Land (Quiltmania) to go with the lonely block below..... I didn't get it done so here's hoping I'll be successful in June - wish me luck - it's too cute a project to let it live in a box all its life.

It's really turned into nearly-winter weather this past week so snuggling up in The Palace with a pile of sewing is on for the next few days ♥

Wishing you a creative time too,