Flowers and pets, mostly...

Gosh over a week has passed since my last post. It's been busy around here but I don't have very much to show for it.
Today is Wednesday, One Flower Wednesday in fact. I'm happy to have made a couple of new hexies; I haven't done any for a little while but I do enjoy them so much. I'm still with my NZ theme and this week I made a slightly smaller one too.

(Again the Tui graces my post. He also showed up  last post)

I've also made a couple more sewing pouches, similar to the one I made here. I had fun making the spool blocks for the bigger one, and really love the look they give it.

Spring is definitely in the air here, (although there is a bit of a nasty spell of weather happening down country at the moment) and the Magnolia tree has been looking -and smelling- wonderful. It's really starting to get some height on it now.

Check out the lovely blue sky!

The spring weather seems to have really affected the animals. Yesterday I caught Timmie practising her hunting skills.....

BEFORE shot....

...AFTER shot
These birds are an easy catch :-)

(The grey bird block she is hunting is another I have tested for Juliet of Tartankiwi. More about it another time.) (Judging by the size of Timmie in these photos I really think it best she sticks to hunting fabric birds and not the real thing!!)

In spite of the spring weather, Oscar-Riley was feeling a little chilly and decided he really liked my Temecula Baskets quilt.

Now I know why I  make small quilts....

A perfect fit :-)

 Thank you for visiting, happy stitching, and have a lovely day,

 

Time

Would someone be able to tell me where the days, weeks, months and this year are going?!! They are all merging into one!! Whew, I cant keep up!

Lately, it's been...

...time to start Chateau Hexagon, Lynette Anderson's latest button mystery.

Cute so far.....

Light wasn't so good - it doesn't look as washed out in real life!!

Aren't the buttons just gorgeous?!

~~//\\~~

...time for more hexie-flowers and One Flower Wednesday

More of my NZ themed flowers

Thank you Karen, for hosting One Flower Wednesday. Please click HERE to visit other OFW stitchers.

~~//\\~~

...time for birthday gifts for friends...

I started these a few posts ago, but have now  finished them :-)

I made the pin cushions using the tutorial found here.

~~//\\~~

...time for a NEW DISCOVERY!!! I was so excited to discover that I can crochet away in the car for hours on end and not get CAR-SICK!!! If I've ever tried stitching etc in the car before I've had to take travel-sickness tablets but not this time :-)
This is a wrap I started quite a few years ago. It was my horse-truck project... when the girls were competing at horse events every weekend, we spent many evenings in the horse truck with limited lighting and amenities. It was a useful way to spend the evening while the girls were busy cleaning horsey gear or learning riding tests.
Anyway, back to the present, the MOML and I had a few days away recently (yes, the best time for dairy farmers to go on holiday is winter when there are no cows to milk) and there were 4 balls of wool left when we set out - 4 days later and 3/4 hour away from home again I had them all used up and the wrap was completed!!
[Time to tidy up the ends :-)]

Straight forward pattern meant I didn't have to look at it
all the time - meaning a happy traveller.

~~//\\~~

...time for photos... this is a cool photo I took recently - have no idea how I got the effect but I quite like it!

Now it's time to get back to some sewing :-)

Wishing you all nice sunshine or cosy fires, where-ever you may be!

Thank you for visiting, see you next time,

Just One Flower

Here we are, Wednesday again; after missing last week, I decided I didn't want to miss again. After all, all it takes to participate is one flower.

One little Stitchbird

And here is my New Zealand series so far.

One a Wednesday, it will soon grow.

To join in or visit other hexie-gardens please visit Karen here.

Happy stitching everyone!

Photos only.....

OK... and a few captions...

One Flower Wednesday
A tui in a Pohutakawa Tree.
...click here to see more..

Excitement!
I've had 2 Pomegranate trees for years ...first fruit ever :-)
Delicious with yogurt and cereal for breakfast.

Autumn days are here again

Beautiful blue skies and  trees getting ready for winter

Farm recovering well after drought breaking rains.
Nice and green but not a lot of food value in the grass yet.
(PS it's still very watery, it usually takes about 3 weeks to 'harden up').

Loved the dark clouds on the horizon line - looked like another range of
trees or mountains!

A lovely gift from a lovely friend.

See you all another day!!

Happy sewing,

[PS MEANT to share... Marie Bostwick fans may be interested to listen to a podcast interview with her...click here... mostly about her latest fabulous book, Between Heaven and Texas.]

OFW and Sewing with Friends

I've had an itch lately.... to sew hexie flowers again and re-join up with One Flower Wednesday...so here it is, Wednesday evening and a hexie-flower picture...yaay....

First hexie-flower of 2013!
Showing off the beautiful Kowhai flower.

Just one hexie-flower per week and before you know it, you have a whole quilt full of them :-) Visit Karen, here at Journey of a Quilter to see more or sign up yourself.
I sewed this tonight while spending the evening with my local friends (as opposed to my on-line sewing buddies). After scratching the hexie-itch, I pulled out my pinwheels. I collected quite a pile of these last year when we did a pinwheel swap; this is the setting I have chosen to put them together with.

The photo probably doesn't show the effect fully but it is too late now for
another photo -  I got home and was excited to lay out what I have done.

With approx 66 pinwheels and about the same of the setting blocks, this is going to be a decent sized quilt. Up until tonight the sewing of these setting blocks has been done leader and ender style so it has been growing gradually... I'm looking forward to seeing it grow some more.

Tonight we also had a bit of a play with some small blocks ... I showed the ladies how to make the little blocks (shown below) Heartspun-Quilts-style (as I've gone on about before!). It was exciting to see that they enjoyed making the 2 1/2" blocks as much as I did...now everyone has been challenged with doing something with these for when we meet in a few month's time...that will be fun!

Concentrating and cutting...

Cute-cute-cute - the pattern to make them is here.

And to top off a great evening (well, actually, to start it!) we had a beautiful sky tonight...something to make up for the dull autumn weather we have been having over the past few days.

And on that happy note I will sign off. See you all next time,
happy stitching,

It cant be...?!!

Yessiree - another flimsy finish for 2013!!

6 am this morning.....

Timmie and I were on a mission

[... a bit of background info....]

My first hexie - June 2010

Papers no longer needed!

Straightening up the edges - sewing on
a border

.... 2 pm this afternoon - battling the glaring sun and the breezy wind, to try and do a photo shoot!

Lie it on the ground, run upstairs to the deck to take the photo
and hope that the wind doesn't blow it away in the meantime!

Bit of a glare, sorry.

Obligatory Stained Glass Window shot from the back.
Can you see the paper I missed taking out?! I can - now!

Playing with settings on my camera - this
was 'High sensitivity"; may be handy to use in the
future to help with colour placement...?

Cool huh? I'm so pleased to have moved this off the UFO pile to the Flimsy pile. Yes I will machine quilt it, but I'm not sure when........

[I've linked up to One Flower Wednesday (after a long absence) today so all the hexie makers can see my hexie quilt!] 

So, after two flimsy finishes and only 9 days into the New Year, I'm going to allow myself to think about what my goals are for 2013.

One very important one has to be to decrease the UFO pile to increase the Flimsy pile AND then decrease the same Flimsy pile!

I'm going to continue on with my 'Just Takes Two', my 'Farmers Wife' and my 'Scrappy Houses' quilts.

I want to decrease my piles of scraps too and in order to do that I will have to start new projects (he he).... but as I had such a great time last year doing the SALs for small quilts (eg Temecula, and Threadhead projects) I think I will focus on those rather than start big scrap quilt projects.

I aim to carry on with my fmq-learning and Practising (yes, that was a capital 'P').

I have two new projects I am starting SOON, too. I've been planning these and looking forward to these for a while. I'll share more of those in another post.

I'd like to upskill myself in EQ7... I can do basics but I know there is so much more to learn about this programme.

I'd like to do some swaps, and take part in 'bloggy sew-ins' to build up a little pile of Christmas gifts.

My ED sent me a link for a cushion she wants this morning, so I guess projects like that will crop up too!

I also sew for my favourite Quilt Shop so that will continue..

!!!!!!!!

What an exciting list - I'm exhausted and exhilarated just thinking about it!!

(As you can tell, I've set very few rules, but I will try to be controlled about what I start and work on!)

(famous last words - watch this space!)

 I started this post with an animal picture, so why not finish it with one?

Here are the happy horses after I shifted them this morning - I thought it was quite a nice view.

Christmas Rain has kept us nice and green.
Click on the photo to see it more clearly.

I hope your week is going well - and hoping that you are able to keep yourselves warm - or cool - or dry - wherever in the world you may be...... I'm thinking of those who are being adversely affected by weather conditions and/or fires...
To those of you who are able, happy stitching,

Footnote - I've just realised this is my 200th post!! I'm sure I see a giveaway in my future somewhere!!

Word Association

We all know about word associations —

Bread .... and ....butter

Needle .... and ... thread

Fish ... and ... chips

Cats ... and ...dogs

Roses ... and ...aphids

So what goes with Wednesday....yes... you got it...flowers! And specifically, One Flower Wednesday.
That's why when I got up this morning I started thinking hexies...
I haven't progressed much further on my gmg quilt since this post for OFW (blame Christmas-etc-for that!) but I've been thinking I would like to have a play with our New Zealand Kiwiana fabrics...

The lovely melodic Tui in the beautiful Pohutukawa trees.

Visit more hexie gardens via lovely host Karen's blog, Journey of a Quilter.

Also today I've been having a bit of a play with my new toy. Can you guess what it is?

-he he, a label maker. These are my buckets of scraps all carefully colour-coded. (Ready for more house-building). These are empty honey buckets, the MOML gets through a couple of these a year having honey on his toast every morning; I really need to start cooking him more toast as I still have yellows, purples and blacks waiting for a bucket!
And I'm sure this happens in most homes when a new toy like this appears —

Poor little guy doesn't even know he's been tagged!

Have a great day everyone and happy stitching :-)

Coming up for air...

I've been Missing In Action from blog land for a little bit, while I have my Head Down and my Foot to the Pedal finishing some Christmas sewing.... but the urge to blog got too strong today when I was stitching a couple of hexie-flowers... being a Wednesday, I decided to join in for One Flower Wednesday.

Here are two Christmas flowers I made today...

....and backed with felt...two gorgeous wee drink coasters.

Thanks to Melody at The House on the Side of the Hill for this great idea :-)
And thank you to Karen at Journey Of a Quilter, for hosting One Flower Wednesday for us keen hexie-flower-addicts :-)

Time for Head Down and Foot to the Pedal again!! See you all soon — (and thank you for visiting),
And if I don't get back to you in the next few days....

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, to you all and your families.

and thank you for all your blogging friendships and happinesses :-)

(Missing all your blogs but I'll be back and catching up soon!)