A tale of two purples (and more)

It's obvious that not even 31 days of non-stop blogging is enough to get me into a regular blogging habit!!

It felt like there was a lot of  'other' life stuff catching up to do once August finished and here we are looking at the tail end of September start of well in to October already. 

Although it seems like little sewing has been done I have been chipping away at a few projects so some progress has been made. During September I made the Purple Split 9-patch blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Once the month's colour of Purple was announced, I was intrigued to see if I could come up with enough fabrics to make a block. I don't use purple very often and wasn't really sure what I would find.

I did actually manage to find quite a few but it got tricky - as with all colours, who knew there were so many shades? I really didn't like how some of my purples looked next to some of the other ones (mauve vs plum - or whatever all the different shades are called!), so ended up making two blocks —

They are very different from each other. I also admit to purchasing a very small piece of purple to get the last 2 ½" square!!

Back in June, pastel was the chosen colour of the month. I left it out as I didn't know what to do - now that I've made two blocks for September I am back to nine blocks for nine months so that worked out quite well.

And now, for October, the RSC instruction was light or dark neutrals - along the lines of sashings or borders. I'm not ready for sashings or borders so when the urge and a colour family hits me, I'll make another block to add to my collection. (These blocks are 12" finished so I'm not quite ready to make them into a quilt.)

In other stitchy news, I've made a good start on the NZ 365 days kiwi cross stitch. I spent some time going through Mum's thread books and managed to find most of the threads that were needed.

As a reminder, this is the book I bought —

There's a little New Zealand flavoured picture to stitch for every day of the year. The book started with January, naturally, but because of where September was positioned on the chart it was quite easy to start there. When I first wrote this blogpost, this is what I had done —

(Ice-cream, pie, flax flower, Auckland Harbour Bridge and Wellington hills)

And this is where I'm up to now — 

I've not quite finished September so I need some serious stitching time if I'm going to make it within the year - I'm not sure that will happen but because several other friends are stitching it too, I'm hoping that I'll stay motivated to keep going!

I've done a bit of quilting on a baby quilt I'm trying to finish. There's a border of feathers - of course they show up much better on the back than the front! I spotted them in the early morning light one day and thought they looked quite cool —

One reason why I seem to take so long to write a blogpost is that it takes me forever to decide which are the best photos to share! And then another day goes by, and another day goes by.......

Biting the bullet, here's some from the other day when I had two/three of the kids for most of the day. It's been school holidays so Ganma duties were called for.

Lily and George saying hello to a newborn calf - they were very excited as it was one of a set of twins - one boy and one girl - perfect they thought, being twins themselves —

Picking up cousin Odie for a ride out the back (no, they didn't stay on the buggy like that while I was driving!) —

Ganma's idea of fun, climb the hill to look out over the back of the farm —

And back down to the buggy again - you can just see them running down that hill) —

Lily and George wanted to visit the pet calves they had this time last year - they've grown! —

More running, more hills —

And later on, after some food and a play, they 'helped' Gandad bring the new set of twins in —

It was a fun day!
One last picture. I thought Tammy cat looked really cute sleeping here in the kids' room —

'til next time,

happy stitching,

Raewyn

A splash of yellow —

— on a wet day.

From frosts to rain. We had a soggy day today, so once the animals were all fed and happy, I spent a day in The Palace. 

On a Sunday I ignore the bookwork/office duties so I had some of extra sewing time.

First of all I tackled a wee job that has been waiting...converting several of Olive's bassinet sheets into a cot sheet!

I'd cut up a length of poplin to make the bassinet sheets, and now it is one piece again!!

Then, under the supervision of two cats —

I made the August Rainbow Scrap Challenge block. 

(Whoops, swapped out the sunflower print)

I was amazed at how long it took me to find enough yellows for the block!

It was still raining this afternoon when the afternoon calf feeding marathon began again. Yesterday I (and Odie) started feeding the oldest 20 with the bike feeder out in the paddock —

They spent all day in their shed but braved the weather to wait for their dinner —

And once fed, they all disappeared back into the shed!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Blocks

(Day 7 of my blogpost a day August challenge)

When I've had a spare moment or bit of inspiration I've been trying to catch up on my Split 9-patch blocks for this year's Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks. (This is hosted by Angela over at soscrappy.)

Since I've mastered the web-piecing technique, I find these a lot of fun to sew up!

I enjoy rummaging through my scraps looking for the right coloured fabrics - it generally turns into another session of scrap taming and sorting and that is not a bad thing! Of course, once I sew them up I immediately think - oh that scrap doesn't belong....but such is the nature of scrap blocks/quilts.

April's colour was pink —

May was orange —

Pastel was the colour for June - I've missed this one out for now as I didn't really know what to do. When I decide which colour is needed later on, I'll sew it up then.

Aqua for July —

Yellow is August's colour which I haven't started on yet.

Taking scrappy sewing to the extreme, I'm not adverse to joining a couple of scraps to make a 2 ½" square - if that is all I have of a particularly cute fabric - but this one took the cake......I had joined two pieces to get the right size - but then mis-cut it when I went to trim it down. Not to be outdone, I decided to sew it up again and keep it as a wee memory of my stupidness!

Here's the family photo showing them all together —

'til next time.

happy stitches,

Raewyn

More travels

 It's been a busy few weeks since my trip to visit our new little grandie-girl. There"s not been much productivity in The Palace. 
I did get my March RSC red block made - 

And made a few more blocks for my Leader-ender project (Bonnie Hunter challenge) - 

I"m getting quite a pile of these blocks now (about 80) and I think there will be a time in the not-so-distant future when this project will morph from a leader-ender project to a full scale full time one!!

I tried to do some preparation for our upcoming Scrub Stitching retreat in Australia. I used this wee bundle as a starting point for going through my stash and cutting strips.

Last year at Scrub Stitching I was entranced by the Luna Lapins that Christine and Sharmayne had made and I decided I NEEDED to make one too.....

Of course I had a year to prepare and it all got left to the last minute.

McGeorgeous helped me with the stuffing-

I fell in love with the pelletised pure wool stuffing I bought at  show last year -

But sadly I decided to leave Miss Luna at home. She was too embarassed to travel with no arms, no eyes and, most importantly, no clothes!! NEXT YEAR!!!

In the meantime there has been a school triathalon-

It was a drizzly day but they all did well.

There have been kids to play - 

The MOML and I spent Easter away. We drove south to Whakatane (and Opotiki) to help celebrate my Uncle's 80th birthday. It was great to catch up with family again; I have so many cousins and it's always fun to see who comes out of the woodwork!

We took the scenic route.

Cambridge - 

Lake Rotoiti-

Happy 80th Uncle Jimmy.

After a 'brunch' back at his place the next day, we spent some bitter sweet time at Mum's place distributing and sorting her bits and pieces. My sister has done a great job of sending out lists for everyone to put their name on, but there are still a lot of things to find homes for. Mum's siblings came around and helped relieve us of random things.

We drove home in pouring rain but thankfully the MOML (and uncle-advisors) had done an excellent job of waterproofing and there was not a drop of water on anything!

And this morning I am at the airport, waiting for my flight to Australia and Scrub Stitching!!!

(None of my photos showed up when I previewed this post so I hope they show for you!)

I'll catch up soon!

Happy Stitches,

Raewyn

Chit chat

It's been another mixed up week of sewing,......while my main aim has been to get Show and Tell finished for The Shop's new projects launch, there have been plenty of interruptions.

Now that Tammy cat has discovered this quilt,  there is no keeping her away!

At least this time I had the time to turn the back over for her to lie on!

Slightly cooler nearly autumn days help, too 😊

(There should be a photo of the finished quilt top in my next blogpost!)
Just as well there are plenty of other things to do in The Palace while the cats take their naps...

I've been making these cute little blocks for another shop project — 

 

And another Split 9-patch, RSC block...this month's colour is green — 

It's nice to have these straight forward blocks to plan and sew in between the more important things going on.

More Very Important sewing over last weekend was helping Lily make a cushion for her Christmas kitten Betty. 

She planned it on their previous visit after finding some offcuts of Minky fabric in my baby/children's sewing box. I told her she needed to draw her design so that we all knew what she wanted to do. 

(If you can make it out, she'd originally thought about sewing the two colours side by side, but then decided to put the pink on one side for the summer and the blue on the other for winter.  Interestingly,  the back/blue side of the cushion is drawn on the back of the paper! Don't you love how young minds work?! 
Wider sewing foot attached and speed turned to low.

She allowed her brother to help her fill it with 'fluffy stuff'.

The slippery minky wasn't the easiest to sew, we had varied seam allowances, but she did well.

The wee kitten is a cute (mass produced) hanging I'd offered her for her dollhouse; she decided it needed to be sewn onto Betty's cushion instead!

Other important sewing this past week was to resize 2 pairs of shorts for YD. One was sort of easy, the other more tricky because they were fitted, but they actually came up the best...

I had to unpick the side seams, cut a one inch strip off each side, and then sew them back up again.

I know she was pleased with them as she was wearing them the next morning when she left for her week-long hockey tournament!

Thanks for reading along🌝

'til next time,

Happy Stitches,

Raewyn