A Rainy Day

Day 29 of my August blogpost a day challenge

It was a wet day today, perfect for stitch-and-chat day at The Country Yard.

I finished all my farm jobs promptly and got to sewing nice and early.

Haha very early; I was Raewyn-no-friends for a while (lucky I have my own key or I would have been sitting in the car park!)

I decided to get back to the LeMoyne stars which I had started in a mini sewalong at the start of the month.

I got one made - I'm not totally happy with the centre of it and will probably end up doing a bit of unpicking to improve it. 

Then I thought I'd better get thinking about the cushion Miss Lily has requested for Christmas. I've selected my main fabrics and hopefully the rest will flow from there - 

And then I got sidetracked with organising and talking about a new project, egged on by the others. A small cross-stitch motif a day.  What could be more straight forward!

Back home, the rain had steadily got heavier and, although still warm, it was definitely full scale wet-weather gear weather; one very soggy raincoat - 

All the outside calves had shelter - some ventured out for a graze- 

- others were not and had to be encouraged outside - 

Then straight back to the shed after their feed!

The cows were happy though, but you can see puddles forming in the paddocks. Fingers crossed they stay as puddles!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Some (sort-of) finishes

The Country Yard held its New Year's Launch on Saturday - I've been sharing lately about trying to get my Show and Tell quilt finished in time for it.

As time went on, with lots of life getting in the way, I realised that the best I could hope for was to get it to a 'presentable state' rather than completely finished.

That was a realistic goal which really took the pressure off me. (And being stubborn, I like to quilt my own quilts even though I don't always have the time or the skills for it!!)

If I could master Edge to Edge designs on my Sweet 16, it would make life easier. One day maybe.

Prior to quilting  - yes it's a big quilt! (The pattern has other size options but of course I went for the largest!) —

Anyway, I've had lots of requests to show the completed top and here it is —

The quilting I did achieve was outlining all the animals and their quilts, quilting the mini quilts, some in-the-ditch quilting to stabilise it, and then basting around the outside. And trimming the outer edges to 1/4".  (All the pins were removed!)

At the shop, we hung it above the door as it has great impact there. The incomplete quilting wasn't very noticeable, and quite a few of the ladies I spoke to on our open day didn't even realise that it wasn't quite finished.

(The twins' family has claimed this quilt when the quilting is done and shop has finished with it.)

I quilted the mini quilts with a variety of techniques - some were meander style quilting, others had a little bit of ruler work and some were cross hatched.

They don't need anything else doing to them, but I would like to quilt some features in the animals and of course come up with a suitable background fill.

I couldn't resist taking a photo of these four ladies discussing it from across the mezzanine floor —

[As encouraged by Andree, I have now linked up to her regular I Quilted This linky party, which celebrates free motion quilting (FMQ), ruler work and walking foot done on a domestic machine or custom quilting on a long-arm. I use a sit-down Sweet 16 for my quilting. You can visit Andree's linky party *here*.]

The launch was a good day; it was great to show off our new projects and ideas.

Another thing I completed for the launch was this bag using the blocks I shared in my last post—

It's a Sewbe pattern and once I'd made the blocks, it came together really nicely.

The pattern asks for sewn fabric ties but I preferred to use the cord - luckily I had the perfect colour at home.

The above blocks also appear in another Sewbe quilt which we are making as a sewalong - more on my version in another post.

I keep coming across things I haven't shared......last year a few online friends and I decided to make a Temperature Tree.

It used the high temperature from each day, each branch is a month and each leaf is a day. It was fun to do it and I actually kept up quite well and finished it not long after this year had started!

I would have liked to have done it with the low temperatures as well as the highs but I'll have to save that for another project....and besides I haven't quilted my 2020 temperature quilt yet!

It was interesting to make this with the Australian ladies whose daily highs were right off MY chart!

I have yet to decide how to finish this - I'm thinking it will probably end up in a frame?

I know I've bombarded you lately with Lily and George's sewing adventures (with school holidays and their mother attending a 2 week training course I've seen rather a lot of them recently) but I have one last make of theirs to show you.

Lily made this little pouch prior to making the cushion of my last post. At the time George was piecing a 'blanket' which I don't have a photo of.

Four squares of fabric and a strip for the flap. Totally designed by her. I suggested sewing Right Sides Together to neaten it, and of course I cut the fabric for her.

She chose the pretty button which I sewed on but it took a while to work out the loop for the button. I was going to use some cord or something but then came across the wee hair tie which worked perfectly!

I think I'll sign off here before I find more things to talk about!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Leaders and Enders

Today I pieced a couple of flags for a bunting sample for work......

I didn't quite follow the instructions which called for hand piecing and hand embroidery. Instead  I foundation pieced the flags and then used my machine to do some decorative stitching, crazy pieced style.

In spite of going rogue, they finished up quite well. I'll take these into the shop tomorrow and we will make them into a bunting, interspersing them with some more flags which have been hand embroidered.

The design we are making is Must be Christmas by Marg Low.

Sewing these gave me a good excuse to do some Leader-Ender sewing. I'm following along, again, with Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Leader-Ender Challenge. This year's block is Four Patch Fun. I'm always looking for an excuse to sew up my scraps and this block is a nice straight forward one.

Bonnie is making her blocks in two colours (plus the background fabric) but because I couldn't make a decision I am using any and all shades of red and I hope that it will look just as effective!

There are several different setting suggestions; I haven't yet decided which I will choose.

(This block comes with very precise pressing instructions - if you follow them, all seams nest and make for a nicely finished block.)

A previous Leader-Ender Challenge I did was Bonnie's 2022 Triple Treat.

I actually finished that one - 

And blogged about it *here*.

In between these two, I made another scrappy Leader-ender quilt which I realise I have not yet blogged about. 

This is a leftover block I found on my cutting bench; from memory, I am going to incorporate it into the label —

It's still unquilted - but it's on the pile!!!

I've just found this photo - I had mentioned it here once, last November!

The pattern is called Bonnie Lass from the book quilt lovely by Jen Kingwell.

Thank you for all your lovely thoughts when I mentioned Mum and her health in my last post. For now I am calling her my Miracle Mum. Less than 3 weeks after she initially collapsed, we broke her out of hospital for the day and celebrated her 88th birthday with a family gathering.

My two girls were able to get down to it and we got this lovely photo —

See you next time,

Raewyn

February and now March ---

I'm not sure where the months are going and I can't believe that I've gone nearly six weeks without blogging here...

February was a busy month and there was also a bit of family stuff going on which threw me a bit.
[However, I have been keeping up with my one-photo-a-day challenge over *here* so I was pleased about that.]

At the beginning of March, The Country Yard had its annual launch of new projects and BOMs, etc. So most of my sewing in February focussed on that.

I didn't contribute as much as I would have liked, however these were my main projects —

First up was our Starry Delight Mini quilt for our Mini Quilt Club —

🠉Oops slight error in my chain piecing!🠉

My finished mini (20" square) —

I folded a square into a triangle to form hanging corners —

I've also been making some spool blocks for a SAL at the quilt shop. I chose to make mine from Tilda fabrics. I used a bundle which contained various ranges - I was a bit concerned initially about how they all sat with each other but in the end I was really pleased with how they turned out —

I made use of some cute wooden pegs I found in a $2 shop - they have numbers on them which were handy when I was keeping track of the rows I was joining. (Usually I use scraps of paper plus pins to number my rows.)

Tammy helped. Of course —

I forgot to take a photo of the finished top (only, so far) before I took it into the shop so you have to put up with this inadequate one!

I chose to make just 2 of each block, and bordered it with strips of leftover fabrics.

The launch at the shop went well. We spent the day before sprucing the shop up, hanging new quilts, moving others, moving fabrics, and displays and so on. I took a couple of photos just as we opened on Saturday morning. As you can see the place was looking nice and fresh.

We had a birthday in early February with youngest grandie Odie turning four. He had a low pressure birthday party with a couple of friends and his cousins to play with.

Odie and Lily relished getting totally soaked!

YD made the cake - covering all of his requests nicely. He asked for dinosaurs, lollipops, trains and a volcano! —

An interactive cake!

Ok so that's probably enough for now.......

Apologies to those I haven't visited and replied to in recent times. I think I'm back on track now 😊

'til next time, 

happy stitches,

Raewyn