September Stocktake

Well, well well, September is done and dusted already!

In an attempt to appear slightly organised I thought I would do a bit of a tally-up to see what I was actually up to during September.

First of all, the blocks.

One more Wings and Pretty Things block. I've been wanting to get back to this project for a while but my evening hand stitching time has been taken up by other things deemed more urgent —

I've now done seven of the 12 needed to surround the centre block —

Lin, who is also making this quilt, tells me I need to start on the elongated hexie borders so they don't become too much of a bear at the end (!). I really like how Lin has hers sewn onto a different coloured fabric (see *here*) so I will have to get my thinking cap on and make some decisions. (I was just going to use cream but have gone off that idea!)

Other evening stitching blocks, previously talked about *here*....these Foxley Village blocks —

And this wee stitchery - destination unknown!

I had a goal to complete the 12" blocks needed for my churn dash quilt - and in spite of other churn dash distractions, here they are —

A couple of 8" blocks thrown in for good measure —

Here are the different sized blocks I've been making, 6", 8", 12" and 18" —

(Barn Dance by Denise Russart.)

The pile of hourglass blocks I talked about in my last post is steadily growing too. 

I now have 30 of them. I have enlarged the pattern so need more than the 96 stated. Better keep sewing!

I made a total of 48 blocks in September. The number surprised me as I hadn't felt particularly productive. I've been keeping track of my block making for the 350 block project ...when you have little to show in the way of finishes, having a decent pile of blocks instead makes one feel a little better!!!

This gives me 326 blocks made so far this year!!

Yep, finishes for OPAM this month, Zilch. Not even a 5 minute Barbie quilt!!

We've now been calving for 2½ months and are just waiting for the last few (5) cows to calve. Generally, the first four weeks of calving are really hectic as about 70-80% of the cows calve then, and the rest of the cows just slowly do their thing when they're ready!

I have 117 calves that I'm rearing so the workload is still reasonably high. I'm hopeful of getting to 120 calves as that sounds pretty respectable. It all depends on what's born...all the beef heifer calves are sold and we raise the beef bull calves.

Most of the calves are now out on the farm learning how to eat grass as well as getting their daily milk feed.

Our son-in-law is still working on the farm which has decreased my workload. Sometimes YD and Odie come and 'help' too —

"A Family Affair" - a great thing about farming ♥

I'm looking forward to a quiet rest of my day today so hope to get some quilting done - it's a quilt I ideally wanted finished several months ago but more brain power than what I had was needed!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Noses and Tassles

I have finally started a new project - well two, actually. Two young ladies were born late last year and a quilt for each of them has been on my to-do list for at least since then.  I have been itching to get these started - I decided that if I waited until I'd tidied up other loose ends before starting, they will still be in the pipeline when the wee girls start school!

The pattern is Bear and Bear Paws by Sew Fresh Quilts, and here is the first block —

Extra cute, I believe.

There are 6 bears per quilt, all in different fabrics. All the noses are the same though, and to streamline the process, I've been making more noses leader-ender fashion while doing other sewing.
The noses are the fiddliest part of the block so once I've made them, the bear faces will go together quite quickly.

Recently I finished another block for Wings and Pretty Things —

Even though it was a straight forward block one of the poor wee ladybirds had a bit of an identity crisis and needed unpicking! 

Oh dear!

I mentioned in my previous post that Mum was staying. She stayed for 10 nights and we managed to keep her free from bugs while she was here. Luckily not all of the visits with the kids were balcony visits —

She got a bit of her (incredibly fiddly) cross stitch done (sadly I forgot to get a progress photo) —

And I kept her company with a wee bit of knitting —

I thought I'd finished with making Barbie clothes but these little beanies found themselves made— 

It was Mum who suggested the coloured tassles and I was happy to run with the idea!

Just as well it's Feijoa season - the smallest fruits were perfect for modelling the beanies.

Just to show off our Feijoa crop, for those who are 'in the know'; below we have a small Feijoa with a beanie on, normal sized fruit cut in half and monster fruits off one particularly well producing tree this season —

The Time In a Bottle Bloghop, which I am joining in with, is coming up this week. My project is done as far as it will get done and I am looking forward to sharing that on my day; I just need to sort out the time zones so that it gets posted on the right day! Carol from Just Let Me Quilt is hosting it.

'til then,

happy stitches,

Stitching away

Friday Night Sew-In saw me settled in my comfy chair with a bit of hand sewing.

I've started another block for my Wings and Pretty Things quilt; there's not much to show yet but it is a good little start!

I finished the flower but needed to do a little prep work before I could continue, so I pulled out my current stitchery project, Memory Lane, to work on instead —

Since I last shared this project, I've finished a couple more blocks so I am nearly done with month 3 - still very behind though!

This weekend I'm trying to get the requested Barbie clothes done so I can put all the 'doll-making' bits away. 

Pyjamas are on the cutting board at the moment and here is a pair I completed yesterday —

(NO, I didn't do tiny little buttonholes, there's Velcro tape sewn on the underside and the buttons are for decoration only!)

Well I'd best get back to those fiddly seams, thank you Wendy for hosting FNSI!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

First week of February

I have made a little progress with my handwork projects this week.

On Friday Night With Friends (thanks Cheryll!!) I put the finishing touches on another block for my Wings and Pretty Things quilt.

I love this block (well, I love them all!) but I did have misgivings about the green I had used for the leaves - was it too bright? However I didn't really want to unpick it and now that I've completed the block I am happy with the green. The red is also quite dark but I will pop it into some other blocks and it will even out. 

I'd like to start joining these blocks but there are borders between the centre block and the smaller blocks which I haven't yet made a decision on. Perhaps in some spare time I will lay them out and get thinking!

After finishing that block, I decided on a wee change from needleturn and I pulled out my Memory Lane project. This has been sitting neglected for a few months or more. (This is a BOM being run by The Country Yard incorporating some favourite stitchery designs they have used over the years.)

I did a little more on Saturday evening and got this far —

We're using a combination of Aurifil and Cottage Garden Threads for these stitcheries, and they will be put together with Tilda fabrics.

On Saturday, after cooking up a spectacular amount of tomatoes for pasta sauce for the freezer, I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole......

Two x 3 year olds have produced mind boggling lists of the clothes their Barbie dolls need so I started doing a bit of an online search for patterns. I don't mind paying for patterns but with the number of clothes requested I need to be careful or I'll end up spending a fortune. I'd really like one or two or three patterns that I can just adapt (eg trousers that will become shorts, trousers, pyjama pants etc). All four dolls (2x Barbie and 2x Ken) are slightly different shapes which further complicates the matter!

So I started looking at the free ones that are available. Printer/paper size differences and no measurement tool on the patterns guide made for a drawn out session!

Finally I bit the bullet and made a pair of shorts - these, I think, will fit only the muscular Ken - they seem pretty huge. Today I will hopefully get a chance to do a fitting and see where to go from there!

This photo  proves that I did actually make two identical dresses as stated in my last post!

(And you can see how one Barbie is definitely bustier than the other!)

This coming week our youngest grandie turns TWO. Where have the years gone?! A simple family BBQ lunch is planned for today so I had better get a move on.

Thank you again to Cheryll for hosting Friday Night With Friends. You can visit her blog *here*.

'til next time,

happy stitches, 

Summer catch up #1

I started writing a post, hoping to do a catch up and counted over 20 photos to share!!!

So, here will be half of my catch up, in a few days I'll finish the catch up, and then I'll try to stay caught up...hopefully!!

Summer's in full force here, we've had some hot days and the farm has burned to a crisp. On the really hot days, a great place to visit is the stream partway down the farm. It feeds into the main river after starting as a spring somewhere up in the bush and winding its way up down.

It's a fabulously cool place to be, and very peaceful and relaxing. I took some friends who visited earlier in the month up there. They had their four dogs with them, and they really appreciated the spot —

A few days later, while childminding, I took the kiddies there as well. we walked up quite a way. When there are deeper pools we skirt around through the trees but I do admit to ferrying children along one particularly long deeper patch - I was in water up to my knees but the kids all stayed dry!!

Here are Kaliah, Saydee and Xavier having a picnic lunch on the 'old bridge' afterwards —

When it's too hot for much action outside it's nice to sew, of course.

I've picked up my Wings and Pretty Things project. I haven't worked on this for a long time as my evenings got busy with other projects last year.

Two more applique blocks complete —

And Miss Lily requested some clothes for her Barbie — 

This pattern is a free t-shirt pattern from Pixie Faire which I adapted to form a dress. I used a Barbie ED used to play with to check the sizing and halfway through sewing I had a sudden fear that the Barbies of 20 years ago might be a slightly different shape/size than today's ones. The dress was a perfect fit for the old Barbie —

And luckily was perfect for a 2021s one too. So perfect that a second dress *exactly the same pwease Ganma* was requested for her Barbie #2! 
I'd been happy to find a scrap of fabric in the cupboard for the dress (I made tights from it for ED when she was about 8!!) - luckily I squeezed the second dress out of the leftovers this afternoon and there's definitely only scraps left now - very satisfying to finally use up that bit of fabric that's been sitting there for so long!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of my favourites in the garden at this time of the year are the swan plants and monarchs. I have some really decent sized plants which provide a lot of food.

And lots of seedlings come up which soon get stripped bare. Look how many are feeding off these stalks! —

'til next time,

happy stitches,