This week

Progress has been made on my Smidgeon Quilt. Rows were joined —

And borders added —

I waited for a fine day for the photo but still had to fight with the breeze. I didn't dare wait until the sun had moved across the sky to avoid the dappling in case it was cloudy, or raining, by then!

I'm really pleased with it. It will fit the Queen sized bed in the spare room ("Granny's Room"). It used a lot of small scraps but as you can see it also used a fair bit of yardage. So a sort of scrappy quilt but not totally! The pattern is Smidgeon by Jessican Dayon.

In other news, I started a pullover/vest for Odie to knit while in Australia but didn't do much and didn't finish it until I was at Mum's last weekend. 

And I went through my downstairs (non-quilty) stash and found enough polar fleece to make this, also for Odie.

They both look huge but fit ok. This is the child who will wake up having grown nearly an inch overnight.

Here he is giving the sweatshirt its first wearing —

Big but quite wearable —

Always running and on the move —

It's that time of the year when winter sports rule Saturdays for many families. Five of our grandies and three of our adults are all playing various sports (Rugby, football and hockey).

On Saturday our local club, Mangakahia Rugby Club, had a home day so it wasn't far to travel to watch. This was the first chance I've had to watch the kids play. Luckily the three x four year olds are in the same team, playing Rippa Rugby —

They were given club hoodies this week. Very cool —

And later in the day our big boy played; against another local team. That was a good game to watch. I must confess to not enjoying watching him play in the past. As a very strong and effective player he was always targeted by the other team. But he does hold his own very well and I think I have got over my fear of him being harmed!

And just to go overkill on the photos, the other night I moved the cows as the MOML had an appointment in town. We're getting to the end of the farm season now. The cows are now milked once a day, in the mornings, but in the afternoons they get a fresh paddock and some silage.

It had been a nice day and they were pretty content and just looked at me when I got to the paddock —

Finally Emma dog and I managed to get them moving —

Even more content now —

Emma resting on her laurels after a successful bit of stockwork!!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Tidying up at the end of April

Since I came out of isolation and resumed a normal life, I haven't had much chance to sew, or blog. However today it is wet so I am going to attempt to have a tidy up post before the month ends.

I took a photo of the Moda Love quilt top I made at Scrub stitching. I didn't have a complete photo to share when I showed the Moda Love quilts everyone had made, back in *this* post. I made this from a charm pack, In The Meadow by Riley Blake designs. Because I didn't plan my colours before sewing my HSTs mine went down a slightly different track. And I added borders to help the size grow a little - 

Hmm I wonder how long before I get this one quilted??! It's on the pile at least!
*Here* is a link to the Moda Love pattern. It now seems to only come up as a PDF.

Whoops, I told a lie, I did get a bit of time in the sewing room aka The Palace, yesterday. I decided to unpick a couple of the applecores in my applecore quilt to slightly redistribute the colours. Even though this is a top I didn't want to spend hours fussing to get the fabrics right, there were a few too many darker ones a bit close together which I have now swapped out. (I allowed mself to unpick four only!) This will also be bordered to so it has gone into my bag to take to work for a fabric hunt.

I've hunted out some photos of the makes I took to Scrub Stitching with me. First up, the dress up for our Australiana themed dinner - 

The Gumnut beanie - 

I used a basic beanie pattern and 14 ply (chunky) wool yarn. There are lots of cute baby hats with 'stalks' on them so I looked one up to work out how to finish mine. This actually knitted together pretty quickly - and I made two, (and unpicked one) as the first one was too small!

And to 'finish' my gum outfit, I made a gumleaf from a Twig and Tale pattern - I purchased and used the NZ leaves pattern a few years ago. This leaf is from their Australian series. Again, another quick sew which I had done in a day (just as well as I was running out of time by then!).

I left this in Australia for kiwikid Sue's wee grandson. I hope he enjoys it for some imaginative play as he grows :-)

Today Odie claimed the beanie as his own, saying that it looked like the hat that Dipsy, the green Teletubby, wears! If it will make him wear a hat, great!!!

I didn't have photos to show you the gift that I made for our mystery swap at Scrub Stitching. Janice received mine and shared photos on her blog, which I have now 'stolen'. I made this little bag that folds down to a useful container for using - 

I made one of these for my swap gift last time too (2019). Linda, who received it, loved it so I thought I may as well make it again!

The pattern is Catch All Cutie by Teresa Weaver.

One of the things I wanted to do at Scrub Stitching was to make a start on my On Williams Street QAL blocks. I had been eyeing up this QAL since it started in January but hadn't had the chance to do anything about it till now. Each month they offer a free motion quilting design for a block. Each month's block is the same, but the quilting designs are different. They are quilted as blocks and then all joined later.

The 15" block is a pretty cool block. However at this stage, one night, I decided to put this one into the corner for some time out!

Nice and fresh, back at home, I fixed it up.

And started another. Whoops, that one went into coventry too!

All fixed, 

And with its mate.

I have altered the pattern a little. Instead of sewing half square triangles for the centre, I made an economy block. And I used the 8-at-a-time method to streamline the making of the half square triangles.

If you are at all interested in enhancing your free motion quilting skills, pop along and have a look - they post a very comprehensive video each month.

Ok, I'd best be off,

'til next time,

Happy Stitches,

Old-ish things

I think I'm not the only one who has trouble coming up for titles for a blog post? 

Sometimes a title is obvious, other times it's a boring repeat (e.g. 'Time for a Catch up" - I've used that several times!)

Today's title stretches the imagination a bit with this grouping of subjects with a very loose connection!

An 'older' project pulled out recently was Foxley Village. I started this a few years ago. Last year (or before?) I diligently worked through all the (hand) applique blocks and then put it away. I realised though that I had missed a couple of applique blocks. They needed some piecing to get them started.

I thought of them, and pulled them out recently when I was wondering what to do in my evening stitching chair.

I joined these to the sheep block I had completed previously —

And then thought -hold this blogpost- I may as well finish the section! 

This apparently is called a Flock of Geese block —

And this completes Part 6 from the July 2016 edition of the Australian Homespun magazine!!

Memory Lane is an 'old-ish' project because the stitcheries in it are all from designs done over the years in The Country Yard's mystery stitchery projects. A bit of this one and a bit of that one. It's been nice to make as I didn't do all of these BOMs, although I was involved with cutting fabrics, layouts or mailouts of many of them!

It was my UFO project for the recent bloghop. Finally here it is all together, with all its borders on —

A little more detail; top —

and bottom —

So onto the quilting pile it goes!

I came across this very old little cutie the other day. Made by ED many moons ago. All completely by hand... I insisted my girls did their first bit of sewing by hand as Mum had insisted that I do my first bit of sewing by hand!

You can't really see the 'button holes' - just loops of thread for the buttons to slip into😀

This wasn't her first piece but definitely one of her earlier ones! I suspect I may have been at work at the time. There was a period when I would arrive home and my girls had made amazing bits and pieces - Harry Potter capes included, all by themselves with just my stash cupboard and their imagination at hand!

Another 'old' thing is this finish from last month - George's jersey. 

He was really excited about it, and ED recently reported that this, and Lily's cardi from last winter, were extremely cosy on their recent holiday to Mount Ruapehu, where it was a lot colder than it is here.

We don't need a lot of this sort of clothing here, but the odd item comes in handy!

'Old' plums found at the bottom of the freezer the other day became some yummy jam.

YD visited the next day and insisted on scones and cream to celebrate the new jam! 

(GF scones are never that flash but were well disguised with the jam and cream.)

Fuelled by his lunch, Odie had a great time out n the paddock with a bike and his dogs —

And there are plenty of photos to share about all my calves who are keeping me busy but I'll just share these two today. The two 7 year olds led their pet calves over for a walk the other day...a reasonable distance and they were all still smiling by the time they got here!

The adults chatted and the calves waited while the kids played —

Off home again —

One last photo; freesias courtesy of YD. Just lovely!

'til next time,

happy stitches,