Catching Up and Keeping Up...

I have this very strong urge to start everything I see, telling myself that if it's only one block a week/month, and no worries!, I can keep up. Sadly this doesn't always happen and mounds of fabric collect around my cave. Happily today I can report on two sewalongs that I have been making progress with lately.
First, the Catching Up project; I fell in love with Hannah and Harrington the minute Michelle of Raspberry Rabbits started talking about them, and it didn't take me long to decide to do this one. Now that I no longer have my hand appliqué (Hop To It) to do at nights, I have pulled this project out. It's been the first time that I've done anything  much with wool felt and I am really loving it. The blocks use running stitch on the wool and simple stitchery for the embroidered bits.

Block 4

Oops I've just realised that these bunnies are missing their eyes!!

Block 3

The next 2 blocks are ones I completed earlier on but I'll re-show them so you can see what fabrics I am using.

Block 1

Block 2

As you can see I have labelled them Block 1-2-3-4 instead of January-February, etc - It makes me feel that I'm not so far behind!! If you are interested in this project, Michelle still has all the patterns on her website.
Now the Keeping Up project; Tomorrow when I get up Joanne will have Block 7 of the Threadhead Quiltalong on her blog ...and guess what...I've done up to Block 6!! Once again if anyone is interested in joining in with the sewalong she still has all the block patterns up on her blog....and her instructions are REALLY clear so they are perfect if you are newer to quilt making. (In fact they are some of the clearest instructions that I have seen in blogland).

Bear's Paw

Ohio Star

Frayed Four Patch

Whirlwind

 Here they all are together.

Bottom Bear's Paw may yet replaced, not happy with this one!

And to finish with....here's a little tale...

Four baby birds squawking for their mum, hidden behind the whiteboard in my calf shed,

"Mum oh Mum, where are you?" they say,

"Be still, my babies, I'm not coming in while there's a cat up there."

Sorry folks, sometimes I get a bit carried away when I have my camera!

Have a great day everyone, thank you for visiting,

Happy creating,

The Country Yard Exhibition

Every year, about this time, my favourite quilt shop holds an exhibition.

The Country Yard, near Whangarei in Northland (New Zealand) is on this beautiful property.

Come inside the house - what treasures do we see...?

Rooms with quilts displayed throughout.

All made from fabrics, kits, classes from the shop throughout the year.
Also items worked on at the weekly Stitch and Chat sessions.

This is not a judged exhibition, more an excuse for everyone to show their work.
There is a Viewers' Choice Award. Won by this beautiful Sampler quilt made by Jill
in this year's Sampler Class.
See more of this beauty here.

This is the shop. I perch at the door on these days meeting and greeting visitors,
while lots of activity goes on inside.
Raffle quilt on the door.

Inside the shop were more quilts and the challenge entries.
This year the challenge was to create something from the shapes supplied.
Won by the gorgeous dilly bag and accessories on the table.

When you're done with looking at the quilts and shopping, there's always a
cup of tea and nibbles and friends to catch up with.
And listen to the brass band playing in the pergola (vaguely seen in the first photo).
(Or maybe waiting in case your name is drawn out for a spot prize!)

Beautifully manicured gardens make the day a delight.

Our son was married here a few years ago - it was very magical.

 As you can see, we had a beautiful day, I'm sure everyone who attended would join me in thanking Kerryn and Robbie for opening up their home and property to us all.
PPS (Disclaimer statement!) As you can tell I am totally biased, I do work here part-time. Lucky aren't I?
Have a great weekend everyone,

October Free Motion Quilt Challenge

This month's tutor for SewCalGal's FMQ challenge was Teri Lucas. She encouraged us to have a play and, after 'writing' our name, to fill our square with motifs and free-form quilting.

 First up we were encouraged to have a practise on paper. As you can see, I was impatient to get to the machine, however, the practise did make me realise I had to fill my space wisely - on paper I ended up with 11 different motifs and my page was only half full!!

Paper practise.

This month I was also grateful to all those organised quilters who had done their piece early; I got a lot of ideas from looking at their pictures which helped me to understand what I wanted to achieve. (Thank you fellow quilters!!)

 I must say, I had a blast with this!! I loved it!! I did a few guidelines with a marker pen e.g. my name,  feather spines and the nautilus shell 'spine', but apart from that I just sewed and made it up as I went (Gulp!). When I got sick of a design, or colour I ended it and started afresh with a new idea.
This was the first time I had done much in the way of echo quilting - it is completely uneven but when you look at the piece as a whole, the 'little imperfections' barely show.

Teri suggested we try different threads and weights, and also a satin top, and 2 layers of batting (for the poof!). I stuck with the threads I already have (Sulky, Aurifil and Mettler Poly Sheen) and just a layer of cotton batting but I am keen to experiment more in this area.

I used fine Mettler Seralene in the bobbin throughout.

A big thank you to Teri and SewCalGal for this month's inspiration. I enjoyed it a lot, and learnt a lot , too. Roll on next month!!
Happy creating everyone, and thanks for stopping by,