My quilting thoughts and inspirations sprinkled with a glimpse of life down on the farm

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

A finish, a launch and 2 winners

I optimistically thought I'd do a quick photo shoot the other day to celebrate a finish. I don't usually have to factor in the wind when I go out with my camera as the valley we live in is reasonably sheltered. However the weather was on the change (yaay! bring on the rain!) and I had a wee breeze to contend with. The photo shoot took quite a bit longer than I had intended!
This Kiwiana Delight quilt was fun to piece. It's a Jaybird pattern called Delight using her Hex-n-more ruler and it went together really easily. As soon as I saw the fun and whimsical kiwiana fabric range I knew I Needed to make something with it.

I quilted it very similarly to the sample quilt on the pattern cover; although I think there were areas of fanciness which I didn't do - it was a bit hard to tell from the picture.
This was one of the quilts I wanted to get finished for the New Year's launch for The Country Yard. We always try to have fresh samples, programmes and so on.
We had a big day last Friday rearranging fabrics and quilts within the shop and then on Saturday our launch was held.
Although it was a drizzly day, we had a nice turnout of visitors who seemed to enjoy a look around the freshened up shop, a cuppa, and a good chat with friends. I took a couple of photos before it got busy.
In the photo below you can see the other quilt I made for the shop. Well it's a quilt top actually; I just didn't get the time to quilt it for the shop but it still displays pretty well :-)
'Pieceful Pines' using the range of the same name by Pam Buda.
This was another enjoyable quilt to make, although I did change my mind half way through as to how the quilt was going to look. The courthouse blocks started off being either red or green but I did some unpicking —
 
 — and made them red and green instead. I am really happy with the effect in the finished quilt - the unpicking was worth it!

Giveaway winners
Apologies for taking such a long time to get back to you all with the drawing of the prizes in my previous post, where I showcased a block and quilt pattern from Teresa Mairal's new book, Turnabout Patchwork. February was a month where life got in the way, and there was only so much that could fit in my head.
However, without further ado, here are the winners —
The winner of the electronic copy of Teresa's book, Turnabout Patchwork is —
Lisa J
And the winner of a pattern of choice from Teresa's digital shop is —
Cynthia
Congratulations ladies - I hope you enjoy your winnings!

And on that happy note, I will sign off,
'til next time,
happy stitches,
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Friday, February 1, 2019

Turnabout Patchwork Bloghop (and giveaway)




I'm happy to be amongst the bloggers involved in promoting Terersa Mairal Barreu's new book, Turnabout Patchwork.

Teresa's had fun using simple and traditional (with a twist) blocks.
They're sewn up, cut up, turned about and sewn up again.
There's lots of different configurations and it's quite fun to play around like this. Of course, the colours and fabrics used give even more options.
Did I mention it would be a great book for the newer quilter?
My project was Flying Butterflies, using the Modern Shoofly block.
I thought this pattern would make a pretty girl's quilt and because I had a few pretties sitting in my scrap bin, decided a scrappy style one would be perfect.
So I got busy;
Sewing up —
cutting up —

turning about —

and sewing back together again.
My finished top —
I was really pleased with how quickly this top came together - it was nice to have a project that didn't take forever to make!
I'm thinking of heading back to the cutting board and making one more row (as Teresa had suggested in the book!), just to make it a bit more of a useful size.

And now for the fun part - the giveaways!

If you'd like to win an electronic copy of Turnabout Patchwork simply leave me a comment on this post. If you are a no-reply commenter, please make sure your email address is included in your comment.

AND... Teresa has offered one of her digital patterns for a second giveaway! If you'd like one of these, visit her pattern shop *here* then let me know which one is your favourite. I'll do a second drawing for this prize. There are several there I've got my eye on :-)

If you're wanting to buy a copy of Turnabout Patchwork, you can buy it through Teresa's shop *here*.
Below is the bloghop schedule - as always I'm so impressed by the different looks everyone gets using the same (or similar) starting point. Have fun exploring.

January 30 – Quarter Snow Ball

Arrowhead
Sweet Bows
Tutti-frutti
Sun Dunes

February 1 – Modern Shoofly

Flying Rainbows
Flying Butterflies
Flying Flags
Flying Confetti

February 2 – Half Square Triangles (HSTs) and squares

Rose Garden Star
Swirl
Houndstooth
Diamond Star

February 4 – Striped Fabric Block

Shells
Xs and Os
Jaws
Arrowhead

February 6 – Coordinated Strips

Peaks
Diamond and Crosses
Knots and Crosses

February 8 – Double Disappearing Nine-Patch

Holiday Trellis
Stepping Stones
Two for One
Cross

Happy bloghopping,
 
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Thursday, January 31, 2019

A lot of nothing -

Well it's been too hot for anything other that sitting under a fan over the last few days. Once all the necessary chores are done, that's where you'll find me and my water bottle.
Of course that means it's a perfect excuse for a bit of sewing :-)
But I don't have a huge amount to show you!!
This time of the year is always a busy one for us at The Country Yard as we busy ourselves with new samples and projects for our annual New Year's Launch, coming up in February.
I can give you a bit of an idea of what I've been up to —
A bit of this....
A bit of that...
And maybe even a bit of this too....
In the evenings I've continued on with my first Foxley Village block and completed the applique for it —
And completed the stitching for my first mystery stitchery block —
(Excuse the funny angle of the photo, I was trying to avoid shadowing
in the sun!)
My OMG for January was to sew the vertical strips for Ruth's Quilt, last year's project with the nofussswappers blog. This was a major fail.
You can see I tried and made a bit of a start but nearly three strips sewn up
is all that I managed
It was to be my leader-ender sewing but this took precedence....

Aha, what is this? you ask..., I haven't seen this here before?
TeresaDownUnder of SewnUp blog is running a bloghop to promote her newly published book, Turnabout patchwork. This is a fun way to sew blocks and I've been lucky to have the opportunity to take part by sewing up one of the options/quilts from the book. The bloghop started yesterday (January 30th) - here are the details;
Visit Teresa's blog for details
My turn to blog about my block/quilt is on the 1st February so do remember to pop back for a look and a chance to win your own copy of Teresa's book.

The older grandie-girls came to stay over the weekend. It was lovely to have them, and not just because they cooked every meal we had while they were here :-)
I took them and the dogs (including a grandie-dog we were also looking after) down to the river to cool off. We've found a wee stretch that is perfect for swimming - it has a 'beach' and some nice deeper spots for actual swimming and mermaid like activities.
It has a very overgrown route to get to but is very worthwhile.
When the MOML and I were there the other day, the light was perfect for some reflection photos. I loved this one of farmdog Emma —
I end the month with nothing to share for OPAM, nothing for the One Christmas Item a Month, an unmet OMG but forever the optimist, I'll try again next month!
Positively, I did sign up for Praire Moon Quilts' 350 block challenge and am happy to say that I have started the year with 33 blocks to go towards my tally (most of those are secret blocks so you'll just have to believe me!). For someone who does a lot of sewing but not always a lot of finishing, I thought this would be a fun challenge to take part in.
Till next time, 
happy stitches,


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