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

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

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

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

January---

----comes to an end.
While it seems such a long time since Christmas and the New Year, I can't quite believe we are one month into 2024 already.
January has been a mixed month. We've had some long hot days, the odd cooler day, a lot of humidity and then none. We had a little rain at the start of the month but have missed out on much of what has fallen in Northland lately - even though we are only 45-60 mins west OR east to the coast, we have quite a different climate at times - they've had a good amount of rain this month. 
Which means things are drying out on the farm. The grass has changed and the MOML has started feeding out from our big stack of silage bales. 
(The kids have really discovered the bales this summer. The two older girls used to play on them a lot,  singing, acting and dancing.  The younger kids are now making their own games and fun on them.)
They'll be out of bounds soon as the bales will get moved around for the cows.
Soon the MOML will stop milking at night (just in the mornings) to reduce stress on the cows and the milker. Things change a lot in a month!

It's been a month of family busy-ness with visits from relatives and close family. We've child minded when parents returned to work. And dog-sat while their family went to the beach for a week.
The plums are never-ending, although I think, after this morning's pick, there will be just one more big pick of the main tree for the freezer. Add in the courgettes, cucumbers and tomatoes and I've made jam, pickles and chutney. The windfall apples are starting, and the Damson plums are ready to pick.
I've continued on with my daily hill climbs, just missing three days in January, and this morning I clocked over the 100kms mark for this month! Almost one seventh of my goal for the year.
It's always rewarding to get to the top of the first hill to see these great views —

I've fought with wee Tammy in the evenings trying to do handwork but have managed a few wee finishes. (She is slowly learning to do the cat-thing and nap in my lap instead of scragging and playing with everything I try to do!)
I had started this singlet back in November. A group of the ladies who belong to the stitching group at work are making singlets for a premature baby unit. 
It is my second one, and I have enough wool left for another, plus some beanies.

In my last post I shared that I started a wee Pin and Scissorkeep set, a pattern that I acquired up while at my Scrub Stitching retreat last April. I haven't yet made the scissor fob but when I get an empty night or two, I will 'whip it up' - it will be a fairly quick make.
My first make for this challenge was the pouch —
I had a big enough scrap left over from making the bag to line the scissor keep, so that was nice :-)
The pins are poked into the 'gusset' of the pin keep as the stitcheries are gathered around cardboard circles. I've filled it with crushed walnut shell. Check out those tiny cute scissors!
It was good to start the year well by meeting my Chookshed Chatterers challenge goal #6 of finishing these items.
I will link up with Deana's end-of-month link-up when I have posted this- there are a lot of people who have joined in so that's pretty exciting. 

There's been a bit of block sewing happening lately but I'll stop here as this is more than enough photos for one day!

'til next time,
happy stitches, 
Raewyn

Sunday, January 21, 2024

January's FNSI

Gosh, the weekend has really flown by and I'd best get myself organised to write a post... I signed up to take part in Friday Night Sew In with Wendy of Sugarlane Designs...and part of the deal is, you write a post by the end of the weekend. There's also a Facebook option but, although I have FB, I'm not really active there and rarely post anything. So it's the (less instant) blog option for me!
Last post I mentioned that I was stitching a wee scissor keep set. So I continued on with that on Friday night —
I suspect I should have used a single thread for my Xs but I'm not changing that now! 
These are the pin keep stitcheries. The thread isn't as washed out looking in real life.
I'll make these two items up and then stitch the third, the scissor fob.
Thank you Wendy for hosting us. Please visiting her blog *here* to see who else joined in.

I realise I haven't shown the Hugs and Kisses stitcheries I was doing earlier in the month. It was suggested we stitch one-a-day during December but that didn't happen!
This was what I had done last time I shared.
And this is where I am up to. I'll pick this up again when I've finished the blue stitcheries.

In the same post I showed you the Loon that Mum was stitching while she was here. It was very fiddly as she was using a tiny weave, and there are lots of similar shades of colour use, plus lots of 3/4 stitches. However she made good progress and when she went home she'd done this much —
Yesterday three of us had an extra day at work; it was sort of a sew day but turned into more of a planning day. I took, and set up, my machine but didn't sew a stitch! We had fabrics piled from one end of the work room to the other.
 It's always hard work going through shelves of fabric and dreaming of sewing, but it was a fun day! I came home with a new pile of fabric to sew, but that will have to wait for another post.

It had been a busy week with two days of work, two days of children, and visitors for a day. So this morning I was quite happy to potter and catch up on washing, tidying, cleaning etc. I cooked up some plums, and some courgette marrow so felt quite happy with all that.
I wondered where wee Miss Tammy kitten had gotten to while I was busy and discovered her when I sat down after lunch to do the farm accounts —
Hmm shame she didn't pay them for me while she was there!

'til next time,
happy stitches,
Raewyn