Home taken over!!

 This week we have had a surprise visit from friends further down country. They were meant to be visiting elsewhere but their destination was flooded out and evacuated. So we were second choice, but that's OK, we can live with that :-) While the men go out and do farming stuff Robyn and I can talk and create. One visit, she brought up all her beading and we made beaded things; another time it was mosaics. This time it is sewing - I got off the phone this morning to find my dining table taken over with her machines and there were baskets of sewing everywhere.
Robyn has a large costume hire business so today she completed a nun's habit and Alice In Wonderland dress - modelled in the photo!! She has lots of fun with her business and costumes.
As we chatted, I finished this block of My Garden, last year's BOM from Lynette Anderson.

I just have one more of these to do then I can 'throw it all together' - another finish in sight....well sort of!

The ladybird button is very sweet.

Now I'm off to practise more of today's free motion quilting for the FMQ challenge. I'm only 3 days in but I think perhaps I'm feeling a bit more confident with it...???  And no, I'm not being unsociable, our visitors are diehard Breakers (basketball) fans and are busy yahooing at the TV watching the finals. I've snuck away to catch up on myself!!
[It's OK, we are taping THE wedding to watch later after the BIG game!!]
                  Happy sewing everyone,

A clutch of cushions

 Last post I showed the mystery foundation piecing I was doing... I couldn't work out what it was but suspected there was a bunny in there somewhere. Here is the solved mystery - cute huh??

I decided he was the perfect size for a cushion so have bordered him and also put a small ruffle around the edge - however he is to remain a 'cushion flimsy' for now as I want to do a bit more quilting on him later on (he is just stitched in the ditch at the moment).

oooOOOooo 

And I can see I should have cropped the photo below - but ta-da - here is my completed Stitcharound The Block designed and run by Helen Stubbings.

 I am really happy with how it has turned out. I have also made this project into a cushion and put binding around the edges. [It's hanging on the wall for the photo shoot as I don't have a big enough cushion inner.]
Leanne, Nicky and Janis all worked on this  for me. Another friend Leeanne also took part with another group - you can see her completed cushion here.

oooOOOooo 

I have joined the FMQ (free motion quilting) challenge - see it here - in the hope that I can get more confident with my fmq. Then maybe I can make a bit of a dent in the pile of quilt tops I have sitting waiting to be completed :-)

The idea is we practise every day for at least 14 consecutive days - and hopefully see some progress after that time! Today was my first day but I won't show today's fairly abysmal effort but - watch this space - it will be interesting to see how it goes.

That's about it for now, I hope you all had a nice Easter weekend and your stitching and sewing projects are going well. Thank you for visiting,

Sunday Afternoon Sew-In

Yesterday I pulled out this Foundation Piecing Spring Mystery that I have been collecting...

 ...and put it all together. I found it here on Regina Grewe's site and thought it could be a bit of fun. She also released a really cute row of kittens as a BOM (foundation pieced) last year which I saved but haven't sewn up yet.
[Sorry the colours aren't the best in the photos. The background is a pale green colour.]

I know what this will be....

...and I suspect this could be a rabbit....

...maybe a heart; or some Easter eggs????...

But put it all together and I haven't a clue!!!

The final clues were posted this morning so I will go back soon and see what it supposed to look like!!

Hope you all had a good weekend and thank-you for visiting,

Happy stitching,

Aren't they cute?

I just love these little flowers that are stitched into our Stitcharound The Block - they are very whimsical and make me think of elves and fairies and long summer days in wild gardens and hay paddocks.

My goal today was to get the bottom edge of this stitched and yaay (!) I have achieved it :-)
Happy stitching everyone,

Catching up

ED came home for the weekend last night--so lovely to see her-- and during the course of conversation, she commented that I hadn't updated my blog for a while. So true I thought, but I couldn't really think of much creating to show everyone!
So I got up this morning, grabbed my camera and went hunting!!

MY Stitcharound The Block returned home recently. This was a project designed by Helen Stubbings of Hugs n'Kisses. Groups of 4 of us worked on these, all taking a turn to do a round on another group member's work.... I did the centre of this, and other bloggy friends around New Zealand have done the next three rounds {thank you Leanne, Nicky and Janis :-) }.As you can see Round 4 needs a little more done to complete it - isn't that what friends are for, to take up the slack for each other - so I plan on preparing that today so I can stitch it while down at my parent's this week. [And the way it worked out in our group with Christmas, and life getting in the way, I actually haven't done a Round 4 yet anyway, so it's all worked out fair!]

I also found my Grandmothers Garden Quilt to photograph... as you can see I am joining the hexie-flowers; I wanted to get started on that so I could see what colours I needed to make new flowers from. It's very skeletal with the minimum number of seams sewn to keep it all together; now I'm working through it adding the white hexagons and filling in all the gaps.
Below you can see that I have been doing a little practice of my free motion quilting.

And this week was Class One of the Beginners' Quilt I am teaching at my favourite local quilt shop.The first time I have done tutoring in the quilting world but we seemed to master quarter inch seams and closing the rotary cutter EVERY time alright!!

Simple colour scheme and an achievable design.

And a further distraction at home, we are extending our deck - it was very narrow before - and creating a carport as well. So there's cups of tea to make for the builders and the occasional bit of home baking to produce!!

So now I'm all caught up - ED, I hope you are satisfied!!
Have a lovely weekend everyone, I hope you get the chance to do some creating!