What now?

Since finishing my Red and White quilt top, shown last post, I have been feeling like a lost soul in my Palace; you know that feeling you get when you've been pouring lots of energy into something that is now ended?
That doesn't mean there isn't plenty to do, there's ufos, wips, qiw (quilts in waiting) galore, it's just taking me a while to work out where to start!
After a bit of dithering, and thinking that maybe a jolly good tidyup would help, I noticed my butterfly block lying on the bench. Rather than putting it away I got Proactive and made it into a cushion.
I made this block for the Butterfly challenge by Juliet of Tartankiwi. (More detail shown on my blog *here*)

Borders, some quilting, an interesting back all made this a fun little project.

'Scuse the loose thread! Didn't notice it till just now.
Oh the power of photography!
Played with using feathers as the fill, with the edge of the butterfly and outer
edges as the spine - so a little like one sided feathers, I guess.

I love playing with the backs - A - it uses up the leftover fabric and B it means
there's something nice to look at if the pets upset the cushion pile.

 I finished sewing the cushion binding down on full moon-eclipse-blood moon night. What an exciting spectacle it was. There's a couple more photos on my 365 day blog *here*.

Then, more dithering, but luckily DH's 12 year old nephew had come to stay and I was able to stall some more. He visited about this time last year. As well as doing motorbike, calf and farm things—

— he continued his interest in sewing which he'd discovered last visit. Making more postcards.....
doing some handsewing this time (he'd learnt running stitch at school and now knows backstitch).

Culminating in several trips to the post office!
While he was sewing I got through a mammoth pile of ironing; shirts, tablecloths and pillowcases all got dealt to in between answering questions and helping with the postcards. Made me feel quite virtuous.
Now he's gone and I'm back to my dithering.

There are a few distractions while I keep stalling. We just have five two cows left to calve, we've been weaning calves left, right and centre, and all is busy and growing on the farm.
When we took some calves out the back (to wean) yesterday we detoured to see the Kowhai Trees in flower. (Apologies to those of you who have been reading my blog for a while; you would have seen similar photos last year. And the year before!) (But I love them so there you go).

At the back of the run-off, there is a large area of bush, where many Kowhai trees
grow. Kowhai is the Maori word for yellow - you can see them in this photo.
Click on the photo so it enlarges... I just love how this one came out.

The Kowhai flower is particularly beautiful. The sun was very bright and because
the trees are so tall I was looking up into it so I didn't get many good shots.

The Tui love the nectar in the flowers and the trees are full of their unique sound.

I tried taking a video but it didn't come out so well - I had loaded it into this post but it's not particularly clear so I've removed it. The birds quietened down (might have been something to do with DH sighing rather loudly and saying that he was slowly dying of boredom?!) so head over to Leanne of Cottagetail who has a good video of the Tui's 'song' on her blog today.

Here's another picture of the Tui...also known as The Parson Bird
because of the white throat feathers.

Ok so for someone who's been dithering I've managed to fill a whole post. I think I need to revert to some list making and get myself moving. For now, it's calf time anyway so I've been saved by the bell, so to speak!
Happy creating, and thanks for reading along.