A Woolly Post

There's been a bit of yarny goodness going on here in our neck of the woods.

First up, I've finished another one of my Royal vests (pattern *here*)..such a cute pattern to make, I sure hope they're wearable! (The first one is in my last blogpost).

And you can see I had fun finding enough matching buttons for this one too!

I've never really knitted with variegated wool before and I do like the effect it has in these.

Long time readers may remember YD's knitting adventures a year or so ago. Her wee dog who lives here with us has quite a wardrobe of beautiful hand knitted garments. Her and her hubby also have two other dogs and she's decided the youngest one has been getting too cold lately. So she's taken up knitting dog jerseys again. Here's the first one she's knitted for him —

And here's another —

This dog was rescued off the streets so I would say he landed on his feet with YD and her hubby :-)

Who knows, she might venture into knitting baby clothes for her sister one of these days!

Meanwhile ED is bombarding my messenger page with photos like this —

ED and I are making a Zookeepers Blanket (pattern *here*). Half the squares will have a grey backgound, and the other half will be white. 

She's using the grey

and mine are white.
As you can see I'm getting a bit behind!
Or is it her zooming ahead?!

And to reassure my quilty friends, I have done some sewing this week.... can you guess the theme for this quilt?

We had an early start this morning with our final milking for the season...the last miking always takes a long time with preparing the cows for the winter. The MOML is looking forward to a few sleep ins while the cows are dry :-)
But the early morning means I need to sign off and get to bed now!

Happy stitches,

A bit of this, a bit of that -

Since my last post I have made good progress on my Foxes caddy and finished it! Yes, the binding was a challenge but I was so close to the finishing line I was determined to get it done.

Annie Unrein's Catch All Caddy

 It's made using Soft and Stable - if you haven't tried this yet, it's something you really should have a play with. It's firm and bags (and caddies) keep their shape but are also very soft and pliable. The caddy has handy pockets for popping bits and pieces in —

I have another finish, this wee vest. It's a small size and quite basic knitting and I was able to knit it all while watching the Royal Wedding last weekend. So I have named it The Royal Vest. The original pattern is called Pebble and can be found *here*.  

It is knitted all in one piece and has an opening at the side and on one shoulder for easy use...ED commented that she liked the way I had done the buttons... I had to laugh and say I couldn't find enough of the same in my button jar so I mixed them all up!

Inspired by my April foray into my Omigosh! quilt (project) I have done a little more of it. I haven't had much need of a leader-ender project lately but when I have, I've worked on this.

I'm finding it very satistying to actually get some units together and think I'll move on to joining up some more 9-patches next.

The MOML is thanking his lucky stars that he succumbed to my nagging yesterday and swept the chimney. He had some perverse thought that we didn't need the fire going until the official beginning of winter - and apparently that's not here yet. Maybe the sight of his wife wrapped in a quilt to eat her breakfast yesterday did the trick as yesterday afternoon he did the job (to be fair, we have had a bit of rain lately and we all know that rain and roof climbing don't mix).

This morning we had the coldest morning so far - in fact the coldest morning in our region in May for 42 years! So a nice cosy fire was perfect.
I know it could be called poor taste for a Northlander (living in the Winterless North) to complain about the cold, but it was and we were :-)

I got this photo of a Tui in the Flame Tree yesterday.... the birds love those orange flowers so we've been hearing lots of Tui song...it's a distinctive sound I really enjoy hearing.

Time to turn on my machine, it's been a bit quiet lately,

happy stitches,

Foxes and an Emu

I've been working on a couple of bigger projects this past week, staying focused and trying not to be distracted by other things calling my name.
I'm making another caddy using Annie Unrein's Catch All Caddy pattern. I've made several of these in the past so it's largely been plain sailing; it's a good pattern, well written and very methodical —
Quilting the Soft and Stable —

Making the handles —

Binding fronts and backets, pockets, side pockets and so on —

Inner pockets —

When I stopped this afternoon this was how far I'd got.

The next step is to sew binding on around the outside. Easily the fiddliest step so deep breathing and slow sewing will be needed to get it finished.

You may have guessed that this is destined to be for baby bits and pieces. Our ED and DIL are both due within the next couple of months so there's been a bit of a focus on things for babies lately :-)

Over the weekend I tested another pattern for Juliet of Tartankiwi.
Meet my Emu!

This fellow is 18" square so a bit of a change from the 6" wrens I've made for her lately. I loved seeing him come together, and it was a relief to see his cheeky face appear on my workbench!
One thing I enjoy about testing (and making) one-off blocks like this is the chance to play and experiment with fabrics and colours I haven't used much. Here I wasn't sure how I was going to treat the fractured background area... I thought it would be good to move away from my usual background fabric choices which are a little more traditional. By choosing this co-ordinated range of grey and whites I was able to achieve something with a different look that I'm happy with.

I also wondered if the eye colour might be a bit too strong but I think it helps give him 'the look' :-)

I'm linking this blogpost up to Stitch, Sew, Snap and Share, hosted this time by Julie. This fortnightly linkup is a chance to share what we're working on and be inspired by others. Do pop over.

And Dione of Clever Chameleon has started up a weekly linkup called Tuesday's Inspiration Colour Party...Dione is full of inspiration herself and now she's giving us the chance to be excited even more via the link-up party.

I'm heading back to my machine to start tackling the binding on my caddy. All going well I'll have a finish by the end of the day!

Happy stitches,

Whimsical Woodland catch up and the odd finish

As I put the last few stitches into Block four of Whimsical Woodland the other night, I realised that I hadn't shared about it on my blog for a while... not since I'd finished the first block actually...whoops!
Whimsical Woodland is the current mystery stitchery being run by The Country Yard (where I work). Each year we do a mystery stitchery project and this time I decided to take part as a customer not a staffer.
Here are the first four blocks —

Yesterday morning before breakfast (and work), instead of catching up on my blog reading, I had the urge to do some piecing. We were to put 2" squares around the outside of the first three.

And here's block 4 —

Aren't they looking lovely? Cant wait to see what else is in store for us :-)
(The fabric range is Edyta Sitar's Crystal Farm).

I also have two finishes to share - more projects that have been sitting on my camera waiting for attention.
A Holly Cottage Christmas, a design by Michelle Ridgeway.  I took part in a stitchalong for this one which was a great motivator. I  loved making this, the combination of the applique and the stitchery made it an enjoyable project.

For the quilting I did fill in the applique blocks and crosshatched the squares.

And feathered the borders, treating both borders as one. It's hard to tell in the photo but there are two red borders in the photo below.

It was also to be a shop sample so as soon as it was finished I needed to get it in there and hung for display. So I didn't get a chance to roam the farm for a photo shoot session!

Back in February two friends and I went on retreat. We started a little project by Lisa of fig 'n' berry creations.
Here is the finished pouch —

We decided to change the outer fabric supplied in the kit as we found some lovely Liberty fabric while on retreat....it was a good excuse to buy this fabric which we usually avoid because of the price!
OK gotta go... I  can hear the MOML has finished milking so I'd better get organised for breakfast and off to work I go :-)

Happy stitches,