Blink and you miss it!

My blogging of late, that is!

There's been lots going on but I have managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing.

                                                                                                      

We had a very wet day last week so I spent the day huddled in The Palace.

It was a good spot to watch the river rise. We cant normally see it at all from the house!

You may remember I've been pattern testing for Juliet of Tartankiwi this year. On my sew-day I re-made the rock wren. The one Juliet asked me to test was the 12 inch version. I've fallen in love with the six inch versions and aim to put them all together in a quilt.

These are the 6 inch blocks to date -

These are from her 'Birds on a Wire' club.

I like taking photos that show what was happening at that moment in time so I've taken these latest photos showing my current kitchen. Progress is happening!

After my sew day, I took the dogs for a closer look at the river.

It receeded fairly quickly. The MOML had to repair the sides of the bridge and put some fences up, but it wasn't what we call a proper flood so we were pleased.

I have a couple of little finishes for the month. I started crocheting this blanket a few months ago and pulled it out again when the MOML and I had a roadtrip recently.

It was a fun one to make. It went from one corner to the other, starting small, growing wide and then decreasing to small again.  

Below shows the effect of the corner to corner to corner stitch pattern.

And I've made two more of my Royal vests..I went up a needle size for these ones so they're a size bigger than the ones I've already made.

They use about a 50 gram ball each - slightly more or slightly less so I started these ones in a co ordinating wool to make sure I didn't run out!

On the subject of babies, ED had her baby shower recently. Her sister made a great looking and tasting cake -

I'm writing this on my tablet as I'm on my way to visit my son so please excuse the poor formatting. I'm so pleased I loaded the photos before I left home! I also cant work out how to add in links here right now so I apologise about that too!

And more apologies for not answering all of my comments of my last post - it really has been busy around our place. I read there are fixes for Blogger and the comments issue too but also haven't had a chance to try that out.

Until next time, 

Happy stitches :-)

 
                                                                                                                                               

Weekend play

When I signed up for Friday Night With Friends last week, I'd forgotten that I'd arranged a Saturday family working bee at our place...aka demo day for my kitchen. Friday night was supposed to be spent emptying the kitchen so that demolition could take place.
Since we've been living here (14 years) I've had broken cupboards, drawers and doors so a do-up has always been on the cards...yaay, the day is nearly here!

However before spending well into the night redistributing my kitchen bits throughout the house, I had a little relaxed time with some stitching. After some more stitching time on Saturday evening, I finished another block for the Leanne Beasley no fuss SAL I am doing over at nofussswappers. We're aiming for 3 a month...here are my three May stitcheries —

and two of the June ones —

I think I'm up to about 20 or 21 now.
Thank you to Cheryll for hosting FNWF...it did actually encourage me to sit down and do some stitching before I got busy. You can visit the link-up *here* if you want to have a bit of a browse around blogland :-)

In other news, ED has completed a few more of her Zookeeper blocks —

And I've done 3 more recently. Not too fussed on my snail but it'll do.

Many of you were delighted with the Emu block I made when I was pattern testing for Juliet of Tartankiwi... I thought you may like to know that she has now released the pattern...so for those of you who were interested in making their own cheeky fellow, head over *here*.

Oh and here is my demo-ed kitchen! 

I hope your weekend's going well and you're finding a little creative time,

Happy stitches,

 

Sewing away....

It looks like I've had my pedal to the metal when I go through these photos but I haven't really. Most of these projects are ones I have been working on for a while that are slowly coming together.
After our frosty week last week, the temperatures warmed up a lot but that was because we were having massive amounts of rain instead. A lot of the country suffered some pretty bad flooding - we had much more rain than we needed but didn't suffer the flooding that we thought we might.
 So why am I mentioning the weather yet again? Well it was the perfect excuse to spend some time sewing this weekend. I thought I was going to be partying up large with Chooky in her Chookshed Birthday Party but by the time I got my machine threaded, her party was nearly over. Nice that we had a long weekend (NZ 'celebrated' the Queen's Birthday on Monday) so I could carry on with my own little sewing party then :-)
I had a little handwork to do and finished the sheep block of the Barnyard quilt I've been making for The Country Yard this year —

And inserted it in the gap I had in the quilt top. It's got a nice mix of fiddly and simple blocks and has been a fun make.
The weather's too dodgy to get a decent photo - the colours are a little washed out/off in this but you get the general idea of it.

I also finished the last couple of EPP stars I needed to make for border 5 of Evandale.

It feels like I've been working on this one forever but once I settle and focus on it, it sews up relatively quickly.

There's one more border to do...it's a real scrap buster; it's the same as border two with the small EPP diamonds.

After getting these two tops under my belt, I switched to my latest baby quilt.
When my back was turned, Timmie managed to totally upset my tidy and carefully counted pile of cutting —

But I did manage to salvage the pieces and got a little sewing done on the next blocks.
When Piglet gets a mouth, I'll show the top properly :-)

In April I worked on my Omigosh! quilt as part of a 'List of 12' UFO-busting some friends and I are doing. The number drawn out in May saw me working on my Life is Beautiful project. Hardly UFO busting, but I managed two more blocks this month —

(Again please excuse the washed out photos).

There are 32 stitcheries altogether, I've done 19 so far.

Whew, like I say, it seems like a lot, but I have been working on all of these for a while!
It's cooling off so I'm away to fill up the wheelbarrow with some more firewood.

Happy stitches,