Mid-month catch-up

We have just returned from a beautiful weekend away. The MOML and I plus ED and her family had a jaunt up north. Houhora is a small settlement in the Far North of New Zealand. The area is only about 10kms (as the crow flies) from coast to coast. It's quite far north, but still about an hour's drive to Cape Reinga, at the very top of the country.
The map's a bit blurry but the best I could find (not many of them had Houhora on the map!).

It was incredible to walk along the unspoilt, peaceful beaches with no-one else as far as the eye could see and think about this crazy world we live in - we were still reeling from the tragic and horrific mosque killings that had happened the day before.
No, I was not directly affected.
Yes, I live at the other end of the country.
But still it hurts.

Looking for dinner

The only family photo we got - without ED

I needed a car project so started a cardie for Lily. It's the same pattern as some of the wee cardies I made when the babies were newborn (*here* on Ravelry). I'm not sure whether I'll carry on and finish it now, or leave it for our next road trip in a couple of weeks time.

My sewing machine has been a little idle the last week or so, but yesterday I stitched up some heart blocks. These are in response to the call for blocks to make quilts for those affected by the Christchurch killings. The facebook group Kiwiquilters is hoping to make at least 100 quilts.

A small thing to do, but a something all the same.

Greens were asked for, plus some coloured blocks for rainbow quilts.
A few minutes sewing will see the bottom ones finished.

Angels in Gumboots is also involved in this drive. *Here* is the link to them and a pattern for the blocks.

After finishing my first two Foxley Village applique blocks I have spent some of my evenings lately catching up on my mystery quilt stitcheries. (Not Even A Mouse).

Block Two

Block Three

I have two weeks before the next clue is released so I'm feeling rather good here!

One last thing to do before I sign off and carry on my day {it's Ganma day for me today :-)} and that is to announce the winners of the draws from my previous, book bloghop, post.
Julie was the winner of the book, Test It! by Sherri Noel.
Cecilia was the winner of the Aurifil thread.
Congratulations ladies, and thank you everyone else for visiting and your sweet comments.

A final photo from the weekend —

'til next time, 

Love one another, 

Text It! Blog hop (and giveaways)

I am delighted to be taking part in the blog hop promoting Sherri Noel's new book, Text It!
The Counting Sheep baby quilt was an obvious choice of project for me..... my niece is due with her second baby this month so here I am with the gift all ready to go!!

Counting Sheep was a great quilt to make - simple and effective applique, with the addition of some fun text, and a bit of straight forward piecing around the edge. A good "quilt in a week" project - ask me how I know :-)

All of the projects in this book have some element of text in them, there are a variety of fonts to choose from and - yaay - they are already reversed.

I had an idea that I could put the new baby's name on the quilt as well, maybe instead of the 1 Sheep wording, but as he's not born yet, that stayed an idea and didn't become reality!

One little change I made to this quilt was to add an inner ear. I'd been struggling with how to add an element of my Dad (Pop to the grandkids) into the quilt. Other family baby quilts have had a Winnie-the Pooh focus which is a nod to Pop and his poetry recitals and bed time reading. Rummaging through my scraps I found some of the fabrics I used to make him a quilt when he was ill. Hazelnuts in Dad's orchard and sheep go hand in hand so incorporating this wee bit of fabric made so much sense for one of his great-grandies.

What else? I machine appliqued the shapes on (in the method described *here* ) —

Used wool felt for the lettering —

 which gave me the idea to trapunto the circles. I realised later that it might make the quilt difficult for baby to lie on but it may also give a little dimension for fun play!

The puzzle quilting was something I'd been wanting to try on a kiddie's quilt for a while.

What is a bloghop without a fun little giveaway or two, and a whole lot of blogs to visit?

I have a copy of Sherri's new book to give away. Most of the book draws in this blog hop are open to US residents only. HOWEVER this is a giveaway with a difference - my draw for the book is open to NEW ZEALAND and AUSTRALIAN residents only!! To be eligible, please comment below. You will need to state that you live in New Zealand or Australia.

A SECOND giveaway - this is open to anyone living anywhere in the world. Two spools of Aurifil thread will come your way if you are the winner of this draw.  Again, commenting below will get you into the draw.

Please, for both giveaways, I need to be able to contact you. In my last giveaway draw nearly half of those commenting had no way for me to email them. If you've never heard back after posting a comment on a blog, maybe you are one of these people too? Please include your email address in your comment if you are unsure of your 'status'.

Below is the line up of everyone taking part in this blog hop. Feel free to go back to the start as the projects are still all up and the giveaways are still open.
Mine will be open until the end of the blog hop.

BEE HAPPY

PAMELA JANE MORGAN –MYSWEETLITTLESTITCHES                      

SHARON LILABELLE LANE – LILABELLELANECREATIONS

INFINITY Quilt

LAURA PILAND – SLICEOFPIQUILTS

LEANNE PARSONS – DEVOTEDQUILTER

KATIE MUTER STARCHER – KATIEMAEQUILTS

PILLOW TALK

KATE COLLERAN – SEAMSLIKEADREAM

CHERYL DAINES BROWN – QUILTERCHIC

DORIE HRUSKA – FOREVER-QUILTING

FREEDOM Quilt

JEN SHAFFER – PATTERNSBYJEN

TARA MILLER – QUILTDISTRICT

LYNN KANE – PUPPYGIRLDESIGNS

LOVING YOU Wall Hanging

ELLEN AULT –HANDMADE3D

SHERRI NOEL – REBECCAMAEDESIGNS

COUNTING SHEEP Baby Quilt

DEANNE EISENMAN – SNUGGLESQUILTS

RAEWYN BARGE – STITCHINGFARMGIRL

SUSAN PELLAND – SUEPELLANDDESIGNS

HOME PILLOW

JOANNE HARRIS – QUILTSBYJOANNE

PATTY DUDEK – ELMSTREETQUILTS

ANDY KNOWLTON – ABRIGHTCORNER

SANDRA STARLEY – UTAHQUILTAPPRAISER

CINDY PIETERS – STITCHINATHOME

LIFE IS SHORT Wall hanging

BECCA FENSTERMAKER – PRETTYPINEY

KATIE BOCK – SEWINGWITHKATIE

ALLA BLANCA – RAINBOWSBUNNIESCUPCAKES

HUSTLE PILLOW

TERRI BANDEN BOSCH – MEANDERINGSALONGLIZARDCREEK

WILLOW OLSON – BEARPAWDESIGNBLOG

ERIN SAMPSON – AURIBUZZ

SEWING MACHINE MAT

LAUREN WRIGHT – MOLLYANDMAMA

SANDRA HEALY – SANDRAHEALYDESIGNS

CHERYL KRISEL LYNCH –CHERYLLYNCHQUILTS

If you are really keen on this new book and cant wait for the draws to be held, here are some links to get your own copy —

A signed copy is available at: https://iquiltmodern.bigcartel.com/product/text-it-quilts-and-pillows-with-something-to-say  

Or you can visit here:

Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Text-Quilts-Pillows-Something-Say/dp/1604689838

Martingale:
https://www.shopmartingale.com/text-it.html

Good luck for the draws, don't forget to include your email address :-)

Happy stitches,

More applique - another project

It feels like I am wallowing in applique at the moment; not only am I making inroads into Foxley's Village but I am applique-ing elsewhere as well.
The Sopwell Ladies Basket Society Quilt is another project I am making. It's a block of the month for The Country Yard, and I must admit that I am having quite a bit of fun with it!
I showed a sneak peek a wee while ago —

And now I can show the whole of the first block —

Don't you think it suits me - as scrappy as anything?!! As you can see there's quite a lot to 'one block' and that's why I've only got this far :-) 

I've decided to applique this project by machine. The (nearly) invisible turned under machine applique method.

I use fusible applique paper to turn the edges of the pieces under and then, using a fine thread and a narrow zig-zag, attach them to the background. It's definitely a lot quicker than needleturn which the pattern suggests but you do have to accept that up close you see the stitching. (Depending of course how well your thread colour matches. I'm quite happy to fuss and change threads as needed - I keep the bobbin the same and make sure the tension is such that the top thread is ever so slightly pulled to the back. No freckles on top)

My selection of fine threads - I'll use whatever as long as the colour is right
and it's a fine weight.

Of course I could have done raw edge buttonhole using fusible webbing but I do like the look of turned under applique. 

(I've previously talked about his method *here* but have altered the stitch size so both length and width are 1.1).

Zig-zagging my 'machine needle-turn'

You can't really see the stitching unless you're really close.

This photo shows the border fabric which influenced the fabric choice.
A little different and very fun.

I'm using the same technique for another fun quilt I am making. And for a few days, I can only show a teaser shot of it. It's part of the Text-It bloghop...my day is coming up soon - so come back early next week to see what I've been up to. There will be giveaways so that's an extra excuse to visit :-)

If you'd like to see what's been happening on the bloghop already, just click on the photo below —

I nearly forgot to do a tally up of the blocks I made during February. (I've joined in with the Prairie Moon 350-blocks project.) I'm going to have to get better at keeping track as the months fly by so quickly and all my sewing blurs into one!
Six (equivalent) for The Sopwell Ladies (fair enough do you think?) and five for my row-by-row...whoops now that's another wee project I haven't shared!! So 11 blocks... not as grand as last month but progress nevertheless.
Using up our stash row-by-row ..the first row was to include Delectable Mountains blocks and here are mine —

This is the only photo I have of it just now, and you can't really see the challenge fabric that we will get each month, but it gives you a bit of an idea! I'll be able to show you more when we do the next row.
Weekend busy-ness calls so I'll end now.
As always, thank you for visiting, I do appreciate it.

'til next time,

Happy stitches,

Weekend foxes and chocolate

You may remember that I have started Foxley Village this year. This past week I have been working on the applique for Month Two. I was really happy to have completed the fox - he's such a handsome fellow and looks quite at home on top of the Tea Shoppe (Actually he still needs some features embroidered on!).

For Friday Night with Friends I did a bit of preparation —

Back basting for more applique

Applying wash-away stabliliser for stitchery details
(too many layers to see through for tracing)

And by now I have got the block to this stage —

My disappointment is that the picture of the original quilt shows a (light) verandah plus (dark) base boards but the pattern just has the verandah on it. Comparing the two it looks incomplete but on it's own it's not too bad. Because I've used a dark fabric as the verandah I am not sure what to put to make it look complete so it may just stay as it is. (Obviously I didn't look up any errata in the actual pattern and realised my error once I'd done the sewing!)

Thank you to those that crafted away with me on Friday night. Pop over to Cheryll's blog to see what others got up to (there's always plenty of inspiration!).

The MOML had a birthday on Friday so Saturday was a family day with everyone gathered for lunch.

Easter Eggs are now making an appearance in the supermarkets so they were an obvious choice for a quick and chocolately cake topping!

How lovely is this? The five youngest all together for some serious cousin time! (The older two girls live down-country with their mother.)

hehe all chomping on 'baby sticks' of some description!

There's still some of the weekend left so I'm hoping to squeeze in a little more sewing and then some blog reading.

'til next time,

happy stitches,