Chugging along

It does feel a little bit like I'm just chugging along with my sewing at the moment, grabbing moments to sew when I can. What keeps me sane is the evenings when I can sit and relax with needle and thread, or yarn and needles. Regardless of how much crafting I get done during the day, at least I can count on that!

I've been beavering away on my LAST Foxley Village applique block, enjoying the straight forward shapes to sew down and not having to spend ages selecting colours. 

Stem and leaves —

Fussy cut main flower —

I purposefully didn't prep the other flowers, which are fussy cut circles, as I needed to put the applique down and finish a wee pair of slippers I'd promised to make for my niece's toddler —

Mission accomplished —

If they look familiar it is because they are identical to a pair I made a month or so back. I had more wool that colour so that's what the young fellow got!

They were some of the family that came out to the farm on Saturday to celebrate my father-in-law's 80th birthday.

We had an afternoon tea, I made a cake —

And there was lots of playing. A lovely afternoon —

(The kiddies are enjoying the new play area recently completed. The swings are out to the right.)

And speaking of birthdays, finally I can share the completed Buggy Barn Tractor/Truck quilt I started during lockdown. My One Monthly Goal for May was to complete and gift the quilt to grandson Xavier. I decided to wait and give it to him for his birthday which was the beginning of this month.

The quilting was a mix of 'light custom' —

With a background fill like this —

I matched the thread with each fabric colour so the back was a bit of a colourful mix.

Labelled of course!

I think he liked it! In fact, he loved it ♥ 

I was battling with snakes in my last post; trying to get the right 'design' to block out the light in Odie's room. Finally, prototype three (a single with a flap) worked perfectly (even better than rolled up towels apparently) so I have now made a total of five! I've told YD I'm taking a break from them for a week or so as other sewing needs to be done. I think I have enough beans left for two more and that should be enough to cover all his curtain rails. (Odie's room is a corner room and has two walls of windows.)

The flaps are random fabrics from my 'other sewing' stash, as quilting cotton was too light. It's yucky old stuff that I don't know why it's still here! It can be easily unpicked and tossed once the snakes become draught stoppers or play things (or whatever). Each snake is about 33" long so it's a good scrap sewing project.

And to finish on a cute note, here are Lily and George getting very brave feeding the chickens when I looked after them the other day. It's a very drawn out process as small hands only hold small handfuls of feed...!

'til next time,

happy stitches,