Sewing pretty

I glanced up at my design wall the other day and realised that this week's sewing had been 'pretty' - projects using pretty fabrics.

First up was a mystery stitchery BOM I am doing through The Country Yard, as a participant rather than designer or sample maker. I fought very hard and tried to sit on my hands but in the end gave in. This stitchery uses motifs and stitchery designs from a variety of previous years' mystery projects; having been involved with the shop for as long as I have it really is like a walk down Memory Lane, which of course is what this BOM is called.

There were three different fabric ways we could choose from, and I have chosen to do mine in the Tilda fabric selection.

Here are the stitcheries from the first two months —

Here is month one sewn up —

And the month two blocks —

Month one and two combined —

This week I continued on with the Laundry Basket 2021 mystery QAL - the second set of 'pretties' up on the wall (and discussed *here*).
I finally got my head around where I was heading with this before I put it away for a bit. And I've decided to change tack with it, by sewing it up differently to how the instructions tell us.

Because it's no longer a mystery, I can see the end result and have decided to plan where my fabrics go a little more than if I had been keeping up a day and block at a time.

Plus, sewing 20 odd of the same block can be a little tiresome so it's nice to play as I go.
I've started at the centre with darker reds and am working out towards the outer edge, ending with the pinks/light reds.

So far my centre looks like this —

Below shows me having a bit of a play - I originally planned on the dark flying geese as on the bottom row, but changed my mind, and changed them to the red, as shown on the right.

So you can see it's going to take me twice as long to make it this way, and I'm going to end up with a few orphan blocks!!

A close up of the fabrics —

I've sewn the centre blocks together into rows, just to keep them together even though we were told not to do that until the end!

They all said it was a matter of 'when' and not 'if' and now, after nearly 18 months out of Level 4 lockdown, and a long time of relative freedom, New Zealand went back into L4 lockdown last week (11 days ago). Yes, Delta has arrived here. (Level 4 is the most restricted level in NZ and only essential services are allowed to operate.)

It seems that new cases are contained within Auckland and most of us were hoping for an ease in restrictions in yesterday's announcement. On Tuesday night most of the country goes into level 3 but Northland (where we live) unfortunately has been grouped together with Auckland and we must all stay in level 4 for longer.

Down on the farm, we've continued on as usual, when you have animals and are a primary industry, you can't just stop. So we've milked the cows and reared the calves and ventured out for click and collect farm supplies or groceries when necessary.

The big hassle for us though is that we were partway through a bathroom renovation when lockdown hit and the trades weren't allowed to come to work -  we were left with no shower!!

The MOML cleverly set us up an outdoor shower with a hose which goes through the window and onto the (hot) laundry taps. 

The things you can get away with in the country 😂 (not so good on a windy night!!).

Fortunately for us, getting a shower installed was finally considered essential enough to risk trades coming to our place. After three or four days of form signing and avoiding strangers in the hallway we no longer have to use the outdoor facilities! They only did the basics though so we still have more tradie-time to come, at some stage.

So the talk of lockdown leads me to another project to share with you. As a 'lockdown gift', The Country Yard has designed a free stitchery to help everyone keep out of mischief while staying at home.

Tonight I hope to trace it and start planning which threads I would like to use.

You can access the design *here* (Thank you Kerryn and Annalese!)

'til next time,

happy stitches,