I met some goals!

I have two great things to report today.
This month I joined in with Patty of Elm St Quilts and committed to a One Monthly Goal of completing the last of the stitcheries needed for my Country at Heart quilt. It had been sitting waiting for attention for a very long time. In November I stitched the 4th to last —

And for my OMG I had these 3 traced and ready to stitch —

Here they are —

Ahem, the last one, above, shows how long I've actually been working on these!

I had a bit of a dilemma with the last one as I'd mistakenly marked the dots left to indicate where our own script could go. After a bit of thinking and planning I managed to cover the dots with strategically placed lettering and the simple vine at the bottom!

These designs are by Michelle Ridgeway of Rag Tag Stitchin'. Here are the rest of them, a gorgeous alphabet —

Thank you Patty for the motivation!

EDIT- I've come back to this post to link it up the following Tiny Tree to Sandra's DrEAMi party. It really was a project I had no time to make, was completely unplanned and I pushed myself to get it completed.

So pleased I did though!

The second exciting thing that happened today was that I got the Tiny Tree quilt finished!!
Thank you for those who guided me on my corner choice - the wee squares were a resounding winner!
Under the watchful eyes of Miss Piggy and Mr Quail, I took it outside for a photo shoot —

I decided it just needed very simple quilting so I stitched in the ditch of most of the seamlines. I used a clear invisible thread in the top and a very fine thread in the bobbin.

The sunny shots show what I did. All with the walking foot.

I'm so pleased to have it finished - in time for Christmas next year (!) Many thanks to the Temecula Quilt Company for this free sewalong.

( Day 29 of my 31 day blog writing challenge complete!)

'til next time,

happy stitches,

A post a day and a monthly goal

OK, so I've done something crazy!!
I've signed up to a blog post a day challenge throughout December!
Crazy because —
— it's a busy time of the year (enough craziness without adding to it huh?!)
— I have enough trouble blogging once a week let alone once a day

BUT
Challenges motivate and inspire. They push you outside your comfort zone. By signing up, they make you accountable.
AND, if I can get through the 31 days of December, blogging every day, I can accomplish anything!(hehe, within reason!)

Cheryl Sleboda is the host of The 2019 31 day Blog Writing Challenge, and the list of other participants is *here*.

I promise not to blog about the one seam I've sewn that day and the next and the next (or have endless posts of very cute grandies) but I know I will struggle to keep it varied and interesting — if you ever have any questions or ideas for me, please let me know. Cheryl has also put together a prompt list for us for when we are struggling :-)

—♥—♥—

I haven't joined in with the One Monthly Goal party for a while but to finish the year on a good note, I'm signing up again this month. This is hosted by Patty of Elm Street Quilts with a link up now, and at the end of the month when we have, supposedly, completed our goal.
Before I went off on holiday I had got back into my Country at Heart Alphabet stitcheries and now I need to complete only three more and they'll all be done.

Traced and ready to go, the stitcheries went to the USA with me, and came back again, still carefully packed in their bag and without seeing the light of day!
I am hoping to get them done by the end of the year month.

'til next time,

happy stitches

Country at Heart

The time since my last blogpost has passed by in a bit of a blur. I did take down most of the blocks from my design wall...tidied them into their boxes. I'll allow them to settle, marinate, rest for a while before they see light again. Some will need longer than others :-)

Because of upcoming events I decided not to start another Foxley Village block. Instead I pulled out my Country At Heart (alphabet) stitcheries (Designed by Michelle Ridgeway of Rag Tag Stitchin'.) I started these a few years ago and have stitched A-Z. There are a few extra stitcheries needed to make an even grid for a quilt and those are what I am doing now.

I have traced the last three stitcheries so I will work on those next.

A 'what is this' photo......(read on)

It seems appropriate in a 'country at heart' post that I show a photo of my latest chicken feed bag. I found a small (10kg) bag in a bucket, left over from when I was raising my youngest chickens. It looked like it would make a handy sized bag so here it is —

And next to one of the earlier bags —

The tutorial I used for these is by Carole on the
From my Carolina Home blog.

A few posts ago I'd started a cute wee beanie. I've finished it!

Although it's the smallest (and baby) size, Lily thought she'd try it on. It's quite a nice style, it will be quite cosy and fits nicely so I think I'll make a few more like this.

Minutes after this photo was taken her and George discovered the balls of
wool - great fun! Sigh!

The cute little tassel on top took about 5 seconds to make and so worth it!

I had a bit of a rotten week last week, crook with a tummy bug, but before I got sick we spent a morning out in the sunshine doing some stock work. Since it was a beautiful day I had my camera with me and took these photos —

Firstly I needed to walk these girls to their paddock.
The calves were very interested.

The cows needed to join these herdmates in one of the back hill paddocks.

Nosey Parker

I passed by the horses on the way back to the shed.

This was the last milk feed for these calves. We get them to follow the feeder
a certain distance out the back (different direction as to where the cows were).

And then follow them out to their new paddock. (3kms total.)

These animals were also out the back and came over for a chat - last year's
calves - amazing how much they've grown in just 12 months!

I've spent the last few days tidying and sorting - I'm getting ready for a wee adventure which will be great fun and I'll tell you all about when I can. It does involve a plane (or two), a wedding, and some quilts, so I'm looking forward to it :-)

[Although the amount of extra organising and stock work that's needed doing as it's 'this' time of the year makes me wonder my sanity sometimes! Once I hop on that plane I know all those things will be forgotten!]

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Sew Stitch Snap and Share

Linda and Julie have started up Sew, Stitch, Snap, SHARE; a new regular linky party for us to share our WiPS and finishes.... and a way to help us keep on track with our projects.

All we do is do a bit of sewing and stitching each week, take some photos and share them on their link-up post. Easy! 

(Click on either of their names above to go to the link-up page if you want to join in, or simply just want to visit some new blogs and be inspired by others' work!)

I haven't done a huge amount of actual sewing this week but I still managed to snap a few photos of things to share.

This was some sewing —

The Flying Geese for my Evandale quilt.

And then I spent an afternoon prepping. When I'm in an organising mood, I like to do this; sorting and cutting several blocks so when I get a chance to turn the machine on I can just plough ahead and sew.

Three blocks prepped, and layered on scrap batting.

You may be able to tell that two of those blocks are some more sheep for the quilts I started in my last post...a re-make of some of the Farm Girl Vintage blocks.

Last weekend's completed block above, one partially sewn and a prepped one
waiting....

I find that if I lay them out on the batting, the piecing process is so much easier
and logical.

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour this month is multi-colour...anything goes... I'm not sure I want those colourways in my scrappy sprouts but remembered the great granny blocks I was making a year or so back as part of the RSC. I found them difficult to do in the rainbow theme but thought it would be perfect for this month.

That's the other prepped block you can see a few photos above. Below are the great granny blocks I've already made.

So this will give me eight - one more will be nine - I've been wondering whether to call it a day there or carry on.....? I'm thinking that perhaps adding more blocks will make the mis-matching ones gel together a little better? Or maybe after this latest block is sewn they all might get put back in their box for a while....... :-)

For the last few evenings I've pulled out a bit of stitching - something I haven't done for quite a while. This is my Country at Heart Alphabet (by Michelle Ridgeway). Can you believe I just had one letter of the alphabet left to do! 

Now I've been busy planning layouts for putting these together so that's fun!

As Easter and winter approaches, it's Happy Pants season. (PJ pants). Today in town I stocked up on brushed cotton/winceyette for our resident family.

[Just as a little aside... including this post, in the last three posts I have mentioned/worked on EIGHT different projects!!!] [Gulp].

The talk of New Zealand at the moment is Cyclone Cook which has been hurtling towards the country, and had threatened to be one of the largest storms we've had in 49 years. And destined to hit areas that are still sodden and damaged from last week's (ex) Cyclone Debby. 

While we've had plenty of rain, it seems like it's mostly missing Northland where we live. Naturally we're very relieved but we're now anxiously waiting to see what happens with the rest of the country.

I went for a walk down the farm this afternoon, the MOML had warned me that the river was swollen but I don't think it had come up any higher than he described. He had to kayak across this morning to move the water pump to higher ground. (Apparently it was quite a challenge, the water was moving very quickly!)

Our swollen river; nowhere near a flood here. Under the water is our bridge.
There's a large tree banging against the bridge rails
 so we are hoping it doesn't wipe those out.

Hoping all my fellow New Zealanders stay safe and dry this weekend.

♥ And to you all, Happy Easter ♥