May so far

In my last post I was about to leap into a whole lot of kiddie sewing. We had a busy weekend and I've only just been able to make a start on it.
High on my list for kiddie sewing are Pathfinder vests for the younger twins. These are the brainchild of Twig and Tale. I love the creativity and nature-ness of their patterns (Odie's leaf blanket was one of theirs).
The patterns are PDF which means you do have to print out pages to join together —

But it was all very straight forward. There's a feature in their patterns that you can click on to just show/print the size that you want - wow - that is so cool!

Making a start

Haha - do you think I have enough fabric??!! I may have bought this for a bush shirt for myself years ago - I think there might be a few pieces of kiddie clothing in this length!

Cut out and ready for Step Two tomorrow!

Yesterday I got the cot sheets made for the youngest fellow. After making a couple of these sheets earlier in the year I now have the exact measurements for his mattress so they sewed up pretty quickly.

Just like bag making; cut out the corners.

A couple of french seams, casing and elastic

Three sheets ready for winter

A friend asked me the other day if I had any sneaky projects on the go that I hadn't written about.

No, of course not I said.... but then I had to stop and remember if I had shared about my lockdown quilt. I think I mentioned ages ago that I wanted to make something to commemorate this point in time. At that stage I didn't have anything firm in my mind. There have been some lovely projects shared by generous designers in recent times and I had the idea that I wanted to incorporate them all, somehow.

I'm thinking a medallion style quilt. Below is a really rough idea of what I may do. The geese are there to increase the size so that the maths works for the next round.

This will be the centre —

Lockdown pillow. This is a design by Ellie's Quiltplace, from the
Lockdown Quilters Facebook group.

Followed by a round of bubbles. Keeping to our bubbles became our way of life for about 50 days here in NZ. It was a term introduced by the government which became part of our everyday vocab. 

After the geese, or whatever I use to increase the centre size, there will be various blocks. Stitched, pieced or appliqued, all patterns or ideas gifted by the fore mentioned generous designers. 

Both of these are Michelle Ridgeway designs. Stitching and creating to keep us
from becoming basket cases!

Now there is no way this will be finished during lockdown but I will keep chipping away at it as time allows. Oh and a rule I have set myself is that it all has to be made from stash - no new fabrics allowed!

At midnight tonight New Zealand moves into Level Two status; down from lockdown level three which we have been in for just over two weeks. Level three was slightly less strict than L4 - we were allowed takeaways (!!) and online or click and collect shopping. I was able to get my car serviced this week but walking around closed shops while that happened was a bit boring. I also took the wee dog into the vets for his 6-monthly check-up. He was whipped out of my arms and taken inside, and I was told to come back in an hour. I guess I hadn't thought it through but I didn't really expect that to happen! Poor little guy was quivering being taken away from Ganma as he doesn't really like going to the vets! 

So tomorrow our bubbles are allowed to burst. Social distancing still has to happen, good hygiene practices need to continue but retail and so on can all open, although they will all be operating in a different way with registers of customers and so on. Chiropracter daughter is finally allowed to see clients. No gatherings of more that 10 people, even in our own homes. Hmm.
A far cry from our very strict Level four of a few weeks ago. New cases continue to be minimal and no community transmission to speak of has occurred for some time. Just hoping, with our closed borders, that this continues to be the case.

Hope you're all doing ok,

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Weekend report

There isn't a lot of crafting to report on from the weekend.... I'm not sure where the weekend has disappeared to!
However I did sit down on Friday evening to join Cheryll and friends for Friday Night With Friends. I worked on a needlecase, a wee kit which arrived in my Scrubstitching parcel last month.
It was a nice sew, not too much thinking required and I was surprised that with a bit of work on it on Friday night and then some time on Saturday, it was finished!

The inside page is a nice piece of woven wool —

Here it is with the pouch which was the other kit in our Scrubstitching package. Lovely to have them to do even though we didn't get to attend the retreat —

I did a bit of sorting and planning today so my only other sewing this weekend was a couple of scrappy blocks for my Omigosh quilt. I hadn't sewn any of these for a while and because there was a pile of sewn strips sitting next to my machine, I gave them some attention.

Don't forget that these each measure 4 ½" which makes them a fun challenge. I had started using the RSC monthly colour as a guide for sewing the shoofly blocks (this month is green so I'm way off!) but sometimes it's easier to just grab what's nearby.
I had thought I would have some walk photos to share in this post but it's been blustery and rainy all day so I didn't venture out. (Yaay for some rain!) I did a very quick power walk up and down the first hill by the chookyard this morning but that was all!

I hope your weekend's been happy and healthy,

'til next time,

happy stitches, 

April tally-up —

Mixed results from my month of sewing...even with the lock down I didn't get as much done as I thought I would - always plenty of distractions down on the farm (etc!). I did set myself plenty of goals though and on the whole kept reasonably focused. I fought the urge to start new large projects but did get sidetracked occasionally with smaller ones :-)
My PHD goal, hosted by Quilting Gail, was to finish my Hannah and Harrington quilt. It was all basted, ready to go.... I stitched in the ditch of the big blocks, and also quilted in the small squares.
Rather than cross hatching, I did a simple vine design across the diagonal of each square —

A lot easier to see on the back —

So at this stage it looks like this —

It has a lot less pins in it!

Some may remember me saying I have a Glide foot to attach to my machine to quilt around the felt appliques (preventing any snagging). Attaching that involves doing a foot conversion first - the warning on the pack says to take care, incorrect installation may 'cause damage to your machine'. I gulped a bit at that and decided to wait till after lock down to do that IN CASE things do go haywire. I wouldn't like to not be able to get it looked at by my machine person for weeks.....

So because of me chickening out, the work on this goal sort of stalled a bit.

My One Monthly Goal, signed up for over at Elm Street Quilts was to get my Truck and Tractor quilt finished...hmmmm....I got the top finished - yaay - but didn't get it quilted. I had a rummage around and didn't have enough of anything to use for a backing so that was another wait because of lock down job. However, I was happy enough with where I got to as there was still a lot of work to be done on it at the start of the month.
I've just linked up for the end of the month report - click *here* to see how everyone else got on.

My WOOFA goal was to get some more work done on Foxley Village. In particular, some pieced blocks to go with the appliqued ones I've already done.

I wrote about this the other day. Pleased with the progress here.

My 350 blocks project is another one I'm tallying up tonight. Shelly over at Prairie Moon Quilts has challenged us to make 30 this month. 

Including the 15 for the Tractor/Truck quilt, some for Foxley Village, 10 for my postcard quilt, and a few extra randoms, my tally came to 34. Not bad, I feel!!

I haven't quite updated my OPAM page yet but I think I have 11 for the month! I'm so glad I've blogged about them all as I'd forgotten about the bunnies —

the bunny bags —

there was also the Scrub Stitching pouch —

and a Tilda pincushion —

I counted overlocking four nighties as two finishes and there was a cot sheet, plus my postcard quilt. Whew, plenty keeping me out of mischief, and it doesn't make my underachieving of my goals look quite so bad. The goals help me to keep focused on the bigger picture but I do like to potter and play with other little things as well!

'til next time,

happy and healthy stitches,

 

A day for the birds, and a finish---

Another of my aims for this month was to finish the Scrubstitching quilt I shared about back *here*. Kiwikid Sue and I challenged each other to make a postcard quilt highlighting our fun and adventures when we went to Scrub Stitching retreat in NSW last April.
I had mine to wall hanging stage but I still needed to do some more stitching down, plus bind it.
That was today's task —

In case it helps to see a little more detail, here's the top half —

And the bottom —

After quilting all the background (cross hatching with my walking foot), I bordered each postcard block —

And then folded the edges over  —

So that I could top stitch them in place (stitched in the ditch where the border joins the stitchery part and then around the outside of the red) —

Simple free motion quilting to create 'roads' linking each postcard —

I enjoyed playing around drawing each block but I think this is my favourite motif of them all :-)

This wall hanging is even more special now, since we couldn't all attend this year. Let's hope next year we'll have an excuse to make another memorabilia scrubstitching quilt!

This morning's walk was another hill climb in the top back corner of the farm —

Along the bushline were these ferns - we have a few patches of them but these were looking very photogenic this morning —

Does anyone know what these are called? 

And then the birds started appearing. Not that I haven't seen them every other day, but I seemed to be able to get the photos today!

The Pukeko —

Goldfinches on a fence —

The swallows were enjoying the sun (and doing lots of grooming) —

And even our new family of quail let me photograph them —

So as well as the exercise, it was a pretty satisfying walk!

As our lockdown restrictions ease ever so slightly tomorrow, moving from Level Four to Level Three, I'm going to ease up on the blogging! It was on the spur of the moment that I decided to blog every day during this period. Not so spur of the moment to walk each day, that had been on the cards for a while, I just needed the push.
We have two weeks at this next level until it is decided what we will do next. Let's hope this curve is squashed totally...time will tell.
Thank you all for reading along and your encouragement :-) It's been good to have something to focus on during this time, and I have enjoyed connecting with you all.

'til next time, 

stay healthy and home, 

and happy stitches, 

Foxley Village in April

One of my goals in April (for WOOFA) was to make some progress on Foxley Village, a Natalie Bird design run as a BOM in the Australian Homespum magazine a few years ago.
I've completed another applique block —

Aptly named The Quilt Shop, Part 8.

But the main thing I wanted to do with Foxley Village was to get some piecing done this month. Today I completed the block for section 2 —

Morning Star block

This project has very nearly taken over to the detriment of a couple of other things I wanted to achieve this month. So I have now pieced the first two columns, months 1-4, which feels like a good place to leave it for now —

(Again, please excuse the poor lighting for the photo, I got busy and forgot to take a photo while it was still light outside!)

Really happy with how this is shaping up. I'm enjoying using these fabrics, I'm not quite sticking to the ones Natalie used but using her choices as a guide.
Thanks Cheryll for helping us keep on with these unfinished projects!

And I very nearly missed on my walk tonight, too. I got busy zoom-chatting to the scrub stitching tribe and nearly ran out of daylight.
I did however make it up the hill across the bridge. The cows thought they might be lucky with some extra food when I walked on by —

But no such luck. Here they are, from the top of the hill —

And a goodnight wave to our son and his family. They would have all been busy with baths and bed so I let them be —

The daylight was fading quickly so I didn't muck around too long and headed straight home. 

This is the 33rd day in a row that I have taken a serious walk (and blogged) - every day since level 4 lockdown began so I'm happy with myself. Some days I've had to push myself to fit it in but I have managed!

See you next time,

happy and healthy stitches,