Old-ish things

I think I'm not the only one who has trouble coming up for titles for a blog post? 

Sometimes a title is obvious, other times it's a boring repeat (e.g. 'Time for a Catch up" - I've used that several times!)

Today's title stretches the imagination a bit with this grouping of subjects with a very loose connection!

An 'older' project pulled out recently was Foxley Village. I started this a few years ago. Last year (or before?) I diligently worked through all the (hand) applique blocks and then put it away. I realised though that I had missed a couple of applique blocks. They needed some piecing to get them started.

I thought of them, and pulled them out recently when I was wondering what to do in my evening stitching chair.

I joined these to the sheep block I had completed previously —

And then thought -hold this blogpost- I may as well finish the section! 

This apparently is called a Flock of Geese block —

And this completes Part 6 from the July 2016 edition of the Australian Homespun magazine!!

Memory Lane is an 'old-ish' project because the stitcheries in it are all from designs done over the years in The Country Yard's mystery stitchery projects. A bit of this one and a bit of that one. It's been nice to make as I didn't do all of these BOMs, although I was involved with cutting fabrics, layouts or mailouts of many of them!

It was my UFO project for the recent bloghop. Finally here it is all together, with all its borders on —

A little more detail; top —

and bottom —

So onto the quilting pile it goes!

I came across this very old little cutie the other day. Made by ED many moons ago. All completely by hand... I insisted my girls did their first bit of sewing by hand as Mum had insisted that I do my first bit of sewing by hand!

You can't really see the 'button holes' - just loops of thread for the buttons to slip into😀

This wasn't her first piece but definitely one of her earlier ones! I suspect I may have been at work at the time. There was a period when I would arrive home and my girls had made amazing bits and pieces - Harry Potter capes included, all by themselves with just my stash cupboard and their imagination at hand!

Another 'old' thing is this finish from last month - George's jersey. 

He was really excited about it, and ED recently reported that this, and Lily's cardi from last winter, were extremely cosy on their recent holiday to Mount Ruapehu, where it was a lot colder than it is here.

We don't need a lot of this sort of clothing here, but the odd item comes in handy!

'Old' plums found at the bottom of the freezer the other day became some yummy jam.

YD visited the next day and insisted on scones and cream to celebrate the new jam! 

(GF scones are never that flash but were well disguised with the jam and cream.)

Fuelled by his lunch, Odie had a great time out n the paddock with a bike and his dogs —

And there are plenty of photos to share about all my calves who are keeping me busy but I'll just share these two today. The two 7 year olds led their pet calves over for a walk the other day...a reasonable distance and they were all still smiling by the time they got here!

The adults chatted and the calves waited while the kids played —

Off home again —

One last photo; freesias courtesy of YD. Just lovely!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

One side border!

After a relentless few days on the farm, I was glad of the chance to shut myself in The Palace yesterday. I got two hours of uninterrupted sewing time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My focus was to get a side border for Memory Lane done. You may remember, in my last post, that I have done both top and bottom borders and I still needed to plan how to do the sides.

The top and bottom are based on 2" (finished size) squares. That was what I was wanting to do for the sides too, but my stitcheries were going to be too small. That is because I've gone rogue - the original quilt has them trimmed to 3½" (I think) whereas mine needed to be 4½".

I had came up with an idea that I thought might work and had done my cutting.

Yesterday's sewing —

Planning on the Design Floor —

Here is the side border completed —

A bit of a closeup —

I'm loving how it's coming together and will be excited to sew the last border and get it all joined up!

We have some wet and wild weather forecast for the next few days (much of the country does) so I took some quick photos of our Magnolia tree in case it loses all its blooms. The blossoms are not quite open yet but you can see they are a lovely colour when they are.

And another 20 calves have ventured out of the calf shed to new premises. These ones are in a shed which I have to access via the road. Not quite as convenient but it is cosy and they do have a nice view looking out towards our daughter-in-law's photography studio. The kids can also easily visit them on their way to and from school.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Time for a catch up!

After my spectacular blogpost a day (nearly) in July, I realise it's now ten thirteen fourteen days with no post!

Generally, the farm has been keeping us all busy, but I have made progress on several things.

I've added just 4 more churn dashes to my collection (these are 6" blocks) —

I took apart my disastrous 'stitched by candlelight' hexie rosette and remodelled it, forming two more. Out with the old —

In with the new —

(Different lighting, but that 'red' is the same fabric!)

Six is enough for what I want to do; they'll be appliqued onto larger squares for my 2022 quilt.

I had needed a little more fabric to complete my Raining Cats and Dogs block/row...so here it is in all its glory!

This is actually 12" x 60 so is a decent size (!). It will also be part of my 2022 quilt. Its width will dictate the size of that quilt.

And Memory Lane has seen some progress too. I made 5 more blocks, joined them together and sewed them on as the bottom border of this quilt. 

(Yes, if you notice it, I did change the order of the above blocks...I had muddled them when joining.)

And I've attached the top border too - here is how that is looking now.

I have a bit of thinking to get the two side borders done. They will look similar to these, but with different sized and shaped stitchery blocks to work with.

On the home front —

Miss Lily (and family) had a brief visit one day. She insisted 'we' do some more sewing while here. She wanted another dolls' quilt.

Her attention span was long enough to quickly sandwich two squares of fabric with an offcut of batting, two diagonal lines as quilting and a zigzag around the outside. I wasn't even allowed to trim it to tidy the rough edges! Here it is in her (birthday) dolls' house —

Just perfect I'd say!

Last weekend one of the local gardens opened their gates as a fundraiser, while their beautiful magnolias were in flower. ED, YD and I (and a couple of children) went along.

We were amazed at the size of the blooms on this tree!

The same weekend, the older twins had their first ever 'dance recital'. This was quite well done, and each little group spent only 5-10 minutes on stage - with one or two routines. Our two loved it. (They do mini-acro; a bit of gymnastics/acrobatics in it which seems quite fun!)

The other day when YD and Odie were out, we went out the back. He remembered exploring from another time and took us off for a bit of a bush walk. 

These three were entertained, watching Gandad in the paddock with the cows another day —

I am bursting at the seams with calves. I have approx 60 that I'm rearing right now. And we've sold a couple of dozen which I reared through to about a week old. 

They're starting to fill up the sheds 

Three mobs (of ten) in this shed now. The older ones now have access to the outdoors so they can start to learn how to eat grass.

It's always a good workout, carrying buckets of milk to the calves! 

We're still having to help the first-timers calve, as the bull we were sold is throwing big calves. They're all doing well. It is always amazing to see how resilient calves are. This guy was rejected by his mum, unlicked even. We got him to the shed, I managed to make him stand and got his first feed of colostrum into him. I left him for the night with an old horse-neck cover draped over him —

Next morning (10 hours later) he was unrecognisable from the other calves —

A nice scene one morning this week —

OK, must away, and (finally) get this posted!

'til next time,

happy stitches,