November FNSI

When I pulled out my Whimsical Woodland mystery stitchery block of the month the other night, I discovered I wasn't as up-to-date as I thought I was! Somehow, I'd missed stitching the month 7 block. So that has been my evening handwork this week. Last night, for Friday Night Sew In, I continued on —

I didn't get quite as far as I thought I might but the end is in sight —

This morning I tipped out the box and had a look at what I've done so far. I've this month's block to stitch but also a fair bit of piecing.

Here is the pile of fabrics I should have also been sewing up month-by-month. I see a Whimsical Woodland day at the sewing machine in my future!

This morning I also got the final borders on a cot quilt I started making last weekend.

There are several new(ish) babies around who haven't got their quilts yet. I'm detemined not to do any Christmas sewing or get (too) distracted until they are done.
There, I've put that in writing, let's see how well I do.
I started off really well. I surpassed myself with a clean, clear cutting table.

Ahh, we have a problem here...see the bonus triangles I made while I was making X blocks for the quilt? They very nearly sent me down another interesting path - so I quickly put them away and carried on with what I was supposed to be doing!

Anyway I have stayed focussed and here is the completed top —

I made a pink version of the same design earlier in the year (which you can see *here* - scroll down through the post to find it). I really like this pattern; Tic-Tac Who by Joanne of Canuck Quilter Designs; it's pretty straight forward to put together but the 'feature' block adds a bit of an extra sewing challenge as well as additional visual interest.

There are three options for this block; an owl, dog or duckling.

This is a very short post for me, so I thought I'd take the chance to pop in just one more photo.

Longer time readers may remember the Round Robin quilt representing our farm which was started Years Ago (2010) but which I only just finished last year (see the post *here*).
It thrills me to see the grandie-girls stop and ask about it - they spend ages working out who is who.

They recognise the animals they see around the farm and love that their daddy is in the quilt!

(I see I need to do some repairs to the button hole stitch here.)

Thank you to Wendy for hosting Friday Night Sew In..as this is a five-Friday month, there's another one next week too. Lucky us :-)

Happy stitches,

 

Friday Night and Weekend Sewing

By the time I got home after work and a big grocery shop on Friday it was nearly too late for any Friday Night with Friends sewing. I was determined, however, not to post until I'd sewn the binding on the Round Robin quilt I've been working on lately.

Finally this morning I got it finished and now, this afternoon, I've have a moment to sit down and write my post!

Yahoo, the quilt is nearly done..... just a bit of playing with the hanging tabs and writing a label and it will be done!
Thank you Cheryll for hosting Friday Night with Friends. I hope there was enough slice for all 30 of us who joined in...!

There's not been a lot happening in The (sewing) Palace this weekend; instead rather a lot happening in the kitchen.
We've had a fabulous feijoa crop this year; we pride ourselves on being good feijoa eaters but this year we're having trouble keeping up with them!

So yesterday I froze at least 6 kgs of pulp. This morning I cooked up some more into chutney...looking forward to trying this batch, it had dates and apricots in it too :-)

And YD did something with her chillies...they look good in the jar...

Last night I finished reading the second of two books I've really enjoyed lately; one, The Promise Girls by Marie Bostwick, and the other, My Secret Sister by Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith. Co-incidently both about families and sisters in particular. (The one by Marie Bostwick is a stand alone novel not connected to her others and not about quiting).(But enjoyable all the same!).

It reminded me that I have had a book sitting here that I was going to Giveaway here on my blog. I acquired a second copy of 'From here to Texas' (also by Marie Bostwick) which is connected to her Cobbled Court series. I have a soft spot for Marie after meeting her years ago on one of her book tours. She was a delightful lady whom I really enjoyed meeting.

Let me know if you would like to win this book...!

So if you haven't yet read this book and would like your own copy, let me know in the comments below. If there is more than one person interested, I'll do a draw for it at the end of the week.

I am happy to post to anywhere and maybe, just maybe, I'll pop a few other goodies in with it :-)

[I've been the lucky recipient of blog giveaways in the past, as well as kindness from blog friends so am wanting to keep the blog love circulating].

Happy stitches ♥

April scraps and almost a fail —

As seems typical with me, I breeze in at the first of the month (here in NZ) with a last minute post about my monthly goals for the previous month!
I sort of failed with the One Monthly Goal I had for April; to finish a Round-Robin quilt from Years Ago...... but I'm happy that I am a few steps closer to finishing it as the bulk of the work on it is now done.
I did get the quilt top quilted, here it is trimmed in the photo below —

— but I didn't get it bound...hence the sort of fail but not quite! Quilting this brought back all sorts of good memories for me, thinking about the friends who contributed each row, and also the scenes depicted. Here's a couple of sneak peeks but I'll show more when it's properly finished.

This was Mr Piggy, who we no longer have, but we do have a Miss Piggy!
I did a very small amount of ruler work but it was mostly random fmq-ing.

Hehe - different pig - same pose!

I'm linking up to Patty of Elm Street Quilts - thank you Patty for hosting us - click *here* to see how other bloggers went with finishing their goals.

I'm also linking up to Joy of Days Filled with Joy, for her monthly Finishing Stitches Challenge. Thank you Joy for encouraging and hosting us. 

Since I had only a partial success I hope I qualify for joining these link ups!

In April I also sewed up two blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. The month's colour was Multi; rather than make a multi-coloured sprout block (My RSC block for this year) I added two new blocks to the Great Granny squares I started a few years ago.

Obviously it was a bright glarey day when I took these pictures so I apologise you cant really see the colours very well.
I now have 9 of these blocks - I had wondered if it might be a good place to stop but now that I see them together I think I will carry on - maybe a 4 x 4 setting will be nice... if I plan a bit better with my scrap colours for the rest of the blocks I may even end up with a cohesive looking quilt!

I'm linking up to Angela of soscrappy - thank you Angela for motivating us to rummage in our scraps and use a few up!

[EDIT; And I've just linked up to Freemotion by the River, for Linky Tuesday. Thank you Connie.]

The school holidays have ended and the girls have gone home. We had two busy fun weeks with them here. We are gradually turning them into farm kids and I love this photo I took one day while we were out the back doing some stockwork.

See them leaning? They were singing their hearts out!

Ok, gotta go - I have a quilt to finish!

Happy Stitches,

Round Robin 2011

My Round Robin group got together recently for our final official meeting of the year — it was very exciting as we had THE big reveal of all of this year's blocks.
At our first meeting (late January) we had to present a block depicting a saying, poem or similar. That was the last we saw of our own work.
Our bags (containing our original block and our choice of fabrics) went from friend to friend each month. We all made one block for each other, based on the theme depicted in the original block. (There was also an additional challenge each month - to be explained soon in this post...)
Of course rules are made to be broken; someone (who shall remain nameless) hadn't made an original block (she wanted to do an outer border with her saying once all the blocks were made), another someone (who will also remain nameless) made two little mice who will go in the corners of the quilts. We had "The Owl and The Pussy-cat" poem, a Christmas themed story, "When I'm an Old Lady I'll wear Purple" theme, friendship sayings, garden theme, New Zealand theme, and sewing sayings.
So, lots of variety, and lots of fun.
My initial block is the appliqué shown on my sidebar - "I cannot count my day complete, 'til needle, thread and fabric meet".
Below are photos of the blocks my dear friends made for me —
Ans made the first block.  This month's additional challenge was to include an appliqué element.

A big basket of fabrics - without it I cannot sew, stitch or needleturn!

Clever, huh? Love the rolled up fabric!

Jacki was next with this gorgeous spool block. This month's challenge was for a triangle to be included. Challenge well met.

A great way to show my lovely fabrics :-)

Jenny based her block on one from the "Breast of Friends" BOM. I love this one too.

French knots were the challenge - she managed to squeeze some on top
of the 'i's.

 Kerry rose to the 3-D challenge with this clever needlecase— 

Totally functional - and absolutely beautiful!

-See, it even opens!! 

I'm sure you can guess this month's challenge- met beautifully by Kerryn — 

Yes, foundation piecing. What a sweet machine.

Jacki came to Mary's rescue in the next month and stitched a second block for me. The challenge this time was 'quilter's choice' which suited Jacki down to the ground.

Another lovely block and my thoughts exactly!
{Something weird happened at the bottom of the photo - blame the camera,
not Jacki.}

You would be forgiven for thinking we had another challenge of a 3-D block - it wasn't. Janis made a totally original pincushion block - the challenge was to include a circle - I see several here.

Complete with complimentary pins!

Superb!

As the months rolled by, some of us were having trouble coming up with fresh ideas, but Jan came up trumps with her spool block — 

These funky spools are so cool - love how they are done...

One's even filled with thread!

The final month's challenge may have been to include an oblong shape, but as Jan is new-ish to our group, I'll forgive her :-)

So, whew, that's my rather photo-heavy post - aren't the blocks gorgeous and aren't I lucky to have them - and such talented friends. Thank you, Ladies!! My next challenge is to put them together - I have ideas (and fabric) but you know me, it won't happen overnight!!

Thank you for visiting - have a good weekend every-one, and happy stitching :-)

Thank you and Round Robin Year Three!

Putting my money where my mouth is - 
A big thank you to everyone who generously commented on my last post - there were 50 comments (!! :-)!!) so together we raised $50... your kind words and thoughts were appreciated and made the exercise a fun, rewarding affair.  Tomorrow morning a cheque will be winging its way to the NZ Cancer Society; I was told a posted cheque with a note saying WHERE I wanted the money directed to would mean I could dictate what happened to it - so that's $50 towards Brain Cancer research. Thank you again everyone for helping me celebrate my blogging birthday this way.

Tonight we have this year's first meeting for our Round Robin group. I have spent the weekend working on my block for it. Now that it is finished I can relax and look forward to seeing everyone again.
This year we decided to choose a saying, motto or verse to use as a theme for our work. We all make the first block, which we will show tonight. Someone else will take our block and bag of fabric home to do a second block .... and we won't see our own one again for another 9 (I think) months.
So it will be farewell Sunbonnet Sue, I'm sure she will have a lovely time exploring every-one else's sewing room.

Can you guess -
I'll be asking for sewing themed blocks.

I adapted a Sue from Betty Alderman's 'Precious Sunbonnet Quilts', such a lovely book. I have needleturned her - once I finished that I ironed some Parlan on the back and did the stitchery. It has given the block a nice textured look. I was pretty pleased with how the red quilt turned out; I made it 3-dimensional by draping and playing with the fabric.

If you want to look, here are some previous posts about my round robin quilts from the last two years - 2010 and 2009.
Happy sewing everyone, have a great week - in the heat or the snow, where-ever you may be!

Awestruck!!

In my last post, I was getting excited about the big reveal that was about to happen for our Round Robin group. We met at Jenny's beautiful old villa, way out in the country, and decorated top to toe for Christmas. A beautiful setting for our evening.
 I must say I was totally blown away by my quilt!!! I had no idea what to expect but I had been warned that it was looking pretty spectacular!!!
This is the Before photo, taken of my first row representing our journey to our current (and final!) farm.

And here is the After shot  - taken after a year of my gorgeous friends' work —

As requested, rows depicting our Life Down on the Farm

Look at the amazing detail —

Patsy included the kids, Kerry decided the chooks needed a
look-in, and Jacki's husband Alan selected the Friesian
 cow fabric.

Mary continued the river that I had started (3-dimensional rocks
and all), Leeanne finished it and included the horses down on the riverbank.

Megan gave us somewhere to live.....

...and Ans (the Yo-Yo Queen) made sure the MOML had something to drive.

Even Mr Piggy got a look-in!! Thanks Aurely

Janis added some more horses and some native wildlife

Jenny made this row to represent the partnership that
got us here

Every time I look at it I see something new - notice the staples in the fence post!!

Brilliant, huh?

What can I say, but THANK YOU girls!!! I know this one was a challenge - You've told me about being pushed out of your comfort zones at times but I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope you've all enjoyed receiving your final rows as much as my family and I have enjoyed receiving this one xox