My first.....

My first...Friday Night with Friends of the year!
My first...One Monthly Goal of the year!

Blogland has been full of inspiration, thought provoking goals and ideas, SALs, QALs and everything in between since the end of last year...so many things that would be fun to do, must-haves to join up and so on. I already had a sizeable list for 2019 when the new year started but I do know I'm going to be tempted to join in with one or two new things, at least!!
Right now, I'm giving myself time to decide....

I aimed to finish 2018 with all the stitcheries for Ruth's Quilt completed. Optimistically I even sewed the tag with the year 2018 on it!

But look what happened!!

One inch to go and I ran out of thread and no more town trips before the New Year!

My first job for Friday Night with Friends was to complete this - after 'borrowing' about 6 inches of thread off a friend! Yaay - close enough to a 2018 finish!!

My goal for the month is to chip away at this quilt and get the vertical rows for this sewn - maybe they won't be joined to form a flimsy but I think I can manage the former.

I made a wee start with the joining back in November. Very simple assembly.

There's a few 'must-dos' on my list this month but if I use this as my leader-ender project I'm very hopeful of achieving my goal. Thank you Patty of Elm Street Quilts for giving me a push to form this goal .... click *here* if you'd like to join in with the OMG party.

I spent the rest of the evening working on the last stitchery of the Whimsical Woodland mystery project I started last year. I haven't touched it since early December but once I've done this stitchery, I've just got all the piecing to do.

Mum joined us ever so briefly for FNwF. She's started a Hardangar piece. She finds it a better daytime project so it wasn't long before she got back to her book. She's read (quite) a few while she's been visiting - we're either very boring hosts or she's very relaxed!!

Thank you to Cheryll for hosting Friday Night with Friends. Visit her blog *here* to see what everyone else got up to.
Today I take Mum back down country; she's been here since before Christmas so I'm sure she's ready to sleep in her own bed again. We have a few stops on the way and then my sister is meeting us at Mum's with dinner for us all. That will be nice :-)

Have a lovely weekend,

Till next time,

Happy stitches,

Another FNSI for November

We had a second Friday Night Sew In this month so I settled into my comfy chair and continued on  with some stitcheries I'd started earlier in the week.

I have been back to working on Ruth's Quilt by Leanne Beasley. The stitcheries don't take very long to stitch and I've added another four to my pile.

Quite a few people from the stitchalong I joined have got their tops together so I took a few minutes to pull out my fabrics. I cut a few of the rectangles needed and sewed a few together - just to see how they would look.

I had started with a sweet fat quarter bundle I bought years ago.  I can see that maybe a couple of the blue-ish fabrics I've added to it aren't quite right so will have another hunt through my stash to see what else I can find.

Cute though :-)

Thank you to Wendy of Sugarlane Designs for hosting us on Friday night. Pop over to her blog *here* to see what others got up to on the night (and over the weekend).

Over the weekend I got back to focusing on my goal of completing three overdue cot quilts before the end of the year. I have made a start on the next one!
(Footnote...very tempted by this pattern - don't you think two little girls would LOVE these???)
I'd had a spare hour during the week so did all the cutting for the first block. I pulled it out on Sunday and whew, I wondered what I had taken on!!

Lots of pieces!! For just one block!!

However it came together pretty nicely —

Yaay, one block done :-)

The pattern is Dogs in Sweaters by Elizabeth Hartman.

The cot sized quilt needs four blocks. Below are the fabrics I'd imagined...I'm thinking of replacing the bottom blue; it seems washed out compared to the others - thoughts??

Each dog will have different fabrics for the ears and tail, but I think I'll keep the body fabric the same...

I have a home day today so I'm hoping to get a little more sewing done. Wish me luck!!

Happy stitches,

Little sewing but —

Nigel thought he'd just pop in to show you how much activity there has been in The Palace lately....not much at all!

There has been a bit of action in the evenings though - relaxed in my comfy chair, I've made some progress on a few bits and pieces.
I finished these two vests I'd started earlier in the month —

Both the same pattern, needles etc - just different wool (although
both labelled as the same weight).

hehe - photo bombing pic

The pattern is Milo found on Ravelry *here*. This is 6 vests I've made lately, think I'll have a break from them now!
And I've finished this month's Whimsical Woodland Mystery Stitchery block (through The Country Yard) —

Plus a couple of stitchalong blocks for Ruth's Quilt. I'm doing this with the nofussswappers group but aren't being a very active member!

In between other projects in the evenings I've been making more zoo animals blocks —

ED and I were making this together; her's were the grey background and mine the white....below are our blocks together. I'm thinking 6 more will be enough.

I was thinking a teal to join them all together (ED's favourite colour) but she thought something more earthy. So we'll have to play and see.

ED's really slowed down on the crocheting lately - last week her babies Lily and George were born. 

They were decent sized babies so it's no wonder ED spent the last weeks of her pregnancy feeling very large and uncomfortable. (George was 7 ½ lbs and Lily was 8lbs!).

They came for their first visit to the farm the other day - no tractor rides but I think Mum and Dad just wanted a change of scenery. We're so lucky that they live close, it's nice being able to help.

Proud Ganma.

And, finally, a kitchen update. At last I have the oven and cooktop connected so I've been baking again. Here is lunch for the babies' first visit. As you can see, there is still (a lot of) electrical work to be done but we're getting there. We had several 'dinner parties' while my brother was here and I managed to feed everyone without the oven and cooktop - whew!

Bacon and Egg Pie (to be cooked) and Chocolate Weet-bix Slice.
First major cooking achievements in my new kitchen :-)

It's nearly calf-time so I'm off - 

Happy stitches ♥

Weekend play

When I signed up for Friday Night With Friends last week, I'd forgotten that I'd arranged a Saturday family working bee at our place...aka demo day for my kitchen. Friday night was supposed to be spent emptying the kitchen so that demolition could take place.
Since we've been living here (14 years) I've had broken cupboards, drawers and doors so a do-up has always been on the cards...yaay, the day is nearly here!

However before spending well into the night redistributing my kitchen bits throughout the house, I had a little relaxed time with some stitching. After some more stitching time on Saturday evening, I finished another block for the Leanne Beasley no fuss SAL I am doing over at nofussswappers. We're aiming for 3 a month...here are my three May stitcheries —

and two of the June ones —

I think I'm up to about 20 or 21 now.
Thank you to Cheryll for hosting FNWF...it did actually encourage me to sit down and do some stitching before I got busy. You can visit the link-up *here* if you want to have a bit of a browse around blogland :-)

In other news, ED has completed a few more of her Zookeeper blocks —

And I've done 3 more recently. Not too fussed on my snail but it'll do.

Many of you were delighted with the Emu block I made when I was pattern testing for Juliet of Tartankiwi... I thought you may like to know that she has now released the pattern...so for those of you who were interested in making their own cheeky fellow, head over *here*.

Oh and here is my demo-ed kitchen! 

I hope your weekend's going well and you're finding a little creative time,

Happy stitches,

 

Another week....another month...

At the start of the year I made a quiet resolution to myself to blog more frequently. Blogging remains my favourite form of social media. I enjoy the more indepth 2-way conversations, the stories and the friendships forged.
And because I mostly only use my PC for 'internet stuff' it's the easiest thing for me to do too.
But I am failing in my bid to blog more often.... January was only 3 posts and here I am only just squeezing in a 4th for the month...maybe I can kid myself that because it's a short month I'm doing OK ...it's just the way the cookie crumbles I guess!

So what have I been up to?
With the warmer evenings, the MOML and I have been sitting up a bit later this month and I've chewed through more stitching than I usually do  —
I've finished the hand stitching on the Fig 'n' Berry project I started on retreat.

This will get sewn up into a wee pencil case which will be very handy...to pack pencils and markers for retreat I ended up using my rotary cutter case..... it was not easy to get the pencil sharpener or rubber out of the bottom!

I've finished up a few more blocks for Ruth's Quilt, a Leanne Beasley design, which we are doing here on the No Fuss Sewalong blog. These are lovely wee stitcheries which don't take too much brainpower and nice to do in moments where my fingers would otherwise be idle.

Here is a close up of one of the blocks. I think the petals are supposed to be done with backstitch but I decided I'd rather do (the very much quicker) lazy-daisy stitch!

And I've completed my first block for Woodland Wonderland mystery quilt. I couldn't resist signing up for this one; something I told myself I wasn't going to do...!

(Sorry the colours aren't showing very well today!)

Daytime sewing feels like it hasn't been nearly as productive but I do have a few photos to share so I guess I've done better than I thought!
I've completed the pig block for the Barnyard quilt I am remaking for work. I performed a bit of surgery to improve the snouts I'd initially done and am a lot happier with them now.

Eyes will come after it's quilted.

And lately I've tested some patterns for Juliet of Tartankiwi... I've done a fair bit of testing for her in the past but not for a while. Juliet designs foundation pieced patterns of all shapes and sizes; a lot, but but not all of them, are animals. I find her patterns well designed and written and I've enjoyed putting these wee birds together for her.

This is the NZ Rock Wren

This is the Red Backed Fairy Wren.

Another Red Backed Fairy Wren...I thought I'd try it with the different background.
The whiter more snowy looking one didn't seem to suit an Australian bird so well!

They form part of the On the Wire Pattern Club she is running this year.

One reason I want to blog more often is so my posts don't get so long.....oh well, thanks for seeing me through to the end,

Best be off,

Happy stitches,

The last of Christmas and some handwork

The last of my Christmas sewing is ready to share!! It has now safely arrived at its destination so I can write a blogpost about it!
This runner went to Texas, somehow I just thought Wagon Wheels suited Doniene and her home a lot.

The pattern is from Quiltmania #78 and is for a full sized quilt (4 blocks by 4 blocks) but I decided a row of three would make a great little (ahem) runner instead.

It's foundation pieced, using a mix of fabrics I'd gathered over the years. The photo below shows how much of the light fabric I had left! I had to join about 8 of these small pieces together in order to finish those blocks! 

To finish it, I quilted straight lines out from the centre to emphasis the spokes of the wheels, then edged each wheel in pebbles and then finished it off with straight line quilting. 

One thing about runners, it's ok to over quilt them so they will sit nice and flat - plus they're a good size to play with :-)

I've been making some slow progress on my project for the No FUSS SAL. We're making Ruth's Quilt from 'Living the Dream' by Leanne Beasley. We're encouraged to go at our own pace and I really am doing that!

My block 6 - getting there.....

Blocks 3-5

A couple of friends have asked to see my fabrics...here they are.
A FQ bundle I bought years ago with a few more thrown in. 

It's nice to pull the bundle out and actually use it...I loved drooling over it but it feels so much better to be thinking about cutting it up!

After the drama of the fire last week I thought you might like to see some non-burnt countryside! When we were up the hill taking in the fire damage I turned and took a photo looking down on our farm. I'm standing in the firebreak that stopped the fire from moving over towards out part of the bush and the back of the farm.
It gives you some idea of the contour of the land in our area.
Looking a bit summery too, most of the brown areas are very messy looking with long seedheads giving it the dry colour.

'til next time,

Happy stitches,