Trying again....

...to catch up!

(Warning - this post is only a little bit sewing related.)

First of all, a finish from March - which I haven't yet shared.

My wee squirrel project (not planned but I had to do it anyway!) is complete —

This was a SAL run by Larisa (@stitchingnotes) and Irina (@nordiccrafter) on Instagram as part of their Sip Tea and EPP fun.

The inside of the sewing folder —

And the outside, opened up. It looks wonky because I didn't remove the bits and pieces before taking the photo! —

There was lots of scope for embellishing to your heart's content, as and how you like.

I had a wee hunt through my bits and found the wee hand tag to stitch on —

and had fun learning how to stitch these sweet bees —

A few more finds; tiny buttons and some tape tape (!) —

Although this started as a free sewalong, I did end up purchasing the pattern for the extra details as well as saving me having to flick back and forth through Instagram posts. The pattern is available via either of their Instagram sites.

Now a farm catch-up from March. Three weeks ago we had some much needed rain (we were in drought) but unfortunately it all came at once and the farm flooded.

It was an unusual rain, quite localised, which caused the river to flood quite differently than any previous floods we've had in the 18 years we've been here. We had extremely fast rising water, resulting in a flash flood which didn't give us time to move the animals the way we usually do.

This is my first photo I took that day, from the deck of the house. When we can see the river from the house we know it's going to flood. Usually that takes a couple of hours —

But the photo below is only 16 minutes later. The river is usually just beyond the horses. I couldn't get to them to move them, the water was already too deep and too fast - luckily they both swum to safety, although it took us a couple of hours to actually sight them in the distance (on the other side of the river) —

The herd (200 cows) were in a similar situation, we only just got them out of their paddock before it was completely under water.
These photos show all our 'bottom flats' covered about 1½ hours later.

The water trough below is just visible! —

Of course you get to the stage where all you can do is wait for it to go down again. The sun came out and the kids came over to explore. We were able to play in some of the shallower areas!

Out came the kayak —

All the kids got at least two turns, so it was lots of fun!

By 5.30 that night, it had gone down a lot!

And then it was all over, except for cleaning up the mess! This photo is taken from over the river - all of the flats you can see were covered in water the day before. It took nearly three weeks to re-build fences (a lot of posts were broken) and clear the debris.

Co-incidentally there is a weather watch for Northland tomorrow....heavy rain and strong winds (ex-Cyclone Fili). We've prepped as much as we can do but are hoping it's not going to be as severe! Time will tell.

EDIT: it now looks like it will veer off to the east and mostly miss us 😊

I haven't been able to sew for a few days so in between times I hope to get back to my bears and stars -they're too cute to ignore for too long!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

A Christmas Sew Along

Have you seen the latest sew along by the Temecula Quilt Company?
It's called Tiny Tree and looks to be a series of tiny blocks arranged into a tree shape - a Christmas tree of course!
I've sat on my hands all year, not joining in with any of the great projects I've seen online but I've decided now is the time to crumple :-)
There are two weeks of 2¼" blocks, a different one each day.
All it needs is a pile of scrappy greens and a little background fabric. That I can do.
Here's the first one —

This post is my 5th for my 31 day blog writing challenge. Thank you so much for following along and cheering me on ♥
Read all about the challenge here on Cheryl Sleboda's blog.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Goals and Stars

My One Monthly Goal project for February will be to finish this sweet quilt... for the last few months it has hung over the back of the wee dog's chair in my Palace....

This little quilt was a sewalong by Pam Buda of Heartspun Quilts back in 2014... I loved the sewalong and actually sewed up three versions of the pattern..... here is a photo I took in September 2014 —

IT NEEDS FINISHING!!!!

There's quite a few people signed up to take part in OMG this month. Click *here* to get to the post on Heidi's Red Letter Quilts blog where everyone has linked their goals. I always enjoy looking through and seeing the huge variety of great projects.

I got quite a surprise this week to find that I had pieced all the stars for my Charming Stars quilt. The fabric, etc, has sat in a drawer beside my machine and has been an easy one to just pull out and piece when I've had a spare moment.... I won't get them joined for a while but couldn't resist laying them out on the floor this morning for a photo. It was hard to find the floor space to lie it out and then hard to take the photo - I couldn't get high enough off the ground to get it all in! (It's 5 rows of 6 stars, the blocks will finish at about 13 ½").

yummy yummy yummy
The fabrics are Ladies' Album by Barbara Brackman

I thought it looked pretty cool in the mirror though! —

I've done a little quilting on my Calendar Bears and am happy with how it's going - mostly; there's (just) a little unpicking to do as I've changed my mind about the quilting on the border :-(

There's great excitement in my world today as TOMORROW my girls and I are popping over to Australia to visit our babies for the weekend ... they are 6 months old now ... we cant wait ♥♥♥♥♥♥

I'm sure there will be a baby laden post next week!

Until then, 

happy days,

Sewalongs progress

It's one of those glorious days when you can fling all the doors and windows open and let the sunshine and warmth filter through the house.

Lovely peaceful view from the deck today :-)

A nice day to have a quick sit out on the deck with a coffee after spending the morning moving calves around - older ones to paddocks, not-so-old ones to another barn, leaving plenty of room in the main calf shed for the youngest ones.
A nice day to take a photo of my completed top for Pam Buda of Heartspun Quilt's Market Day mystery. This was a fun sewalong, easy blocks each month- and look how they came together! Wonderful!

As you can see, I chose to mine in Christmas colours, inspired by the fabrics left over from the beautiful quilt sample Leeanne made as a BOM for The Country Yard. She chose such yummy fabrics for it that I really wanted a piece of the action :-)
You may remember that Pam offfered two sizes for this mystery sewalong; naturally I succumbed and sewed up the small sized blocks as well. They are all made but not completely joined up yet, this is how they are looking so far.

The size of these blocks is 2". Too cute.

I find the small blocks a fun little challenge and they aren't really as scary as they seem. Janet O, rogue quilter, recently did an interesting post about mini quilts where she included some tips on sewing up small blocks -- *here*
The Market Day mystery sewalong instructions are still on Pam's blog if you want to make one yourself; around September 15th she is doing a Show and Tell and I am looking forward to seeing the versions that everyone has made.

From time to time over the last few months I have alluded to a project I had shamefully started when I didn't really need a new one :-) I had figured that if I didn't mention it on my blog it didn't really count as yet another project. However I have kidded myself too long, so now I will share! Soupcon is the name of the project; a sewalong by the talented Karen of Faeries and Fibres......I began mine well after it had started and have had quite a few little breaks along the way but I am loving it so far!

The intriguing point of this one was how it began - we fussy cut a fabric and English Paper Pieced either a star or flower —

Part one and two of Soupcon.

My resulting block in no way resembled my original fabric and it threw me for a while, trying to work out what to use next! Totally different to the fabrics I had originally chosen for this project.

I"ve never fussy cut like this before and loved the effect.
Now I know why lots of people are getting hooked on Patchwork of the Crosses!

Below is my Soupcon at the moment. Partway through part Four.

It's fun how this project changes so much with each round. The flickr group for the sewalong is *here*

And that's about it for today. It may be time to get out into that sunshine again (at the washing line!).
Thank you for visiting,
Happy creating!

Sewing along(s) —

As a new weekend approaches, I am still trying to find the time to write about last weekend's sewing! I've had a week of meetings, appointments, a work day and heavy rain (flooding) so it's sped by with little sewing and blogging time.  I started last weekend with a new blade and a new needle - armed with those I felt ready to take on the world!! I spent most of Saturday thinking, planning and cutting ... I seemed to be partway through several projects, all of which had stalled because I was ready for the next step.

I had got Irene (see Terry's Treasures to learn about this sewalong) to this stage and was ready to do the outer border...calculations done.... enough fabric left to do it Terry's way —

— until I did a miscut (probably was day dreaming about the next project I want to start) - oh no, would I have to rethink the outer border, or maybe do some piecing and hope the joins were not noticeable?  I managed to hold my breathe until I got to work on Wednesday... I had taken the last of the fabric on the bolt, but was hoping there would be some precuts still left in the shop and ...lucky me... there were two bullets in the bullet jar!

And the two bullets were just what I needed!

~~<<>>~~

I made a few decisions and did a little cutting on the project I haven't officially started yet - if it's not on my blog, it's not started, right? I am loving this project but needed time/space to decide on my next fabrics. I feel confident with where I am going with this one now.

Hmmm, maybe it is officially on my blog now and maybe I'll have to 'fess up to
another started project pretty soon?

~~<<>>~~

With Irene off the design wall, I pulled out Hop To It....actually it was already out but Mum is coming next week so I needed to take it off the bed in the spare room. More decisions needed with this one, I hadn't been able to decide on the cornerstone fabric, but think that using the background fabric will be fine... my sashings are quite dark so I think it needs the calmness of the creams. Deciding on an outer border will be another path I need to go down!

(Hop To It is an Edyta Sitar quilt, some bloggy friends and I used it as a sewalong 'in the past' (I am scared to think how many years ago - two maybe?!))

~~<<>>~~

I've been wondering who else is doing Pam Buda's Market Day sewalong? I love Pam's mysteries so of course couldn't help myself :-) I also caught up on my cutting for this. (By the way, I met Pam at Pittsburg and she really is a sweetie). This is really intriguing me ... we are making a few small, simple blocks each week so is a good one to cut out and use as a leader/ender. I wonder what will happen?!

Pam is giving instructions for two sizes - I couldn't resist trying them both.
3 1/2" and 2" unfinished sized blocks.

I've started playing with possible layouts but the 'odd' number of some of the blocks are throwing me. Guess I'll have to be patient!

 (Seems the colour went a bit off in this last photo, it's the same carpet as the previous one!).

 I have a few little secret projects I need to complete this weekend, hopefully I can squeeze in a little time cutting and sewing :-)

Happy creating, and thanks for reading to the end :-)

A Big Weekend and a Small Quilt!

I baked for the girls - but they didn't eat a crumb......

I went on retreat - but I stayed at home.....

My little online quilting group have just had a Skype version of a quilting retreat! We chose a quilt from a book we all have, warned our families, and got sewing!
It was so much fun! Time zones only got in the way a little and we seemed to sew our way through them :-)
This is the little quilt we chose to do —

 

It is Square Dance, by Lori Smith, out of her book Fat Quarter Quilting. It finishes at 16" x 20".
It was fun to do as it had the mix of piecing and applique... its size meant we mostly got to the quilting and binding stage by the end of the weekend.

A couple of posts ago, I asked if anyone had any great tips on invisible machine applique.... this quilt was a good practise for me; I worked hard at getting it as invisible as I could and have finally realised you cant have it totally invisible - I think the look I was striving for doesn't exist!! However I am happy with it and will write a little more about it in another post another day :-)

This was the first time I have used a wool:poly batting mix and I am quite pleased with it. (60/40 from Matilda's Own). It has a lovely puff and it also has a beautiful weight and feel. Dense quilting wasn't needed (which was good as the weekend was over!). I'm hooked! (And it kept my lap warm while sewing on the binding too!).
Thank you girls for your company!! Joanne shows her quilt here, and Wendy's is here.  We chatted with Joan too but she wasn't sewing the same little quilt.

I put the last few stitches in this block last night, my third from the Quiltmania mystery from last year. (Halfway there!)

Do you rememer the VW van I pattern tested a few blogposts back? Juliet now has it on her Craftsy site so if you loved it, you can now make your own!! It was fun to make.
Apologies to those of you whom I haven't answered after my last post, I hope to catch up soon. (Been busy sewing!)
Have a lovely day, happy stitching,