A clutch of cushions

 Last post I showed the mystery foundation piecing I was doing... I couldn't work out what it was but suspected there was a bunny in there somewhere. Here is the solved mystery - cute huh??

I decided he was the perfect size for a cushion so have bordered him and also put a small ruffle around the edge - however he is to remain a 'cushion flimsy' for now as I want to do a bit more quilting on him later on (he is just stitched in the ditch at the moment).

oooOOOooo 

And I can see I should have cropped the photo below - but ta-da - here is my completed Stitcharound The Block designed and run by Helen Stubbings.

 I am really happy with how it has turned out. I have also made this project into a cushion and put binding around the edges. [It's hanging on the wall for the photo shoot as I don't have a big enough cushion inner.]
Leanne, Nicky and Janis all worked on this  for me. Another friend Leeanne also took part with another group - you can see her completed cushion here.

oooOOOooo 

I have joined the FMQ (free motion quilting) challenge - see it here - in the hope that I can get more confident with my fmq. Then maybe I can make a bit of a dent in the pile of quilt tops I have sitting waiting to be completed :-)

The idea is we practise every day for at least 14 consecutive days - and hopefully see some progress after that time! Today was my first day but I won't show today's fairly abysmal effort but - watch this space - it will be interesting to see how it goes.

That's about it for now, I hope you all had a nice Easter weekend and your stitching and sewing projects are going well. Thank you for visiting,

Aren't they cute?

I just love these little flowers that are stitched into our Stitcharound The Block - they are very whimsical and make me think of elves and fairies and long summer days in wild gardens and hay paddocks.

My goal today was to get the bottom edge of this stitched and yaay (!) I have achieved it :-)
Happy stitching everyone,

Catching up

ED came home for the weekend last night--so lovely to see her-- and during the course of conversation, she commented that I hadn't updated my blog for a while. So true I thought, but I couldn't really think of much creating to show everyone!
So I got up this morning, grabbed my camera and went hunting!!

MY Stitcharound The Block returned home recently. This was a project designed by Helen Stubbings of Hugs n'Kisses. Groups of 4 of us worked on these, all taking a turn to do a round on another group member's work.... I did the centre of this, and other bloggy friends around New Zealand have done the next three rounds {thank you Leanne, Nicky and Janis :-) }.As you can see Round 4 needs a little more done to complete it - isn't that what friends are for, to take up the slack for each other - so I plan on preparing that today so I can stitch it while down at my parent's this week. [And the way it worked out in our group with Christmas, and life getting in the way, I actually haven't done a Round 4 yet anyway, so it's all worked out fair!]

I also found my Grandmothers Garden Quilt to photograph... as you can see I am joining the hexie-flowers; I wanted to get started on that so I could see what colours I needed to make new flowers from. It's very skeletal with the minimum number of seams sewn to keep it all together; now I'm working through it adding the white hexagons and filling in all the gaps.
Below you can see that I have been doing a little practice of my free motion quilting.

And this week was Class One of the Beginners' Quilt I am teaching at my favourite local quilt shop.The first time I have done tutoring in the quilting world but we seemed to master quarter inch seams and closing the rotary cutter EVERY time alright!!

Simple colour scheme and an achievable design.

And a further distraction at home, we are extending our deck - it was very narrow before - and creating a carport as well. So there's cups of tea to make for the builders and the occasional bit of home baking to produce!!

So now I'm all caught up - ED, I hope you are satisfied!!
Have a lovely weekend everyone, I hope you get the chance to do some creating!

Merry Festive Season

I didn't realise Quiet and Simple could be so much fun!!

These Christmas wishes are a little late but as we wake up on Boxing Day here in New Zealand, I'd like to send Season's Greetings to all my friends out there around the world. Cows always call to be milked on Christmas Day so we never stray too far from home but we had a fun family day here yesterday. The MOML's parents joined us for Christmas lunch and the table groaned with cold ham and salads, and as you can see from above, some sweet treats too (the waffles with ice cream were for breakfast!! You can blame my daughters for that!! Yum).

Special thanks to those of you who sent their best wishes for our family after my last post, most of you I have thanked personally and my apologies to any I may have missed. It was lovely to be in everyone's thoughts and Dad was touched that so many people cared. I spent 10 days down at my parent's place. By the time I came back up home, Dad was out of hospital and walking his berry house and orchard and shelling hazelnuts. He's not allowed outside by himself but that's still pretty good progress for a man who had brain surgery a week previously. He still has tumours that need treatment so the future is still uncertain but we enjoy and treasure each day as it comes.

My two daughters are in the red and blue, with myself,
Dad, my brother and his eldest daughter.

In spite of the circumstances it has been great to spend time with my family. My brother flew over from Nashville (I haven't seen him for a few years) and I've also caught up with my sister from the Bay of Plenty whom I haven't seen a lot of lately. And the flow of visits from my nieces and my own children all busy growing up and running their own lives has been fabulous too. I'll be up and down over the next few months as 'us 3 kids' take turns to stay with and support Mum and Dad.

We had a bit of a family gathering down at Mum's one night (it was arranged before Dad got sick. Instead of Dad being there, I was :-)) Young Marco had gone shopping in the $2 shop and selected presents for us all. Here he is wearing his 3-D glasses. My brother and I are showing off our special presents.


Finally I have finished Round 3 of our 'Stitching Round the Block'. We were all meant to spend 2 weeks doing our round and then pass it on, but the amount of work in each round plus all of our other commitments means that our group is WAY behind schedule!! Never mind, no-one seems too bothered by this - I think the final results will be gorgeous and well worth the effort. This is a bit of peek at what I have done on Nicky's. I just love her fabric choices.

 I've also added to my pile of hexie-flowers; I made and joined quite a few while visiting Dad in the hospital. Amazing how much you can get done in a 4 hour visit!! My nieces now call me the flower-aunty so I had to resort to threatening to give them hexie-flower-making kits for Christmas!! They were quite a conversation starter and, apparently, radiated an air of calmness!! The light in the photo below wasn't terribly good sorry but you get a bit of an idea with how it looks so far.

These are spread out on a king-sized bed so I'm quite
impressed with how many I've done.

Once again, season's greetings to you all, take time to enjoy your precious families and friends, and grab a moment's stitching if you can!!
best wishes,

Stitching Around the Block

A few weeks ago I asked for friends to take part in the Hugs-n-Kisses Stitching Round the Block fun (see my side-bar for the link). We ended up with two 'teams' of 4 from that plea... some of my real-life-friends (as opposed to my bloggy-friends who I have met through blogging.... what do we call them all? In the skin friends, virtual friends?? And what about those friends who started off as bloggy friends and then you meet 'properly'  - are they real life virtual friends??? Sigh, I'm not sure where this is heading....!!)

Anyway, some of my friends are giving me ALL the blame for them getting involved.... but I did not make them push the SEND button after they said 'yes, they would love to take part...'  ANYWAY, inspite of it all, I think we are having a lot of fun with this project; there are a few challenges, like tiny hexagons, but we are learning new skills and mastering them!!

Here is my choice of fabric and the first block. 

I sent it to Leanne, and this (below) is what she has done so far....

OHH it was so exciting to see what she is up to!!

Janis sent me her block, here is all I am showing of what I have been up to on hers.....

I'm looking forward to seeing more and working on Leanne's and Nicky's blocks.

I thought I would show the fruit of my labours this spring..... we went out the back today to  vaccinate the weaner calves. Here's all 102 of them (plus 15 at home, still on milk)—

...with a touch of ginger as my
zinger colour

 I enjoy looking at all the different shades of brown, thinking what a neat quilt they would make...

I have worked out why my brain was working overtime at the start of this post, when I started rambling about bloggy friends - it is because I was extremely brave and drunk this just before I leapt on the computer.... ED is now at home and she decided I needed to try her smoothie!! I don't think I have ever drunken anything so green, but it actually wasn't too bad!!

Now, while my brain and body is working overtime from that healthy snack, I'd best go and get some work done!!

Happy stitching everyone,