More Quilty Goodness

The Auckland Quilt Guild held their annual Festival Of Quilts recently (I'm losing track of the weekends!). 

The Country Yard (where I work one-day-a-week (usually)) was a vendor so we packed up the shop and off we went!

What to take, how many to take and can we squeeze in one more project to sew, kit and sell are all BIG questions in the lead up to the event. Keeping in mind that we had our big birthday weekend very recently (*last post*), I think we did well just getting there!!

By Thursday afternoon we were mostly set up —

(just some labels and a few more last minute bits and pieces to go).

(You can see my recently completed Cross and Crown quilt hanging there, in the reds/pinks.)

The festival committee used a different layout this year. The vendors were all around the outside walls of the Auckland Netball Centre, and the quilts and displays were set up in the centre. I really liked this layout - previously the vendors were all bunched together in one area. This flowed lots better.

We were busy on our stand (yaay) but of course that means I didn't get to see as much of the exhibition as I would have liked. 

Lucky for us, this was our view from our stand. I loved the heart quilt!

This quilt was by Susan Boucher. She used Jen Kingwell's Boho Heart pattern and used her own heart and flower designs in the interior to suit the fabrics she had chosen.

I popped over for a closer look in a quiet time, and I've since realised that I barely took many photos of all the other quilts. Permission was given to take photos, as long as the maker was acknowledged on social media. The odd photo I took didn't have the correct details!

A couple of other views of the Stadium —

Best of Show. The Colour of War by Norma Slabbert. 

Best Amateur Quilt. A Walk in the Woods by Isobel McFall. Particularly effective when you stood back a little.

I'm not quite sure why it was decided to drape the winners' sashes over the quilts like that - they were quite distracting!

Aotearoa Quilters had a few exhibitions. This is their Red challenge; every year it's a different colour.

There were plenty of clever pieces. Here are just two of them. Was it because Dame Whina Cooper was such a respected lady that images of her strike a chord? This was a  well executed piece by Catherine Parkinson—

The Monarch, by Sandie Sixtus.

Another of the special exhibitions at the show was this one, showcasing Tivaevae. These are gloriously coloured applique quilts made in the Cook Islands.

(The second photo is borrowed from the Auckland Quilt Guild FB page.)

I did a little bit of sewing before we headed south to the quilt show, and made these wee pincushions. They are all based on Gail Pan designs —

The green/churn dash one was filled with fibre fill and the other two were filled with walnut shell.

Before I made those, though, I finished a Christmas quilt. The Santa, The Tree, The Turkey and Me was a top that had been sitting around for a while. It was a sample for a BOM at the shop. We decided to run it again as it was very popular. But better to have it displayed as a finished quilt!!

I needed to change the foot on my machine. This big plastic one curves up which means it doesn't get caught on the three dimensional wool felt pieces.

And back to the standard foot for the outer border. I mostly just outlined the applique and stitchery and did this ribbon thing around the outside edge. 

Hanging at the show (the light was wrong for a decent shot) —

And now hanging at the shop —

While the show ran over three days, I was at the show for just two of them. It was a busy old time, but I enjoyed it. 

So there we have it - a bit of a peek at the show, and a bit of  peek at what I've been sewing.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn.

Weekend progress

I made a bit of an oopsie when I traced out the stitchery element of the final block of The Santa, The Tree, The Turkey and Me.

This block is a long narrow-ish one and has two overlapping design sheets...so of course I traced the lettering off one sheet, changed sheets and for some stupid reason traced the overlapped lettering a second time. Being night time I didn't see that I already had writing on my fabric. And of course they weren't perfectly lined up —

(It almost looks like it reads 'Now Disaster'!! hehe)

I couldn't see a way that I could stitch this tidily so I had to come up with an alternative way to complete the block. Most of the blocks on this quilt have a extra piece of linen which is decorated with stitchery or wool applique and then attached to the block. I realised I could do the same thing here.

So on Friday Night with Friends I set about to correct this, and got this far. I actually think it's going to work!

Thank you Cheryll for hosting us on Friday night as we all stitched along. You can visit her blog *here*.

I got a wee bit of sewing done over the weekend. Firstly Lily needed some tights sorted. You know when tights are baggy, they're no good! (And I do know quilters don't do 'mending' but occasionally this one does!) I've done a trial bit of seaming so that she could try them on for size....which she has....they were great....so now I can tidy them up (and do the second pair) and get them back to her.

I continued on with the scrappy Christmas Ornament quilt. I've decided to add a piano keys border top and bottom to make it just a little longer so it will fit better on a single bed. I spent a nice bit of time going through my Christmas scraps - pleasingly some of the fabrics I'd used for the ornament blocks were already all used up and now a few more are finished as well!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Christmas WIPs

Now that things are easing on the farm (for me at least; the MOML is still as busy as ever) I've miraculously found more sewing time!

Back when there were still 100 days left until the end of the year, I came across a WIPS-B-GONE (2021) challenge being run by Leanne, the Devoted Quilter.

In the last year or so I've been very good at signing up for things and not following through😟 
I thought that maybe this challenge would give me an extra push to complete a few projects and therefore redeem myself. With that in mind, I remembered that a few posts ago, I had sort of challenged myself to finish three Christmas quilts by the end of the year.

So that part was easy - identifying which 'Works In Progress' to work on!

Progress has been slow but I have tried to keep these three projects at front of mind.
I've made another reindeer for Juliet's Sleigh Ride Sewalong —

I'm a bit late for the sewalong but that's how it goes. You can see below how it's starting to take shape. I have two more to make, which won't take too long once I put my mind to it.

My evening sewing has picked up a bit. For a while there I was too tired to think about much after dinner, but lately I've been continuing on with The Santa, The Tree, The Turkey and Me. 

When I'd left off, it was at this stage —

But I spent an afternoon prepping some more for the evenings —

I've since stitched these areas; the reindeer now have their harnesses and Santa just needs his beard and some trims on his suit. Then I'll be ready for the stitchery elements of the block.

Most exciting of all is that I am back to my Scrappy Christmas Ornaments!!!

The lack of a decent sized design wall means that this project was laid out on the spare bed in the guest room. I'd had it on a sheet which I quickly rolled up (way back whenever) when some extended family needed a safe place to live for a month, then Mum stayed for a bit, and then, not long after, our bathroom remodel started. The contents of the 'old' bathroom were upended into the guest room (just across the hallway) for safekeeping and sorting. Whew.

One completed bathroom later I can now access the bed so have unrolled the sheet and started working on joining the blocks into rows.

It's always been my vision to have the ornaments 'randomly spaced' around the quilt, so while I'm joining them into rows, I'm offsetting them so they all hang at different heights. 
I soon realised the small blocks need a bit more background around them so they don't look lost. That has grown the potential size of the quilt by a few inches but that's not an issue.

Here's the mess on the bed, I've joined nearly three rows and am nearly half way there.

The WIPs be Done challenge is mostly being run on Instagram. I thought it would be a good way for me to get back onto that again so maybe I'll have a look at that when I finish writing this (unless I get the urge to sew instead....!)

I mentioned that my calf duties are slowing down. We finished calving about two weeks ago (just under 3 months from start to finish). And some are weaned.

I put the youngest ones out into the paddock last week and spent an enjoyable time watching them run, which they always do with great gusto when first put out —

And another time I caught these handsome fellows being curious —

I took this one gorgeous morning —

And here is the herd another, very foggy, day —

OK, must be off, 

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Another catch-up!

It was all about stars in my last post, and I have made several more for the Scrappy Star Adventure since then.

Another one using the Month 3 pattern —

And then three of the (new) month 6 pattern. A six inch version —

And two nine inch stars —

I quite like how this star floats in the middle of the block, which you can then fill up with other designs! 

That's 24 stars made now - I'm not sure how many I need, but a whole lot more than that! 

And I finished Block six of The Santa, The Tree, The Turkey and Me —

(Rudolf does actually have eyes but I may have to re-do them so that he can actually see where he is going!)

I joined the first six blocks together so that they can be displayed in the shop —

The seventh block goes along the top; I have made a start on it but haven't got a photo of it to share yet. I'll be able to get back to this project now as I have finally finished Lily's cardigan, which I started in June when we were on holiday. I had a bit of a pause while waiting for some more wool to arrive, and then it seemed to take me forever to sew up. We don't have as much sit-down time in the evenings at the moment so I'm blaming it on that!

*This* is the pattern for it.

I gave up on the Lazy Daisies, which are supposed to be in all the plain Stocking Stitch areas. Lily always comments when I wear clothing with 'pretty flowers' on it, so I gave her a few. But only a few!

On the farming front, calving has got quite busy. We have well over a third of the herd in now and are sending milk to the factory - it always seems to happen so quickly!

Some days are quite peaceful —

Others are more manic. We had 14 new calves on Saturday! Pretty much a record for us. Don't forget it's just Ma and Pa Kettle here looking after all these animals!

Here's what one day's worth of calves looked like on Saturday —

My calf shed quickly got full —

So I've moved the older calves to another shed. These ones now have a room with a view; I'll open the gate for them to enjoy the outdoors when the paddock dries up a little more.

And then a few days later I moved a second mob down there —

In between times we've had a nearly-flood. As you can see the bridge was impassable for a wee bit and there's always plenty of debris left behind. That created a bit of (very) early morning stockwork. We were back in bed by 5.30am!!!!

Another day the hot water cylinder at the cowshed packed it in. The easiest way to get hot water for my calf milk that night was to heat it on the BBQ. A very slow process!

The two calves below amused me - both born exactly the same day but one was twice the size of the other! Just like human babies, calf babies come in all shapes and sizes.

This morning all was well with the world. Happy animals - and not too many new calvers to deal with.

'til next time,

happy stitches,