Some February sewing

My One Monthly Goal in February was to complete another column for my Foxley Village quilt.  (This pattern was originally in The Homespun magazine, and is now available *here*.)
It shouldn't have taken me too long to complete but with two weeks jury duty and other general busy-ness I nearly had to report a fail. 
Luckily I'd sorted my fabrics early on, and another time, I did the cutting, so this afternoon when I had a spare hour or so, I got busy on the machine.

Two friendship stars, some trimming of the applique blocks, a bit more piecing and this part of the column was done —

and joined to the first half —

Small progress but some progress. Thank you Patty of Elm Street Quilts for hosting the One Monthly Goal linkup, I doubt I would have completed this if I hadn't joined in this month!

I have (belatedly) rejoined Cheryll and her WOOFA challenge this year. Foxley Village is on my WOOFA list so I'm pleased to report the progress on it for that too ☺

Something else I achieved this month was whipping up a pair of shoes for wee Odie. I've been eyeing up this pattern for Wayfarer Shoes by Twig and Tale for a while. 

It looks like lots of pieces, but it's not complicated. I used cotton on the outer, fleece on the inner and a ridged denim for the sole.

The pattern has multiple sizes so I am thinking some of the other kiddies might like some to use as winter slippers.

I knew I saved my Moda tapes from fabric bundles for a reason! —

Here they are being modelled —

And in action at playcentre. Great for walking on the pumice —

This was an experimental pair and YD and I have some cool ideas for the next pair!

I did do some other sewing in February but I'll save that for another post.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

April tally-up —

Mixed results from my month of sewing...even with the lock down I didn't get as much done as I thought I would - always plenty of distractions down on the farm (etc!). I did set myself plenty of goals though and on the whole kept reasonably focused. I fought the urge to start new large projects but did get sidetracked occasionally with smaller ones :-)
My PHD goal, hosted by Quilting Gail, was to finish my Hannah and Harrington quilt. It was all basted, ready to go.... I stitched in the ditch of the big blocks, and also quilted in the small squares.
Rather than cross hatching, I did a simple vine design across the diagonal of each square —

A lot easier to see on the back —

So at this stage it looks like this —

It has a lot less pins in it!

Some may remember me saying I have a Glide foot to attach to my machine to quilt around the felt appliques (preventing any snagging). Attaching that involves doing a foot conversion first - the warning on the pack says to take care, incorrect installation may 'cause damage to your machine'. I gulped a bit at that and decided to wait till after lock down to do that IN CASE things do go haywire. I wouldn't like to not be able to get it looked at by my machine person for weeks.....

So because of me chickening out, the work on this goal sort of stalled a bit.

My One Monthly Goal, signed up for over at Elm Street Quilts was to get my Truck and Tractor quilt finished...hmmmm....I got the top finished - yaay - but didn't get it quilted. I had a rummage around and didn't have enough of anything to use for a backing so that was another wait because of lock down job. However, I was happy enough with where I got to as there was still a lot of work to be done on it at the start of the month.
I've just linked up for the end of the month report - click *here* to see how everyone else got on.

My WOOFA goal was to get some more work done on Foxley Village. In particular, some pieced blocks to go with the appliqued ones I've already done.

I wrote about this the other day. Pleased with the progress here.

My 350 blocks project is another one I'm tallying up tonight. Shelly over at Prairie Moon Quilts has challenged us to make 30 this month. 

Including the 15 for the Tractor/Truck quilt, some for Foxley Village, 10 for my postcard quilt, and a few extra randoms, my tally came to 34. Not bad, I feel!!

I haven't quite updated my OPAM page yet but I think I have 11 for the month! I'm so glad I've blogged about them all as I'd forgotten about the bunnies —

the bunny bags —

there was also the Scrub Stitching pouch —

and a Tilda pincushion —

I counted overlocking four nighties as two finishes and there was a cot sheet, plus my postcard quilt. Whew, plenty keeping me out of mischief, and it doesn't make my underachieving of my goals look quite so bad. The goals help me to keep focused on the bigger picture but I do like to potter and play with other little things as well!

'til next time,

happy and healthy stitches,

 

The end of the month already!

I can't believe it's the end of the month today. With the lock down, one day is so much like another at the moment!

Firstly, I need to show you the wee stitchery I started quite some time ago. I think I finished stitching in January, got the hoop on it in February and finally photographed it in March - and it will have to count as a March finish too.

The pattern is Purrrfect by Cinderberry Design (Natalie Lymer) - I made it as a shop sample for The Country Yard.

I've been a bit slack with any progress on my long (and newly) forgotten projects on my PHD and Woofa list.
Omigosh is on my Woofa list and I have managed 5 more blocks for that this month.
You can see in the photo below my meagre attempt at using 'teal' for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge for the month. It's a colour I found hard to classify so my 'teal' is very broad!

The Flashcat medallion quilt is on my Woofa list too and I've completed two more blocks there as well. Even though I'm pattern testing for this quilt, and therefore will be 'forced' to sew blocks for it as Juliet requests, I put it on my list so that I would sew the additional blocks needed to complete the quilt. For example I was asked to test One Left Facing Mouse...the quilt needs four of those particular blocks.
I think I may get into a bit of a bother with the background fabric.... I'm not sure if it's still available so will have to get my thinking cap on if it isn't.

Thank you to Cheryll for hosting the WooFa challenge. Every little stitch is one stitch closer to completion.

Today I sewed up 3 more (Buggy Barn) truck blocks for Xavier's quilt and two more need just their last seams sewn. I thought I'd be able to include them in my monthly block count but of course all these blocks still need tyres/wheels added so are a wee way off finishing!

EDIT - I did a tally up for my 350-blocks project. I made 16 complete blocks this month, counting my fish sample, temperature blocks and those mentioned above. There are a few more I won't add in as I haven't talked about yet - my secret stitching project.....

This morning's walk was a short one and I was tempted to flag it after a good three hours in the cowshed this morning for our final milking of the season - two months earlier than usual because of the drought :-(

This was the most scenic photo of the walk.

Later in the day we had family waving at us from the back hill I was up the other day when I was waving to them. They took the easy way up - using the buggy!

'til next time,

Keep safe, stay home and stay well,

and happy stitches,

End of month tally up

Even with an extra day in the month, I haven't done nearly as much sewing in February as I had hoped. However I am happy with what I have squeezed in.
Getting the negatives out of the way first, I failed to meet my One Monthly Goal which I signed up to at the start of the month. I did want to get my latest baby quilt finished. There're more baby quilts waiting to be started so I need to get moving on this.

I did get it basted and spent an hour or so quilting some straight lines. But that's it so far and this will get put down as next month's OMG - better luck next time!
(Patty's One Monthly Goal can be found on her blog *here*.)

Instead of quilting the baby quilt above I had started the month finishing the quilting on my blue mystery stitchery quilt. This was my first PHD completion of the year.

See more *here*.

Very good to get that out of the way. Just 11 PHDs to go! (Gulp.) Another on my PHD list is my Scrappy Sprouts quilt. It's been pulled out, I made four more blocks, and I'm going to leave it on my wall until I've done some more serious work on it!

For my WOOFA challenge (working on or finishing challenge) I have worked on three of my projects.
I've completed another 18 (!!) blocks of my Omigosh quilt. The amazing thing that these have been made in a quiet half hour at the start of each day - once the half hour is up I put them away.

Sometimes I have only 15 minutes, but I don't do any more than a half hour. And for the last week I haven't done any at all. Also, I had a lot of partially completed blocks so don't go thinking I am Wonder-woman, I didn't sew them all from scratch this month.

Another WOOFA project was a little work on Foxley Village; another two applique blocks —

The geese block was particularly cute.

And 28 blocks for Flashcat. No I still haven't had a chance to blog about this so I will soon. The latest blocks are for the first border, seen below. This is another Tartankiwi design I am pattern testing for Juliet. (It's a fabulous project so deserves its own post!)

Well that was a bit of a tease, here's another one —

And not on any lists is my newly started 2020 temperature quilt. I have pieced one week to see how it would look and am really pleased with how it shapes up.

First week of February temperatures
And don't you just love my special sign!

My actual finishes for the month are very low which is why I am enjoying taking part in the 350 block project, run by Prairie Moon quilts.
The 350 block project celebrates the blocks made, even if a quilt isn't finished and is the reason I'm being so careful to count and state the number of blocks I've made for each project. This month's grand total is 53. That's pretty positive, I reckon :-)

We are very lucky that we get to spend a lot of time with the wee people in our family. We had two smallies visit today. I sometimes feel I have really made it as a quilting Ganma when a small child insists on nestling into a (patchwork) cushion and covers himself with a quilt (in the middle of summer) so that he can concentrate on a puzzle  ♥

'til next time,

happy stitches,

A little handwork

Friday Night With Friends came around very quickly for me and passed again just as quickly! By the time I got home and we'd settled after dinner, there wasn't much time for much handwork.
One of my PHD goals for the year is to put some more quilting on a quilt I finished years (10 in fact) ago.
I'd done some quilting on it on Thursday and spent Friday evening knotting and burying the threads

There weren't many to bury (I haven't finished with the new quilting yet) so I then pulled out these two blocks and added a bit of stitchery to them.
The geese needed their eyes —

And the wagon wheels needed completing —

These are blocks six and seven from my Foxley village BOM (Homespun magazine). They were nice and quick to do but I see block eight will be a bit more involved. Foxley Village didn't make it to any of my official lists this year but I'm going to quietly add it to my WOOFA list - I've realised nothing on either of my lists has hand stitching for the evenings which is quite a gap - some days that's all the stitching and sewing I get to do.

Thank you Cheryll for inviting us along for Friday Night with Friends. You can visit her blog *here.*

It's been a busy weekend. We have the two older girls and their two dogs staying so there's not been many chances to escape to The Palace. (The girls are doing homework at the moment so I've sneaked away!)

Two photos from the weekend; cooling off in the stream in the bush down the farm :-) One of my favourite spots at this time of the year.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

End of January round up

I started the month with a hiss and a roar, with all sorts of planning and thoughts for the year.
As the end of the month approaches, it's time to do a round up of what I've been doing, and see if all that planning is keeping me accountable?!
First up, I committed to Patty's One Monthly Goal. I had a pile of fabric selected and set myself the goal of making it into a baby quilt for a friend of both our daughters.

I aimed for a flimsy but wondered if I might have time to get it to the finished stage as well.
OK, so the flimsy won out!
And the fabric pull changed quite a bit. The above fabrics were sitting on a white print until I remembered a sweet dotty grey print sitting on the shelves at The Country Yard. That came home with me, and a few different blue/greens. I then culled nearly half of what I'd originally pulled.

A straight forward design, guided by the family's love of the sea. (Apologies for the glarey photo.)

In spite of being out each day this week, I managed to sew the last few stitches joining the last rows well in time for the end of the month! Thank you Patty for the extra push to get this done; you can see who else met their goal this month *here*.


Kris of tagalongteddies did a callout for sign ups for OPAM 2020 and once again I jumped in. It really is a great way to keep track of the year's finishes. (OPAM = One Project A Month)
I had a healthy tally this month; as well as the Joey pouches and bassinet sheets previously shared, I also finished the afghan I've been working on lately.

I bluffed my way around the last round with matching-but-not-the-same yarn and am really pleased with the result. The edging treatment is so lovely - I'm sure I said that last time!

If you are interested, details about the pattern, and to see more made in this design are in a previous blogpost *here*. And my yarn hassles (!) are *here*.

I've spent a lot of this month organising and making lists. 

I put Omigosh on my WOOFA list (Working On Or Finishing a UFO). Omigosh is a box of randomly sewn strips - I'll sew two scraps together then toss them in the box. I've been sorting through them, pressing, trimming, sewing and so on. Visit Cheryll *here* to see how others got on with their WOOFA projects this month.
Inspired by Debra of Tuning My Heart Quilting, I have managed 15-30 minute time slots to work on it on most days of the last couple of weeks. There are a few of these types of challenges around, this one focuses on one project which you work on for 30 minutes a day, then put it away and get on with your other sewing. As a result I have completed 5 more of these 4½" blocks —

At the start of 2019 I signed up with Shelly of Prairie Moon Quilts to keep track of the number of blocks I made during the year. I lost track and signed out early on, but I'm trying again this year.
For this month's tally I have the 5 tree blocks I shared last post, the above Omigosh blocks and I'm counting 11 blocks for the baby quilt at the start of this post (six fish and five rows since they're pretty basic blocks). So, officially that's 21 blocks for the month. Woohoo, that sounds good to me :-)

My PHD progress is a little less productive - I've been so focused on my planning that I haven't had a chance to work on any of that (very long) list. I have, however, oiled my Sweet 16 and selected threads for the first one on the list - small bites, right?!

I'm just popping in one more photo which I took while I was out on the deck taking my other pictures yesterday afternoon. The countryside is rapidly drying out and brown is becoming the new green. Grass that we had at the start of the month has desiccated.

Must get moving and get my day started,

'til next time,

happy stitches,