Ticking the Box!

Just in the nick of time I am able to say Yaay, I have met the goal I set when I signed up for Patty's One Monthly Goal at the start of the month.
I had hoped that the mystery stitchery I did last year would be put together by the end of today.
Yes it is :-)

I had all the blocks stitched, some of the piecing done, but plenty more to do on it and I'm pleased that joining in with Patty gave me that extra push of motivation to get it completed.
A couple of closer shots since you cant really see what's going on in the full-quilt one —

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice the trailing threads that need trimming and also suspect that it really should have a final outer border. Yes, we are supposed to add two inch strips around the outside. I've run out of the cream solid as I made it bigger to fit on a single bed. I need to go shopping but this is where I wanted to be so I'm happy.
We celebrate at the end of the month by linking up our completion posts - click *here* to see who else achieved their goal. Thank you, Patty :-)

Lily's (sheepskin soled) slippers were in a semi-completed state last time I showed them, so here they are finished.

And here she is modelling them for you —

Both her and her brother's slippers have needed the cord re threading so they've now been securely attached at the back (!!).  ED now ties the bow around the back of the slipper to minimise temptation and more cord pulling!

Today was the first of the birthday celebrations for our family this month. In the space of 29 days there are 9 family birthdays! A simple lunch and a cake with most of the family gathering (weekend sport took precedence for some) was a lovely way to spend a few hours.

I hope you've had a happy weekend too, 

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Churndashes large and small

(And a few other things)
(Hmm I've just had a thought - I think these are Shoo-fly blocks not Churndash blocks. Never mind!!!)

I had a  couple of quiet days recently that I spent catching up on some sewing. Days like this are few and far between at the moment so I must say I did enjoy myself.

Since my last post, I've made four more Churndash blocks for my scrappy Omigosh quilt (a long term project). I know churn dashes can be whipped out pretty quickly but when they're made up of lots of little units they take a bit longer!

But oh so satisfying!

And because it was too tempting not to, I joined a few blocks. Looking good! Busy but good.

Very scrappy :-)

The next bunch of churn dashes made up even more quickly when I remembered there's an 8-at-a-time method for making the half square triangles. Yaay for google which helps out in times of need!
There's quite a few tutorials if you do a search, here's one for starters.

Two larger squares, two drawn lines; 8 HSTs

Not much to trim, just a few dog ears.

And, pretty quickly, a wee pile of churndashes for my row-by-row QAL.

I'd gotten quite behind on my Row-by-row QAL being run by The Country Yard. Five row ideas have been released and before the weekend I'd done only the first two.
We get a suggested block, a required size and a piece of feature fabric which must be used.
One reason I stalled (aside from a lack of time!) was that I realised I'd become too mitchy match with my fabrics and I was going to end up with a whole lot of samey samey.

Rows One and Two

It took the house row for me to break out of the rut and add some more colour and variety.

The four rows I've done together —

I don't often use a darker background fabric but I'm loving this one! The compulsory fabric is the pastel coloured script you can see in some of the blocks.
Four rows done now - just one more (some stars) to catch up on.

One of the ideas of QALs like this is to use scraps and claim a bit more storage space. I decided to rebel and am trying to create scraps of these fabrics for another fun quilt I've got my eyes on (hehe).

In other news, I've been chipping away at the blocks for my One Monthly Goal of getting Whimsical Woodland to a flimsy state. This is the last of the stitchery blocks that needs assembling.

I'd like to do a shout out to QuiltGranma who has been leaving me some lovely comments recently. Thank you! Sorry that I can't reply as you show up as a 'no-reply commenter' and I don't have your email address. You asked specifically about the possum fur in the yarn I used for the shawl I made for Mum. It's fairly readily available as a mix here in New Zealand, although it is a little more expensive than standard sheep wool. Here's an article that might be of interest and explain New Zealanders' keen use of this fur in our textiles.
The morning has disappeared on me - it's time to go get some firewood in and let my chickens out for a run.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

One Monthly Goal and some woolly finishes

I thought I'd have another try at setting a goal and getting it done this month - it's a while since I've successfully signed up to Patty's OMG. (One Monthly Goal link party). As we all know, life sometimes just gets in the way.
However, as I've been working on my Whimsical Woodland blocks lately, I'm now pretty keen to get the top together. This is where I'm up to at the moment —

Hopefully by the end of the month I can show a picture of a flimsy :-) Thank you Patty for the wee push and motivation.

As I looked through my photos the other day, I realised I'd been a bit slow in sharing some of my finishes lately. I've actually had more than I've accounted for!

A while back I showed you an in progress photo of a cardie I was making for Lily. Well that's already being well worn and, if truth be told, I probably should have made it a little longer. For now, though she's getting good wear out of it. The pattern is *here*.

I had trouble finding the right buttons...I couldn't find anything the right colour until I finally found these little flower ones. Although I decided the colour worked, I worried that ED would curse me when trying to push the fiddly shape through the button-hole....she does curse me, but because the buttons are so attractive the babies spend a lot of time picking at them and eyeing them up, making dressing difficult!

These slippers were classed as a finish last month, I've had to come back to them and put a cord through them to tie them on. I did wonder at the time, but the pattern was for 9-12 months old kiddies so I figured they were tested and the ribbing was long enough to keep them snug for this age. Maybe these two are too active - I'm hoping the slippers will be more useful now.

I used this french cord maker to make them - a handy wee gadget to have!
('scuse the blurry photo!)

A project I kept under wraps while I was working on it was a shawl for Mum. I started it in the plane on the way to retreat and worked on it fairly steadily until Mothers' Day, when I finished it. I fell in love with the yarn (merino and possum mix) and had admired the Nessa pattern by Libby Jonson. A good excuse to purchase both and do some knitting.

Trying to establish a lace pattern while flying and road tripping is a bit of a tricky thing, and I spent a fair bit of time frogging (as they call it in the knitting world). There's a few errors I've left there for humility (and also because I couldn't be bothered with more unpicking!) 

But it's knitted up lovely and soft and I hope Mum enjoys wearing it.

I hope you'll indulge me as I throw in this cute photo. Our DIL is a professional photographer and ED arranged a photoshoot of her growing little family. I went over to help child mind while it was all happening. After it was over we had a quick 'random' photo - please excuse Ganma in her farm clothes, but isn't it lovely?!!

The two older girls belong to my DIL who was taking the photos, and the
two babies belong to ED.

It's time to go and stoke up the fire, then settle down with some handwork  :-)

'til next time,

Happy stitches,

Sunday sewing at the Chookshed

Sunday wasn't such a productive day for me at Chooky's Chookshed party. I'd like to say, too much chatting, but when you're at a virtual party, that can be a pretty poor excuse :-)
The day started off quite cool so I got busy with wheelbarrows of wood and fire lighting paraphernalia to get our winter warmth going. The day quickly changed and it wasn't very long before I was turning the firebox down, opening the windows and taking off my sweatshirt!
(I may have even pulled out the vacuum cleaner which, I know, is not appropriate behaviour for a party!)

I did still have my winter warmer soup for lunch though. The sunny deck called so I ate outside. I'd just picked some scrumptious 'spring flowers' and took them out with me to enjoy their company while I slurped. (And for a pretty photo too, of course!)
After lunch I pulled out my Whimsical Woodland blocks - actually they were already out - carefully arranged on the floor of the spare room.

This has been my play, close the door and walk away project!

I bordered four more of the stitched blocks with 2" squares. Just have a few more to go and then I'll nearly be at the assembly stage :-)

I made one of the churn dash blocks for the Omigosh quilt - it's been good to spend some time remembering what sized scraps I need for this project and doing a little planning. Light coloured squares that aren't quite 2" are perfect as the setting triangles for the 4-patches. More great scrap sorting.
(I forgot to add yesterday that these blocks are 5" unfinished size!)

While I was playing with this block I could vaguely remember having small bins of this project prepped and ready to sew. A quick look and I found these stacked behind some books - I'm too organised for my own good sometimes - but I'm pleased to have them now. The other scraps in bins under the ironing board can wait while I sew these all up into blocks.

Such a bonus finding these, all prepped, ready to sew :-)

After dinner I finished the stitching on the last Woodland block for my quilt. It's an extra one as I'm making the quilt bigger. I've put together elements from a few of the other blocks to make a new one!

All in all it was a productive weekend. I think Chooky has sent her guests home but as it's a long weekend here in New Zealand celebrating the Queen's Birthday,  I may continue partying today!

'til next time,

Happy stitches,

Scrubstitching Show and Tell

We've had a busy old time since I got back home from retreat, but I did have the chance the other day to pull out the projects I worked on while over there.
I was really lucky that Sue lent me her machine - I thought she was bringing a second machine but no, she'd decided to mostly hand sew.
She put her time to great use and here is one of the Old Time Kaleidoscope blocks she completed.

I hadn't planned my retreat sewing very well and only had time to throw a few close-to-hand project boxes in my case before leaving home.

I spent the first half of retreat working on my Whimsical Woodland mystery quilt from last year. All the stitcheries were done but little else. Lots of cutting, piecing and more cutting yielded a pile of the filler blocks.

I got to the stage where I needed to lay it all out to work out my colours - I didn't have enough room, so packed it up. So glad of the progress made though.

On Saturday I worked on some hearts for the Christchurch healing hearts quilt drive. I'll share those in another post.

Sunday was a half day and I pulled out another box. I needed to make some small friendship stars for the current mystery stitchery I'm doing. As you can see, I got a whole heap of half square triangles done. I think I got busy chatting on the way to the iron and didn't get them pressed.

But I did try for the scenic shot though - not very successful due to only the wrong side of the fabrics being visible!

At the start of the weekend we each received a gift bag of lovely goodies. One of the gifts was this gorgeous embroidery design by Sonia, of forever always online.
Sabrina, who hasn't really stitched before, achieved this!

I'm looking forward to stitching mine when I get to it; it will be a great memento of the weekend.

On Saturday afternoon we had show-and-tell. It was great; a huge variety of finishes over the year. Some of my photos had heads, etc, in them so there's just a sprinkling here to share.

Sue, with her Doing the Rounds quilt

Deb, a French General Sarah Fielke BOM

Janice, with a quilt made for her Mum

Kylie with a scrappy Round the World

Lea showing us her applique quilt

Sonia's Tessalating Diamonds (?)

Janice had her Splendid Sampler on the wall

Trish's Interlocking squares; she finished the piecing at retreat.

All very inspiring - what will I take for next year's Show and Tell, I wonder!!

I could sort photos for days.
However I'm leaving it here, as time is creepng on and I must get ready for work today :-)

'til next time,

Happy Stitches,