End of January catch up.

I've been able to indulge myself in The Palace (aka the sewing room) this month. There has been the much needed tidy-up which led to lots of opening of and peeking into project boxes, and then rearranging them within the room. 

The biggest change has been installing another cube bookcase under my cutting bench. (Six cubes, on its side.)

I put one in for project boxes sometime last year and it has worked rather well, and after getting fed up with folders and papers everywhere - and all over the cutting bench - I decided to get another identical one for the other side of the bench to tidy up that area of my life.

Sideways bookcase #1 for project boxes—

The Palace also doubles as a Farm Office; the main hub for the farm accounts, animal and farm records, not to mention an ever increasing amount of Fonterra compliance paperwork (even online systems need supporting paperwork!). These all incessantly jostle for space with my sewing and quilting folders and paper stuff.

Of course I didn't measure beforehand and the big ring binders don't fit the cubes....(sigh). Thank goodness I hadn't found a new home for the large cube I'd been using and after a bit more rearranging, a new solution was found!

Sideways bookcase #2—

The start of the year always sees me doing some secret sewing for the shop, as we work towards our 'New Year's Launch' later on in February. 

However, while waiting for some fabric to arrive, I did have a chance for a little more personal sewing, making this quilt top for a soon-to-be-new-baby.

I started with a block from the new pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, Show and Tell.

And grew it a bit, adding to her suggested instructions for a baby sized quilt.

Here are two kiddos showing it off at the shop —

Hehe —

I then discovered the perfect fabric for the final border, and soon it was ready to be presented as a top. My attempts at outdoor photos (in the natural light) did not go well —

So indoors it came!

(Hint there may be more of this pattern sewn for the shop's New Year's Launch).

Apart from the extra fabric for the border, all the rest of the above baby quilt were scraps and bits and pieces - using those always gives me so much pleasure!!

And I've had lots more pleasure sewing more Leader-Ender blocks while tackling my other projects.

Back in October, I shared that I had joined in with Bonnie Hunter's Leader-Ender challenge. This year's block (July-July) is Four-patch fun.

I'm using any shade of red and have amassed 51 blocks to date—

I made a couple of blocks in the same fabric at the start but am now only using each fabric once. 

144 blocks will give me a 72" square quilt, and that is my goal at this stage. 

(I used 80 different reds for Mum's birthday quilt back *here* so let's see how I do this time!)

And yesterday a Squirrel sent me down a Rabbit hole. I have so much on my plate that I was not looking for another project, but I always relish the chance to pull out and play with some scraps (can you see where this is heading?!).

I saw Janice's finished Rainbow Scrap Challenge quilt on her blog the other day, and commented that the block she had used was one I'd always admired (or something like that). Of course that little seed planted itself in my brain and sprouted into a baby squirrel!

Hence —

I was quite pleased with myself because I finally mastered the web piecing technique for making this block. I was shown it a few years ago but had not seriously tried it until now. It meant that once I had all my squares laid out the block went together very quickly (and efficiently).

Blue was January's colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge - I'll probably follow Angela's colour prompts, and make one a month.

I know this is getting photo heavy but I just want to show you my new chickens. I like to get a few every year to keep the supply of eggs going (their laying slows down as they age).

I saw some advertised reasonably local and couldn't resist grabbing them. On my way home I picked up Odie to help me unload them and he was as entranced as I was with them......

They bob their heads around so much that decent photos are hard to get, hence I caught this one for a selfie—

(Yes, I should have waited until he'd finished his snack!)

We call them Dr Suess Chickens but their official breed is Legbar. Apparently sometimes you have to trim the feathers around their eyes so they can see. 

They MAY lay green/blue eggs but we have to wait patiently for a couple of months to find out.

Cute, huh?!

And on that happy note, I will leave you.

'till next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Binding time

Once again I can't believe how quickly the days have gone by since my last post! It feels like not a lot has been happening in The Palace, BUT something has happened, and that something is some quilting!

I recently came across a linky party for Free Motion Mavericks and WOW! that is exactly how I feel about the quilting I have done on the Bears quilt for my great-niece. Very maverick-ic, if that is a word!

When I was piecing the quilt I told myself (continually so that I would get the message) that I was going to do an all-over quilting design.

"Quicker and all that is necessary on a child's quilt."

When I was basting the quilt I told myself (continually so that I would get the message) that I was going to do an all-over quilting design.

However once I sat down, the bears told me they needed proper faces —

The Bear Paw blocks told me they wanted a bit of fanciness and to look like claws —

And then I decided a feather fill would be perfect for this quilt.

I think I've broken every feather rule in the quilting world. I have small feathers, large feathers, long feathers, short feathers, wonky feathers, beautiful feathers, all side-by-side.

And to add insult to injury, I have small spirals, large spirals, spikey spirals, loopy spirals —

And because the border fabric is busy, I just did a diagonal checkerboard there  - I did try to measure to get it all even but didn't get it quite right; however it's barely visible and a wee lass won't be bothered by it!

Binding will happen over the next few days and then I will have a long awaited finish!

Thank you to Andree at Quilting and Learning -What a combo! for encouraging me to join the linky. If you want to see other Maverick Free Motion Quilting, or join in just go *here*.

And binding of a different type. Over the weekend we attended the wedding of one of ED's best friends. ED was in the bridal party, and YD and  I travelled down south (to the Waikato) together for it.

It was a great 36 hours away; the wedding was held at an Alpaca Farm which added an extra bit of fun and personality to the proceedings! 

We were told by one official-type person that we were allowed in with the Alpacas, but were quickly shooed out by another!

The bride's family and ours (well, me and my girls) spent a lot of time together when they were teenagers. The girls attended a lot of horse competitions so we travelled together, camped together and the girls rode together. Here are the girls with their 'other mummies' —

(YD in the red and ED on the right.) (The bride in her Dancing Dress!)

Such a fun night. I'm slowly catching up on my sleep (!)

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Noses and Tassles

I have finally started a new project - well two, actually. Two young ladies were born late last year and a quilt for each of them has been on my to-do list for at least since then.  I have been itching to get these started - I decided that if I waited until I'd tidied up other loose ends before starting, they will still be in the pipeline when the wee girls start school!

The pattern is Bear and Bear Paws by Sew Fresh Quilts, and here is the first block —

Extra cute, I believe.

There are 6 bears per quilt, all in different fabrics. All the noses are the same though, and to streamline the process, I've been making more noses leader-ender fashion while doing other sewing.
The noses are the fiddliest part of the block so once I've made them, the bear faces will go together quite quickly.

Recently I finished another block for Wings and Pretty Things —

Even though it was a straight forward block one of the poor wee ladybirds had a bit of an identity crisis and needed unpicking! 

Oh dear!

I mentioned in my previous post that Mum was staying. She stayed for 10 nights and we managed to keep her free from bugs while she was here. Luckily not all of the visits with the kids were balcony visits —

She got a bit of her (incredibly fiddly) cross stitch done (sadly I forgot to get a progress photo) —

And I kept her company with a wee bit of knitting —

I thought I'd finished with making Barbie clothes but these little beanies found themselves made— 

It was Mum who suggested the coloured tassles and I was happy to run with the idea!

Just as well it's Feijoa season - the smallest fruits were perfect for modelling the beanies.

Just to show off our Feijoa crop, for those who are 'in the know'; below we have a small Feijoa with a beanie on, normal sized fruit cut in half and monster fruits off one particularly well producing tree this season —

The Time In a Bottle Bloghop, which I am joining in with, is coming up this week. My project is done as far as it will get done and I am looking forward to sharing that on my day; I just need to sort out the time zones so that it gets posted on the right day! Carol from Just Let Me Quilt is hosting it.

'til then,

happy stitches,

More trees and sprouts

There's been more sewing and decision making going on around here lately.

And there are more Truffula Trees for the Brown Bar-ba-loots —

A small forest now, The Lorax will be pleased. Four more added to the two in my last post. 
And now comes the exciting bit; piecing the blocks and somehow making these blocks and The Lorax block work together in a quilt for young Odie :-)

I looked up at my design wall to use and it was covered. A month or so ago when I was still in my calving-funk I put my scrappy sprouts blocks up in the hope that they would inspire me to get working on them. (After all, it was one of the many projects I optimistically wanted to complete this year for my PHD). However they didn't inspire or motivate and have just sat there glaring at me. 

And now I needed the space for The Lorax quilt.

Instead of just packing it away I told myself I had to sew another block. 

The problem I have had with sewing this project together as I go is that I put too much thought into planning the next colour; the transition from one colour to the next. My stumbling block was where to go after the blue/green blocks in the row second from right. 

(The Sprout photos aren't the best colour-wise I'm afraid. I took the photos too early in the day.)

Anyway, after forcing myself to put some thinking power into it, I realised that if I am doing it in rainbow order (as seems to be happening) then blue is the logical next step on that row.

And, what do you know? Sewing flowed —

Four more blocks which equals two more 'sprouts'. 

The blue works well —

After that bit of inspiration I packed it away so I could use the wall for The Lorax quilt. The first rounds of borders have been added —

A little while ago I got a message from Lou of the Manxgirl blog. She and her hubby were going to be 'up north' and wondered if we could meet somewhere. Of course!
As I was still busy with feeding calves I wasn't sure how I would do it, but we started weaning more and more calves and I could see light at the end of the tunnel. One mob (of 20) left on once-a-day meant I could leave them to the MOML for a few days and work in a visit to Mum's as well as a drive to meet Lou and Tony. Mum moved about 6 weeks ago from the farm she'd lived on for 60 years (and about 49 in the same house) and I hadn't been able to get down to visit.

It was so nice to meet Lou; we've been bloggy friends for a while and I knew we'd get on :-)

Lou and I exchanged gifts, as you do. I wasn't organised enough to make her something but made sure she had the materials to make herself something!!
She made me a lovely zipped pouch.....

Tucked inside is something to open closer to Christmas time —

Thank you Lou, I love it, and thoroughly enjoyed meeting you :-)

Time to be off, there's a Lorax quilt waiting for attention,

'til next time,
Happy stitches,