Crafting at our house

I wasn't on dinner duties on Friday night so I thought I had a nice long creative evening ahead of me.
At the end of the night 11 measely crocheted fancy looking bobbles is all that I achieved —

I could blame Timmie-cat and say it's all her fault I was so slow but I'd better own up and say it was a very tricky part of the pattern which took me a while to nut out..... using 2 colours at once was a challenge too!

So at this point in time I can say my Mandala Madness is growing VERY slowly.
To see what other FNSI-ers got up to click *here* - it's always fun to see what others around the world are working on. Thank you Wendy for hosting us :-)

I said earlier on that I wasn't on dinner duty so I'd best explain. We now have flatmates with our YD and her hubby moving in. They've left the big smoke and are living and working in Northland now -yaay!! They've made the downstairs area very cozy and it's just like a small apartment :-)

Nice to see the quilt I made for her DH lovingly used :-)

As well as sharing dinner duties I now have another crafter in the house.
YD's first completed cross-stitch project —

She figured out the french knots by herself so I was most impressed!

She's now full steam ahead on her first major knitting project; a jersey for her wee dog.
( I say 'first major' as years ago she knitted a scarf for her pet pig.) (Do you detect a pattern there!)

It's nice to have the extra hands around. These are starting to come thick and fast -

Yes, new calves, the 'spring' calving season is upon us.

The chorus goes something like "Will you feed us"

In between time I'm trying to get a bit of quilting done on the mystery quilts I'd basted in my last post. Too many distractions and progress is slow!

I'm using Aurifil threads for this one and I'm very happy
with how they are going.

Best get back to it :-) Till next time,

Happy stitching ♥

Pigs and Gifts

First of all the pigs - this week I completed another block for my Anderson's Farm Barge's Farm mystery button club. I'd missed out Block 3 when I was away on holiday so some catch up stitching was needed.
This block stretches the imagination just a little but is rather cute all the same.

Block 3 - Joyride!

Again I decided to do some needleturn rather than stitching so the big pig, off on a joyride, is in fabric.

Lynette has showed us an assembly diagram for what we have done so far so I sewed mine up too - here are all the blocks together; this is the half way point.

And on to the gifts.... last week I celebrated a birthday (another case of saying "where has the year gone"!).

I had to make my own cake this year, but I made sure it got a candle!

In amongst the lovely birthday fuss, I received a couple of gorgeous handmade gifts.
Kerryn put this together for me...such a sweet simple runner, one of those fancy ones you have peeking out over the edge of a shelf or ledge :-)

Isn't it beautiful?

{I think this style of runner was inspired by Pam Buda's Tucker *here* on a Heartspun Quilts; a sewalong last year}.
And Kerry knows how I like practical gifts too with this lovely set of kitchen goodness.

Pom-poms and ric-rac add to the yummy-ness :-)

Thank you both very much, Lovely Ladies.

Below is what happens when you train your husband up to do (one fingered) emails and check out facebook when you go away on holiday..... he saw this t-shirt advertised on facebook and decided I needed one!! Isn't he a thoughtful (and understanding) chap?!

Hehe very appropriate, do you think?!

And no birthday is complete without a bit of grandbaby time.... it was lovely to skype with my son and follow the babies/toddlers all around the house!!

Into everything. The chair was serving as an ineffective barrier...!

On the quilty front, this week I basted my two Fabulous Friday quilts - looks like I have a bit of quilting to do, doesn't it?

I am needing some long uninterrupted quilting time over the next little while, although I still haven't decided what I will do on them!

I hope you have a happy and creative weekend,

and thanks, as always, for reading along,

A Night In....

Yaay for some peaceful Friday Night Sewing Stitching Crocheting!! Last night I joined in with Wendy from Sugarlane Quilts and 31 other crafters for Friday Night Sew In.
I had a nice long evening in my cozy chair with the TV on and the MOML and a cat snoring breathing gently on the sofa.
I was determined to finish Part 5 of my Mandala Madness and here it is —

Part 5 completed, the pinky/red work.
This is now 20" across.

The rounds are getting a little longer to go around and I think my grand plan of catching up to the rest of the crocheters by the time the last clues are given out are pretty slim. At one stage I worked out I'd have to do 3 Parts a week to catch up but I think it would be even more than that now - oh well, I'll just have to relax and enjoy the journey (even more!).

Am loving this soooo much!

And because this is a quilty blog I'd best show a quilty picture! This morning I sewed up the last block of my scrappy-brown Fabulous Friday mystery project. This block as named by EQ7 is called Picnic Bouquet and is 18" square - a far cry from the tiny blocks from my last post - gosh the seams seemed so long!

Picnic Bouquet in scrappy browns.

A nice straight forward one to finish on. Below is my non-scrappy version of the same block. Next up is to sew them all together ready for the grand reveal in two weeks time. Aren't mysteries fun?!

If you'd like to see what others got up to on their Friday night, just click *here*. Thank you Wendy for hosting us all :-)

Thanks for visiting, 

have a happy weekend ♥

 

Party time and I was late!

Chookyblue invited us all to her place over the weekend for her annual Chookshed birthday; a weekend to sew and craft with friends from around the world.

I was late to the party as we had a surprise visit (well 24 hours notice) from YD and her hubby. So lovely to see and spend time with them. As they both work on Sundays it was a short overnight visit but that meant I was able to spend most of Sunday at Chooky's do :-)

I made some progress on my Fabulous Friday blocks --

Whirly-gigs,; these need sewing together and a stem and leaves added.

This is a mystery project we are doing at The Country Yard, where I work. This is my scrappy brown version used for testing blocks, sizes, instructions, etc. I had some catching up to do —

Butterfly blocks

"Filler blocks' - Snowballs and uneven 9-patches.

And upstairs, where it was slightly warmer, was a good place to spend the evening crocheting. I completed Part 3 of my Mandala Madness - yaay - still very behind - I know it's not a race but it is so addictive!! I've had the odd bout of undoing, changing colours, etc; that is my biggest problem, trying to decide what colour to use next. I've learnt to look at the whole section I'm working on rather than just the next round (each Part/section is at least four rounds worth).

The start of the next Part, one row of lemon crocheted so far,

This weekend in New Zealand is a long weekend as we celebrate the Queen's Birthday (a little late!) so maybe today I'll continue partying and get a little more done.....I have another batch of soup humming away in the crockpot so I'm sorted... :-) As well as a bit more Fabulous Friday sewing I need to prep the next stage of Month Four of Anderson's Farm. I've done the needleturn for it so far—

Yes, I know, my chickens are facing the wrong way......

Thank you Chooky for having us over, I know you had a wonderful weekend! Go *here* if you want to see what the other party gals got up to.

'till next time,

be creative,

...home again...

I waved the New Zealand flag for a few days in Australia on the way home after my wonderful trip away. A lovely way to finish my holiday ♥ A big public thank you to all those special friends who made sure I had a great time - you know that if any of you ever get to New Zealand, I'll be at the airport waiting for you...

A family outing and picnic in a park near Ipswich.

I arrived home to the realisation that I had swapped Spring in the Northern Hemisphere —

I saw Tulips galore while away - a novelty for this Northlander where they
don't grow very well...

— for Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere!! Brrr, it's a bit cooler than when I left....

...and the leaves are falling.

The Australian stopover (if you call 3 days a stopover?) was a good chance to sort out any jetlag issues because as soon as I got home it was full speed ahead and back to my normal routines (not to mention folding a monumental pile of washing the MOML had collected for me!!). Of course there were some things that needed to be done 'yesterday' - no I'm not complaining, after all I had an epic time away.
First up was getting back into the Fabulous Friday Mystery project I'm doing for The Country Yard. Here are some of the blocks I prepped before I went away (or I haven't shared yet) —

Flower Block

Butterflies

More Churn dashes to go with some made the very first week.

And this block was the first thing I needed to get to when I arrived home. 

I've called it the Whirly bloom block - not sure if there is a real name out there for it?!

It's so exciting having the ladies come in on the allocated day (twice a month) to share their blocks and get their new instructions... they are scratching their heads a bit, wondering how they will all fit together. The gallery for their blocks is *here*.
After the large (18") block, I decided it was time to change direction a little and stitched up this wee star... isn't it fun? It's 2¼" finished and gave me a chance to play with my new Itty-Bitty Eights rulers (designed by Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings) - awesome with all those one eighth markings.

When I travel I like to collect thimbles, if I can; the one below was a little too big to fit in my bag — 

Outside a souvenir shop on the way to Niagra Falls.

— but these ones came home with me. A nice little add-on to my collection. Wish I'd been able to find the one above, and also I see I don't have one from Winnipeg - 

Paducah-Indiana-Canada-Toronto-Niagra on the Lake-Canada- Niagra Falls. 

Already I have a mess on my cutting bench so before I start anything new I'd better see to that (do you realise I managed to keep my bench tidy for a WHOLE month?! hehe ok, I was away - doesn't it count?)... then I might just pull out some more fabric and do some more playing :-)

Happy creating,

Blocks and family time

It's been a case of "Blink and you miss it!". I can't believe that the month is nearly gone ... high time I posted a quick update on what I've been up to lately.
Not much, it seems — the month is ending quietly, with just one finish (which I shared *here*) and a few blocks made. There's also been some secret sewing going on but that sort of project makes for an empty post, doesn't it?!
I've come to terms with the fact that I won't finish my OMG (One Monthly Goal) this month - it felt like a realistic goal at the time, but oh well it's just not going to happen. Now that I have the 'forgotten' box out and in a prominent place, I like to think that I'll be able to work on it in the not too distant future!

Last post I mentioned the Fabulous Friday mystery quilt I am doing with my LQS... the first clue was Churndashes and you can click *here* to see The Country Yard's gallery of all those fabulous blocks - it was very exciting seeing everyone's finished blocks when they brought them in for 'checking' the other Friday.
The next clue was for these flying geese.... here are my 'proper' blocks —

One row of Geese is on the shop wall, there should be four rows  :-)

and another set in some scrappy browns as well —

The next 'show and tell' day is this Friday; I cant wait to see what everyone has done.
For those who have done their homework, below may be a sneaky peek of the next block —

(You'll see on Friday!)

I surprised myself when I counted up this month's leader and ender scrappy 9-patches. The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for this month was purple, and I managed a few plus completed some of the brown ones leftover from last month.

.

I don't think I've shared what these 9-patches are for...two fairly ambitious projects... the larger ones (3" finished size) are for Leesa Seigele's Ring Cycles quilt and the small 1½"finished ones for Sue Garmen's Omigosh quilt ... both beautiful projects but very much long term ones! (And hopefully good scrap busters!)

I'm hoping you all had a wonderful Easter? For our family it was a time of celebration as a niece got married. Of course with that came the gathering together of lots of family. It was a beautiful wedding and a second highlight (for some of us) was the arrival on NZ soil of our two wee grand-daughters.
Family photos follow, so feel free to stop reading here :-) —

First party dress

All tuckered out

The rest of us in our party clothes too. Hubby and I with our kiddies
 and grand kiddies.

Kaliah and Saydee and their Mummy.

With Great Granny. The girls are 8 months old now.

Just another family shot but think hubby was busy yakking and cooking
brunch on the BBQ! 

I feel caught up now,

'till next time,

happy stitching :-)