Old-ish things

I think I'm not the only one who has trouble coming up for titles for a blog post? 

Sometimes a title is obvious, other times it's a boring repeat (e.g. 'Time for a Catch up" - I've used that several times!)

Today's title stretches the imagination a bit with this grouping of subjects with a very loose connection!

An 'older' project pulled out recently was Foxley Village. I started this a few years ago. Last year (or before?) I diligently worked through all the (hand) applique blocks and then put it away. I realised though that I had missed a couple of applique blocks. They needed some piecing to get them started.

I thought of them, and pulled them out recently when I was wondering what to do in my evening stitching chair.

I joined these to the sheep block I had completed previously —

And then thought -hold this blogpost- I may as well finish the section! 

This apparently is called a Flock of Geese block —

And this completes Part 6 from the July 2016 edition of the Australian Homespun magazine!!

Memory Lane is an 'old-ish' project because the stitcheries in it are all from designs done over the years in The Country Yard's mystery stitchery projects. A bit of this one and a bit of that one. It's been nice to make as I didn't do all of these BOMs, although I was involved with cutting fabrics, layouts or mailouts of many of them!

It was my UFO project for the recent bloghop. Finally here it is all together, with all its borders on —

A little more detail; top —

and bottom —

So onto the quilting pile it goes!

I came across this very old little cutie the other day. Made by ED many moons ago. All completely by hand... I insisted my girls did their first bit of sewing by hand as Mum had insisted that I do my first bit of sewing by hand!

You can't really see the 'button holes' - just loops of thread for the buttons to slip into😀

This wasn't her first piece but definitely one of her earlier ones! I suspect I may have been at work at the time. There was a period when I would arrive home and my girls had made amazing bits and pieces - Harry Potter capes included, all by themselves with just my stash cupboard and their imagination at hand!

Another 'old' thing is this finish from last month - George's jersey. 

He was really excited about it, and ED recently reported that this, and Lily's cardi from last winter, were extremely cosy on their recent holiday to Mount Ruapehu, where it was a lot colder than it is here.

We don't need a lot of this sort of clothing here, but the odd item comes in handy!

'Old' plums found at the bottom of the freezer the other day became some yummy jam.

YD visited the next day and insisted on scones and cream to celebrate the new jam! 

(GF scones are never that flash but were well disguised with the jam and cream.)

Fuelled by his lunch, Odie had a great time out n the paddock with a bike and his dogs —

And there are plenty of photos to share about all my calves who are keeping me busy but I'll just share these two today. The two 7 year olds led their pet calves over for a walk the other day...a reasonable distance and they were all still smiling by the time they got here!

The adults chatted and the calves waited while the kids played —

Off home again —

One last photo; freesias courtesy of YD. Just lovely!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Catch up time

Gosh it seems like I've been trying to write this blog post since whenever - it was supposed to be written in time to link up with Patty's end-of-April OMG line-up - it wasn't. Then I was hoping to link up with the May set-a-gaol for the month link-up and still it didn't happen!

Never mind, today the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th hopefully, is the day that I will get this post up and return to blogland!!!

(Yes, this is about the 4th intro paragraph I have written for this post, over the last few weeks!).
Last month I had hoped to get a toddler quilt together for my great-nephew. 

While I had made some great progress, two Gruffalos got in the way!

More recently helping some extended family has taken up our time.

This is what I had started with. Blocks left over from another quilt.

I spent several days making the letter blocks.

Give me an M —

Give me an A —

— and so on —

I made the letters using Improvisational piecing, as outlined by Sarah Fielke in a Quilters Companion DVD I received several years ago. It was quite fun but the 'S' was a bit of a challenge!!

And here they are sewn together —

As for the other blocks for the quilt, I added strips around the edges to build the size up a little. I had imagined a lot more scrappiness but soon realised I was happier with single and wider strips on each edge, rather than lots of skinnier ones. There was not a lot of measuring and calculating, I used what I had and what fitted. And then I trimmed the blocks as necessary so that I could join them together.

The trucks and tractor needed wheels. Fusible web and blanket stitch. I had forgotten how slow it is to do the tractor tyres with all that knobbly tread!

A bit more piecing —

and finally a quilt top —

This has ended up approximately single bed size, so is a bit bigger than I thought it was going to be. I'm pleased, however, because the young fellow will be 3 this year so it should be a perfect fit!
(NOTE to self... if you take too long to put together a baby quilt, you have to make it into a much bigger toddler quilt - how about that for motivation for getting them done while the child is still very young!)

I really would like to get this quilted this month and will go for something simple and all over. We have a full house for now and the foreseeable future so I'll just have to see how it goes!

And I do have a little more sewing to report but I won't push my luck too much and will save that for future posts.

As an aside though, I have another batch of wee chickens to rear (they were about a week old when I got them). The kiddies had a nice time meeting them the other day. 

I thought this photo was pretty cute —

'til next time,

happy stitches,

A flimsy!!

It's well over a week since my last post - where has the time gone and what have I been up to?

(A week ago) We had two small children for the weekend (two whole nights!) so their parents could attend a wedding down country. 

While the kiddies were staying, we had their cousin's first birthday to attend.

YD made him a fun lawnmower cake - it's his favourite thing at the moment!!

After the busy weekend, I spent a quiet Monday recovering (!) with a bit of sewing added in.

I finally got my 2020 Temperature quilt together —

I'm pleased with how the temperature scale came out in the borders —

But it is a very white quilt so photographing it with a coloured background was tricky. I had to be very careful to keep it clean! —  

Some photos from that weekend. The birthday boy, Odie, and some balls (and cousins) —

Lily feeding the chickens. George ends up dumping his bucket of feed on the ground. She likes to sit and dish out each grain one by one (almost!) —

Taking the 'family' for a farm ride —

Two small children running and dancing —

And finding a very dry 'thing'. "What's dat?"..... "A cowpat".....they didn't realise a cowpat is another word for cow muck and had a grand old time stomping on it. Luckily it was so dried they didn't break the surface and create a splatter!

And somewhere along the line I made another bib for Odie —

From Tuesday onwards I was on jury duty, yes, I got randomly selected to be on the jury...the trial is still going. Today (Monday) we had off but we'll be back to it tomorrow for the next few days. Interesting.

'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,