November round-up

Cushions get a hard time around here. They are a constant prop for all the kids' play. Always used differently and creatively, depending on the child and the day.

(Actually the adults use them a lot, too, but in different ways!)

It makes my heart sing to see them being used so much. But of course, all that play means they get worn, and faded and stained. None of them are ready to replace yet, but it does mean I have a good reason for keeping on making them!

So I'm very pleased to have (finally) finished my big Boxer floor cushion. 

In my last post, I was partway through the quilting —

I used the Hourglass blocks as a basis for the background quilting. I did consider continuing on with the narrow line fill in the triangles of the background but decided I didn't really need all that extra work! —

You can see (above) that I just did a few straight lines around the outer border. (I used quilters muslin for the backing so the quilting shows up well!)

Being a cushion, it then needed another back.....so far I had used only leftovers and stash, so I rummaged through my non-quilting cupboard and found some pieces suitable to use —

The grey is a reasonable sized remnant from making shorts for my son YEARS ago ( I loved those shorts, that fabric wore sooo well!), the blue is cut off from curtains which I doubled for extra weight. The red is leftovers from making absolutely heaps of boy scout scarves for a jamboree many moons ago.
And the zip, I think, is one Mum unpicked from a pair of Dad's farm overalls. It's been waiting a while for its chance to shine again!

Tada, one finished cushion (cover)! 

More details of the cushion make are *here* but it did start life as a fun and fabulous test block for Juliet of Tartankiwi and was added onto during the Time In A Bottle bloghop run by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt.

Because of its size (32" square) it's waiting for its inner - I have that under control; I took advantage of a Black Friday sale and just need to collect it.

I'm linking up to Andree's Free Motion Mavericks - visit *here*.

My block count for November was fairly abysmal; I made a total of 12 blocks - two of them were stitchery blocks, five more hourglass blocks for my Smidgeon project. And five more Churn dash blocks.

The idea was that our Churn dash quilts/projects would be completed by the end of October. Hmm - a bit of a miss there for me, but I keep chipping away. Of course it doesn't help that I chose a pattern that creates a HUGE quilt!

The block below measures 24"!

I had to do a bit of 'making-do' to make my scraps work. I think in the long run it will be barely noticeable —

I have assembled one corner of it —

It's a fun quilt to make, keeping me on my toes. I'm trying to not repeat fabrics but have the odd double-up. The pattern is Barn Dance by Denise Russart.

In other news, I have got some new babies to look after —

14 of them! I haven't had any new ones to raise for a long time as the pet shop had trouble getting them in. The last babies I raised are in their second year of laying now. Four of these ones will go to my daughter-in-law's. 

These photos were taken when they were about 3 days old - they've now outgrown the cat cage and are in a box.

One last photo. The Tui have been singing away lately and I managed to get a photo of one that wasn't nestled amongst the branches. Not the best photo light-wise but it shows the tufts at the neck really well.

Ok time to be off, 

'til next time,

happy stitches,

What next?

After a flurry of wee finishes recently, and being away three times in the last 5 weeks, I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start next in The Palace.

Yes, I wanted to carry on with my Churndashes but I wanted to work on something else as well.

I used the ever-helpful and very scientific method of standing in the middle of the room with my eyes shut, turning around three times, then picking up whatever I saw first.....

My Boxer floor cushion (details *here*) won the day!

He was already basted so I chose threads and started quilting straight away.

I stitched in the ditch of the dog using black, which gave me time to think about what to do on his body. A few lines here and there —

A lot easier to see on the back! —

Now I'm onto the hourglass blocks which are around the outside. I won't stitch in the coloured triangles of these blocks and that will save me time by not having to change threads.

So far so good —

I'm linking up to Andree of Quilting & Learning- What a combo! for Free Motion Mavericks. A fun and motivating way to get some quilting done :-)

I've done a wee bit of stitching at nights, and have completed this piece. It is to be made into something secret so this is all I will share for now —

This is the first time I have done a bullion stitch (the lilac petals below) - a bit scary, but as they say, a blind man would be happy to see them —

It's a while since I've done an update on my calves. My job as chief calf-rearer is at the point of redundancy and I will become on-call farm hand and also She who Needs to Catch up on all the Bookwork.

I have reared 122, and 107 of them are now weaned and happily grazing out the back of the farm. 

The last 15 will be fed for a while longer; their mums dragged the chain a bit with calving - always the way - so these calves have a bit of catching up to do.

I took this photo the other day after all the heavy rain we had overnight, which I mentioned briefly in my last blogpost. You can see that the river came 'well up' but we were pleased it didn't flood at all. These calves had higher ground in their paddock so there were no worries about their safety  —

This morning the cows went into the paddock next to the calves. While they did stare wistfully through the fence for a bit, they soon remembered that me and my feeder gave them a much better bellyful —

These four are supposedly weaned. While we sold all the beef heifers (girl calves) at 4-10 days old, we kept 4 back to raise for the MOML's father. To keep them happy they get half a bucket of the milking machine rinsings (mostly water!) every morning. Tomorrow they go to their new home so are going to have to do without!

Actually I tell a lie, I didn't raise 122. The older twins reared a calf each for their school Ag day.

They were nice and big by Ag day and led reasonably well. It was a fun day and I think the girls were proud to have their calves there.

Kaliah and Bella —

Saydee and Penny —

Weather-wise it wasn't the most pleasant of days, especially on the exposed 'top field' of the school but we all coped.

Here the girls are resting and eating lunch while chatting to their great-grandparents.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings for now,

'til next time,

happy stitching,

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,