Blocks and more blocks

I'm so pleased I took my blocks outside into the sun yesterday morning for some photographing. The day gradually got worse and we ended up getting some serious rain.

First up are my 36-patch blocks which seriously took over! I honestly forgot they were supposed to be my leader-ender project - I had so much fun sorting through my scraps for the 2" squares. I found these were also a good non-thinking way to sew when I just had small snatches of time.

The thing about Leader-Ender projects is that they are supposed to sit quietly in the background while a MAIN project gets worked on. That, obviously, is not always the case!

Anyway, these blocks are for Jessica Dayon's Smidgeon quilt. I'm making mine a little wider than hers as I didn't want to stop making the blocks (!), but also I thought that making it bigger would suit us better.

The next step is to decide what colour I want to use to surround these blocks, and also another fabric for the outer borders. These larger amounts of colour will help tie the whole quilt together.

Although I was battling with a slight breeze, I also managed to photograph my Popstar blocks. I have had these finished for a while but it's taken me a while to get them to the photography stage and onto my blog!

I made in a sewalong with a few friends. I got a little behind .... 

These fabrics are really pretty but incredibly hard to photograph. In real life the colours are brighter and the contrast between the green/blue and the grey star-shadow is a lot better.

The pattern is Popstar by The Fat Quarter Shop.

In other news, I haven't yet bragged about the hill-a-day challenge I set myself in May. It felt like I started walking, and just kept on going. We live in a hilly area so there is no shortage of hills on our farm to tackle. Once you get up the first one, it's easy to keep on walking and do the next as well! In all I walked a total of 117kms during May..... my goal was to do 100 so I well surpassed that!

There's a wee peak just off the farm track that I like to climb for a bit of extra height. This was the view from it one morning —

(You can just make out the clay track along the ridge.)

June hasn't been as nearly as productive walking-wise. I had two busy weekends and a slightly sore ankle which needed resting. We've also had more rain this month which makes the clay tracks either sludgy or greasy. Neither make ideal walking conditions so I time my walks for when we've had some sunshine to dry things out a little.

Yesterday morning though, while it was still fine, I managed another walk. I went the opposite direction to the above walk and passed the cows on the way —

As it's winter and the cows are not milking they are on winter rations. They'd not long had a fresh break of grass so totally ignored me as I went by.

I went  up a wee way into the bush, but not very far - I wanted to get back home to photograph my blocks!!
The house and buildings are about centre of the photo below, so as you can see, pretty much everywhere, if you want to go some distance, involves a hill!

Last weekend Miss Lily had a sleepover here, all by herself. When you're a twin, that's a pretty exciting event! She had several requests for her sleepover. One was that she help Ganma make Blueberry pie and the other was that she do some more sewing for her dolls.

We use a lot of blueberries - muffins, smoothies, snacking, etc but a Blueberry pie isn't something that's usually on any of our menus so it took a bit of thinking to make a nice and easy AND gluten free version. But we succeeded and she really enjoyed it!!

The sewing bit was to make (more) quilts for her Barbies. She has a couple of the little 'child' barbies so a small quilt was all that was needed. We made one that day and yesterday when her and her dad called in for a cuppa, she decided she needed to finish the second one. 

I didn't get a photo of the first - a blue one identical to this! Once again, the quickest quilt I have ever made. Sew through all the layers and then zigzag the edge 😁

'til next time,

happy stitches,

April again -

Who can believe it, here we are in April already?! I spent my first night of April admiring a stunning sky, and joining in with Cheryll (Gone Stitchin') in another Friday Night with Friends. 

I am up to Month 4 of Memory Lane, a BOM/SAL by The Country Yard. It's just finishing so I am quite behind but making some progress all the same.

Last night I completed this block —

Since I last shared this project, I have completed the following blocks —

I started putting these together last year but think I will wait until all the stitching is done - then I can have a decent play with my fabrics.

Since it was Friday Night somewhere in the world today, I did a bit of machine sewing this morning.

I put together one more star block for my Pop Star quilt which I am sewing with a couple of friends —

This brings my tally to 7... I had thought I was way behind with this, but as we are making only 9 blocks, I'm actually not lagging so much after all! (EDIT - it's a 12 lock quilt so I am well behind!!!)

I'm not so happy with the contrast of the middle star but I think it will be fine, really - I'm not re-doing it - and don't they always say you need a few ups and downs in a quilt to keep the eye moving and spark interest?! (Plus the light wasn't so good for these photos.)

This morning I also managed to sew up one more Bear block. (A design by Lorna of Sew Fresh Quilts.)

I had previously cut and sewed all the noses —

And now I have three. I need 6 per quilt and am making two quilts so these will be my main focus from now on.

I have four minutes (approx) until three children arrive so that their mother can do a photo shoot in town. So I'm going to quickly finish this post. I hope to come back later and put in links for the patterns, etc, and fix any spelling mistakes. (They're here!)

For now though, a big thank you to Cheryll for hosting us for FNwFs, 

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Seeing Stars

You may remember that I tried to resist starting the New Year with new hope and new promises - in other words, with new projects. The start of February was to be my 'new year'. I'm now delaying the start of my new year to the start of March as I quietly make my way through some things I really wanted to get done.

The Star Pop quilt is one of those quilts (last blogged about *here*).

I had made 49 blocks and 'just' needed to join them.

In the last week it's travelled its way around the house. Deciding on layout on our bedroom floor —

Joining blocks and in the kids' bedroom —

(It actually lasted a few days here - Odie even slept in the bed twice and it survived!)

On our bed, and deciding to add another column of blocks to make it a little wider  —

Passing the Nigel test —

(As you can see, I don't have decent floor space for spreading out a bigger quilt!)

This afternoon I got as far as I can go for now - I need one small piece of background fabric to make the last two blocks (grr!) —

I love this pattern, it's such a fun and easy one to sew!

I realised the other day that, just to confuse myself, I have another star quilt on the go with a very similar name - Popstar!!
Fiona of Bubzrugz twisted my arm and made me start it. I did the test (first) block last year so it doesn't count as a new project. A wee group of us are sewing it together, a mini sort of QAL. This is supposedly going to be my leader-ender project when I finish the Star Pop blocks. (Yes, I'll move from Star Pop to Popstar!!)

Three blocks sewn so far. The light wasn't very good for either photos, they're quite pretty fabrics, really!

This is a free pattern from the Fat Quarter Shop.

To finish today's starry story, here is a block I sewed up as a test block for The Country Yard. We launched our new projects over the weekend and this was one of them.
Test block —

I spent some time writing instructions for it, and even though it had been sewn up twice, I still wanted to make sure I had all the right fabrics in the right places. Hence a 'paper pattern'! —

Here is the shop's version. It's the centre of a medallion quilt using Laundry Basket Quilts fabric. Very pretty —

In my last post I said we were about to celebrate young Odie's second birthday. It was a fun, family affair. Seven of the grandies there, which was pretty good. The eldest was working that day. 

He loved his cake!

'til next time,

happy stitches,