February and now March ---

I'm not sure where the months are going and I can't believe that I've gone nearly six weeks without blogging here...

February was a busy month and there was also a bit of family stuff going on which threw me a bit.
[However, I have been keeping up with my one-photo-a-day challenge over *here* so I was pleased about that.]

At the beginning of March, The Country Yard had its annual launch of new projects and BOMs, etc. So most of my sewing in February focussed on that.

I didn't contribute as much as I would have liked, however these were my main projects —

First up was our Starry Delight Mini quilt for our Mini Quilt Club —

🠉Oops slight error in my chain piecing!🠉

My finished mini (20" square) —

I folded a square into a triangle to form hanging corners —

I've also been making some spool blocks for a SAL at the quilt shop. I chose to make mine from Tilda fabrics. I used a bundle which contained various ranges - I was a bit concerned initially about how they all sat with each other but in the end I was really pleased with how they turned out —

I made use of some cute wooden pegs I found in a $2 shop - they have numbers on them which were handy when I was keeping track of the rows I was joining. (Usually I use scraps of paper plus pins to number my rows.)

Tammy helped. Of course —

I forgot to take a photo of the finished top (only, so far) before I took it into the shop so you have to put up with this inadequate one!

I chose to make just 2 of each block, and bordered it with strips of leftover fabrics.

The launch at the shop went well. We spent the day before sprucing the shop up, hanging new quilts, moving others, moving fabrics, and displays and so on. I took a couple of photos just as we opened on Saturday morning. As you can see the place was looking nice and fresh.

We had a birthday in early February with youngest grandie Odie turning four. He had a low pressure birthday party with a couple of friends and his cousins to play with.

Odie and Lily relished getting totally soaked!

YD made the cake - covering all of his requests nicely. He asked for dinosaurs, lollipops, trains and a volcano! —

An interactive cake!

Ok so that's probably enough for now.......

Apologies to those I haven't visited and replied to in recent times. I think I'm back on track now 😊

'til next time, 

happy stitches,

Raewyn

My spool quilt adventure

A few years ago when I was pretty new to blogland, a lot of people were making Klosjes. They were making these English Paper Pieced ones (below) - wow I was blown away. I was pretty new to quilting and hadn't really come across this technique before so I jumped in and started making some myself.

This was my first Klosjes (spool) block. May 2010.

I had a vision in my head to make a quilt of all sorts of spool blocks, each border a different type.

These were my second attempts at spools. They were fun too.

I got this far, putting the first two types together. I loved this little piece, about 27" square. I still had grand plans for more borders of spools.

Even back then I was a scrappy person.

The next type I thought I would try was this one. Scrappy again. And inspired by others of this type throughout blogland, and also the Edyta Sitar ones I had coveted in her books.

But it didn't really do it for me any more. I couldn't get THAT spool to fit with what I had already.  So the project stalled and got tucked away, resting, and dreaming of a better life, one day.

Enter my latest (sorry, that should read, one of my latest) leader and ender project. I had fun sewing up these little Maverick stars and originally had visions of a whole quilt of them. But I started to run out of cream 2 1/2" squares and knew my party with them should end. I had made a nice little pile but not enough for a whole quilt.

Then came a lightbulb moment in the middle of the night!!! And this is what I've done! Yaay I am so happy.

Yessiree! A border on my 'spools' quilt.

Now before you go 'yuck' and think that the yellow border is a little odd in there, stop!! I had moments when I wondered if it was a good idea (yes, I agonised!) but it won out in the end.
A. I needed to build out the size so I could fit my stars;
B. I wanted to make a transition into 'sparkly' stars and what better colour than yellow.
C. There will be more borders after this one and I will have a chance to even out the colour with them then.

I have no idea what the next borders will be (any ideas, anyone?) (currently approx. 42" square, it needs to grow a little) but it feels good to have made a little progress!

So this is my spool quilt adventure so far; maybe you have a couple of half completed projects, ideas or experiments tucked away that could be combined in a similar fashion?

Now I'll leave you with this photo. You'll possibly know I like my farm photos and I have way too many pics of cute animals and interesting (to me) moments on the farm. But this one shows the view from one of the back hills. It was a good workout climbing to the top! (several times)

Click on the photo for a full sized view. It was such a lovely day, hard to
believe it is still supposed to be winter.
These are the 'dry cows' waiting to calve. You can just make out the bike/s
down the very bottom; proof we ascended on foot!

Ok, I'd best go and check the dinner. Thank you for visiting, and happy stitching :-)