The Sopwell Ladies

I suddenly realised today that I have never shown my completed flimsy of The Sopwell Ladies Basket Society Quilt.
I started this quilt last year as a BOM sample for The Country Yard. I did finish the top earlier this year but I must have been busy then and forgot to share.
I really enjoyed making this quilt. There's quite a lot of work in each 'block' but there's a nice variety and it stays pretty interesting :-)

(Not the best photos sorry as I had to get it into the shop and I think that may have been why I didn't share at the time, I was going to get some better pics.)

I did all the applique by machine, using fusible applique paper and turning the edges over with glue, and then using invisible thread to zig-zag it to the background. I do prefer hand turned under applique but this was certainly a lot quicker and a good technique to use on a project from time to time so you actually get it finished :-)
The border fabric was a fun one to use and helped with the choice of scrappy-type fabrics used within the quilt.

In other news, I've completed one of the sweet stitcheries Michelle Ridgeway kindly offered on her blog —

Stitched using 'Honeysuckle' Cottage Garden Thread

He didn't take very long to stitch, which is just as well as I am gathering a wee pile of ''Lockdown projects' I'd like to sew up to commemorate what we're all experiencing at the moment!

I've decided I really must be getting fitter with all these walks I'm doing. A big walk used to be to the top of the first hill across the road... now that's a 'quick walk' when I'm considering where to walk. (As in "Where shall I go?" "Oh what about a quick walk up the hill over the road"). So that's where I headed today, and then I decided to carry on past the beehives, and up to a wee knoll I've been eyeing up for a bit - but putting off as it was too much of a walk.

Past the beehives and up the next bit of hill

Down that bit of hill and then heading for the knoll on the right

Up the top of the knoll and looking back to where I'd come

And looking the other way to our runoff which is further along this track.
(The pasture areas you see above, where we graze non-milking animals.)

I mentioned the other day the fire that ripped through this area a few year ago. A lot of this area was burnt and has slowly been recovering. In the Private Reserve alongside some of the track the 'team' spent a lot of time and energy doing a springtime planting of some natives they had raised from seed from the area.

(As well as the bush being on our land, it's also on the neighbour's, the Reserve, Conservation land and, over the road back on the main farm, Maori land. It's all interconnected and sometimes it's hard to know where the boundaries are).

Anyway, I'd been wondering how the new plants were doing with the extended drought we're in but I was pleased to notice today that quite a few of the plants are doing well. The Manuka scrub that has come up provides good shelter for the small plants.

The autumn weather is making my walks quite pleasant. Today was a good day for some strange looking shadows—

Oh to have such long legs!

Another peaceful unhurried day keeping to my bubble :-)

Take care and stay well,

Happy stitches,

Sewing in the heat

I spent time in the weekend doing some 'odds and sods' sewing —

A zip installed in a cushion for YD so she can wash it, and a new head rest
for a carseat after the original had an unfortunate accident.

As well as the above there was a bit of mending and altering a new pair of farm overalls for the MOML. Not terribly enthralling but it felt good to get those chores out of the way :-)

When Monday came, I was more than happy to focus on some of the other sewing goals I have. It was easy to decide what to do for this month's One Monthly Goal with Patty Of Elm Street Quilts.

Yes, quilt and finish the baby quilt I assembled for last month's goal.

To see what others are working on, or to sign up yourself, visit Patty's blog *here*.

Getting that thinking out of the way, I then moved on with The Sopwell Ladies Basket Society Quilt.

I have been slowly chipping away at this. My design wall has been gradually filling up with the small blocks and the planning of what fabrics to use where —

Completed block 5 and planning of block 6!

To the sewing machine with invisible thread and zigzag —

Units assembled and ready to join —

(For the purposes of my 350 block project I'll be counting this as 5 blocks,
even though the pattern calls it One Block!)

Block 6 complete —

Yaay - great to be making progress on this - even though it's not on any of my official lists for this year, hehe!
(As for my blog title, all my sewing is being done under a fan at the moment - it's been Very Hot!)

EDIT - I'm just popping back to link up to Dione at Clever Chameleon Quilting. She does a weekly link up for us to show the progress we're making on our projects. Her latest post is a fun wee commentary on what she's been up to. Visit her *here*.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Happy Dance!

Woohoo, today is the last day of the month - of the year - of the decade - but right now I am most concerned about it being the last day of the month because it's a chance for me to celebrate that I have managed to blog every day for 31 days!!

I took up Cheryl's challenge, starting on Dec 1st. 61 other bloggers signed up too - it will be interesting to see how many of us managed a post a day? The idea was that if we could manage to blog once a day through this busy time of the year, we could manage anything!

So how did it go?

The month started easily enough, sharing gifts to and from my visit to America

I had fun on the farm with my elf —

I did a bit of reminiscing, looking at quilts I'd made in the past. Like this one —

and this —

I had a good little wander through Mum's house - that gave me two posts, which was good as I was away from home and all my usual inspiration.
I was able to interview Mum and get a little more information about Caroline —

My current projects made a showing, The Sopwell Ladies (and I even managed a small tutorial based on questions I'd been asked) —

And my current pattern testing for Juliet of Tartankiwi —

And had a look through the other projects I've done based on her designs —

We had Christmas —

And I sewed along with the Temecula Quilt Company, making their Tiny Tree —

When I was lost for words I had photos of the family to share —

Or the farm —

On the whole it was fun - I enjoyed the process but it would be fair to say I'm happy that the month is over!

One of the big pros was hearing from so many of you so often - thank you for your encouragement!
One of the big cons is that I didn't have time to reciprocate the visits!
And I'm hoping that now that my time isn't being taken up with planning blog posts, I'll be able to catch up properly with my blog reading!

And on that happy note, I'm going to sign off for the last time this month, this year, this decade.
I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year. I hope 2020 is a fabulously creative and productive year!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Off to work I went

It was a work day at The Country Yard for me today so I thought it might be nice to take some photos to share with you... I know I've shown some before, but not for a while.

We had a wet and wild day today. It was a nice day to be 'cooped' up inside the shop!

Our 'busy' work bench full of ideas 

Areas around the shop -

Newly finished "Dancing Chickens and Flying Pigs" by Anni Downs

 A woolfelt corner -

Bits and pieces -

 All our yummy Cottage Garden Threads -

 Project wall.... you can see my Sopwell Ladies Basket Society, also a Fig N Berry creation and a Gail Pan design.

Upstairs in the Christmas corner -

Part of the children's area - 

Just a sprinkling.... there are a lot of nooks and crannys and places to exlore - and as you can imagine, a lovely place to work!
Oh and an update on my computer; tomorrow it goes off to get a bit of a good talking to. It turns out it's quite old (about 7 years - the MOML doesn't accept that that is old for a computer - and to be honest, it doesn't seem as though I've had it that long!) so its propects aren't very good. Sigh.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Sopwell continued —

I had another morning to work on The Sopwell Ladies Basket Society and got the rest of block 5 finished! I didn't have much to do; just the stitching on this block, and a few more circles.

One small part of Block Five!

I had a few questions after my last post about using the Karen Kay Buckley Perfect Circles, and my process for the applique (what I call invisible turned under machine applique) so I took a few photos while I was working to share.

After gathering the fabric around the template, paint or spray some
 diluted starch on (how you do it depends on what brand you have)
 and press with a medium heat iron.

Once the fabric is dry, remove the template and re-press to keep the
shape. You can see it keeps its perfect shape well with a bit of starch!

Baste or glue the circle to the background fabric.
(You can see here I didn't quite get it dead centre but the square is larger and
gets trimmed down.)

I have a clear invisible thread in the top and my normal sewing thread in the
bobbin. Set the zig-zag to width and length 1.1.
(It's narrow enough that I can keep my quilter's foot on.) 

I pull all the threads to the back to knot them together, then trim.

Here is the completed block 5.

There's one more block and then it will be done. I've done parts of it but I probably won't get back to it until after Christmas.
Day 11 of my 31 day blog writing challenge done!!

'til next time,

happy stitches,