Day One of Lockdown

I cleared off my design wall this morning... my scrappy sprouts were up there but were taking up too much room. I'd left them there for motivation but I haven't had a chance to add to them.
They've gone onto the spare bed - no one will be using that for a while - so I'm hoping I won't forget about them - they really do need plenty of attention so that they can become a finished quilt.

So the design wall looks a little different now. I was going to take everything off it but have decided to leave my Temperature Quilt blocks up for now. These are January's and February's blocks. March's blocks are in varying states of assembly but I do need another cutting session for them.

The vertical strip down the side is the range of colours I've used so far for my temperature quilt. Looking at it now, I see that it's difficult to tell that the top (hottest) colour is a deep red in this photo!

I was doubting some of my mid-range colour choices and was thinking about swapping some of them. Availability of new fabric will be an issue now so I'll just have to leave the colours as is!

The only other block there is my latest testing block for Juliet of Tartankiwi's Flash Cat Medallion. I showed the centre cat and first border recently, and here is the first block for the second border.

It was a fun make. I'm particularly pleased with the eye —

I started testing another mouse for her today; it's got the same snazzy eye but I won't have enough of this particular fabric left to fussy cut for the 10 more mice I'll need to make to compete the medallion.

Here on the farm the MOML and I are already in lockdown as NZ tries to beat this Covid-19. Officially it starts tonight, after ramping up from Alert level 3 two days ago and now, rapidly moving into Level 4. Only essential services are allowed to operate - with stringent rules to follow. We will carry on farming as usual, but, naturally, we just aren't allowed to interact physically with anyone. Pretty straight forward for us as we don't employ anyone or have many contractors, etc, coming in.

In preparation though there was a bit of necessary contact with family yesterday. 

One last stint of babysitting so ED could get some groceries - she'd been unable to do her usual on-line order.

One last farm visit so YD and hubby could sort some necessaries for the next four weeks.

And a chance for the kids to stretch their legs and have a decent play.

This morning I walked over the farm to catch up with my DIL. Social distancing in action here - there's a good fence between the paddock and the section so we can quite easily chat without accidentally touching each other. 

And another barrier between us here - the trampoline net!

No more cuddles or hugs of all these lovelies for four weeks at least :-(

I've had a few requests for a tutorial for the fish block in my last post's quilt so I'll try to get onto that tomorrow,

In the meantime, take care and stay safe, 

Happy stitches,

A finish or two for a baby or two

A goal for this month was to complete the baby quilt for a baby of a friend of both my girls.
This was a totally fun make and I'm so happy it's now ready to be delivered.
The close up below shows the quilting - straight lines in the light grey zig-zags, a 'meander with purpose' in the coloured zig-zags, a few bubbles for the fish and a seaweed-type design around the fish too.

I used *this* tutorial for the zig-zags rather than the usual method of making half square triangles and joining them. Because I used this stitch and flip method, there are a pile of triangles cut off which I sewed into bonus hst. My method used more fabric but I was ok with making myself a pile of scraps for another time! 

I had a few bigger pieces of fabric left over which I joined for the binding —

I was happy with the effect —

I did have thoughts of doing a quick tutorial for the fish block if anyone wants to play with it? It's a simple fish which sews up quite quickly.

This was my One Monthly Goal which I signed up to over at Patty's Elm Street Quilts. When the link is open I'll be linking up - yaay, great to finish a goal ahead of time :-)
EDIT - The end of the month has come and I have linked up to Patty's OMG party *here* - thank you Patty :-)

Some of you will remember that I made a cute wee beanie for wee GS Odie recently. YD and I decided the pattern needed modifying to make it a better fit.

This version has K2P2 rib at the start and then the same amount of stocking stitch as before. No roll-up bottom edge which is cute but not so practical to wear. I did the same novel 3-stitch icord at the top (click *here* for a tutorial on this extremely cute and easy method).

It turned out just right - when Odie gets over his over-heating and the days and nights are cooler, it will be the perfect size for him.

And also on the 'making things for Odie' front, I made a couple of cot sheets for him. When I've seen wide suitable cottons on sale I've been getting some for this purpose. The ones I made ED have worn so well that I had no hesitation going with homemade again. I have some wide brushed cotton for winter sheets too, they'll be next on the list of random sewing (as opposed to quilting sewing!).

Posing with the sheets is a crochet sheep that came with a toy tractor. After an unfortunate encounter with a dog, Ganma needed to give him some new legs!

I feel good that I've got these things done - sewing days are few and far apart at the moment. I've still been pretty busy with family but have a sense that this will slow down somewhat as Covid-19 spreads further within New Zealand and we move from Alert level 2 to level 3 (from 'contained' to 'increasingly difficult to contain').
I'm hoping the rest of you are coping with these unsettling times.

'til next time

safe and happy stitches,

A Quilt In A Day!

In my last post, I said I had grand plans for the day and needed to be off so I could get on with them. It's taken me all week to get back to my blog but I thought I should report on those plans.

For a long time I've been a big admirer of Twig + Tale patterns. They specialise in (to quote them) 'nature inspired sewing patterns'. They have a strong sense of fun and fantasy and recycling is high on their agenda too.
No recycling for me when I stitched up their leaf pattern though. I've had my eye on this set of designs for a while. It was designed as a fundraiser, which was a good excuse to buy the pattern.
I knew YD would love it. I had a major stumbling block for a while, trying to decide what fabrics to use. I was specifically thinking Green. For a Leaf. A bit Boring really. And I couldn't find any that sang to me.
There were several novelty fabrics at my LQS and because YD liked two of them and couldn't decide which was best, I ended up using one on each side of the quilt.

A very easy design. In my pattern there is a choice of four different New Zealand native leaves. (There is a Euro Collection as well). I chose the Kawakawa. I love the shape and also the healing properties of the Kawakawa leaf are well known. It would have been nice if we'd had one growing in the bush on our farm for a photo opportunity but sadly we don't have any here that we know of.

The pattern is 'sew around the edge and turn it through' so there was no binding to deal with :-)

On Monday I was able to deliver it to 'wee' Odie. Apparently he loves it ♥

I made the large size. I think he should get some good mileage out of it.
Oh and I started and finished it all on one day. Very satistying :-)

'til next time,

happy stitches,