God Defend New Zealand

Unless you've been on another planet for the last few days you will have probably heard of the devastation in the South Island's major city of Christchurch, torn apart by a 6.3 magnitude earthquake Tuesday lunchtime.

The death toll is now at 113 with over two hundred still missing.  Words are hard to find to convey how New Zealanders are feeling, and I know that is shared around the world as a number of those killed were visitors to our beautiful country.  I can't bear to post photos of the damage so will share the words of our national anthem. This is the first verse only, there are another 4 verses but these are rarely sung.  Following is the first verse of the Maori version "Aotearoa"

 "God Defend New Zealand"

God of Nations at Thy feet,

In the bonds of love we meet,

Hear our voices, we entreat,

God defend our free land.

Guard Pacific's triple star

From the shafts of strife and war,

Make her praises heard afar,

God defend New Zealand.

"Aotearoa"

E Ihowā Atua,

O ngā iwi mātou rā

Āta whakarangona;

Me aroha noa

Kia hua ko te pai;

Kia tau tō atawhai;

Manaakitia mai

Aotearoa

Lyrics from http://www.mch.govt.nz/nz-identity-heritage/national-anthems/god-defend-new-zealandaotearoa

Hearing these sung always sends a shiver down my spine, but just reading them today brings tears instead,  please say a prayer today for the people of Christchurch, who must wonder how much more they can endure. 

Please take care where ever you are, and give someone you love a hug today.................Nicky

Friday Night Sew In

I managed to get this runner pieced last night for Friday Night Sew-In.  This was cut out during a FNSI last year and it never made it any further than that, another project on my Sew It's Finished WIP list.  It is the Skinny Verna Pattern by Vicki E at Moda Bake Shop, using Martinique fabrics, which I absolutely love.  I recently ordered a walking foot for my machine, so I will wait for it to arrive before I quilt this wee runner.  The one I made last year showed me that I could really do with one,  I could see how much my top layer was being dragged with all the close machine quilting on this one.  Any advice on quilting generally would be much appreciated, as my experience is very limited!! 

 

  

 

Last weekend I made up the shoo fly blocks for Block One of Vignette mystery quilt and got the block together and traced.  I've only managed a little stitching during the week, but I can honestly say I love working with the Cosmo threads.  I wasn't expecting them to be any different to DMC, but they are just so smooth and silky to work with.

 

I traced parts with blue washout pen and some with pigma pen.  What do you normally use for tracing??  I like the clear crisp lines of the pigma, but the lightest green thread doesn't cover it very well.  On the other hand, the blue is forgiving if you make a mistake in the tracing, but I find it fades quickly with handling.  Would love to hear your thoughts.

No stitching here today, we're off to a wedding later on, so looking forward to that.  We haven't been to a wedding in ages and now we have two within 6 weeks.  Feast or famine! 

As always, thanks for stopping by..................................Nicky

Shearing .............

Back at my last sheepie post, I said I'd try and get some pics of lamb shearing ................. so here goes...... 

  It's all pretty self-explanatory really - lambs get pulled out of pens behind each blue door, shorn and sent down the shutes behind the shearers.  Apologies if this is not new to you - I'm guessing most country folk will be familiar with all of this!  

  Our woolshed is a four stand shed, so there are four shearers, three rousies and a presser who pens up the sheep out the back as well.   The rousies sweep the board of wool and sort the fleece into the right bales.

 These are lambs being shorn, so they have relatively short wool, when we are shearing ewes with 12 months of wool on, the girls use a wool table, where they throw the fleece and skirt(take out the short/gnarly bits around the outside) the edges before rolling the fleece up and putting it into the wool press.

Shearing gangs work so hard, and they are always cheerful and seem to have a lot of fun on the job too. 

 And here is the finished work, shorn sheep always look a bit strange straight off the shears, a bit nude and bony looking, within a week they'll be looking a bit more normal again.  It's always nice to get some good weather after shearing, the last thing you want is a cold snap on freshly shorn sheep.  Thankfully we have a good forecast for the next few days, and we are hoping to get our silage(winter feed) made tomorrow too.   

Thanks for stopping by today, I'll be back in a day or two with a stitching update, don't forget it's Friday Night Sew In this Friday, if you're keen to join in, head on over here and sign up.......happy stitching ........ .............. Nicky

I'm still here ............

......... so it seems they haven't carted me off yet - lol.  It's heartening to hear there are so many others out there just like me!  Starting too much and finishing even less - thank goodness for OPAM and Sew It's Finished.

We've had a busy couple of weeks here on the farm, so not  much stitching or blogging happening lately.  I have signed up for Friday Night Sew In for the 18th, hosted by Heidi and Bobbi.  If you want to join in head on over here.

I had a FNSI of my own last night, and made this wee pencil roll for a little friends 9th birthday party my youngest is attending today.  I changed my design slightly from last years effort, and added velcro so the top flap will fold over before rolling it up.  Next time, I'm going to try an elastic loop and a button, less fiddly than tying the bow for little fingers maybe.  Woohoo a project started and finished on the same night ...... and ............I even used fabric I had on hand.  If you can't find me later I'll be off shining my halo.

 



But........to offset that good behaviour, I have made a couple of online purchases lately including this fabulous book ......it really is a beauty .......and I have some of Camille's gorgeous Bliss on the way - I couldn't resist any longer. There are lots of people out there tempting me with beautiful pictures of Bliss fabric and projects.  Thanks Michelle and Suzi and others.   :-)

Well then, I'm off to spend the rest of the afternoon with my sewing machine, planning to piece the shoo fly blocks for the first Vignette block and get some more done on my latest Gardener's Journal block. 

Thanks for visiting today.......till next time happy stitching ................... Nicky

Should I be committed?

Or maybe "I should be more committed"  or even " I need to commit to less". LOL

Committing myself to new things is never a problem  - it's just finishing them that takes me a bit longer!  So after committing to finishing some WIPS this year, and actually crossing some things off my list it's probably about time I committed to starting some new ones too.   :-)

And so.................... here is some of my weekends work.     This is one of the cutest little birdies I've seen in a while ........ and I'm a sucker for anything with little birdies.  This BOM is designed by Little Miss Shabby and the blocks are being released on the 1st of the month.  I bought a charm pack of Moda's Hunky Dory by Chez Moi a while back and when I saw this BOM decided it would be perfect.  So now I've bought my first ever Jelly Roll - if I'd known they were so easy to work with I would have started a long time ago. LOL.    I've always admitted to being a slow learner!

Isn't this wee fella a sweetie?

All these pics are clickable, cos I know you'll want to have a closeup look, then head on over and download the pattern  and go running for fabric and thread immediately(and I wouldn't blame you)

I enjoyed the cutting and piecing so much, I made up the next block ready to go too - and that is not like me - normally my sewing machine and I have a very delicately balanced relationship.  The original is stitched with 6(!) threads of DMC, but I'm sticking with my normal 2 threads for a softer look.

I've also confirmed today to Chookyblue that I'm keen to carry on with this years SAL for Tis the Season by Natalie Bird.  It doesn't start till March, so I have exactly a month to get lots more done on A Gardeners Journal.   Of course, the realist in me knows it won't be finished by then, but a girl can dream.  And thankfully, my Vignette threads haven't arrived, so I can't rip into that one yet either!  A blessing in disguise, I think.

I hope wherever you are, you're not being blown away or fried in the heat, sounds like weather extremes all over the world at the minute, we've had a very windy, wet few days, so my gardening days turned into stitchy ones - it's not all bad then!

Thanks for visiting today..................happy stitching......Nicky

Back to the daily grind

Firstly I want to apologise - in my last post I neglected to say thanks for all the lovely comments and good wishes for my 1 year blog anniversary a couple of posts back.  Oops - so THANKS for stopping by to visit with me both then and now.

It's been a while since I shared any sheep pics here - after having our US relatives visiting, I now really appreciate how fascinating some of you out there find sheep!!  I could say I wonder why - most of the time they are lots of hard work, and not always that well behaved - but they are also our livelihood, and it's something to be proud of to have bred a flock that is performing well.

This is rounding up a mob of about 800 lambs a few days ago, they are improving with age, a month ago they were not at all fun to work with, running in all different directions, and almost impossible to get through gates and into the yards.  Very hard work for farmers and dogs!

Sorry about this next pic, sun was at the wrong angle, but this is following them up the lane........

and finally, got them, safely shut into the yards.

 We spent the day weighing these and two other mobs, the heaviest ones were trucked the next day to the works, and the rest were sorted into two lines of medium and lighter weights in preparation for shearing them next week.  If I get organised I'll try and get some pics of shearing.

Ok, will catch you again soon, thanks for visiting here today.......Nicky

January plans

So far so good - my January plans are working out.  It's been a long time between drinks, so to speak, but finally I have another A Gardeners Journal block done(just pretend it was finished in August!)

I finished up this wee needleroll yesterday, took about 20 minutes, only it had to wait 2 and a half years to get done.  Better late than never!

  

Isn't the little dragonfly button sweet.

 

In My Garden Needleroll - Shepherds Bush

Fabric and threads as kitted

Our camping trip was fabulous, got home and realised I have no tent or campsite photos, but here are some lake photos I did manage.  The weather was great while we were away, though we were worried when it started to pour on the way there!  But it stopped to let us get our tent up, and by the next morning all the rain was over.  Everyone came home with a bit of sunburn - Ouch.  Lots of fun, swimming in the lake, boating and time spent with friends.   The girls start back at school next week, so that brings the summer holidays almost to an end.  :-(

 

 

And last but certainly not least, I have joined Peg and Kris with their OPAM challenge for 2011, lucky I finished the needleroll yesterday, or I would not be off to a good start. lol 

Now I have to set up a list and button for my sidebar and get busy!  Between OPAM and Sew It's Finished I want to get more done than my miserable dozen or so finishes from last year. 

Lovely day here today, I'm off to the garden for some much needed weeding.......have a great day, Nicky