Friday night fun

I joined with lots of others  on Friday night for Friday Night Sew In, which is being temporarily hosted by Wendy at Sugarlane Quilts.  Thanks for hosting us Wendy!

Some of my sewing was of the secret variety, but I did start to join my 1 inch hexagons together for the front of a bag, which will be my SAL project for July. I love these Double Chocolat fabrics designed by 3 Sisters, I got a charm pack and some yardage from The Art of Craft in Gore.

And for the cross-stitchers among you who thought I had crossed over to the dark side quilting side, some stitches were even added to my Christmas Garden piece.  I've been working on this a little lately, the bottom pic is where it was at way back in December.

It's a stunning winter's day here in the Deep South, a day to throw all the windows and doors open and enjoy some beautiful sunshine....prune some more roses, and maybe get some time in the sewing room later too. Thanks for stopping by today....... Nicky x

Easter sewing

 My lovely friend Leanne and I had an Easter swap and this is what I sent to Leanne.  A Hatched and Patched bag, a little bunny, some Fig Tree fat quarters and some other little bits and pieces.  And of course some chocolates that were added to the package later before I posted, I hope Leanne got to eat some of them or maybe she shared them with her boys.........?  I am still watching my mailbox, we posted on the same day - but there are no mail deliveries till tomorrow as we get an extra long Easter weekend - today is Anniversary Day here...... yay, no school!

After finishing my scrappy trip top on Saturday, Sunday saw me finish my little pincushion for the Stitch-A-Long March project.  I'm making the little sewing accessories for the SAL in some of my favourite Fig Tree Strawberry Fields fabrics, will be nice to have a matching set by the end of the SAL.....

And late on Sunday night I started to cut out a new little quilt for dear friends who are expecting a baby in June.  I am using Posy fabric to make Sugar Dish.  I'm taking a gamble here, I have a strong feeling they are having a girl..... so I hope I'm right as this is certainly not a little boy quilt...lol.  I've always wanted to have a go at Dresden plates, so this little quilt will be my opportunity.....

I enrolled in Camille Roskelly's Craftsy class called Pre-Cut Piecing Made Simple last week, and after only a couple of lessons, I have learned heaps of shortcuts for cutting and chain piecing.  This one seems so obvious now, but it had never occurred to me to line up more than one strip at a time with the lines on my cutting mat and cut them all at once.  And with my jellyroll strip folded in half it was doubled as well.   Of course it is probably obvious to most of you - but being mostly self taught, it takes me a while to catch on!!  This is my first experience with Craftsy, I thought the classes seemed expensive, but there are 4 quilt patterns with Camille's class and I did use a 25% off coupon.......we crafters can justify anything if it suits us though.......

So having spent a few hours sewing this Easter I am very pleased with my efforts so far .......

I hope you have had a wonderful Easter too........ till next time.......Happy Stitching.....Nicky x

A Winning Week

Earlier this week our Miss 10 had some exciting mail all the way from the Land of Oz.. We were lucky enough to win one of 5 lovely bags that Fiona of BubzRugz was giving away.  And Miss 10 was doubly excited to receive chocolate too!  Thank you Fiona for such a lovely gift, she has stashed a few treasures into it already.......

My winning streak continued yesterday when I won a wonderful giveaway from Linda at Razzle Dazzle Quilter.  I have won the clever quilting skills of Linda who will long arm quilt a top for me, isn't that such a generous gift......Thank you Linda.....

So far this week I have worked on a variety of projects, I quilted and bound my little Ruby quilt for Chookyblue's Caring with Quilts bushfire appeal.  Just need to make and attach a label and it will be on it's way......     This was a great pattern called Between Charming Friends which I found here, and was originally designed by Darlene.  

I made Block 7  & 8 from the FQS Designer Mystery Block of the Month.......... this is Block 7 'Moonlight Serenade', designed by Sandy Gervais...........

......... and Block 8 'Lime Sherbet', designed by Bonnie Olaveson and Camille Roskelley.........

 ......... and I started making some of the Flying Geese units that make up the sashing that will finish this quilt. 

I have also started the Stitch-A-Long project for February, which is a tote bag from Natalie Birds Red Home Book, this is the beginning of the stitchery panel,.  I'm stitching in green, which is something a little different for me!

Last night I stitched the little tulips miniblock in the top right of this block from my Leanne's House BOM.  Leanne and I have been stitching along together once a week on this project(in the virtual way only as we live in different countries with different timezones ..... lol) and I have found it very motivating to know that someone else is getting on with it too.  Thanks Leanne!

So you can see it's been a busy sewing week mixed in with girls returning to school, working with lambs, weeding my vege garden and various other 'stuff' that is always needing done.  

I hope your week is going great, as always thanks for making it all the way to the bottom.........lol

Till next time ......... happy stitching........... Nicky x

Two little finishes

Realising it is the last day of November today has made me get myself organised and post twice in one day - wonders will never cease!!  After I finished the ornament for my SSCS exchange, I picked out one of Little House Needleworks ornaments to stitch up for myself.  Snow in Love is a cute design, and only took a couple of evenings to stitch up, and I finished it into a little pillow this afternoon.

Snow in Love by Little House Needleworks

Stitched on 30ct WDW Cocoa Linen with DMC and Crescent Colours 

After seeing all of the fabulous zipper pouches Susan over at Thimblestitch had been making, I got brave and had a go with some cute bicycle fabric.  Susan had used and recommended a tutorial at Noodlehead, and I found it very simple, not at all as scary as I thought putting in a zip would be!  Thanks Susan for the inspiration and to Anna/Noodlehead for the fantastic tutorial.

Can you believe it?  Four OPAM finishes this month for me, almost a record!!  Well then, it is the 1st of December tomorrow, and the silly season will be well and truly upon us.......

Until next time....... thanks so much for visiting with me today ............ Nicky

So long for a while .......

Congratulations Christine, you were the name drawn out of the 'hat' for your January 10th comment, in my little bag giveaway.  Christine, if you could send me your address and I will get it in the mail to you later in the week.  I really hope you will enjoy this bag as much as I enjoyed making it! Thanks also to all the others who entered too, I wish I had a few more to give away.  I also need to clarify for those who asked what the pattern was.  I thought it was called In an Afternoon bag - but I see it is called Naomi's Little Carry Bag from Rosalie Quinlans 'In an Afternoon' range of patterns, so sorry for any confusion.

Life has been turned on its head in my little world today, and I'm going to take a blogging break for a time, hopefully not too long.  I will try and keep up with some blog reading when I am able, but till I am back again, I wish you all good things.  Thanks for visiting me here, I do appreciate that you come here by choice and am grateful for your friendship.  I do owe e-mails to a few people from the last few days, I'll do my best to get there soon.

So till next time............ happy stitching and much love........... Nicky

One of these is not like the other .......

.......... can you work it out?  You can't?  Well the difference is that one of them is mine and the other one might be coming your way soon!  When I began to make the first one back at the start of January, all the measurements were for half width strips, and as I was working with full width cuts of fabric it was just as easy to cut enough for two. This is also where I confess that I was too lazy to hand quilt the strips in the second one and machined them instead  So if you've commented on my blog this year already, each comment will  be one chance in the draw.  If you don't usually comment, feel free to go for it, leave a comment on this post to throw your name in the hat, I'm happy to post anywhere(if you don't want to be entered from any previous comments I guess you should say so here on this post too!!)  I'd appreciate if you didn't advertise this too far and wide, I'd love it to go to someone who visited 'just because' not someone who came only because they heard there was a giveaway.  I'll draw a winner this Sunday night the 26th NZ time.

I also have a couple of parcels of IOU stitching from last year ready to send off to their patient recipients, and it feels so good to have that done.  I am a hopeless slacker with the attention span of a gnat, and I must apologise to those people who have been waiting a very long time for me to get my act together.  You know who you are - and I will share some pics here when the parcels are received!

I did sign up for Friday Night Sew In last week and managed to get a little done on Christmas Garden, as well as the final stitches in one of the above-mentioned IOU projects.  I just didn't get back here on Saturday to share as I was supposed to.....   :-(

Well I hope your week is off to a great start....... till next time........Nicky

Saturday in the sewing room

Hello there, how is your Saturday going?  I have had a great day in my sewing room, preparing a few blocks for some works in progress and finishing up a couple of things.  Firstly here is the bag I started early in January.  I'm really pleased with this, it's a nice little size, and I am really loving these Nicey Jane fabrics.  This was my first experience with ruffles and the result is not too bad!

In an Afternoon Bag designed by Rosalie Quinlan 
using Nicey Jane fabrics by Heather Bailey

This little flanged pillow is a Lizzie Kate freebie, the fabric I've finished it with looks red here, but is actually a very dark pink with cream spots.  

Friendship Grows, Freebie by Lizzie Kate
Stitched on Cream linen with Weeks Dye Works threads

This little lavender pillow is not todays work, but was my only January OPAM finish, and also my first Sew It's Finished finish for the year.  My list of works in progress at the start of the year was fairly large(a little understatement maybe) and I'm endeavouring to work on it with all the Sew It's Finished girls again in 2012. I think this was started about 6 years ago, and it only needed the opening closed, took about 4 minutes max!!  There really is something wrong with me!  But - it is done now..........

Lavender Pillow from Country Threads Magazine(can't find my copy to get designers name, sorry)

It's a long weekend here in NZ, where we are celebrating out national day, Waitangi Day on Monday.  Tomorrow we are heading to Central Otago for a little jetboating, and guess who's coming with us?  I'm sure  you can get proper pet lifejackets, but we were just trying this old one on Kelly for size this afternoon ......

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend whatever it is you are doing ............... Nicky

What happened to the lazy days of summer?

Happy(very belated) New Year!!   

I hope you've had a great start to 2012 and that everything is going your way.......

I had visions of a long hot summer, spending time with the kids, in the garden, on the farm, and hopefully lots of long evenings stitching....... but so far it's been anything but lazy!  Not too much time for gardening or stitching yet and the kids have been spending time with us, helping out on the farm........

We had New Years Day off farm work, so I added the borders to my A Gardeners Journal,(sorry no pics yet) while the kids played on their motorbikes with Dad, and their uncle and cousins.  Since then there has been three days of sorting lambs, drenching, weighing etc, 4 days back at my off-farm job, two days this last weekend travelling to Oamaru for a quick overnight visit with friends, and a fair bit of time worrying about the drought situation we have developing. 

We have had about 6mm of rain in the last 7 weeks, compared to our average 150mm or more for that period.  The rest of New Zealand has been experiencing a terrible summer, flooding in some place and lots of rain, but down south we have had a truly old-fashioned summer.  While it's been great not wondering how I'll ever get the washing dry on the clothesline, we are starting to despair.  We have a load of 750 lambs leaving tomorrow, just the smaller ones, they are heading north to Canterbury for finishing, who ironically are usually sending lambs to Southland by this time of the season ...... how the tables have turned!   I've already bought one truckload of water, and will probably need another 25,000lt within a few days.

You know it's dry here when the lambs would rather come in a slightly ajar gate and eat the lawn than stay in their paddock........lol .... and this was taken on the 29th of December, things are a lot worse since then. You also know you're a blogger when you go and get the camera before you chase them out.  lol

I have managed a couple of quick stitchy starts though, this little freebie from Lizzie Kate .........

........ and a half-finished little bag for me in Nicey Jane fabrics.... my current favourite.  Back at Christmas time I did get some more Butterfly Garden miniblocks done too, but need to take some pics.

 

Today I have started excavating in my sewing room, it's been a dumping ground for everything recently, and I've sorted out a few projects that need some urgent attention.  There have been so many wonderful SAL's and new and exciting stitchy projects starting online, but for now I am resisting the urge of joining in anything else for a while...... we'll see how long that lasts though!     In the interests of full and open disclosure I have to confess that I have been gathering fabrics for My Favourite Things, the new Stitch-A-Long project for 2012.  I put my name down for this SAL last year, and I'm not meant to start it till my Gardeners Journal quilt is all finished, but I am 90% sure I will be getting that quilted professionally, so I've done all I can on that one for now!  I won't be starting that for a week or two though.   

I've also updated my WIP list for 2012 on a new page at the top of the blog.......... and will try and post to the Sew It's Finished blog in the next few days. 

OK - if you've lasted through all that, thank you, you deserve a medal!  I'll be trying to catch up on my blog reading and emails tonight and tomorrow, so till next time .............. happy stitching ....Nicky

Chilly days

Greetings!  It's been a slow week here, the girls have had a couple of days off school while we were snowed in.  We've also had no landline phones in the whole distirct for the last couple of days so it's been very quiet, not sure if that is snow related or not but I hope they fix it soon, as we don't get mobile reception here either.  We've just been crossing our fingers there would be no emergencies!  Last day of school today, so we're all ready for a couple of weeks break.

Not much relaxing in this chair this week.......

And we've all been having fun in the snow ..............

I have finished the long-lost bag for my friend, I hope she'll feel the wait was worth it. lol    One more thing to cross off my WIP list!  I've also pieced the little charm pack quilt I showed last time, and started piecing the back for my niece's Abracadabra quilt in Bliss fabrics. 

Angel Pin Carry Bag - Rosalie Quinlan Designs, from Homespun # 21

 Finally thanks for the comments on my last post about the Silver Ferns sadly losing the netball World Champs final.  I can tell some of you (Kiwis) are feeling my pain. lol  When our eldest bought home this gift on Monday from her cousin/best friend who has just been on holiday to Australia, I couldn't stop laughing!  So appropriate, a kangaroo with boxing gloves on ready to give someone a hiding. LOL   I love it!   

                                  

 I have a little something in mind for Chookyblue but she might regret saying there's no hurry......... that's a dangerous thing to say to me.

Hope you're having a great week, take care ........................ Nicky

Long time no see........

Hi again -  I'm back, and after my last record of  3 posts in 3 days............. I didn't intend to be away this long.

I have been getting a little stitching done, but have had some busy days on the farm and at work, with lots of school and sport happenings for the kids too.  Below is the beginnings of the charm pack quilt using Pom Pom de Paris, and the new pattern book I purchased a while back.  The fabrics are so pretty and it's coming together pretty nicely so far.

These are two halves of a bag I started making for a friend about eighteen months ago, and I threw it away in a hissy fit after I sewed the strips all together in the wrong order.  I finally dragged it out and and have got it to this stage, half the quilting is done now so it won't take long to finish it off now.  She did say there was no hurry when she asked me but I don't think she ever suspected it would take this long. The bag is Angel Pin Carry Bag by Rosalie Quinlan, and it is such an easy bag, this is the third one I've (nearly) made.

 It has been a terribly wet few days here, which then turned to snow last night and most of this morning.  The sun is out now though, so the thaw is on.  Still cold though, so I might get that bag finished yet!  Or maybe even catch up on my Tis the Season stitching .................

It's been a big sporting weekend here with the World Netball Champs to watch each night, our Silver Ferns have made it through the quarters and semis and tonight is the big final against the Aussie Diamonds.  What a battle that will be - hope we come away with the spoils!!!    And then there was the Super 15 final last night, which sadly the Crusaders lost to the Reds, but is was a very close exciting game.

Hope you're enjoying a lovely weekend, take care .............. Nicky

A Sweet Little Bag ..........

I've finally finished my little Winters Eve Ornament, so will try and get some photos of it soon.
We are busy with shearing our lambs at the moment, this will take about three and a half days, so there is a lot of shifting mobs of lambs, drenching and weighing happening right now. We are having a great spell of weather at the moment, so it is making it easier to get some of these jobs done. So.... not too much time for stitching this week. I'm intending to carry on with The Potting Shed soon.

Here is a little bag I made late last year. It is a variation of a freebie called 'Blue Wren's Nest' by Cinderberry Stitches. Thanks Natalie!! The original design had some gorgeous little birds and nests, but I have left these out in this quick version. I made it with Peace on Earth, and Roman Holiday fabric by 3 Sisters for Moda, aren't these two ranges of fabric fabulous. It is just the perfect size for your purse, phone and lippie....

My version of Blue Wren's Nest - Freebie by Cinderberry Stitches

Here is our youngest having a chat with some cattle over the gate at the bottom of our driveway a few days ago. The heifers are really quiet, and very inquisitive, anytime we are eating outside on the deck, working in the garden, or mowing the lawn, they all wander over to see what is happening.

Till next time - Happy stitching.