A long Scrappy Trip

Around Easter last year I was bitten by the Scrappy Trip Around the World bug that was going viral at the time.  I pieced my top and put it in my pile of things to get quilted 'one day'.  A few months later I was so lucky to win the quilting of a quilt on a blog giveaway from lovely Linda - Razzle Dazzle Quilter.  I received my beautifully quilted top back in December, and it's taken me several months to get that binding attached and sewn down.  However it is finished for Easter 2014, and the colours remind me of the bright, happy colours of easter eggs and spring flowers(though the irony is not lost on me that we celebrate Easter in autumn.)

                            

I've tried to get some close up pics of the beautiful swirly quilting Linda has done, isn't it so pretty, I am so thrilled to have been lucky enough to win this generous prize from Linda, her work is absolutely stunning and I would definitely recommend her services.  Why not pop over to her blog and see more of her lovely work.  Thanks again Linda!!

Kelly couldn't resist some photobombing..... she has rather a thing for blankets and quilts!

There is just one more week of school and then it's holidays for a couple of weeks, we're all looking forward to that, it's been a long school term and things have been crazy round here the last few weeks!  Daylight saving is now over and as the nights are longer I live in hope for a little more sewing time in the evening..... a girl can dream.....

Thanks for visiting me today, till next time..... happy stitching...... Nicky x

 

My Friday Night with Friends and lovely gifts

My Friday Night with Friends started a little later than I planned, with our girls both having netball games on Friday evening, but better late than never right... and here is the littlest peak at some secret sewing I've been working on tonight.  These are some of those wonderful 'bonus' half square  triangles left over from my Fat Quarter Shop Designer Mystery BOM blocks.  I've also added a few different fabrics from a charm pack for some variety, do you think you can guess what I'm working on??   If you were joining in tonight for FNWF, I hope you got lots done too.... and a big thanks to Cheryll for hosting us all.

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to win Anthea - Hibiscus Stitches beautiful giveaway of some goodies she purchased at a big Craft Show. A pretty floral fat quarter, a Cottage Garden Thread(I've heard lots of good things about these) and a pair of gorgeous bunny scissors.  It is all so pretty, I love it Anthea!

So imagine my surprise when included in the parcel was this lovely mug rug, with the prettiest seed packet fabric on the front, and backed with this cool black and white 'quilt words' fabric, can you see some of the block names and quilting expressions on it?  Thanks so much Anthea, I love it all and am so thrilled to have been the lucky winner!

I was going to make the next part another post on another day, but my presence here has been rare lately so I'll just put it all in the one post!!  Here are the final four blocks of the 2012 FQS BOM.  I finished these last month, but only got some quick pics today....

 Block 9 - Lakeside Retreat - Designed by Joanna Figueroa

Block 10 - Sunday Drive - Designed by Polly Minick and Laurie Simpson

Block 11 - County Fair - Designed by Julie Comstock

Block 12 - April Showers - Designed by Sweetwater

 I have the first 6 blocks joined into their rows with their flying geese for sashing, there is a big vertical red and white stripe fabric to go between each horizontal row, but I need to take my time cutting that so I don't stuff it up!

The rush is on to get this one finished as the new 2013 Designer Mystery BOM has started and I have block one sitting here waiting to be started.  I saw a few girls were going to be getting stuck into that one tonight, hope it went well for you!

Thanks for visiting today, I will try and be back a lot sooner 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

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

Congratulations to ...........

 .......... Tatyana of Tatkis - mouse house, who has won the cross-stitch goodies, mostly LHN patterns, Crescent Colours threads and some Weeks Dye Works fabric for the snowman ornament  ..................

and Christine of Auntie's Quaint Quilts who has won Ruby, Martinique, and Countdown to Christmas charm packs and some Riley Blake fat quarters.

I have to confess that Tatyana actually had her name drawn out in BOTH draws, but in the interests of fairness and spreading the love a little further afield I drew a second name for the charm packs, and Christine was the second winner.  Who would have thought, there were over 60 names in each draw - I'd definitely be buying a lottery ticket this week Tatyana!   

So ladies, if you want to email me your addresses I'll get these goodies on their way to you.  Thanks for all the comments and entries and for helping me celebrate 100 posts of sharing my stitching life with you.

We spent yesterday moving the younger ewes around the farm into their lambing paddocks, the farm is very wet and muddy, after the cold miserable end to winter we've had.  Today is a beautiful sunny day though, so I'm going to make the most of some time in the garden before lambing starts getting really busy.  We had about half a dozen of the older ewes had their lambs yesterday, so only a few thousand to go!  

I hope you're having a nice weekend too ............ happy stitching ............. Nicky



There's still time left ...........

................. to enter my giveaway from my last post.  I haven't finalised all the goodies yet, but there's a good chance some of the quilty prize will come from here ............... one pile in my ever-growing stash that I'm never finding the time to do anything with (Sorry, I'm not giving the whole pile away though - some of these will be made into something here ...... one day!).   Remember there's going to be two draws, one for the quilty people, one for the stitchy people and for those like me who dabble in both, I might just put your name in both draws.  (See, it does pay to be a fence sitter. lol)   

So, if you haven't already entered, I'd love you to leave a comment on this post only, before the end of today, Friday 26th August, and I'll draw some names out tomorrow.  Good luck!

One hundred and counting

Well hello there.............. you could be forgiven for thinking I'd vanished into the night after not posting for over three weeks.   Life has been a little crazy lately, and my computer has been at the doctor for an overhaul too ...................... so now I'm back to many hundreds of posts to catch up on in Google Reader..... but I will get there  ......... it might just take some time!

The cold blast straight from Antarctica last week that plunged most of New Zealand in to the freezer left us with our fifth dump of snow for the winter, the crazy thing is some years we don't get any, but this has been a dreadful end to winter.  It's taken it's toll on man and beast around here.  We're all desperate for spring to arrive, and hopefully some warm temperatures to greet the lambs due to be born in about two weeks.  At least some of us enjoyed the snow, hanging on for dear life on the sled behind the motorbike.......

Just so you know that amongst the craziness I have been stitching a little, here is a WIP, on it's way to completion.  This is Leanne's House New Couch Companion in a half finished state ..............because it's as much about the process as the finished object right??

Thanks for all the kind comments about me celebrating another year last month, and I think there are quite a lot of you who would be happy to receive a hen house for your birthday too. LOL


To celebrate both my Halfway to 70 birthday and this, my 100th post, I'm going to have a little giveaway. Because I can never stick to just one thing and am constantly swinging between cross-stitch/embroidery projects and quilty/stitchery projects, I'm going to give away a henhouse, no sorry a little bundle of treats for both.


Just leave a comment and tell me which is your favourite kind of stitching - Cross Stitch/Embroidery or Quilting/Fabric crafts or maybe like me you can't make up your mind prefer to sit on the fence and enjoy both?? Or maybe it's something else altogether!  There's no other hoops to jump through, you don't need to be a follower or advertise the giveaway anywhere, just say hi and I'll throw your name in a draw next Friday 26th August.  If you visit here, and have been lurking in the background, don't be shy, believe me I don't bite, I'd also love to put your name in the draw too!  I'm happy to send anywhere!

OK, time to go and catch up on all those blogs I'm so behind on reading, I hope you have a wonderful weekend  ................... till next time, Nicky

Easter bunnies and birdies ........

Isn't this wee guy the cutest?  I was lucky enough to be a winner in Carol's Spring Giveaway a couple of weeks ago, and this Just Nan bunny has come all the way from Pennsylvania to live at my house.  Carol's finishing is beautiful and she has a whole lot more gorgeous bunnies she's been stitching up for Easter.  I feel SO lucky to be a winner in your lovely giveaway Carol, this is the first giveaway I've ever won, so thanks!  I don't enter many giveaways, unless it's a blog I already visit, so I feel very blessed.    It may not be spring here in NZ, but it is definitely bunny time with Easter only a day away!

My stitching from last weeks FNSI is now finished.  This is the April block for the Birdie Stitches BOM, with a cute Easter egg tree.  The tree is a little hard to pick out, maybe I should have chosen a darker green.  Sadly the cross stitch I had planned for Easter has not eventuated ...... yet!

I hope you all have a wonderful Easter, we are heading away tomorrow for a few days to my in-laws, so I'll catch up again next week.

Till then.............happy stitching...................Nicky

PS:  Miss Moe - if you could email me    nickyw76 at yahoo dot com    as you are no-reply, and I will get back to you about the SB stockings.  Thanks.