Time for a catch up.......

Hi folks, it's been a crazy week or two around here, lots happening on the farm, and busy times for me at work as well.  We have just had a holiday weekend here, the Saturday and Sunday of which we spent getting our lambs tailed.  As we expected it was a pretty disastrous lambing for us, however the lambs and ewes we have are all pretty healthy, so we will do our best with what we have.  On Labour Day Monday we made a daytrip to Roxburgh and jetboated up the Clutha River to Alexandra and then onto the Clyde Dam.  It was a lovely day out, only problem was I left my camera behind, so I haven't got any photos of beautiful Central Otago with the wild thyme in flower, smells heavenly and the countryside looks amazing.  Photos next time!!

In stitching news, some long awaited stash arrived..........some lovely new LHN charts and gorgeous overdyed threads, sitting on some Weeks Dye Works 32ct Linen in 'Straw'

and LHN's Virtue Sampler which I couldn't resist making a start on. Oops - Fallen off the wagon again!

Some cute pins - 'Pink Lemonade' from Just Another Button Co

And because I need another project start like I need a hole in the head, here is the beginnings of my Stitching Around The Block, from Helen Stubbings - Hugs and Kisses.  I am thrilled to be in a little Kiwi stitching group with these lovely ladies Raewyn, Janis, and Leanne.   Raewyn and I 'met' thru our blogs a few months back, our blog address names are very similar, and we are both(obviously) farm girls!  I have my fabrics pretty much finalised for this little quilt, and this centre block needs to be finished by the end of the week and sent on its way North for the beginning of November. 

And just so you know I haven't forgotten my committment to stitch one of these 'Butterfly Garden'  miniblocks each week, here is an update.  These three are finished mini blocks from Block 2.........

..............and these four are prepped ready for applique and stitchery. 

I must confess I am a little behind my one a week target though, likewise I am very behind in the Gardener's Journal SAL.  Thankfully most the others aren't, so you can check out some lovely blocks and quilts over here.  Secret stitching for my SSCS is still happening, and  I am gathering things for my 6 Items Christmas Swap too. All in all, it's going to be a busy countdown to the end of the year - thanks for calling by here today to visit, I appreciate that you have persevered this far. LOL 

Till next time, take care ............. Nicky

A productive Friday night ........

Kia Ora friends, as planned there was some stitching finished here last night for Friday Night Sew-In. Yay!  My Danybrod pincushion is made up...................... I'm pretty happy with the final result. 

Floral Pin Cushion by Danybrod

Stitched on 32ct linen with DMC threads

The fabric I used for the back of the pincushion

I also finished up this little Christmas ornament, stitched back in February this year.

Winter's Eve - Country Cottage Needleworks

from JCS 2006 Christmas Ornament Issue

Stitched on Driftwood Belfast 32ct Linen with DMC, WDW and CC threads

The finishing up of these didn't take long, so I spent the rest of the evening working on my SSCS stitching, but I can't show any pics of that top secret project at the minute!!

Thanks to Heidi for once again hosting Friday Night Sew-In, I love it, and look forward to it each month,  why not head over to Heidi's blog and join in next time. 

Hope you're having a lovely weekend however you're spending it.......thanks for stopping by........Nicky

Back for Friday Night Sew-In

After a few weeks break from blogging, I am starting to catch up on blog reading, and am in a better frame of mind for stitching.  It occurred to me today that Friday Night Sew-in must be coming up soon and - yippee- it's tonight, so never one to be put off by a lack of preparation, I've signed up.  I've been bitten by the cross-stitching bug, after a bit of a break from it, and over the last couple of weeks,  I have stitched up this little pincushion design by Danybrod, one of my favourite French cross stitch designers.  I loved stitching it, it seemed to grow pretty quick, so much sport to watch at the Commonwealth Games at night lately helped the stitching time, so this is one of the things I want to get 'finished' tonight. 

I have started on my SSCS stitching, but won't reveal too much here, only that it is red!!  I'm enjoying working on this project and also on my 6 Items Xmas swap, which I have been giving some thought too over the last few weeks.  It's been fun trying to learn a bit about my swap partners, their style, likes and dislikes, though it's a bit daunting to be stitching/selecting something for people you have never actually met. 

Amongst that there has also been some GJ stitching, and in my usual chopping and changing fashion, I have now stitched most of the Vege Patch and a couple of other blocks too - just no blocks complete to be sewn together yet, but progress has been made. 

Also planned for this weekend is some gardening, and catching up on paperwork for both the farm and my off-farm job, should keep me out of trouble for a day or two!  We will be tailing our lambs early next week, so that will take care of a couple of days too.

I'll be back over the weekend to share tonight's results!

If you've made it this far - Congratulations! Thanks for stopping here today, wishing you a wonderful weekend ........... Nicky

Recovering......

.........from a week of hell on earth.  We saw the sun for the first time in a week on Saturday, and a more welcome sight I've never seen.  Words can't describe the devastation, and it is so widespread in the bottom corner of the South Island of NZ, that no farm has been immune.

It wasn't just the severity of the storm - it isn't unheard of here to have a brief snow shower early in lambing - it was the prolonged duration of this storm that did the damage, a whole week with no reprieve from firstly the heavy snow, then hail, sleet, more snow, rain and freezing winds, and right in the busiest week of lambing.  Newborn lambs didn't stand a chance, nor did many ewes, who succumbed to 'sleepy sickness' and other metabolic problems either late in their pregnancy or just following lambing.  Every day was like groundhog day, knowing the storm was not going to ease, and knowing there was very little to be done to save our livestock.  Our farm has a lot of natural shelter and of planted shelter belts, but this was little use once there was a foot of snow on the ground, with ewes not able to get out to feed, most of our dead animals were in sheltered areas.

The lamb losses on our farm are in the many, many hundreds, but some farms have lost thousands of lambs and hundreds of ewes.  We probably won't know the true extent of the loss until tailing(docking) time next month.  While dairy farmers may not have as many animals dying as the sheep farmers, some have faced a critical shortage of supplementary feed, and cows have suffered from the severely cold conditions.
We've been cleaning up for the last few days, and trying to get things back on track, for what is now left of lambing season.  I will admit though, that my positive attitude from my last post didn't last more than a couple of days! It's been heartbreaking, and we will feel the effects of this storm for a long time to come, but farmers are pretty resilient folk, and we don't go down without a fight. 

Will leave you with a few pics of what my garden was up to before the storm..........a few lettuce plants and some flowers starting to bloom ...............

Please accept my apologies if I didn't reply to your comments from last week, or get the chance to stop by and visit blogs lately, things will start to return to normal here soon. This isn't quite what I had envisaged for my 50th post, but that is just the way life is at the moment!  Please know I love reading your comments, and the kindness and good wishes sent last week were very, very much appreciated and cherished.


Till next time, thanks for stopping by today ..............Nicky

When life gives you lemons ............make lemonade

........and when Mother Nature gives you snow................get Dad to build a sled and have some fun!

Slight design flaw - you end up with just as much snow on top of you as all around you!  The girls loved it anyway, and are pretty pleased they can't get through to school today. 

We are trying to keep our chins up, but things are pretty dire out there, lots more snow yesterday, it eased off a little later in the day, and there's been a slight thawing overnight.  Unfortunately though, more snow is forecast for tonight, so any thawing so the ewes can get to some grass today would be wonderful. 

Another cloud with a silver lining - I had time to get my little Lamb scissor fob finished up......... rather fittingly photgraphed on a bed of snow.

Spring Scissor Fob

Shepherds Bush

32ct Waterlily Linen with DMC and WDW thread as kitted

Now that it's finished I can't believe I left it so long to stitch up the back and finish it up. I think the thought of making the cord myself was a bit daunting, but it really wasn't so bad!The only change I made was the year, not 2003 as the chart listed!  

A huge thanks for all the lovely, kind comments left about the lambs and snow, we will do the very best we can, and are hoping that our stock come through OK.

Till next time .............. Nicky

It's Spring, apparently........

......but this is what we woke to this morning...................

....and about 4 hours later, it had changed to this.............

Large coffee cup added for perspective!

It's definitely not a great day to be a newborn lamb, we are just hoping that the ewes have headed for shelter, it is snowing so heavily now, that we would do more damage than good by going out into the paddocks, and would end up chasing ewes out of shelter and mismothering lambs.  Not even sure if the motorbike would get very far in this at the moment anyway.

Up until now lambing had been going great, weather had been not too bad, and the ewes were lambing with very little trouble.  Guess we are now paying for the great winter we had!  We are only bottle feeding about 12 pet/orphan lambs just now, but that will probably change once this storm passes.  I think most of New Zealand is experiencing terrible weather this weekend, heavy rain, huge winds and sea swells in the North Island and snow and rain in the South Island.  They have forecast it for nearly a week, but after seeing on the news some of the snow that Tasmania in Australia got, we were just hoping it would not get that bad.

My plans for Friday Night Sew-In didn't quite come off as I'd hoped, I did get the cutting out of my quilt runner done, before it just got too cold in my sewing room and I settled for some cross stitching by the fire instead.   Here's a peek at what I was working on.  Hopefully I will have something to show for my efforts by the end of the weekend! 

If you were participating in FNSI, I hope you had much better results!

Thanks for stopping by today, have a wonderful weekend.................Nicky

Spring Stitching

Here is a little stitching from the last week or so, now that I have sorted out this mornings blog glitches...........

Some miniblocks together to be prepped, some for stitchery, and some for applique........

...and some progress on the big house block from A Gardener's Journal.  Now that I see the photo I notice that my roof has a definite lean on at the top......no worries, there is no way I am unpicking and restitching this block!  I notice that there are a few quilts being finished over at the SAL blog, and many others are getting some blocks joined together.  They are all looking great, so pop on over and check out our progress.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, hope your day is going great..................till next time..............

Happy Stitching,   Nicky