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

Stitchalong catchup

I've been enjoying the little projects we've been working on as part of the Stitch-A-Long blog, and here are my May and June finishes.  First is my bag, from the Some Kind of Wonderful book by Anni Downs.  I chose to omit the stitchery once I found this lovely linen fabric.

 And a sweet little fabric covered button to finish it off

A couple of weekends ago I attended a class with a lovely lady, Sharon, who teaches classes from her home studio.  She is a very patient teacher and we were all especially keen to learn needleturn applique.  The project we worked on was, as luck would have it, the pincushion from Natalie Bird's Red Home book which is our June Stitchalong project.  I finally got mine stuffed and finished yesterday, and I'm so pleased with it.  Sharon can be found at O Sew Divine, where you can see some of her beautiful work, it is gorgeous.  Thanks Sharon for a wonderful class! 

 

I'm planning on finding some sewing machine time later today, and some stitching tonight while I watch the All Blacks play, hope you have a lovely weekend too......... Nicky x

Wintertime

Hello again... winter has well and truly arrived here, with a short sharp cold spell last week.... here are some pics from round the farm in the last week or so......

Number 1 helper....Miss Kelly

Bleak

Heifers waiting for meals on wheels........

......... and tucking in.....

 Not sure if this chap is used to snow, but he is snug and warm under his new cover and enjoying his hay....

 And after a day or so we were back to sunshine again......one of our swede paddocks in the foreground, the hoggets are now eating these......

And this years heifer calves being nosy.....

 Thanks for visiting the farm today......... I'll be back in a day or two with a couple of finishes.... till then, happy stitching....Nicky x

Anyone there?

Hello there, I won't be surprised if you've all disappeared from visiting here, much as I have lately.  I have been very absent from both my blog and visiting and commenting on others for the last month or two.  School camp, family visiting, school holidays, winter sport getting under way and lots of busy days on the farm has meant little sewing or blogging time for me.  Hopefully things might settle down soon!

I have finished my feeble attempt at the Tis the Season wallhanging which was the April project for  the Stitch-A-Long blog.  The original has three stitchery blocks joined in a horizontal row, but I have settled for one this time.  

 The only other thing I've really worked on lately has been to finish joining the 'petals/blades' for the Dresden plates for the Sugar Dish quilt.   Time to decide on centre circle colours and how I'm going to attach them to their backgrounds......

I have the fabrics all ready to go for the bag for the May Stitch-A-Long project, and will do my best to get it done before the 31st!  Hope you're having a great weekend whatever you're up to, it is a beautifully warm, breezy day here today, though we are being warned about snow for Monday....... not looking forward to that......

Till next time(hopefully not so long next time though) ........  Nicky x

My beautiful Easter swap gifts

My lovely Easter swap parcel from Leanne arrived and didn't she spoil me!!A gorgeous applique bunny bag, he is adorable, as is the little bunny with the orange spots who was carefully guarding some yummy easter eggs that the family enjoyed...... Some pretty fabrics, buttons, some yummy DMC threads in colours that make me think of Easter, some sweet little iron-on birdie patches and a length of the measuring tape that you can stitch onto little projects - I've been looking for some of that for a while.

Thank you so much Leanne, I love it all and really enjoyed our swap......

What are your plans for the weekend?  There really needs to be some serious housework happen here this weekend, our youngest daughter and I are off on her school camp next week, so must get myself organised ..... it should be lots of fun(the camp, not the housework...lol)  

So maybe not too much stitching time here, but I live in hope!

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

PS - Thanks for all the comments and advice about how you stitch down your dresden plate blocks. The jury is still out but I will have to make a decision once I get all the blocks sewn.   My FNWF efforts last week got all the 'petal' parts made and a couple more put together, but just never got back here to show them........ what a hopeless blogger I've been lately!

A baby dresden

I'm having a go at blogging from my phone so please disregard this if it doesn't work properly.  This is my first little dresden with all the petals sewn together.... fiddly but fun.  When you make dresden plates do you machine or hand applique to the background?  Ditto for the centre circle, needleturn or machine?  

Till next time. ........... Happy Stitching ............ 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