Happy Birthday Lilly

My gorgeous girl is Twelve today.  Happy Birthday!!!!!

We love her to bits.  Gorgeous, thoughtful, caring and somes very stubborn. 

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Storing my nuts.

Okay, so I don’t really have any nuts (though a friend has Walnuts, yum), but I am squirreling things away for Winter.  We don’t have squirrels here in New Zealand, but I’ve heard they taste okay

Today I took the garlic and the last of the shallots down from drying and put them into storage. I’m really pleased that I have put some aside for replanting. If I don’t learn to save seeds and bulbs I’m not doing it right.  So I picked out the biggest and best bulbs for growing our next batch.

I’m still making batches of roast tomato sauce, and I took seeds from each type of tomato as well.  I just roast them all together, regardless of type.  The ones that looks a bit like grapes are a purple cherry tomato (maybe purple crim?).

And of course with the trees being cut down we are storing wood. Oh, and storing the pumpkins too.  Just waiting on some freezer space and we sill be getting some Lambs.  Oh for a yummy Lamb Curry.!!!!

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An almost finish.

Another top from my WIP pile complete.  I have the backing cut out ready to piece. Still trying to decide if I should use cotton batting or a wool blanket as batting.  What do you think?

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Lest we forget – Anzac Day

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Finding the love………..

for the Riley Blake Wheels quilt in progress, finally.  So I’ve reworked it, 4 huge disappearing nine patches (about 22 inches I think, each) they will be sashed in the middle with dark brown (as soon as the shop orders in the colour I need), then bordered with the quarter square triangles (each separated by more brown sashing) and then another wider border of brown, with a stripe of the aqua colour in the centre of the final border, IYKWIM?  Clear as mud??  I wish I had EQ6, then I could show you.  Rest assured I have a pic in my head of what it will look like.  Now I just have to hope it lives up to expectations. 

Add to that the pair of reverible pants I made yesterday for a swap, and 3 pairs of waterproof pants made for an order.

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Join in the fun!!!

Hey fellow quilters / bloggers, come on over and join in the fun on Flickr’s “A little fabric, a little chocolate” swap. It would be great to see some more New Zealander’s there (as well as all my other readers)  It’s a lot of fun, and we all like to get fabric and chocolate in the mail right?  I know I do.  Check out the fantastic parcel I got from Jules in California.

I had a great time choosing goodies for Jules and sending them off.  However sometimes the postage for International parcels is abit of a killer, so it would be awesome if there was more than just 2 crafters from NZ participating.  So, if you’re active on flickr and up for a little swappy goodness, jump on over to the group and sign up.  Here’s the link

ALFALC

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A finish!

Yay, finally some progress.  Here’s pics of the finished quilt.  Random fabric, approx 51 iches square, rainbow variegated thread for quilting, cotton batting. Sweet.

I’ve got another one sandwiched and ready to quilt.  Ive used some gorgeous iridescent blue Thai silk that Mum gave me.  It reminds me of a vintage Eiderdown.

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We have light!!!

First up, thanks to all my fantastic regulars who left comments or suggestions regarding the quilt on my last post.  I’ve decided the 8 inch squares are going to be turned in a disappearing nie patch with chocolate-brown sashing, the quarter square triangles, I’ll decide on them later.  I got some sewing done today, which felt really good.  I quilted one of the quilt tops I had completed a few months ago.  Now it’s just waiting on binding.

Yesterday was a hive of activity round here.  We had some 20m gum trees on the roadside fence line.  Just waiting for a big wind to push them onto the road like the previous ones.  Seeing as 120-140kph winds are fairly regular here we decided to get them cut down.  One of our neighbours came and dropped the lot (one or two for us, the rest he is taking away in exchange for some lambs).  Took them all day to drop the trees, there were about 50 or 60 huge gum trees.  Now we have light instead

Yesterday morning………..

During the day……………

The view this morning………….

From the other side of the paddock looking towards the house this morning……….

The house, bathed in early morning sunlight……………..

Such a difference!!!  Today was the first time after a frost that the house wasn’t freezing cold till lunchtime, we didn’t need to light a fire this morning.  It means that when it’s really frosty and the cold water header tank on the roof freezes, it should unfreeze when the sun comes up, instead of not till about 11am.  We didn’t notice any difference in road noise and we are planning on replanting along the boundary with natives that grow to about 3m in height.

While all the work was going on in the paddock Ian was kept busy with jobs he wanted to complete before going back to work tomorrow, one of which was to harvest the pumpkins we were growing.  This was a good haul for us.  We had Pumpkin and Lentil curry for lunch, yum!

Our dog Snow has been on holiday for a long time, almost 2 years.  Lovingly looked after by Mum and Kev.  A week ago she came home, to stay.  Cameron was over the moon, as was Nathan.  I was a bit ho-hum, but had been missing her recently.  I’m pleased to say it’s like she was never gone, she has all the good manners I taught her still :-) We are so lucky she is such a patient and gentle dog (when shes’ not chasing a ball or frisbee).  She has to put up with Cameron playing doctor with her, listening to her heart, taking her blood pressure, looking in her ears, getting lots of hugs  and being told what to do by a 3-year-old.  But she (Snow) has been great and loves the attention. 

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Unproductive……

would be the word of the day.  I have achieved nothing of note for the last few days except a few quilting bee blocks.  I’m afraid to count exactly how many quilts I have in progress at the moment.  I can’t seem to get in the right mood to work on any of them.  I tried to work on one, but now that I have cut out and sewn all the quarter square triangles and 8 inch squares I don’t like the way it looks together, too busy!!  Maybe too many prints?  But I’ve tried to rework it 3 times so far, but still don’t like it.  What to do??  I’m not rich enough to write off $70 worth of fabric.  Bugger.  I really feel like i should complete something though.  Who stole my quilting mojo???????  If it was you, can you bring it back???

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Getting on with April

I do enjoy school holidays most of the time, of course by the end I’m ready for a break from the kids.  With Ian at home I’ve had a bit of time to sew.  It felt good to get back in front my sewing machine.  On Monday I sewed myself some new winter PJ’s.  Having to light the fire to keep us warm might have had a bit to do with that.  Anyway, some retro orange and brown paisley flannel for the pants ($2 from the Op shop) and some gifted cotton lycra and hey presto! PJ’s for me.  I finished them mid afternoon, and tried them on about 4.30, they were some comfy that I left them on for the rest of the day.  They are very nice IRL, the pic doesn’t do them justice.

After that I jazzed up a hand-me-down white t-shirt Cam was given.

I got Ian to take the little dude for a haircut yesterday. He was much more relaxed about it than last time.

I managed to crank out some Bee blocks tonight.  They were starting to pile up.

These green ones and red/white/black fabric are for Jules who is making some quilts for friends who have Breast Cancer. I had promised these about a week ago but had forgotten.  My memory was jogged after I had lunch with a friend who told me she has just had a cancerous lump removed.  A real shock, as this is the first time Breast Cancer has struck anyone I personally know.

This block is for Christie for the Mish Mash Bee.

And lastly, this one for Becca, for the Sew Kid at Heart 2 Bee.

More to make tomorrow.

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