Signs of spring…

The new potato patch.    The chooks turned this over for a month or so ago, so on Tuesday Cam and I dug it over, pulled out the remaining weeds and planted our first crop of potatoes for this season.  Rockets.  Early maturing, they should be ready for Christmas time.

The existing garden beds with their winter and spring veges growing madly.  I planted out winter crops of peas and broad beans, which are all flowering now.  The Spinach is so yummy and we still have quite a few leeks to eat.

Yesterday I planted some tomatoes in pots.  They will stay in pots till we have new beds ready for them.  That’s good as we are still having some light frosts with the gorgeous weather.  The tomatoes are Moneymaker.

The Nectarine and Apricot trees are in full bloom.  Here’s hoping for a great harvest

Earlier in the year I took part in a mosaics class, here’s the ladybug that I made, sitting amongst the mint and strawberries that will need to be lifted and replanted in the new kitchen garden once the house is moved.

I’ve managed a bit of sewing this week, while sorting out a few quotes and problems with the bank regarding the house move.  The move will still go ahead (once we sort out transit and contract works insurance) but the budget is now stretched as far as we are comfortable with.  Matt has (just this afternoon) found a place to stay in Wellington, which is fabulous news.  It will be an awesome place, staying with good friends of ours   Gives us a good excuse to visit them more! 

Little wallets (which will be listed in the shop when I get my A into G)

I got 30 blocks made for my nieces quilt, and then almost all the rows together, should finish the top next week.  I got a mini quilt made for a swap, just need to bind it   That’s the very last of my swaps for this year.  While it frees up some time, it’s sad not to be expecting anything nice in the mail.  I am still waiting for my last MMM swap, which should have been posted at the beginning of August.  I was almost the last person to receive last round too

And just to finish off, look at the lovely tulips my hubby bought me yesterday. 

 

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A busy time

but no pictures to prove it.

An interesting thing happened yesterday.  I helped the neighbour operate on a hen.  For real.  The neighbours dog (who is still a puppy) decided to eat a few of their hens.  Bad dog   They managed to save one of the two.  Unfortunately it was left with a rather large hole in its neck.  So for the last 4 or 5 days this poor hen has been trying to eat and drink with a big hole in her neck and the food would go down her throat and most of it would fall out the hole in her neck.  If you’ve ever taken a hen tho the vet you would know it’s a wasted visit.  Not only in expense, but lack of expertise.  Vets just usually don’t see many hens.  The cost of a new hen is less than a trip to the vets. Now the neighbours knew that I had worked as a vet assistant in a previous life, so asked if I would come and assist with sewing up the hen.  The neighbour in question is a Doctor, so used to sewing up things, he just needed an able assistant.  The surgery went really well and when I left and hour or so later it was eating again.  Hopefully she’ll make it as she had an extremely strong will to live. 

The rest of the weekend was spent working on cleaning up the section and doing a wee bit of work on getting the site ready for house moving.  Ian managed to dismantle the whole of the pig pen (which was a mammoth task), while I removed various gates and gudgeons, emptied the woodshed of all the remaining wood, mowed the lawns and then helped Lilly move bricks.  Boy was I tired by this afternoon.  Too tired to sew

We should have got the lambs docked, but ran out of time.  It will have to be done soon as we need to dismantle our stock yards next weekend. 

Still to-ing and fro-ing with the bank, which is a bit disappointing and we usually get much better service from them.  The house movers are all set to come in once the section is clear.  We are sorted for and Electrician, but not a plumber.  The problem is that lots of plumbers are not drainlayers, and we need someone who can do both jobs.  Hopefully I can sort that out this week.  Fencing should happen this week. 

We’re in line to get some piglets in 2 weeks, so amongst all the dismantling we need to build a new pig pen.  If we don’t get sorted in time we might miss out on pigs this year, which would be a shame.

Right, better go and attempt some sewing.  I’m just about to start sewing a long promised quilt for my niece who turned 18 this week.  I promised her a quilt a couple of years ago, so I better make good on it.  I have all the pieces cut out (298 of them), so sewing it up should only take a couple of days.  Fingers crossed.

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One for the girls!

I don’t get much chance to indulge in making pretty girly quilts, but I just couldn’t resist making this quilt in the fabulous Sherbet Pips fabric range from UK designer Aneela Hooey.

Sherbet Pips quilt – Large single bed size, 184cm x 154cm, 100% cotton (front, back and batting).  Now in the shop

 

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We have consent!

Yay, I stopped in to pay the invoice for our building consent today and asked when it might be ready. The lovely receptionist went off to check for me and came out with our completed consent.  So exciting.  Now we have to start clearing the new house site.  That means moving Matt into new accommodation, taking out 2 large gum trees, taking down all the hedge along the driveway, removing the pergola attached to the dining room, dismantling the stock yards and then demolishing the sleepout, woodshed and pump house.  Whew, lots to do.

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A bee quilt….

Ages ago I sent fabric out for my month on the Fresh Modern quilting bee.  I sent everyone some luscious hand screen printed bugs and birds fabrics along with some calico and linen.  I received back some awesome blocks.  Yesterday I finally sat down, upsized most of them to a standard 12.5 inch size and put them together to make a quilt.

Now I just have to find something appropriate to back it with and I can finish it off.  It’s lovely to see it almost completed.  Thanks to everyone who contributed blocks.

Last week I finished a custom-made quilt, here’s pics of it. 

 I love the cute elephant on the back

Still working like a demon on getting all the quotes and paperwork for repiling the house. We are 95% there.  I’m freaking out a bit now.  It just keeps getting more expensive by the minute.  As soon as you get a quote you find out you need something else done.  Scary!

Winner of the baby shoes giveaway is Sally-Ann   If you missed out there are lots of cute shoes still in the shop and quilts are on sale till the end of the month. Grab a bargain while you can!

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Another year older

  Today was a blah kinda day.  I guess a combo of feeling old, the new session of Weight watchers being really hard this time (I’m just not mentally prepared this time), and nothing happening with the house re-piling.  Still waiting on a bunch of quotes.

Yesterday was an okay birthday.  The kids really put in lots of effort into making it a great day, especially Lilly and Cam who showered me with cards etc.  Ian made me a wonderful dinner and cake   I had already had my birthday present a month earlier (my kindle), which I am loving.  I now have a couple of Amazon gift certificates to spend on ebooks.  Yay.

I splashed out some fabric as a present to myself   These are from a designer called Laurie Wisbrun who has fabric under some of the big producers, but has some fabric printed herself which is sold on Esty under the name Scarlet Fig.  Laurie’s designs are fabulous, and the service was fantastic!!

I have no plans for this fabric yet, but I just had to have some.

I finished up a few little wallets to stock the shop with before Christmas… (not listed yet)

I spent some time working on my Sherbert Pips quilt today.  I actually got most of the pieces cut out about a month ago, but only just sat down on Sunday and started sewing.  I chose a pattern off Moda Bake Shop, but have to say the instructions are pretty bad and I had to fix up quite a few errors that could have been avoided with better instructions.  Needless to say it made todays’ sewing pretty frustrating!   I hope tomorrows sewing is more productive.

So, just to cheer us all up and to reward you for reading to the end, I’m going to giveaway a cute pair of wool baby shoes.  These ones….

Wool outer, leather soles for non-slip, size 6-12 months.  Leave a comment telling me who you’d give them to if you won them.  Entries close Sunday evening International entries welcome.

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A busy day out…

On Saturday we made a trip over the hill to Wellington.  We don’t get over that way very often now that Matt isn’t there.  So it was a nice change, though we left a sunny day at home and ended up in a cold blustery Wellington day  

Lunch with wonderful friends.  Not only good food but coming home with a stack of good books to read, and extra chair to use at the computer (instead of having to use one from the dining table) and a gorgeous Oak mirror to hang once our house is renovated

Afternoon tea with other friends, a surprise present and early birthday cake for me Cameron loved the birds there.

A trip to Hangdog after that.  This was Cam’s first visit.  He was very excited, but a little scared.

We’ll take him again when he’s a bit older.

Lilly has done some rock climbing before, but not on walls this high.  However that didn’t slow her down, she was like a rat up a drain pipe!

These are 12m walls of varying difficulty levels.

I wish we lived closer, Lilly would be here all the time.

Cam did enjoy the boulder room, which has an inflatable floor, like a bouncy castle

Meanwhile Lilly tried out the ladder as well…

It was fun, next time Ian and I will climb too (we used to go years ago when we were both a bit younger and fitter).  Tis an expensive activity though (when you have 6 to pay for).  Definitely recommend it!

 

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A little something for me….

Using up some of my long hoarded Echino remnants

It’s all in the little details

LOVE this pattern, it’s from the book Sew Serendipity by Kay Whitt.  Great book.!  I’m going to make a second skirt in different fabric.

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Stress & Excitement

One and the same most of the time round here.  Things are moving ahead at a steady pace with regards to shifting the house.  Our plans went into council today for the building consent.  Should hear from the bank tomorrow regarding paying for it all   Quotes are coming in for all the peripheral work (and boy there is a lot of it!).  Electrician, plumber, linesman, skip hire, tree felling, fencing, trench digging (for the new cables), a builder for the deck,  all sorts of stuff that I’m discovering.  Still I’m sure I’ll manage to get it all organised.

Lambing time has finally arrived at our place.  It’s not all gone smoothly so far either.  Black sheep was first, a lamb late Thursday afternoon, checked on her, she was all okay, Friday morning discovered a 2nd lamb.  I checked on the lamb and all was well, but a few hours later it was dead.  Looked like she might have squashed it, but I’m not sure she was feeding it either.  It’s hard to know where to draw the line and interfere with nature.  At least she has a nice healthy ram lamb.

Today it was the turn of one fo our two pregnant white ewes to lamb.  unfortunately she started out yesterday with a prolapsed bearing.  If you don’t know what that is – don’t ask, needless to say it’s pretty gross!  This meant that after fixing her prolapse twice yesterday it was back again this morning as well as her water sack.  She was pretty debilitated by then and not going to birth on her own, so we called in the vet.  Luckily after a very difficult hour and bit the vet was able to successfully deliver both her ram lambs alive.  That was a close call.  She spent most of the day recovering and was accepting of the lambs but probably due to the trauma of the birth was not happy to stand still and let the lambs feed, so I had to tie her to the fence so the lambs could feed.  Mother and lambs are shut up in a small warm stall tonight, with the hope that tomorrow she will be feeding them normally, otherwise they’ll have to be hand raised.

Fingers crossed for a better day tomorrow.

Jack the cat had a great day in the sun, catching mice Nice for some aye?

Belated Happy Father’s Day for Sunday to all the great Fathers out there.  We were organised here this year, Ian was pretty spoilt.  Check out this cool tie that Cameron made for him (idea courtesy of Heart Felt)…

 So that’s us, up to date.  No sewing to show   Too busy with other stuff last week.  I’d like to get a headstart on some handmade Christmas gifts, so expect some crafty pics soon.

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Beautiful..

even if I do say so myself.

Gorgeous wool duffle coat (size 5) lined with lovely soft flannel, now for sale in my shop :-)

Birthday month special – all quilts in the shop are now priced at cost.  Go grab yourself a bargain!

I’ll be back later with lots of exciting news !!!

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