Leaders and Enders

Today I pieced a couple of flags for a bunting sample for work......

I didn't quite follow the instructions which called for hand piecing and hand embroidery. Instead  I foundation pieced the flags and then used my machine to do some decorative stitching, crazy pieced style.

In spite of going rogue, they finished up quite well. I'll take these into the shop tomorrow and we will make them into a bunting, interspersing them with some more flags which have been hand embroidered.

The design we are making is Must be Christmas by Marg Low.

Sewing these gave me a good excuse to do some Leader-Ender sewing. I'm following along, again, with Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville Leader-Ender Challenge. This year's block is Four Patch Fun. I'm always looking for an excuse to sew up my scraps and this block is a nice straight forward one.

Bonnie is making her blocks in two colours (plus the background fabric) but because I couldn't make a decision I am using any and all shades of red and I hope that it will look just as effective!

There are several different setting suggestions; I haven't yet decided which I will choose.

(This block comes with very precise pressing instructions - if you follow them, all seams nest and make for a nicely finished block.)

A previous Leader-Ender Challenge I did was Bonnie's 2022 Triple Treat.

I actually finished that one - 

And blogged about it *here*.

In between these two, I made another scrappy Leader-ender quilt which I realise I have not yet blogged about. 

This is a leftover block I found on my cutting bench; from memory, I am going to incorporate it into the label —

It's still unquilted - but it's on the pile!!!

I've just found this photo - I had mentioned it here once, last November!

The pattern is called Bonnie Lass from the book quilt lovely by Jen Kingwell.

Thank you for all your lovely thoughts when I mentioned Mum and her health in my last post. For now I am calling her my Miracle Mum. Less than 3 weeks after she initially collapsed, we broke her out of hospital for the day and celebrated her 88th birthday with a family gathering.

My two girls were able to get down to it and we got this lovely photo —

See you next time,

Raewyn

Cats and Other Things

Something cute happened in our house back in August......we welcomed new family member McGeorgeous Pussycat Denton Barge.

McGeorgeous was rescued by two of my nieces after they found him and his siblings abandoned near their apartment.

They nursed him back to health and, because they already have two cats, put the word out for a home for him.

It wasn't difficult for us to succumb and once he was 'fit for travel' he came up north to our place.

After a week of living under a bed, he started getting braver, to the point of assisting me with a bit of sewing —

He was quite a shy little boy and a lot of the photos they sent through showed him sleeping in drawers, on top of towers, and generally hiding away somewhere.

Perfect I thought, I can make him a little cat house to curl up in. I'd seen a pattern online which had appealed.

It was a great way to dig into some of my non-quilting remnants and I had a merry time going through that cupboard.

Both (ginger) cats were immensely interested while I was making it.

Of course, since it's been finished, it has barely warranted a sniff. However I'm thinking that it's coincided with warmer spring temperatures so maybe it will be of interest once summer is over 😏

The 'mattress' for it was extremely fun - two old stretched beanies, padded with shredded leftover sweatshirting fabric and 'quilted' together with scraps of yarn!!

(The pattern I used is found *here*. I altered it slightly, piecing it more like a bag and using binding, rather than making a case which the 'batting' was inserted into. I used leftover Soft and Stable scraps, zig-zagged together.

It was very satisfying to make this completely from bits and pieces that were stowed away!

And catching up on (even older) news, we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary during May. We held a small family affair here at home...it was really nice that Mum and my siblings were able to come up and join us. We had a lovely, fun weekend.

I spoke about Mum's ill health in a previous post. Unfortunately she's been unwell again and I've spent some more time back down at my sister's, and spending long hours at the hospital. I packed to leave home in a bit of a rush so had nothing to occupy my hands with. I found a ball of yarn and a crochet hook at the local Spotlight store. The new kitten needed his own afghan (see Tammy Cat's one *here*); I used a variegated ball and crocheted around and around until it was all used up.

I nearly got a photo of it being used but McGeorgeous emerged from his castle before I could grab a photo!

And then decided to lie just above it —

As Mum was still in hospital, I started another!! 

I love this neutral coloured yarn so may buy a second ball to make an even bigger afghan!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Another month goes by —

I know we often start a blogpost with the words "where has the month gone?"....well I can tell you exactly where the last month or so has gone - 

- on July 13th we started calving here on the farm. In New Zealand, we have seasonal calving -for us that means Spring calving - haha not that you would call July spring but that's what it's always been called!

Because our cows are outside all year long, it means we time calving so that when the cows need the most feed it is growing the best.....

I like to think of myself as the chief (one and only) calf rearer. Now that our son-in-law is working on the farm, I'm not called on for a lot of the other calving related jobs I used to do. I used to think I would miss having my finger on the pulse but (hehe) I don't that much!!

So cuteness overload —

After coming off their mum, they go into the calf shed —

When that shed gets full, they go to the Old Pigsty —

From there they have access to some outside paddocks —

Their first time outside is always entertaining!

And then I start moving them around the farm so they get lots of yummy grass as well as their daily milk —

And I  end up taking a lot of scenic photos of calves feeding with the farm in the background!

So far I have about 100 calves of various ages and stages. It won't be long until we form a weaning mob. About 70 calves have been sold as week old calves to a couple who raise them from then on.

At this time of the year we feel that we're indispensable, but the family rallied around and gave us 24 hours off the farm as a Fathers Day gift recently.  We went up north to Russell, a lovely spot we escape to from time to time.

Going over by ferry-

It was really windy while we were there so there were no beach walks but we were okay with that.

The view from where we stayed - 

And a cool tile floor outside the old restaurant - 

It was a great time away - a lovely (belated) Fathers Day gift!

On that happy note,

See you next time,

Raewyn