Country Girl

Spring is appearing and my daughter K and I have started spending more time outside with the animals and garden.

K has two pet lambs this year - a ewe (female) lamb called Blinky (above) and a wether (boy) lamb called Ned (below).  She is busy training Blinky up to take to the local show/school pet day - but both lamb and child are not having as much fun as hoped!

I had task to finish indoors - another 'Sew Together Bag'.  I started this one a couple of months ago and used a linen mixed with fabric from Tasha Noel's 'Country Girls' range.

The inside is simple, with no extra bits.  But I got a bit excited with the outside!

The quilting was done by hand using perle cotton after I had lots of fun fussy cutting the shapes.

The linen was difficult to work with and I'm not completely happy with my workmanship, but it's finished and can now be enjoyed.

While out taking photos I had some helpers...

Here's our lovely cat, "Gypsy" who turned up at our doorstop on 'Gypsy Day' in late May.  A local dairy worker was shifting and left their kitten behind.  When don't know where she came from but she's a treasure!

I'm linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts 'Finish it Up Friday'.

Exploring the waves

Last week we had a few days away - we went down to Cromwell and then further south to visit my family.  We had lovely weather and it was a good chance for K to explore new and familiar places. 
It was a great opportunity to give her one of her birthday presents, just a little early, an explorer vest and matching hat!

The fabric is the same tan coloured drill, with small animals embroidered on it, that I used last autumn to make K a music box dress.  I had originally planned to make the vest in red, but the image of a fisherman stirred in my mind!

I lined the vest in a light blue print with kites and used bias binding left over from the nurse's uniform I made recently to edge the armholes.

The pattern for both the vest and the hat are from Oliver + S 'Little Things To Sew' (again!) and they work so well together that I'm surprised I hadn't thought of it earlier!

I took these pictures with K standing on the back of her Pop's boat - but be reassured the boat was on land.  Unfortunately we caught no fish on our exploration of Lake Dunstan but K is imagining how big the one that never even bit our hook was...

Here she is with her Pop out on the boat - wearing a very safe vest instead!  Love the hat inside the hoodie look!

Next time... maybe... the fish will come home with us!

Two more items for my tally in the 'Cover to cover' challenge from 'Bartacks and Singletracks' (numbers 8 and 9) and numbers 83 and 84 in my O+S count!

 

Catching Up!

I've been working on a variety of projects over the last week - but feel I haven't accomplished anything significant.  So here is a catch-up post of my 'smaller' projects....

Little butterflies made from a pattern in Lori Holt's 'Quilty Fun'.  I used charm squares of 'Marmalade' for this and have plans to make it into a larger projects using some of the other 'Quilty Fun' blocks.

A cigar box covered in Heather Ross's 'Nursery Versery'.  I used some batting to pad it out and stuck the fabric on with a mix of double sided tape and PVA glue.  K really needed a place to store her hair ties - so now we know where they should be!  The inside is covered in cream coloured paper.

I found a pile of cigar boxes at a garage sale recently and they have great possibilities as the wood is light, but solid and there is no residual smell.

A 'find it' bag made with plastic insects, made for a friend's birthday.  We also made one with dinosaurs, but the hardest part of both was finding the actual names to add to the list on the back of the bag!

Lots to do!

Lots of gardening... this is a shot of my herb garden and vegetable boxes.  Last week we took out a 2 metre tall camellia (bare spot at front right where K's rake is) and there are still some conifers to go before we square this part off.  The bricks are still being worked on... plenty to do there!

O+S class picnic blouse and hopscotch skirt

And this is a very proud K, with her trophy for leading her pet lamb at last year's local show.  We have only just received the trophy so lots of showing off is happening!

O+S Roller Skate dress with 'Tiny Tea Leaves' cardigan

This is what she looked like with her lamb last October - just to prove she wears Oliver + S most days!

I'm hoping you are all having more success at completing things than me!

Orange Bunny

My latest project - I wanted to make a soft toy for looking at rather than playing.  So I looked through this great book...

... and chose this bunny pattern...

This is the finished bunny...

...with embroidered face in contrasting orange...

...and a daring orange dress hiding an orange pom-pom tail (made from wool leftover from this project).

I made the bunny using a cotton/linen blend which I interfaced to give it more stability.  This wasn't suggested in the book - in fact their bunny was in felt - but the linen makes it look really nice.  She's a solid bunny and although I'm very impressed with the pattern, I have a few changes I'd make next time.  She needs smaller ears, the head gusset needed to be longer and I still need to change the limbs some more.

'Stuffed Animals' is a great book because it really gets into the details of stuffed toy making (it is my only book on the topic though) and has heaps of hints for building your skills.  I'm a bit disillusioned with many craft books at present because the patterns and ideas are very simple and dare I say it - you don't really need the book to make it!

On a different note we have our local Agricultural and Pastoral (A&P) Show coming up next weekend and I've been tidying up a few projects to enter in the needlework section.  We've also been trying to train Patty the lamb to walk with Miss K.  It's going ok but the two of them haven't quite worked out who should be boss yet!

I'm looking forward to seeing the poultry on display at the Show as we are hoping for new developments in our own chook collection.  One of our New Hampshire Reds is sitting on fertile Black Orpington eggs that we got from a breeder - she's barely moved.  Fingers crossed!  We are also waiting for the chance to get a (much) larger hen-house from the same retiring breeder.  This hen was the first of ours to start laying so we may have another broody from the others this season.  Nothing happens in a rush with these girls - and so many things can go wrong - but it is fascinating.

Patty and the Cake

We had some birthdays over the weekend.  My dear H was forty and this was the cake K and I made for him:

It was a very simple chocolate cake made in two tins - one circular (with hole) and the other in a square tin that got cut into segments for the '4'.  I started icing the whole thing - but should have done just the top for all.  The fences are made with pretzel sticks and the cereal for the hen and tractor is lemon jelly crystals and chocolate hail.  K had great fun placing all the elements - I just had to cover up all her changes!

I knitted him a tubular scarf in a soft brown wool - and he's been wearing it.  No photos though, that would be asking a bit much.  I must post a picture of just it and the very simple pattern I used.

We have another pet lamb - Patty (a boy, but very nice to 'pat').  He's not quite a week old, so much smaller than Daniel and George who are getting very large and rough.  Patty can get out through the gap in the fence so he comes and helps me as I'm weeding the vege garden.  K loves giving him cuddles too!

Yes, that's me.  I'm not hurting him - he's just straining to suck my fingers thinking they have milk!

You'll see a new jersey I've finished in that picture.  It's one I've heavily adapted from another.  I knitted it all in one piece using the contiguous method by Susie Myers.  It's in an alpaca/wool 8ply mix which I only had five balls of.  So it required quite a bit of juggling to get it all out - but I did!  I plan to make another and fine tune my pattern for others... maybe I'll publish it??

 It's a bit hard to show the shoulders from the front - hopefully this back shot will be better.

The sizing will take some working but I really enjoyed knitting it all in one piece.  A cinch to finish off!

Butterfly Garden with love

 My finished work....

 

The pattern is 'Hexagonal Garden' by Pam and Nicky Lintott from their book 'More Layer Cake, Jelly Roll & Charm Quilts'.  I slightly changed the dimensions so I could get as much from the yardage as I could, hence the slightly cut-off hexagons on both sides.  There is enough fabric pieces left over to make a cushion now.

 

The fabric is 'Papillon' by 3 Sisters for Moda.  It was as a jelly roll, with extra yardage (108" wide backing) for the backing, border and binding (44" wide in the aqua).  'Papillon' is butterfly in french.

 

I made this quilt for my mother-in-law's sixty-fifth birthday.   So I went out yesterday and took some pictures on a beautiful day in the garden she created.

 

  

Can you see my H on his tractor two paddocks over?

George and Daniel the lambs decided to be in the photos.

George having a look at me!

I free motion quilted it using an butterfly shape template that I centred around the hexagons.  I then filled in the gaps with extra butterflies and swirls.  I even started quilting without a marking when doing the border - am now feeling more confident to try an allover loop next time!

 Next project - finish a quilt for my mother!

George and Daniel

We finally have some pet lambs - say hello to George and Daniel.

Daniel is on the left, George on the right

We have a pet lamb box - any spare lambs without mums get to live there until we find them a new mum - a bit like a temporary foster home.  Sometimes we manage to adopt these lambs as pets when H can't find them a better mum.  Last year we have Ritchie and Parsnip and the year before Ritchie (V1).  Yes, Ritchie (McCaw) is a bit of a hero around here.  Ritchie (V2) is my avatar(?) pic.

Lambs are great pets - they are very dependent on us for a while, then grow up to be independent - or in many cases - take a trip away on a big truck.  They are super cuddly in the meantime and are very cute!  They're a good size for a four year old and well - they're just plain great for a farm kid.  Excuses to my mum - she often ends up with at least ten 'pets' - that's not fun!

Daniel with the orange marks - he was one of a set of twins and H marks them the same so we can keep them together

The plan this year was to have a little girl (ewe) lamb - but our wee Raspberry didn't last long - its been a bit emotional for mum and K.  Finally we have two that H has let us name and they are doing really well.  K has named them after a preschool friend (Daniel) and a favourite character (George, from Peppa Pig).  They also have a new home in the corner of my garden.  :-)

Also - good news - my sewing machine was easy to fix!  Yeah!

This and That

I have been working on a secret project, so to avoid showing any pictures here are some smaller projects that have had progress made:

Yummy warm gloves made from Touch Yarns merino, possum and nylon:

Love this yarn!  It's so soft and warm, and should wear well with the nylon in it.  I purchased it over a year ago and I think it was a hand-dyed yarn.  This company produces wool in Central Otago and is rightly known as 'the beautiful yarn company'.
I used 50g of yarn and it was my own pattern - I knitted it to fit.

This is my latest attempt at spinning - am I'm not too sure about it really.  I think it will knit up ok though.  I plan to make some mittens.  It was pre-dyed corriedale fibre from Ashford Craft Shop in Ashburton.

It may be mid-winter but we are getting some lovely days and my seedlings are starting to progress:

I've been out checking on the garlic patch and despite my memories of planting just over 100 cloves I've counted over 125 growing tips and I fear there are a few more to come!  I think I'll need to have a market stall with those!

My H has new lambs on the farm and here are some cute picks:

Less than a day old triplets.  These lambs have mixed breed parentage!

A dorper lamb that we fostered from a neighbour