Maverick Stars

It has been so nice having the space to sew without having to reshuffle my sewing machines around. I fancied a bit of 'loose' sewing and I also felt I had been neglecting all my beautiful African fabrics so I made some Maverick Stars....

3 of these blocks are on their way to Kate for our African swap. I am sure I am the one holding up the swap so I have sent 3 to make amends, and as we had suggested 6"finished blocks for our borders and stars to boot, I thought these might get the swap rolling again? Although Kate you'll have to forgive my very 'loose' measurements this time, but at least I'm sewing ;)

When I'm in the sewing room, I get some very furry and purry company...

She found some freshly washed batting/wadding and thought it made a very cosy place to hide.

It May Not Seem Like Much...

... but it's the little things that make all the difference.

I have been clearing and tidying my sewing room or should I say re-shuffling and re-jiggling my sewing stuff around a very small room that I share with the laundry, the washing machine, the tumble dryer and all sorts of odds and ends that have nowhere to go :-(

Upstairs in our bedroom I had my treadle machine (still not operational, but a great table for dumping books and cardigans etc.) The treadle table also needed to be re-shuffled to make space for the baby's crib. So.... down came the crib out the loft, down came the treadle to my sewing room creating an extra horizontal surface for sewing use! Yippee!

I sew a lot of bags and non-patchworky things and I use a machine for that (more about the fact that I may have a new second-hand machine for that another time LOL). Anyway, anything 'patchworky' gets sewn on my Janome Quilter's Companion. I have previously sewn bags with this machine, but the repairs afterwards were very expensive indeed that I swore never again!! So just like one has a pair of scissors just for fabric, I have a machine just for patchwork-piecing!!!!

It's wonderful having the space to have both machines out and so I have already sewn Kate's Corn & Bean blocks into the layout I need for our dresser and I also started putting together some blocks* for a quilt top:

*One of the online groups I belong to was doing a springclean of their list and it got me to thinking of all the swaps I had done with this group and all the blocks just sitting there waiting for something to happen to them. Many have been donated to Linus, but these Maple Leaves were just waiting for a layout... So I laid them out on the bed like this and now they are being sewn together.

I'd rather have tops than blocks lying around!

***********

For 8 days, I had a poorly little boy. Today was his first trip out. We went to the Beck for a paddle. We didn't stop long, I think it was a little bit too much for him, but at least he's on the mend.

Wordless Wednesday

It's a Wallflower

With reference to my previous post...

...the plant attracting the butterflies and bees is called Erysimum,

a.k.a. a Wallflower.

No-one would ever describe me as one ;D

Buttons, Butterflies & Baby Hedgehogs

I love buttons, I am always on the lookout for buttons and when I saw these being sold by one of my favourite charities at the Street Market on Saturday, I had to snap them up: all three jars of them! I have thrown them in a small cake tin - I never bake small cakes LOL so at least now the tin is being used :-)

Our new 'Buddleia' or 'Butterfly Bush' is in bloom and it, along with some of my other new plants, has attracted some lovely butterflies:

(Not sure what this plant is called, but it's right next to the Buddleia so benefits from the butterfly visitors too.)

 

And our garden is home to other creatures too. A little hedgehog can be seen late in the afternoon/early evening walking around looking for food...

here he/she is in the potato plants...

I hope to be able to get around to some actual quilty sewing this week as I have been doing more custom sewing of late. Although I do have a repair and a few small custom orders to get done before I can work on my baby quilt, I'll hopefully have a burst of energy (or a big coffee!) and get those out the way quickly!

Wordless Wednesday - "Boy Carrot"

;-D

Grow Your Own: Courgettes/Zucchinis

My job again this year has been the patio plants and I have not been doing a very good job, however against all odds a few courgettes are making their way to the dinner table...

The standard variety, left too long that it's almost a marrow...

The yellow variety that look almost anaemic :-(

And in other garden news:

Look what I found in the vegetable patch!! Yeuuughhh!

We have been regularly eating broccoli...

Our littlest man pulls and pulls and eventually a cauliflower comes out!

And my flowers are coming along nicely...

Love all the purple ones!

What's in the Box?

Country Living takes some getting used to! This past week we have had quite a few unwanted 'visitors' in our bedroom. Bearing in mind that I have only just learned to cope with the odd spider anything larger elicits loud shrieks!

We have had 'creatures' in the bed, under MY pillow!!!! As well as in the kitchen and the latest 'visitor' passing through had a brief stay on top of the storage boxes on top of the wardrobe...

So after spring cleaning the bedroom, I decided to check that there were no more undesirable guests IN the boxes! I was especially concerned about this red cardboard box which currently houses my Carolina Lily in a very unfinished state.

It appeared in tact and after initiially thinking 'Aahhh! So that's where all my pins are!' I thought I really need to just finish it! A lot of the vines and leaves are already pinned in place ready to sew, so I could just pick up where I left off.... Perhaps I will soon before it makes a cosey home for another uninvited creature!

Grow Your Own: Cauliflowers

First Cauliflower....

He's only 4, but he loves getting involved which we love...

Very proud:

And it was delicious! Vegetables just do taste better home-grown!

And we now own a second-hand greenhouse too, thanks to wonderful friends who sold it to us on their way to a big adventure in another country!

Perhaps we will have some luck with tomatoes now - we are only trying 2 plants after last year's failed crop from 20!

Happy Growing and Sowing!!

Something Quilty - But not mine....

The lovely Kate has kindly sent me some quilts for Project Linus as well as this gorgeous 'Corn & Beans' top for Project Bedroom :-)

When I saw these Corn & Bean blocks and read that Kate wasn't sure what to do with them I unashamedly begged to make them into a dresser runner for our bedroom.

So the unpicking and quilting is on my 'To do list'.

The other 5 tops from Kate will go to my dear friend Vicky,

who co-ordinates quilts for our local Project Linus:

I wrote a post earlier about my aversion to yellow, BUT I love this top, it really sparkles!

These next 2 are lovely and bright and the pattern is so simple that my mind started going into scrap quilt overdrive LOL

Such a fun easy block...

LOVE the red setting triangles, but then I love anything red!

Thank you so much Kate! You are a very generous quilter!

(You can find a lot of Kate's block ideas and patterns on her blog!)

And an obligatory kitty photo of ol' four legs catching some shut eye :-)

It must be a hard life being a cat!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday - Joy Ride

 (Well, you didn't think he'd actually let me drive it, did you? :-D )

Oh my hair LOL... 

Fountains Abbey

We had a lovely day out at Fountains Abbey near Ripon today. It involved lots of walking (which was thankfully rewarded with a lovely lunch overlooking a lake).

Of course I took far too many photos...

... But I imagine most of the photo ops were just excuses to catch my breath LOL