Mid Year Christmas

It’s mid Year Christmas sewing this week, according to the throw of the dice, which brought up number 5.  These are my Christmas ABC blocks from “Alphabet Noel”, designed by Michelle Ridgeway of Rag-Tag Stitchin’.

With the blocks all trimmed, and the Christmas sashing strips cut, I was all set to go, and started stitching the rows together.  The first few rows were looking good, but I wasn’t happy.  As I had increased the size of the stitcheries, this quilt was going to be much bigger than I anticipated, almost as wide as our bed.    Much too big, I decided.

So sadly, all my sashing is being unpicked, and I will trim the blocks down a little smaller.  There was no good carrying on, I decided,  knowing I wasn’t happy, better to stop now and do something about it.   Hopefully by the end of the week, I’ll have something more to show you.

The Cutest Little Sweet Shop

During our weekend away in Hastings, we found the cutest little sweet shop.  In fact, it was recommended to us, as Robin had commented to a local that he really loved black ball sweets and was having trouble finding them anywhere.  So we were sent along to Birdwoods, not too far away in  in Havelock North.  As well as having a sweet shop, there is also a gift gallery, a café, and a sculpture garden to wander through.

Lots of cute ceramic birds for sale

We walked down the path to the tiny sweet shop, made out of recycled materials, we were told.  There were a pair of topiary birds by the fence.

This way to the sweet shop

And it was such a wonderland inside.  Large glass jars filled with sweets of every description lined the shelves.  Robin soon found his black balls, and I decided on acid drops and raspberry drops.  We find boiled sweets are handy to have in the car when we are on long journeys.

Robin busy checking out the sweets

There were all sorts of old toys, kitchen items  and containers displayed from days gone by, including these two little darlings, Teddy and his girlfriend Dolly.

Happy hanging out in the sweet shop

With our purchases made we checked out the gallery, peeped into the café which was full with customers enjoying their lunches.  Everyone looked happy and the food smelt divine.   The sculpture garden outside had such a variety of things to check out, and I was rather taken with flock of sheep.  Closer inspection showed that they were created from lots of tiny beads – amazing indeed.

Beaded sheep

This was such an interesting place to visit, Birdwoods will definitely be on our list next time we visit this area again – I can’t wait to try the cafe and Robin is sure to need some more black balls again.

Farewell to Jody

This weekend we set of on the 200km journey up to Hastings.  Rather a sad trip this time, to support my sister Kathleen and Dennis as their younger daughter died of a brain hemorrhage in Australia last week, where she had lived for some years.  We joined family and friends at a  memorial get together on Saturday to remember Jody and celebrate her life.  Her older sister put together a photo board showing aspects of Jody’s life, and friends had sent or brought around some lovely floral tributes.

 

We are staying at an apple orchard in Hastings, and apple picking is still in full swing.  Some of the people staying here in their caravans and motor-homes have seasonal work at the nearby packing houses.  Boxes of apples are waiting to be collected and taken to the processing centre.   

Staying at the apple orchard

After recently completing my yo-yo Rudolph the Reindeer, I had packed my bag of yo-yos to make the next seasonal yo-yo toy, a snowman.  And got this little lot gathered together over the weekend, so I’m quite pleased about that.

Yo-yos for a snowman

Sew Wot Tuesday

Sew Wot Tuesday rolled around again, and it was my turn to be the hostess, a slightly smaller group with a couple of our ladies away.  There was a birthday to celebrate, and Mary had fun opening all her lovely little squishy parcels, and she was given a pretty little gerbera too. 

Happy Birthday to Mary

Mary had recently returned from an Australian holiday, catching up with family, and came home with a couple of lovely goodies.  Such as this pretty little tablecloth purchased in an Op Shop.  She just had to finish stitching two of the ballerinas, added the lacy edge, and then, another lovely vintage cloth for her collection.

Op Shop bargain

This beautiful crocheted cloth was hand made in Italy, and when Mary’s sister purchased it she knew it would be just the thing for Mary’s birthday.  It is so lovely with stunning workmanship, that we all would have happily spirited it away for ourselves.

Hand made Italian tablecloth

There was a little woolly scarf knitting going on, with both Heather B and Moira sitting there with clacking knitting needles.  Heather’s scarf was knitting up in colourful chevrons, and Moira’s was a pretty dusty blue.  Who will finish first, I wonder? 

Heather and Moira with their scarves

Heather had a finish to show us, she had been experimenting with appliqued butterflies.  This pretty quilt will be donated to a worthy cause, and someone is sure to love snuggling underneath it.

Heather’s butterfly quilt

Carol loves embroidery, and was working on her latest stitching project, a basket of flowers.

 

.Carol’s basket of flowers

As for me, I was stitching some binding down on a secret sewing project, so no photos yet.  And my Rudolf made an appearance, and was judged as not too bad as a first attempt.  I think he rather liked all the attention!  If he is very lucky, he may have his friend the snow man to join him sometime in the future.

Rudolph joined the Sew Wot morning

So that was our morning, always fun to catch up with the ladies, and help Mary celebrate her special day.

Welcome to Randolph

Completed at last, my Rudolph the Reindeer with his red nose.  After being packed away so long, (out of sight, out of mind), this project finally re-surfaced this week and I’ve been working diligently to get him finished.  There wasn’t really that much to do, all the yo-yos were done, and I used a mixture of tan and cream fabrics, most with a Christmas theme.  But I was a bit worried about putting all the pieces together.  The head needed all the features hand stitched in place, button eye, Rudolph's red nose and ears stitched in place, and his mouth embroidered.  My goodness, those antlers caused me grief.  Then came the business of stringing  him all together.

Follow the instructions

Lots of baby yo-yos for arms and legs

I had a few false starts, and a little un-stringing and starting again, but eventually Rudolph was all done.  Probably not perfect, but at least he is finished. Then cheeky little Rudolph decided he wanted to check out the rhubarb patch.

I must admit that I didn’t really enjoy this project, guess I’m not really a yo-yo lover or a toy maker.  But I feel committed to making the snowman too from this pattern.  After all, I’ve got all this much done, so far.  And I rather like Santa too, but I may or may not make him, I'll see how I feel after I struggle putting the snow man together.

Snowman parts done so far

My stitching yesterday was done sitting outside on the patio area under our new “Archgola” canopy, read about it here.  We got it installed to give us much needed shade in the summer, and it seems that it may well be handy in the cooler seasons too.

Canopy over the patio

What’s happening with the Yo-Yos?

Remember this?  I purchased the pattern Yuletide Yo-Yos ages ago while on one of our caravan trips. I’d never made yo-yos before and rather liked these happy Christmas creations.

As I mentioned last blog, this project las been sitting in a bag for ages.  After all this time, I wondered what I would find inside.  I certainly remember working on making yo-yos for the reindeer some time ago.  And here are all the reindeer pieces, several bags of brown yo-yos in different sizes, looks like I’d finished making them.  Plus a stuffed head, four little black hooves, ears and a tail.  I stitched and stuffed the antlers from brown felt yesterday.

All the pieces

It’s all coming back to me now – I was rather concerned on how on earth to assemble this.  So I bundled it all up, and hid it away, but that doesn’t really make the problem go away, does it?  Just as well I finally listed this project on my List of Six UFOs and the dice called it's number this week.  Out came the instruction sheet and I’ve slowly been putting Rudolf’s head together.  Wish me luck that he will be in one piece tomorrow.

One of those Days

Do you ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go right?  I wanted to do a quick bit of machine quilting “secret sewing” with my walking foot but the stitching just wasn’t going well at all.  Something was wrong, but what?  Perhaps it was the reel of thread I was using, I admit it was an old reel I’d picked up somewhere along the way.  No change, so I took the walking foot off and reattached it.  No difference, but the foot didn’t seem to be working as it should as the layers were shifting.  The backing fabric I had chosen was puckering, so maybe it was a mixture and not quilting fabric quality, so that was changed as well.  Each of these changes entailed a whole lot of unpicking, some more careful pressing and pinning, and a whole lot of time.  I concluded that my machine was due for a service, and I’d get the walking foot checked out as well.  What a pain, I’d wasted hours with nothing to show in the end.

Interesting though, was the fact that there was no problem with ordinary stitching.  So I joined a few lengths to make some binding for my hand quilting project, and prepared a hanging sleeve.  Thank goodness that small job went well.

It was time to roll the dice again, and with two projects on my List of Six up to the machine quilting stage, I had previously been hoping, before my troubles started,  that one of these would see the light of day this week.  But it seems it will be mostly hand sewing this week, as the dice landed on number six.  Which is, after several years of neglect  “Yo Yos – just do it” with all sorts of bits and pieces tucked away in this bag. This might take a bit of sorting out before I actually start – wish me luck!

Yo-Yos hiding in this bag

Winter has officially started down here in New Zealand, and will continue during the months of June, July and August.  It’s one of those cold, damp days today, so I’ve got my crock-pot (slow cooker) looking after the evening meal for me.  I’ve prepared steak and kidney casserole with heaps of veggies added in.  There's something quite therapeutic chopping up the meat and browning it, chopping and slicing carrots, parsnips and onions to add to the meat.  And then you get that lovely smell of slow cooking wafting through the kitchen as meal gently cooks all day – I love winter food!