Pigs and Progress

I apologise for the absolutely spastic looking photos. 

We have a new addition to our family.  One we are going to eat.  Possibly called "Little Pig", she is about 6weeks old and very cute - although not so cute when running wild in the paddock next door after escaping her pen and we needed to catch her in the pooring rain and she attacked us.  Long story!

On the sewing front, I have spent the last week playing around with some foundation paper piecing - a russian nesting doll pattern from etsy shop "BubbleStitch".  Very cute, pretty easy (although I do struggle to match up the joins when putting together sections - even though I do the pin through the seam all the way along... and pin, pin, pin).  A few rounds of borders later, using some of my newest favouritest fabric... and now I have a cot/play quilt for a friends new baby.

Also some shots of a finished Block Two of Swoon:

And an outdoor, holdey-upey shot of my Buggy Barn Courthouse Stars quilt (thanks to the husband who avoided being in the shots at all cost).

Talking about the husband, he has finished his shed and got all the council OK's.  And a parting shot of my garden - we have three raised beds which are responsible for all the produce.  The cows in the background belong to the neighbours.

From Merry Xmas to Happy New Years

Xmas morning

We have been having the worst weather for a NZ summer Xmas time.  While hubby has taken in kids into town to go to the movies, I have tucked myself away in my sewing room and finished my Double disappearing nine patch quilt top.

This has been on the go seriously since Xmas day, when I decided to add sashing to the individual blocks...

and on it went, till I ended up with this, this afternoon:

Blocks are 22 1/2" square

While I sewed, Hubby built - the beginning stages of a garage/workshop...

Note the small helper

I have also been tracking down my WIP projects which are ferreted away in all sorts of corners throughout the house.  These are listed on my new "page" and will be added to and updated as these things get located and hopefully finished.  I think I need to quilt one quilt per month... as well as finish piecing/appliquing/add borders etc... to another one... as well as keep up with what I really want to sew... hmm - seems like an awful lot of work.  Well, I've decided I am just going to enjoy my quilting - so I will do what I want when I want.  As part of this, I am going to try not to buy new fabrics just for the sake of buying them (ohh, noo!!!) however, I'm not going to go cold turkey, as I will buy things I need to make a collection work... as I'm not prepared to down grade my work by using substandard materials.  Well, the theory sounds good.

While I still have to sandwich and quilt this one, at the moment it is just going to get added to that stack... and while I'm in the piecing mood, I'm going to whip out my Buggy Barn Courthouse Stars blocks (wonky log cabin/star blocks) and make final placement decisions - then get them onto the ready to quilt pile as well.