Meh ....

This was the view from my sewing room window today, a bleak, blustery day, the cloud is so low I can't see the sea and can barely see the reservoir.

The arrival of these fabrics put some colour into the day, the blue flowery one is destined for the Hexagon quilt and the stripes have no particular destination at the moment.

Two more Farmer's Wife blocks completed means I can start putting the fourth row together, I have now completed over 25% of the blocks, which makes me hopeful that I can have all the blocks completed by the end of June.

 Block 82 - Spider Legs

I don't know where the names come from for some of these blocks,

this one doesn't even remind me of spider legs.

Block 106 - Wild Rose and Square

Yesterday's FW block

This was the FW block from yesterday, I fussy cut a different piece of fabric for the centre square, I haven't done too much fussy cutting with these quilt blocks mainly because it takes time and can also be a bit wasteful of fabric, but I felt this block needed that little bit extra.

Block 31 - Evening Star - paper foundation pieced

Mmm, layer cake

I lashed out and bought a layer cake last week, as the fabric is a 10" square they are more useful than the 5" charm square packs, and another bonus, they are totally non-fattening unlike a real layer cake.

I'm not sure if all the colours will work with my jelly roll strips, but I think there quite a few there that will, although I'm thinking that the ones at the pink end will be saved for something else.

Too hot ...

The last couple of days have been too hot to do very much at all.   Yesterday was 40C (104F), the day before wasn't much cooler and today is supposed to  be 37C (98.6F) with a cool change expected later this afternoon.

I did manage to make two Farmer's Wife blocks, which means I'm over halfway on the fourth diagonal row.

 Block 91 -Strawberry Basket - pieced

 Block 51 - Hovering Birds - foundation paper pieced

Three more to make and the row will be complete, my aim is to finish the row by next Sunday, which should be quite achievable.  

Finally finished

Some of you may remember this shirt from April, last year.... it didn't get finished back then.  For some reason I put it away in the cupboard, maybe it was the thought of doing the button holes :(

I pulled it out of the cupboard on Tuesday afternoon, finished the sleeves off, then yesterday I marked the button holes, read my sewing machine manual, made four practise button holes and then did the ones on the shirt itself, then I shortened the length and hemmed it.... all finished and it probably only took me an hour all up, I could have been wearing it ages ago if I hadn't procrastinated about finishing it off.

I could stop here

and have a nice table topper couldn't I, it's starting to look quite good.  The last two lots of sashing went on very easily, which wasn't the case when I did the first lot a while back, a few of the cornerstones didn't quite match up.  This time I made sure to check the block and cornerstone sizes as I put them together, it took a little longer but made all the difference.

My new pan ...

I've been wanting a preserving pan for ages now (well, years actually) I've never had one before.  I used to borrow Mum's pan when I lived in NZ but have made do with other pans and when I found this one online a couple of weeks ago I was over the moon.  It has a nice, heavy base and is nice and wide so that I can boil jams, chutneys etc and get them to the right setting point quickly.  It has a 9 litre (15 pint) capacity so there won't be any more boil-overs and sticky messes to clean off the hot plate. 

Farming work

After a bit of a break, I've started back working on the Farmer's Wife Sampler quilt, I haven't made any more blocks as yet, but I added the third row to the top left hand corner and have started putting together the bottom right hand corner.  Once I've attached the third row to the bottom corner then I will start to make some more blocks.  I plan to make the next rows (top and bottom) and then add them on, I'm fairly pleased with the colour mix so far, I'm managing to rein in my love of blue fabric.

While I was procrastinating over what to do last week, I decided to have a small re-arrangement and tidy up of my sewing room, surprisingly it didn't take too long and I found some bits of fabric that I had forgotten about.

Cody has given the new layout his seal of approval, he spent most of the day here, sleeping. (must get those 18 hours of beauty sleep in)

Phascolarctos cinereus

more commonly known as the koala paid us a visit early this morning.  Again it was the same scenario described in this blog post except this time Cody wasn't quite so nervous as he spent quite a bit of time watching the visitor in the tree.  The koala didn't stay long this time - about three hours, before climbing down and walking around the side of the house to the neighbour's trees.

having a morning nap

look at those claws... (not to mention the big mouth as well)

taking a walk ...

where shall I go to now?

Eleven

blocks made, and eleven blocks left to make in the Flower Garden quilt which is where I'm concentrating my efforts at the moment.  I don't seem to have the urge to work on my Farmer's Wife blocks so I'm just going with the flow of the Flower Garden.