September Goals.

August is over and September is upon us. So what plans do I have for September?

Deanna has selected # 7 this month for the Chookshed challenge. For me that means I must quilt a scrappy quilt.

I had a look in the to be quilted pile this morning and found two scrappy table runners.

I want to save those for practicing on after I have done my ruler class.  Of course there is a lot more in the pile, some of them are scrappy projects.

My crumb quilt, made earlier this year.

The Debbie Mum quilt top made from other peoples scraps.

And my scrappy triangles top, also completed earlier this year.

One of them will get the treatment sometime this month. I just have to decide which one and find a good backing fabric. 

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Of course I have to complete my rainbow kiwi for the RSC, once we find out what colour to work with.

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I still need to make a couple more Christmas ornaments, so I'll be cross stitching.

And I need to make some more progress on the Happily Ever After cross stitch.

Lots of beads to add to that one.

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Work on a scrap project.....

See the Chookshed Goal. LOL

And it would be nice to get a little more done to my scrappy crochet.

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I'll try to get in 15 mins a day, but I'm not committing to it. 

The sew a block before work thing has gone awry too, I'm just not getting into my room before work at the moment. I'll try to get back to it, but not holding my breath. 

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Try some new recipes.

I keep on trying them, but forget to take pictures and blog about them.

Maybe I should amend this one to BLOG about new recipes. LOL

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On top of all of that I have my ruler work class at club.

We have two club days this month, the class day and our normal meeting day.

Yay!  I booked leave from work so that I can attend class. I'm looking forward to that.

I also want to get lots more Windswept blocks made and make progress on my latest EPP. 

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That little lot should keep me pretty busy.

Right at the end of the month I need to measure the bride again and make a decision about what size dress to cut. I've practised the pattern and it holds no secrets, I just need to know what size to make. By the end of the month we will be down to 4.5 weeks. I can make the dress in a day, no problem. The weight loss is the issue, small tweaks I can manage but if she has another big drop that might become a problem.  

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I'm about to click on 'publish' for the second time today. If you wish to know how my August commitments went, read the previous post.

I'm off to find pictures of some recent new recipes.

August roundup.

August was a good month, I achieved a lot as usual. LOL

My Chookshed challenge for the month was to finally quilt and complete the Morning Moon Fairies quilt. It went onto the frame very early in the month.

On a beautiful sunny day.

It wasn't such a bright and beautiful day when I finally got to hang it in my hallway.

Right where you can see it as you walk in through my front door.

My RSC Kiwi were completed earlier in the month too.

This month I opted to swap out my mini cross stitch project and used the time to turn some previous minis in to Christmas ornaments.

Five small pieces got the treatment, then I turned my attention to another cross stitch project which has sat neglected for a few months.

It has actually progressed further than this image shows, I'll do a proper update for it soon.

I have failed to work for at least 15 mins each day but I'm ok with that. 

My scrappy crochet project has had very little love this month with only one square made. But that is progress so I'm ok with that too.

Yes, we have tried a few new recipes and I hope to get a post written about those soon.

I made great progress with my windswept quilt blocks, I'm still making up the B blocks.

I made a practice wedding dress. 

It was way too big!

That's a good problem to have. The bride is still losing weight and hopes to lose a lot more.

The dress is on hold for another month.

The wedding is 2nd November, so plenty of time for more weight loss. That just means that I'll be busy at the last minute which I hoped to avoid.

I started working on a new EPP.

Sue Daley's Floral Lanterns, in Blue of course.

I had one more goal.

Which I hope to achieve today. The very last day of the month.

I had mistakenly thought that my ruler class at club was in August. So glad to be wrong!

It is actually September. LOL  

I need to make up a couple of Quilt as you go blocks ready for the class. That's todays job. 

Though I see I have an email from Chooky, there may be a Chookshed meeting this morning.

I also need to have a look at what my goals need to be for September. 

Another week gone.

It's been almost a week since I last wrote, and what have I been up to?

The practice wedding dress is cut out and waiting for me to sew it together.

Lee has seen her pain specialist who still didn't give a definitive diagnosis, but has changed her pain meds. So no more steroids causing weight gains instead she has lost 3 kg and the Doctor says she could potentially lose 10 more by the wedding date!

Well I've told her all along I can't make a dress bigger at the last minute, but I can make it smaller.

Hopefully today I can start to sew together the practice version and she can get to try it on soon. 

I attended our local club day on Saturday and dithered right up to the last minute about what to take along. That process caused a BIG tidy up and turf out in my room. In the end I grabbed my Windswept pieces as they were handy. But my room is very tidy. LOL

I got twenty blocks made, so a good day was had.

I've also been spending time with my Blue Lanterns and have started to join blocks together.

Those funny little zig zag seams were not as troublesome as I feared, though as the quilt top grows that will probably change. I have made and prepared more papers too so that I can get more blocks ready. I want it to be quite a bit larger than this before I start pulling papers for re use. 

I took my recent finishes along to club for show and tell on Saturday, then when I got home I set about changing the guard at the front door. Now as you enter our home the fairies are there to greet you.

The big glass cabinet houses the fine scale models that Tony creates and his grand mothers cups and saucers.

And finally for this week, I pulled out my cross stitch.

I had left it here earlier this year.

I'm happy to say I made some good progress.

There is still a ways to go and lots of beads and tiny buttons to add.

And that was my week. Busy as always.

 I've achieved all of my August goals except for the dress, So what's on for this week?

The practice dress.

Some more windy blocks.

Some more Blue lanterns.

Some more cross stitch.

And hopefully some crochet.

That should keep me busy through the last week of August and into September.

Two months until the wedding.

A New Start.

Well we know I completely finished three quilts recently. And we also know that a finish means a start right?

I've had this project sat in the wings awaiting it's turn for some time. I had the first batch of papers and fabrics basted and ready to go at a moments notice. So last week I made a start on the sewing.

Chooky inspired me yet again. I saw her version of Sue Daley's Floral Lanterns in blue of course, and I was hooked. 

Mine will be blue too.

Most of these blue fabrics were purchased by Tony when he was away on a work trip a couple of years ago. I have added a few more since then with this project in mind and the white I also purchased specifically for this project.

I'm enjoying stitching the blocks together, they are really quick and easy to do, even with the Y seam.

When I started this morning I had a wee pile already made and a whole pile waiting to be sewn.

By mid afternoon I had run out of prepared pieces. So had a quick play with layout. Some of those paler blues prompted a quick shuffle.

Since then I have prepared more pieces, they are basted and ready to go. 

Initially I thought to make this quite a small project, but I changed my mind this afternoon. This project is evolving. I may need to dig into my blue stash for more fabrics and hunt for more white spots on white.

Thanks again for the inspiration Chooky. You enabler you!

Try the fish recipe....

I've had a few comments about how good the fish sounds, so I thought I should share the recipe. 

Fish in Garlic and Parmesan Crust.

4 White fish fillets

½ cup almond meal

2 table spoons finely grated parmesan

1 tea spoon garlic powder

¼ tea spoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tea spoon paprika

60 g butter melted.

Lemon to serve

preheat the oven to 220 C

Grease or line a baking dish

In a shallow dish combine all the dry ingredients.

Dip the fish fillets in the melted butter ands then into the almond mixture.

Make sure both sides are well coated.

Bake for 12 - 15 minutes and serve with a squeeze of lemon juice. 

Let me know if you give it a try. 

A This n that post....

 One of my goals for this month was to get some finishing done.

I had five small cross stitched pieces that needed to become five finished Christmas ornaments.

I'm happy to say that they are all done. 

A couple of weekends ago we joined Tonys brother and family at their bach. (Holiday cottage).  There were friends visiting too. The aim of the visit was so that my son Joe and his children could have a ride in Uncle Stephens Maverick!

They had a blast and Torstein and Charmaine both got a turn at driving.

They were all smiles honest, but as soon as he saw the camera Torstein became very shy. LOL

They especially loved it when Uncle Stephen took them driving in the river bed and through the mud. 

It was an exciting day and a very quiet ride home in grandads car.

Some new recipes have been tried.

Tony, his brother Stephen and their dad went fishing recently and brought home a good catch. We both love crumbed fish, but our usual crumb variety has a lot of carbs, so we looked for an alternative.

Not the prettiest food picture, the filet fell apart as I lifted it on to my plate.

Instead of an egg wash and bread crumbs or panko the recipe we found said to dip the fish into melted butter then it was coated with a mixture of almond meal and parmesan cheese and baked in the oven. It was delicious and we will be using the recipe again and again I'm sure. As you can see I served it with some sliced kumara which also had the crumb treatment. 

No, the crumb mix does not taste of almonds.

Another new to me recipe was these cheese and broccoli hash browns.

The recipe I found said to use frozen broccoli rice. Well I didn't have any of that, but I did have a part broccoli head going soft in the fridge so I popped that into the blitzer and made fresh broccoli rice, then mixed in the other ingredients, including lots of cheese. They were good warm with our roast chicken and even better cold the next day.

Another of my goals ticked off the list for the month.

I completed the orange Kiwi for the RSC in the first week of the month.

Look, I had fun with the beaks again!

They are nestled in the box with their pals.

I'm still making blocks for my Windswept quilt top.

I'm not yet at the half way point with these blocks. I need a lot of them. 

I'm happy to say that I have been making great progress on my goals for the month with everything ticked off already except the 15 minutes a day goal, that has not happened this month as I have missed a few days.

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And finally, my orchid flowered.

I was gifted an orchid plant by a colleague about three years ago. It has sat in it's pot and done very little to be honest. First it sat in the kitchen window, then it moved to a bathroom window and well it just sat.

After we took Belle to the vet for her last visit I decided that the WC windowsill looked very bare.

I could never put anything on it as it was Belles seat, she loved to sit up there and look out at the world.

A few weeks ago I noticed that finally my orchid was doing something!

Little spikes had appeared which turned in to buds and finally these tiny flowers.

Not the best pictures, sorry.

They are so tiny.

And so very pretty.

Good things really are worth waiting for.

That's all of my news. I'm off to sew.

The outdoor photo shoot.

 It was a little late in the day, the sun was heading down behind the neighbours house creating shadows, but I was able to get some photos of not only the Morning Moon Fairies quilt, (My Chookshed Challenge this month), but also two others that were quilted last weekend and finally have their bindings closed and labels added.

Here we go...

A Southerly weather system blew through this morning, it didn't last long and has left a breeze in it's wake so getting things to hang nicely in Old Man Tree was almost impossible.

We will have to live with folds I'm afraid, and shadows.

On the whole Old Man Tree is a good holder upper, he doesn't complain and lets me take as many pictures as I like.

Here is a quick peek at the weather system that blew through earlier.

There were some very black skies behind that front and a heavy shower of sideways rain.

It was over very quickly and after less than two hours the sunshine was back.

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I promised you three finished quilts...

My Spots and Stripes EPP quilt is completed.

It has yellow binding, using the same fabric that made the inner yellow border.

The backing is a pretty flannelette that I've had for a while.

Very happy to have this one completed.

And finally while the weather had it's ups and downs, I closed the binding on my Spotlight layer cake.

Sorry, I didn't come up with a better name for this one. LOL

Once again the breeze played with my work, but Old Man Tree did a great job.

The back of this one is a fun cloud design.

And works beautifully with the black and white stripe that I used for the binding.

I love it.

While I was outside taking quilty pictures I spied some pretty snowdrops in the garden.

I do love snow drops.

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Well that's my news for today. I'm off to play with my latest EPP project.

Chook Shed Challenge Completed!

So over the weekend I took way longer than expected to complete my Chookshed Challenge for the month. We had some cold but beautiful days, so the sun was shining into my quilting studio.

It was lovely and warm in there.

Due to a very busy life I started quilting on Saturday, did more on Sunday and finally finished on Monday. (I'll share pictures and stories about the interruptions in another post).

The reason this top waited a few years to be quilted was because I was over thinking how to custom quilt it and how I might do it. In the end I used an edge to edge from my collection. 

It's by Meredith England and is called hearts.

I selected it due to the leafy look.

As soon as the fairies were off the frame I got busy with binding and closed it by hand.

I asked my holder upper for some help.....

I was lucky to get this image before they were back on the floor.

Sigh, that is no way to treat Fairies!

Hopefully today will be a beautiful sunshiny day and I can get some out door shots.

Right now it's still dark, thirty O'clock and bloody freezing out there but I wanted to get this post written and say.

Morrow Mie Mooinjer Veggey.

That is Manx Gaelic for  Good Morning Fairies.

Morning Moon Fairies was a panel and fabric collection produced by Robert kaufman, I purchased a kit from Cushlas quilt store in Auckland. Sadly Cushla has now closed her store. 

The pattern is a free download and is available here.

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Now I'm off to prepare another quilt for the frame and wait (Hopefully) for the sunshine.