Sewing Part 2- Quilt Update

To continue on from the last sewing post-

The next step for the quilt was the actual quilting. I was meant to machine-quilt a large lazy S design running from the top to the bottom of the quilt. Fortunately I had a practice run in class before trying it on mine.
I have to give you a side note- in sewing and patchwork it’s about accuracy and sewing straight lines. Sewing lazy S designs is against everything I had already learned.
My large lazy S’s were like high-strung straight big Z’s. So, again my honey to the rescue.



Sunny and I just laid on the bed and watched him work his big lazy S magic.

Next, Princess and I had to cut off the excess material and pin the binding (which is the border of the quilt) onto the front of the quilt.



Holming got in on the action



Once the binding was machine-sewn to the front, I then had to hand sew (blind stitch) the binding to the back of the quilt. This took all day long BUT, it’s finished!!!



Because this is a beginner’s class to quilting, we made a smaller quilt. As you can see it doesn’t cover the bed. So, it’s now a throw for the couch during this Winter season.


I’d like to take this time to thank my helpers, Holming and Princess.

Needy Chicken

Having chickens has been a great experience for me. It’s been 6 months now and I love it. They are so responsive and verbal when we go down to feed them. This is a typical greeting we receive from them.






We have one special girl in our flock of 5 chooks. Her name is Roxy (the red ruby gem). She’s the black hen with the red comb. When she sees or hears me (only me for some reason), she does this. (lower your volume)






If I’m home, she just sits and stares up at the house and waits for me to come out to see her. Even if the other girls are out “free-ranging”, she just sits and waits.




I don’t know how I make my animals so needy??? But this one truly surprises me.

Sewing projects

A few months ago, my friend and I invited ourselves over to another friend's house so that she could teach us how to do patchwork. I thought I would start small and make a patchwork purse. Well, I didn't like my work on the first project so I don't have a photo of it but let me assure you that green, red and blue prints don't go well together.

Moving on from the patchwork purse (as quickly as I could), I decided I just wanted to make bags and totes. So, I got a little creative with an old pair of jeans. This is what I made for Holming’s niece for her birthday that just passed.



The dog wasn't included with the bag but, isn't he so CUTE....

In addition to my sewing group on Wednesdays, I enrolled in a quilting class on Tuesday nights. It's a 5 week class which is very short amount of time to make a quilt in. I had heaps of quilting homework this weekend. There are only 2 more weeks to go in the class but here is my progress.


All the many different squares are sewn together. Now it's time to pin the backing, quilt cotton (wadding), and quilt top together.


For my next quilt (which I’m already planning in my head), I plan to calm it down and only use 4 to 8 different fabrics.

Needless to say, I’m going a bit bonkers with sewing. Just as well Winter is on the way and my days of playing in the garden are over.

Last minute update... here is the purse I just whipped up over the weekend. I'm gonna have a bag to match every outfit!!!! teeheeheee............

Chooks in the Garden and Pesto for the Winter

Summer is over folks. The time changed last night so we are heading in to the dreaded Winter. In preparation, I decided to pull up the garden since the sun doesn’t reach my garden in the colder months. What a treat for my two special and well-behaved chooks, Roxy and Suki. They got to scratch and dig in the garden while I quickly harvested the last of my basil.



What’s a girl to do with all this basil?



Make pesto.....

Now, a small container of store-bought pesto runs about $6. Most of you know that I don’t eat store-bought anything. I like to make almost everything from scratch. But for the sake of comparing prices, I will use the store bought pesto as an example.


In the end, it cost me $25 to make 13 lots of pesto. If I would have bought pesto from the store, it would have cost me about $80. Now one might think, do you really eat that much pesto? I would have to say NO but, I plan on it this year. I actually make a stuffed chicken thigh dish that uses pesto in the stuffing so, apparently, we will be eating this dish a lot this Winter.

Ground Gutter for the Chooks

When building the chicken run back in Spring, we didn’t take in to consideration that the rain would find a path into the run. I mean we built the damn thing in the rain but, once the roof was on and the sand/gravel was in, we didn’t see any problems. Well, over the past six months we’ve noticed that when it rains for a couple of days or more (which happens A LOT), the water seems to head straight for the chicken run. So, we’ve been going out in the rain (fortunately in warm rain) and digging a trench to divert the water somewhere else. This has worked great but, I’m not doing that all Winter long in 4°C weather and cold rain.

We had looked into a plastic piping to go in the ground but it was way too expensive and after all, they are only chickens, right? So, while in Wellington, we went to the Bird Sanctuary and happened to notice they had these wood gutters/trenches built in the ground. What a great idea! I wish we had come up with this idea ourselves but we didn’t.

First we had to dig a much bigger trench than we had originally dug. I quickly got to digging while Holming started to build.



So that you all can appreciate how much work this entailed, I have to tell you that we have clay soil and that some idiot before us, thought it would be nice to bury a bunch of stepping stones and bricks.... Nice!

After pick-axing and shovelling the trench, my muscle man came down with his creation.



And it fit like a glove! Now we need some rain to test it out....take your time, no hurry!

The chooks got to benefit from all the new loose dirt. I filled their scratching area with the leftover dirt which had a few hidden treats.... worms.



In the end it cost us $12 to make the gutter. Never mind the cost of the chiropractor visit I will be needing on Monday morning......