Bits and Pieces

Spring is in the air- or at least for the past few days. Lets hope this beautiful weather continues.
On the weekend I went for a very challenging walk around the coast at a place called Bluff-southern most coast of the South Island. This is a rugged coastline with pounding seas but just spectacular scenery. First there was a walk along the coast and then I headed up the hill-it said 45mins uphill and I thought well it is probably a slight uphill that will take about 20mins. Wrong!! Boy it was straight up and up- took about 30 mins to reach the top!

The island you can see in the picture is Stewart Island - our third island. It was a glorious day and the 2 hour walk was certainly a workout-it is still winter officially but you would never have thought so on the day.

The sewing machine has been doing a little work - this is my Barcode quilt from the book City Quilts. I am adding one more row and it will then sit atop a queen sized bed.

Not the best photo but it gives a preview. So easy to put together.

Of course,Bella had to decide whether it should be approved or not. She is not usually the sewing room cat-my sewing companion died just before I left Australia. This is where she usually curls up

I have also been doing a little bit of hand stitching. I am not a very big hand stitcher except when it comes to Christmas projects-for some reason I enjoy doing these and so when I won a giveaway from Sandy ( as I posted about) I was excited to receive a Christmas stitchery and have made a start on the project.

I'm using DMC cotton 115 and am liking the variegated look. Don't look too closely at my stitches-I don't profess to be very good but theres no police patrolling here.
I have also resurrected my Sue Ross BOM project as I am soooooo far behind.

While my points do not all meet I am just so excited that it sits flat. My first foray into set in seams in a previous block had quite a few rises and falls-hopefully quilting will sort that out. Just have to applique this down onto the background fabric now.
Hope everyone is enjoying their sewing rooms. Take care.