Farmers wife sampler quilt #1

 I have started to make a new quilt and why not jump in with one that is made up from 111 blocks.

I guess there are a few reasons why not but I have decided to make as many blocks as I am happy to make. I hope that will be all of them but I will wait and see.

There is a lot for me to learn along the way as I have never tried most of these sewing techniques before.   

Here are the first five blocks. These may not appear in exactly the same order as on my podcast  Bishopstone yarns podcast on you tube but I will try.

Ozark Maple Leaf

Single Wedding Star

Streak of Lightning

Rainbow Flowers

Postage stamp

I hope you enjoy these. As you can see I have not yet trimmed these yet. I will wait until the end before doing that. 

episode 16 of Bishopstone Yarns podcast

 Episode 16 of Bishopstone yarns podcast is now up on you tube. come on over and see what spinning fun I am getting up to.

You will find me in the corner of my studio surrounded by my fleece. Come and see what I am planning to do with all this lovely softness.

episode 15 of Bishopstone yarns podcast

 Episode 15 of the Bishopstone yarns podcast is now up on youtube.

Come and join me for some crafting chat as I start a new pair of socks, and frog some of them using a needle for the life line.

A little bit of carding goes a long way

 I have started my next spinning project. I will be blending wool and alpaca to eventually knit up Birkin by Caitlin   Hunter. If you are interested to see more about my carding and spinning process you can see all about it on my podcast Bishopstone yarns on you tube.

Blending in progress on my drum carder. I have put this bat through the carder about three times. It is slow going but still a lot faster than using my hand carders.

Lunch with a view

I went out for a family lunch to celebrate one of my sons birthday. We had a lovely meal and the weather was just perfect, The view from this cafe  has  amazing views over Hobart, so we were happy that it was a sunny day so we had a perfect view. 

The cafe is on the site of the Mount Nelson Signal Station. The cafe itself is in the original head signalman's house which was built in 1897. The signal station was built in 1811 and was the first signal station built in Tasmania. Flags were used to send signals down the river to Port Arthur, a convict goal, and also to Hobart town. In 1831 a three armed semaphore replaced the use of flags, this system was capable of sending 666 different signal codes. Then in 1838 this was replaced by a 24 metre high six armed semaphore that could send over 900 000 separate signals. 

The signal station also has a memorial to Truganini, this is a memorial dedicated to the Tasmanian Aboriginal people and their descendants. 

Bishopstone Yarns episode 14

 Bishopstone yarns podcast episode 14 is now up on youtube. This episode is a sit and spin chat where I talk about my next spinning and knitting venture.

I want to spin up and then knit the Birkin by Caitlin Hunter. I just have to decide if I will use my morrit fleece or a white fleece as the base for the spinning before I over dye my yarn for the Birkin.  The Morrit fleece refers to a Tasmanian stock line of sheep that were bred on the East coast of Tasmania for their brown fleece. Using a coloured fleece as the base for dyeing will give a richer colour for this project but I am not sure if it will create too dark a colour for the main body of the jumper.

I think I may have to do some experimenting to see how the colours look.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Bishopstone yarns episode. Thankyou for joining me. I would like to thank everyone for joining me on my crafting journey and I always love to hear what everyone else is making. 

Bishopstone yarns episode 13

 The lucky number 13th episode of Bishopstone yarns is now up on you tube.

I have been having so much fun sharing my crafting with you all. I hope you like this episode where I talk about my finished Ancient Gemstones shawl and my Ranunculus sweater. 

I also head down the rabbit hole of cross stitch. This is a craft that I started when I was about 17 and did some Danish designs but have not really done much since then. I had forgotten how much time cross stitch takes up, but having said that I am still enjoying revisiting a bit of slow stitching.