It's taken me a while, but at long last, I've taken the Christmas quilts down. With such gorgeous weather, what better to display than "My New Zealand Bird Quilt", made back in I'm very proud of this one, especially as it is hand appliqued and hand quilted, and was designed by NZ designer Mary Fletcher. I'll let you into a little secret. The design had a creepy crawly weta together with the iconic tuatara (lizard) block, but there was no way I was going to have one of those on my quilt!
New Zealand Birds
Of course, the quilt ladder needed changing too. On the top is the Tee Shirt quilt I made for Robin's 60th birthday. He passed away in late November and this quilt was on display during his memorial service, and I decided I will leave it out on permanent display on top of the ladder. On rung two and four is my own work, and hanging on rung three is a row by row quilt made for me some years ago for a big birthday. It's good to ring the changes and get to see some quilts which have been hidden away for a while.
Quilt ladder, made by Robin
So what else have I been up to? I went and filled my car up, not such a big deal for most of you, but Robin used to do this for me. A couple of weeks ago my friend Dot came along to the petrol station at the supermarket with me, to run through all the steps I needed to take. The first one was to pull up at the pump on the side where the filling cap was! Then she showed me what I needed to do, read the instructions which guided the customer through, and how to enter the discount code from the supermarket into the machine. And most important to remember, my little car takes diesel, not petrol. So now I can be trusted to do this job for myself!
I took myself to the movies today, to see "A Complete Unknown", which tells the story of 19 year old Bob Dylan arriving in New York with his guitar. I'm not really a Bob Dylan fan, but this film was very interesting and I found out such a lot about his early song writing life, and some of his really early songs are still so well known today. The film touched on the Kennedy, Cuba, Khrushchev, and the Cuba blockade. Even down here in far away New Zealand, we feared for a nuclear war, and held our collective breaths, as did the rest of the world. I was 17 at the time, working for an insurance company in Wellington, the capitol city of New Zealand, and remember attending a lunch time church service held to pray for world peace. Scary times indeed.
Another part of the film that I particularly remember was when "Dylan went Electric". In 1965 he teamed up with different band members and started recording and performing with electric instruments. The folk music community and audiences were appalled, accused him of turning his back on the genre, booed on stage and pelted him and his band mates with bottles and cans! My favourite Bob Dylan song was not written till 1975 so didn't appear in this film. It is "Shelter from the Storm" full of dark lyrics of love and loss. I hear it occasionly on the radio station.
Another part of the film which
13 comments:
The New Zealand Bird quilt, Jenny, is lovely and worthy to be out on display so it's beauty can be appreciated. The quilt ladder Robin crafted for you is fabulous. How wonderful to showcase a selection of your quilts on it. I smiled thinking of you at the petrol pump learning the how tos of filling a car with petrol. Well done you. The movie sounds like a goody. I've always liked Bob Dylan's songs.
I change out the quilts on display at our house too. You have such interesting flora and fauna in New Zealand! Seeing Robin’s t-shirt quilt on display on the quilt ladder he made for you - happy memories every time you see it.
Good for you on learning how to deal with the car fill up; all those little jobs that our DH's do are not so little in everyday life.
I like your thoughts on the quilt ladder. and Your Bird quilt is really wonderful--beautiful job on it. Hugs and kudos to you, Jenny--showing your true grit...
Julierose
I am a Bob Dylan fan too and as he grew up in Minnesota I have a family connection to him - my great aunt on my mother's side taught at the high school he went to and she knew him as a student! Of course none of us knew that until he made it big and she mentioned it.
That is good that you learned how to gas up the car - all the little things that Robin did now need to be done by you or get someone else to do it. My daughter's elderly mother in law (much older than I) didn't know how to take care of her checkbook and didn't know how to get the car filled - he would never let her do anything but cook and clean - all women need to know how to care for themselves.
Big howdy from Texas! for identifying which wide of the car your cap is on there should be a triangle type emblem beside the gas gauge. This tells you which side your cap is located. Best wishes.
I drive a lot of different cars and a secret to know about the gas tank is there is a little arrow next to the pump icon...it point to the side of the car where the gas is filled. Who knew? lol. I love your birds quilt. Beautiful! Take care.
That is a great idea to rotate your quilts on the ladder. Other than rotating quilts on our bed, ours are just packed away out of sight. I remember when self serve petrol stations became the norm and i had to learn how to fill up, as previously, there was always an attendant. A very rare thing now a days. The movie would have been very enjoyable. Apparently, The Conclave is also good, although I haven’t seen either.
I like to change my quilts over every so often too - but after Christmas is a perfect opportunity. The NZ bird quilt is interesting...dont blame you for not putting an ugly critter on it!
There will be more challenges for you - but every step forward is good.
I so love all your quilts, just beautiful work.
God bless.
Being a bird nerd I live your NZ bird quilt. Leaving Robin's quilt out is a lovely thing to do. There is so much you find that you have to now do yourself that can be overwhelming. Thinking if you. I am off to see that movie next week. Looking forward to it xx
Hugh always does our petrol filling so for me it would be a huge thing to learn.And I hate the smell, so it wouldn't be easy at all. Love that ladder, And to be able to swap them around is so pleasing.
As a mighty bird fan, I adore your New Zealand quilt. What a treasure! It's interesting you should mention the gassing up as we call it here. I hate doing it but have to more and more as Tony slows down. Now it has gone computerized so I too needed help with that. I can't wait to get an EV car for this reason. How nice to get your lovely quilts out and on display. Take Care, J
It is great to have a place to display quilts and part of the fun is changing them out. Great choices for your next display.
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