A Little Show and Tell

 My friends Robyn, Shirley and myself take turns hosting a lunch every few months.  Sadly, their husbands have passed away, but the six of us used to get together in earlier years.  Robyn was the hostess this week, so it was us three girls plus my Robin.  The last man standing, they joke.

After our tasty lunch and a good catch-up we had some show and tell.  Robyn and Shirley both do a little quilting and Shirley had brought along a couple of things to show us.  She had recently finished this top featuring nine patches and snowball blocks on point, a donation quilt.  I must remember this design, it's very nice and simple, and would use up all sorts of bits and pieces of fabric lying about.

Donation quilt top made by Shirley

Next was a child's quilt with the individual blocks made by members of Shirley's quilt club.  Shirley took it home and did the binding - another donation quilt.

Shirley did the binding on this one

And I had  brought along my two recent finishes.

My recent quilts

Robyn then brought out the nine patch quilt she is working on for her daughter.  Another great use of scraps.

Robyn's quilt top

Then she showed us the lovely quilt on her bed, no we hadn't seen this one before.  Lovely restful colours and I'm always rather partial to stars.

On Robyn's  bed

After a very pleasant afternoon we said our goodbyes and dropped Shirley home.  It's always so nice to catch up with these old friends, we go back quite a long time.

Then in the evening I went to my quilt club meeting.  We were asked to bring four strips of fabric, 14 in by 4 ins to make "No Sew Christmas Stars".  The club member showing us how to make these was very patient, a lot of us were all fingers and thumbs as we struggled with our strips of folded fabric.  But we got there in the end, and here is mine.  I think the secret is to keep the strips pulled up tight.

No Sew Christmas Star

The Final Step

 The final step to quilt making is to stitch on a label.  (Although I don't do this on donation quilts).  Adding a label is like "signing off" a quilt, giving the details, and I always add one to those quilts I gift to family, and those I'm keeping for myself.  I've just finished hand stitching this simple label so Birthday Bouquet is now finished.

Like a lot of my projects, this one had a long gestation period.  Way back in the year 2000 I took part in Southern Cross Quilters Birthday Block Swap.  We were matched to 11 other quilters and during their birthday month stitched and posted a block to each one, with me getting 11 blocks back for my birthday.  We had already swapped any fabric we wanted included, and because I wanted a big bed quilt, I took part in two birthday block swaps that year.  I had sent a piece of the floral fabric in the label to each participant, which also gave them some idea of the colours to use, and they could stitch whatever block they liked.  I was so thrilled when the blocks were returned on my birthday month, but they sat in a bag for sometime.  Why?  Goodness knows, guess I got caught up doing other things. 

 A year or so ago, the blocks were finally stitched together, and I added the border, using up the rest of the floral focus fabric.  Then it was sent off to be commercially quilted. Another wait for a while, then the  binding was added, then I stitched the final step, the label.  I really love how this has turned out.

Birthday Bouquet

So it is a rather belated thank you to all those (mostly Australian) quilters who took part in this block swap so long ago.   I had fun stitching your birthday blocks, and love what you have done for me too.

Fall Back

Don't worry, I haven't had a fall.  This is how we remember to alter our clocks when daylight saving comes to an end.  It’s “Spring Forward” at the start, and “Fall Back” at the completion.  This important job belongs to Robin, he is the clock fixer-upper in our home.  I must say that I'm always most impressed that the computers and cell phones can do this task all by themselves!

We've had a busy week.  Robin had his procedure on Saturday morning so we had a drive up to Palmerston North Hospital.  I was well prepared for all the waiting around, and took my knitting along on my hospital bag, a gift from Jean of https://jeanmckinstry.blogspot.com/.  Jean made me this lovely batik bag several years ago when I was having health issues, and it traveled to many a hospital appointment with me, so I always think of it as Jean’s hospital bag.  A lady walked by and told me that she wished she had packed her knitting too, while she was doing her own share of waiting.

I've got my knitting with me

Eventually Robin was processed and whisked away so I made my way to the hospital café for a late lunch.  Being a Saturday it wasn't too crowded with visitors, so I chose some lunch, found a seat and made myself comfy while I ate my lunch.  Then I waited, and waited until I received the phone call to come back and collect Robin.

Lunch, hot coffee,and a good book

So back I walked along seemingly miles of corridors to find Robin sitting up having a sandwich and a cuppa.  He was given a printed report, everything seemed well, then it was home time.  After a week of being on a restricted diet, he was happy to resume our Sunday Morning cooked breakfast tradition the following day.

Sunday morning breakfast

Some time was spent at the sewing machine during the week.  I stitched up eight neutral string blocks for a new project, more about that later when I move this further along.  These blocks will be sliced diagonally.  All these strings came from an overflowing bag which i hardly made a dent in, and I stitched them on some tracing Vilene I found lurking about.

Neutral string blocks

Easter is coming up quickly, and we are going away in the caravan again.  You can be sure we are taking some hot cross buns and Easter Eggs away with us.  Sadly, no animals are allowed at this particular venue, so we have booked Gemma into a cattery, for only the second time in her life.  She didn't have a happy experience last time, much too noisy for here, so we are hoping that with trying a different cattery it will be easier for her. 

The ladies have been requested to bring something for supper at the caravan rally, and I thought of just the thing.  Robin's usual breakfast cereal wasn't allowed the week prior to his procedure, but he could eat rice bubbles instead.  There were such a lot left over so I made some Chocolate Crackles.  These chocolatey treats were always such a hit with my children at birthday parties, so I’m sure all the caravanners will remember them.  I’m not sure if this recipe is just an Aussie and Kiwi thing, or if these are known in other countries too?

I’ve made two containers of Chocolate Crackles to take away

Wishing everyone a happy Easter break, however you plan to celebrate it.  Safe travels for those who will be travelling during the long weekend.

We made it home

The last stop on our South Island Trip was Koromiko – where we started our trip back in mid December, all those weeks ago.  This is a beautiful place, surrounded by totara trees, and the cicadas were having a fine old time, making plenty of noise in the trees while looking for mates.  We were to stay here for two nights while we waited to board the Inter Island Ferry on Thursday.

Staying at Koromiko

It’s no secret that both ferry companies have been having maintenance problems.  We received a text telling us our trip the following day had been cancelled, costs would be refunded, and clients had to get on to the web site and rebook themselves.  We had heard of campers waiting several weeks before they could get another booking and cross Cook Strait. What to do?  We decided to drive down to the ferry office and front up to a real person.    The staff confirmed that our booking for the next day was cancelled, perhaps we would like to go on the standby list for a sailing later in the day?  No guarantees that we would get on board of course, but better than waiting weeks.

So back we went to Koromiko, hooked up the caravan and returned to the ferry terminal in the afternoon.  The sailing on the Kaiarahi was pushed back later and later, but at least we had the comfort of our caravan to rest, have a light meal, and a toilet on board, not that we really relaxed, wondering would we get onboard?  Eventually every one else had boarded and then it was the turn of the standby group.  Oh no, we were almost turned back at the last minute but that was overruled, and we were sent up a steep ramp and parked up.  We had made it!

.Finally boarded the Inter Island Ferry

Because we were one of the last vehicles to board, we had a little trouble finding a couple of seats together, but a kind couple moved along and made two seats available for us.  We settled down in the lounge and our sailing got underway at 11.00pm.  The captain made an announcement apologising for all the delays, and assuring us he had four engines all working – a reference to earlier problems when engines failed and the ships were drifting towards rocks!  Three hours later the announcement came to go to our cars, we had arrived in port.   We waited our turn, in this case last on certainly meant last off.  The rain was falling, the temperatures had dropped dramatically, welcome to Wellington.

We had made it to Wellington

We had decided to spend the night at Plimmerton NZMCA Park, and off we went, up the Ngauranga Gorge in heavy rain in the dead of night.  At 4.00am we pulled into the park, left the car looked up to the van, opened the caravan door and collapsed into bed.  It had been a long day, but we were so relieved to be back in the North Island.  We weren't quite ready to go home, so drove up to Foxton  for our caravan club rally.  It was great to catch up with our caravan club buddies after being way for so many weeks.  We finally made it home on Sunday.

Gemma was really good during our long trip away, except for waking us us bright and early, anywhere between 4.00am – 6.00am, insisting on going outside, no, she want allowed to!.  By the time she finally settled down, it was time for us to make an early morning cuppa, and check out the news of the day, especially after the cyclone hit the country.  She is fairly predictable, loves to snooze in my computer bag while I’m busy blogging.  And if the tiny wardrobe door is left afar, she is very keen tp pop inside and hide there for a while.

Snoozing in the caravan

Once home,  we had unpacked the caravan, done several loads of laundry, and then I just couldn't help myself.  It’s been such a long time since I had pottered around in my sewing room.  But, I told myself, before I do some real sewing, I needed to do a little mending.  My pair of summer shorts needed repair, and a dress I took away with me was a little loose around the neck.  I can’t abide necklines which slips off my shoulder, so I unpicked the back facing, adjusted the back neck seam, and restiched the facing.  There, that fits much better.  As a reward to myself, I found my remaining flag blocks (have already made a small quilt using girly coloured flags)  and started arranging the blocks, and pinning.  Maybe I’ll get stitching them tomorrow.  It’s good to be home again.

Flag blocks

Leaders and Enders

It’s no secret that I love working with leaders and enders.  It may have been around for a while, but I got the idea from  Bonnie Hunter, who likes to have a parts of a project sitting beside the machine ready to sew, such as two patches, while you are stitching your main project.  When I first started sewing, I used a ratty piece of fabric to start and finish the sewing sequence, but now I use this other method.  And before you know it, there is a whole lot of little pieces stitched together – something for nothing, and with very little effort, I always say.  This is my latest leader and ender -  a small cot quilt for a little girl.  In the box are cut 3in squares which I put under the needle at the start and finish of other seams.  Then four of these are finger pressed and pinned together, waiting for the next stage.

Leader and ender pieces prepared and waiting

Doing this project as leaders and enders, it doesn't really matter how long it takes, it will get there in the end, it is a secondary project, after all.

And some four patches stitched together

Another project assembled in this way is this little boys quilt of farm machines.  This was a panel which I cut apart, and added borders bit by bit.

Another leader and ender project

This is now assembled, layered and pinned, ready for machine quilting, so I’ll be working on this over the next week.

Next machine quilting project

We awoke to quite a frosty morning, cold and chilly.  Thank goodness for my selection of nice cozy wool socks to keep my feet warm.  I love my hand knitted socks!

Cozy toes

Camping Weekend and a Birthday

A three day weekend away with our caravan club buddies made for a fun weekend.  We traveled to Kaitoke Regional Park, Upper Hutt, a lovely natural area full of camping areas tucked here and there amongst the trees and down by the river bank. and had a very enjoyable and social time indeed.  Most of our caravan club members arrived on Friday afternoon, and we soon settled in to our chosen area.  There were plenty of other groups enjoying this camp too, caravans motorhomes and plenty of tents were erected, we noticed.  Lots of kids on bikes and plenty of dogs too, sadly many of the owners were not obeying the rules and were letting their dogs run free.

Here we are for the weekend

Our Beautiful Birman Gemma is very comfortable being a caravan cat.  When she is not snoozing, she loves to check for birds through the windows.  She spotted two mallard ducks waddling by and got rather excited.  Because of dogs running loose we only took her  outside for short periods and under close control with her harness and lead as we were sitting in our camp chairs.  My main concern was to keep a close watch out for any dogs sneaking around our caravan.

Gemma tucked up in the corner having a snooze

It was my birthday on Saturday so I had taken some goodies to share with everyone for morning tea.  Store bought fruit cake, and some home made ginger crunch slice.  I always double the icing recipe to pour over the ginger slice base, as I like it nice and thick, so yummy.

Birthday morning tea

The Saturday evening bonfire on the river bank was the highlight of the weekend, I thought.  A couple of the men had been down early and manhandled a lot of large rocks to build a fire pit, and we had several bags of  firewood to keep it burning.  And what would a camp fire be without marshmallows to toast?  So delicious!  And ours certainly wasn’t the only fire crackling away, there must have been a dozen or so right along the river bank. As the evening drew to a close I was serenaded with a chorus of Happy Birthday!

Robin toasting some marshmallows

We were all up bright and early the next morning to drive to Aston Norwood for Sunday breakfast.  Very tasty it was too, bacon, eggs – cooked as requested, fried, poached or scrambled,  toast and the best hash brown I had ever encountered! 

Jenny and Robin, Murray and Sue

A while ago we had purchased a container of rather fancy tea, Russian Caravan Tea, which seemed rather fitting.  About time we started using it, I thought, so I brewed a small pot for our breakfast one morning.  Must confess that we generally use tea bags, but this loose tea was delicious.

We had a very busy weekend with lots planned, but I still found time to do a little handwork.  Not much, to be honest, but every little bit helps.  Did a few rows of knitting, and hand stitched the little stick legs and eyes on my latest bunch of  birdy blocks.

More colourful birds

As often happens it started raining on Monday when it was time to pack up and head for home.  Not too hard, just fine misty rain.  We said our goodbyes and off we went on our 110km journey home.  And waiting for me at home were several nice birthday cards, two of them including gift cards to buy myself a birthday treat, and another one with some pretty blue patchwork fabric.  With special phone calls as well, I was well and truly spoilt.

Taking Stock

I’ve just done a bit of a “stock take”  This came about because of a recent question I had from Janice who blogs at http://jannimary.blogspot.com/.  She wanted to know if the sampler quilt blocks I had just made into a top was my oldest UFO?  I knew there were a couple of other half done old projects still hanging about, so perhaps I should get them out of the crates and see exactly what I had.  This partially constructed Clamshell top is the oldest one.  I started it ages ago – so long back in the mists of time that I have forgotten when.  This is machine, not hand pieced and started in a class.

Purple clamshells

I have taken part in numerous internet block swaps in earlier years, and these cat blocks date back to 2003.  I provided a choice of patterns with the request to use black homespun for the cats, and any color plain homespun for the backgrounds.

 

Black cat swap blocks

And lastly, there is my paper pieced log cabin project, in burgundy and cream.  I really love this, and it will be for our bed.  I’m not sure of the date, but I know I brought it with me when we moved house, so it is probably 8-10 years old, I expect.  Most of the blocks are completed, and I’m part way through paper piecing the border blocks.   It looks like I have them organised into rows, so I’m a good way through this project.   Why did this one stall, I wonder?

Burgundy and cream log cabin blocks

I enjoy doing stitcheries and have two in bags with the corresponding fabric to finish them off.  It wouldn’t take too much effort to complete these, I expect.  And they are not too old, I think I stitched them last year.

Two little stitcheries

Then there are the Leaders and Enders projects.  I’m a real fan of this type of stitching and it seems to suit me very well – I always try to have some little bits and pieces ready to stitch along with whatever project I’m working on.  Once again, there was more here than I remembered.  I have only recently finished stitching the boy themed blocks, and the fabric squares all came from a bag of goodies dropped off from Jean.  And the coins for boys, (not trimmed to size as yet), was stitched from scraps in mostly greens, tans, cream, both of these will be for donation quilts.  I’m always happy to use up these bits and pieces of fabrics that have just been hanging about.  Then there are a pile of house blocks, I really enjoyed making them, and another pile of little tile blocks, both using scraps from 2 1/2 in strips.

Leader and Ender projects

And just to show that I can't really help myself, and there is really no hope for me, here is my next L&E project ready to go.  I have some little cat blocks and sashing all cut out ready to put under the needle as I stitch the next “real” project.  Leader and Ender sewing really seems like getting something for nothing to me.

Next Leader and Ender project, all prepared

What else?  I found some star blocks, a bunch of HSTs, and two more sets of 9 patch blocks.  And then there are the “not yet started” projects, usually a pile of fabric put away with an illustration and the idea of starting it one day soon.  These probably don’t count as UFOs, but may well get added to my list one of these days.

Oh dear, seeing them all set out like this is a bit daunting.  I can either panic, or take things calmly, adding these projects to my List of Six as others get completed. I’m quite keen to get on with the log cabin, the boys blocks, and finish up the stitcheries fairly soon.  As I often tell Robin, I’ll never run out of things to do!  Do tell me that I’m not the only one out there with more projects than I know what to do with? 

Stitching and Mopping

It’s been head down at the sewing machine today, working on my “Old UFO” from the year 2000.  It’s been tucked away for so long and now only just coming out into the light of day.  Most of the blocks were from an internet Birthday Block exchange, and I stitched a couple of extra ones for myself.

Two rows assembled

For each block I received, I made and posted one to each participant during their birthday month, so it was a year long commitment.  There was only one sent to me which I remade, as it had yellow in the block, which I thought didn’t go with all the others 

The floors needed attention today – with a white cat shedding fur and threads all over the carpet from my stitching, it doesn’t take too long to get messy.  Robin helped with the vacuum cleaning and I decided the kitchen and bathroom floors also needed mopping.  “Why don’t you try that new mop?” he suggested.  We had won it in a raffle several years ago and it was still in the box.  What an effort to assemble  it  – if I was attempting it on my own I would have given up after a minute or two and gone to use my old mop.  But Robin persevered, and finally got all the pieces together.  There – all done now, till the next time!

It must be Sadie, the cleaning lady

How Old is this UFO?

It’s time to “roll the dice” again (don’t the weeks roll around quickly) and this week I’m working on number 2 on my list, my Sampler quilt.  This poor project has been sitting on the list for ages, waiting for it’s number to be called.  As well as waiting on the list, the Sampler quilt has been tucked away  in a crate for absolutely ages, since the year 2000, in fact.  Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

Blocks for Sampler quilt

Way back then, I was a member of the internet quilt group, Southern Cross Quilters, open to Australia and New Zealand quilters.  All messages came through emails, quite often 70 or so each day.  SCQ used to organise swaps, and this group of blocks was a birthday block swap.  I provided the floral fabric and the sewers did the rest, choosing background fabrics and their choice of blocks.  Sadly, over the years, SCQ email traffic died and the organisation went to Facebook some years ago.  I don’t do Facebook so that was the end of of my involvement with SCQs.  But I have this lovely group of blocks to remember times past.

Gemma is helping with the layout

So now I’ve decided on the block arrangement, they are all in rows, adding the sashing as I go.  Wonder if I will get this top together by the end of the week?  Probably not, as I will have to decide on borders too.  It’s certainly good to get this project moving along again.

More Orange Sewing

I have to say that Orange is not one of my favourite colours, and I don't have a great deal of it.   But as I’m joining in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again this year, orange is February's colour.  And it doesn’t look too bad used in my chosen blocks.  These three orange butterflies look very pretty, and are sure to flit across my butterfly quilt quite nicely when all their different coloured friends have been stitched.

Three orange butterflies

And I’m really pleased with how the checkerboard blocks turned out, a nice easy block to make, and will eventually become a boy’s donation quilt.

Orange checkerboard blocks

As we are heading off this weekend for a three week trip in our caravan, I will be running late with the RSC blocks for March.  Never mind, I’ll just have to play catch up when we return home.  Wonder what colour will be chosen for March?