Quilter’s Barn, Blenheim

It wasn’t too long before I came across my first quilt shop of the trip.  Tucked away in the middle of vine growing country in Blenheim, we found “The Vines Village”, boasting amongst other shops a quilt shop, and a  fudge shop.  The men made a bee-line to sample some fudge, I checked out the quilt shop.

I’ve found a quilt shop

I always ask permission to take a few snaps, which was happily given.  This shop has a great range of New Zealand fabric, patterns, and kits.  Hanging on the wall was a similar “New Zealand Postcard” quilt which I made and presented to my UK pen friends during our trip several years ago.

Plenty of New Zealand fabrics on offer

There was a huge range of batik fabrics too, which I adore.  This fabric is so nice to work with.

Lots of delicious fabric

Fancy a mini quilt show?  Just walk down the adjacent hall and there they all are, waiting to be admired.

Japanese inspired quilt

A Quilter’s  Life

We’re moving on to Kaikoura and I’ve heard there is a lovely quilt shop there, so ‘hopefully I’ll be able to check that out as well.  So, watch this space.  And don’t forget, you will be able to follow our travels and adventures on our South Island Odyssey Trip on our Travel Blog

www.romanyrambler.blogspot.com

One more Sleep to go

Only one more sleep to go before we head  “down south”.  I’ve made sure that I’d packed my stitching away in the caravan - here it is all rolled up around a cardboard roll.  I’ve got several projects traced onto fabric and all ready to go.  And to keep everything clean I’ve wrapped it up in one of my fancy UK quilters tea-towels.

All wrapped up and ready to stitch

I’ve traced off the design for a “Herb Farm” cushion for my daughter, a gardening picture for a friend, and just in case I run out of things to do, I’ve added a couple of Red Brolly Christmas designs too.  That should keep me busy.

Things to stitch

The South Island is full of wonderful scenery and you can follow our adventures on our Travel Blog www.romanyrambler.blogspot.com

Friday Stitchers get-together

It’s been a long time since the last monthly Friday Stitchers get-together, so it was good to catch up with everyone again.  This is the first meeting of the year, and will be my last for a while, as we heading south on Monday for an extended caravan trip.  Seems that most of the ladies have been quite busy over the last couple of months, with several finishes brought along to show everyone.  Joyce in particular had been especially busy, and had three quilts to show us.  The black and white “Snail Trail” with a touch of red is all finished and ready for her grand-daughter’s wedding.

Snail Trial wedding quilt

Joyce had added a narrow folded inner border in red just inside the binding and this looked particularly effective, we all thought.

A touch of red in the binding

“Through the Cottage Window” was made by Joyce for the challenge at the recent Stonestead outdoor Quilt Festival – unfortunately I was away at the time so never got the chance to attend.  Now let me see – that looks like a pussy cat gazing out the cottage window at several quilts hanging on the clothes line!  What a clever idea Joyce came up with.

Through the Cottage Window

Anne was busy stitching down the binding on a very colourful house quilt she had made in a class at Thimbles and Threads, with trees of different shapes between the houses.  The narrow striped inner border and the spotted outer border add a nice finish to the quilt. 

Anne’s House quilt

Another bright and cheery quilt was the cot quilt just completed by Christine.  This one is going to a friend for her little grand-son.  Here’s more of the great striped fabric, and it works so well as sashing between all those colourful blocks.

Bright and cheery cot quilt

Back to Joyce again and here she is hand quilting her lovely quilt made with lots of New Zealand fabrics.  That’s going to be a big job.

Joyce has started hand quilting

There were several other ladies busy chatting and sewing too.  Several were working on hexagons, and Judith was stitching down the binding (more stripes) on her glorious blue and white hand quilted masterpiece, while I was working on my last teddy stitchery block.  We had a lovely afternoon together, and it turns out that several of us will be enjoying holidays over the next few months.  No doubt there will be lots of news to catch up with on my return from our South Island holiday.

Will I have enough?

We are busy packing up the caravan for our fast approaching “South Island Odyssey” caravan trip, and plan to be away for three months.  As I’m known to be a keen P&Qer, friends have asked me if I’m packing my sewing machine too.  No, I’m not, as I expect we will be kept busy exploring all those wonderful out-of-the-way places down south.  But I have traced off several stitcheries – just hope I’ve have enough.  So think of me sitting beside a lake somewhere, or looking out over the coastline, or maybe gazing in awe at one of those fabulous mountains with my stitching in hand!

Also tucked away in my stitching bag is a stack of “rail fence” blocks, made in a variety of New Zealand fabrics and a pale green, together with my trusty Pigma pen.  The plan is to write the name of the places we stay on the pale green fabric, and eventually make the blocks up into a memory quilt of our travels.

My travelling rail fence blocks

The tale of the Star Quilt

Way back in the August 2000 I went to visit my Aunt Win and presented her with a quilt I had just finished.  My Aunt had recently sold her home and had moved in to a rest home.  Her room decor was rather bland but was carpeted in a pretty shade of blue.  Checking my stash, I found a length of Indian striped cotton in blues and burgundy.  That would be just right, I thought to myself.  As I love stars, it was an easy choice of pattern, and I added a pieced border of half square triangles to finish the quilt off.  Aunt Win’s quilt was backed with a soft pale blue floral winceyette (flannel) for extra warmth, and I machine quilted it with simple straight line quilting. 

Star quilt for Aunt Win

My Aunt was rather excited to get such a large parcel and eagerly ripped open the paper to see what was inside.  “Oh”, she said, “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever made me”.  I laid the quilt over her bed and it really made a difference to the look of her bedroom.

Aunt Win with her quilt

Fast forward to late 2011 and I received a telephone call from my cousin.  She told me that our Aunt  had to change rest homes as she needed more care and couldn’t take the quilt with her.  Would I come and collect it please?   The quilt was handed over to me and I remarked that it didn’t seem to have been used much.  It appeared that the quilt spent most of it’s life folded up and placed in a drawer.  Oh dear, now what was I going to do with it?  We were travelling north on the way to see my sister and her family and I took the quilt inside with me and related what had happened.  My great niece, 12 year old Kate, saw the folded quilt.  “Is that for me?’, she asked, “I just love it!”   It looked very much like the quilt has found a new home.

Kate and her new quilt

Kate and I did a deal.  I took the quilt back home with me for laundering – after all that time hidden away in a drawer the quilt could do with a bit of freshening up.  I also added a new quilt label on the back, leaving the original label in place to show the family history.  The new label reads: “This quilt is gifted to Kate from her Great Aunt Jenny and her Great-great Aunt Win”.    Then I carefully wrapped the quilt and posted it back up to Kate.  I’m so pleased that the quilt not only has a new appreciative owner, but also stays in the family.  What a great outcome.

Cute teddy stitcheries

I always pack a bag of hand stitching when we have a caravan weekend away.  So far I’ve managed to do a little bit of work on my teddy bear stitcheries.  I have a couple more to complete  and then these little cuties will be made into gifts later on. 

Our time away in the caravan is usually very “full on” so it is nice to take a bit of time to do something more restful. 

Fixing up an “oopsie”

I couldn’t hang my Christmas wreath at Christmas.  Why?  Because it looked like this!  Not a pretty sight at all, I’m sure you will agree.  And the reason why it ended up in this state is because Robin was trying to find something or other in the wardrobe in the spare room where it was safely stored, (or so I thought) , and lent on it.  Then snap, it broke in two places.  I had made this fabric wreath way back in the mists of time when I was quite new to patchwork and quilting, and didn’t even take a note of when it was completed.  But I can certainly remember attending the class at my local shop, Thimbles and Threads. 

It’s broken

To fix it I needed to purchase a new polystyrene wreath.  But of course, after all these years, the wreath I bought wasn’t quite the same, and I wondered if in fact it was a bit fatter.  Yes, it certainly was, and I couldn’t slide the fabric onto the cut edge.  Luckily my design had a tuck sewn into the top of the fabric to make a small ruffle.  Maybe if I unstitch this, I’ll have enough space to slide the wreath fabric on, I reasoned.  So I sat out on the back deck yesterday with my trusty seam ripper in my hand to undo the row of stitching.

Let’s hope this works.

Success – there was just enough room for the fabric sausage to slip right over the polystyrene ring.  A fellow crafter had suggested earlier that I cut a wedge shaped piece out of the ring giving more room to manoeuvre the fabric.  Robin was in charge of finding some suitable glue in his shed to stick the wedge back in place.  That done, we left it overnight to for the glue to set.

Ring with the wedge cut out

Today it was a quick job to hand stitch the seam in place and now my Christmas wreath is repaired and will be ready to be hung up next Christmas.  And to stop the same fate befalling it yet again, it is packed away in a large “see through” plastic bag.   Hopefully that will stop him manhandling my wreath again!  

All fixed now