August UFO Night

I love UFO nights, with the chance to sit and stitch with fellow quilters.  My new quilt club, Town and Country Quilters, holds this event  on the last Friday of the month.   I missed the previous one as we were away somewhere or other in the caravan, so I was pleased that this date suited.  Everyone brought something to share for our Pot Luck meal, and as usual, there was plenty of food.  New member Cheryl made a bit pot of delicious chicken, corn and noodle soup, lovely and thick, which went down a treat with some crusty bread.  With hot savouries, pizza, salad wraps, salmon dip with crackers, cream puffs for dessert, and ample tea and coffee, we were well fed indeed. And as seems to be the custom, a nice big bowl of bite sized chocolate fish to nibble on as required.

There were all sorts of different projects being worked on, both by hand and machine.  Jan was seated down in the corner and brought along her colourful quilt to show us.  This had just come back from her daughter who machine quilted on her recently purchased long arm machine.  This quilt design (Geometric Delight) was featured in issue 60 of New Zealand Quilter Magazine.

Jan with her geometric quilt

Jan was working on her blocks in black and white with a touch of red.  The design is ”Rambling Rose meets Jamestown, from Grandmother’s Garden.  This will be a surprise quilt for her son and his wife, and features both log cabin blocks interspersed with different pieced blocks.

Surprise quilt for Jan’s son

There was a group seated at the tables in the middle of the hall, all working away quietly by hand.  Or not so quietly, as the noise level tended to rise now and again when they were discussing an interesting topic.  Vicky was working on her Stretched Hexagons in autumn colours.  The hexagon blocks are joined together with tiny little squares.  It all looks much too hard for me!

Vicky’s Stretched Hexagons

Janelle is taking part in a BOM quilt sent out from USA, so gets exciting parcels in the mail box.  These small appliqué blocks are in Civil War fabrics and all those different colours will look wonderful together.  She was preparing her next block for appliqué, using freezer paper and soluble glue.

Jannelle with her Civil War blocks

Our President Leigh was surrounded with cat blocks, a Tall Poppies block of the month  pattern, “There’s no such thing as an Innocent Cat”.   She was putting all the pieces together for her Aloysius cat block ready for appliqué.  Aren’t these cats just so cute?

Leigh’s cat blocks

No one was sure what Kaye was up to.  She had blocks of foam rubber and lots of bright fabrics on the table.  She was making Play Blocks, a little bit like a Rubik Cube, she said.  By the end of the evening she was well on the way with constructing this very difficult looking project.  Kaye had made one before, and declared she would never make another, but…….

Kaye working on her Play Blocks

New member Cheryl (who brought that tasty chicken soup)  was stitching up a very colourful Dr Seuss 4 patch quilt.  This will be a gift for her lucky little great-nephew, who is sure to love his new quilt.   I remember when my grandchildren children loved to visit and read my set of books when they were little umpteen years ago, so it is good to know that Dr Seuss is still popular today.

Bright and colourful Dr Seuss 4 patch blocks

Sandra always brings several projects, and I loved the long appliqué border she was working on.  I want to do something similar so it was good to be able to talk to Sandra and get some helpful advice on how to go about it.

A couple of Sandra’s projects

Also on the go was Sandra’s quilt top made from a lovely range of batiks.  This is a simple block, but so effective in all those lovely colours.

Sandra's batik blocks

I brought along my light box and spent several hours tracing out a pattern – and I still haven’t finished!  I  should have realised that this rather intricate pattern would have pages and pages of big and little shapes to trace off.  This will be for my elder grand-daughter, but I feel  it may well be a long time in the making!

What I was working on

It was an interesting evening, with tasty food and good company.  Many thanks to everyone for putting up with me and my camera as I checked out what everyone was doing.

Shades of Green

I’m working away on my new coffee table runner, which utilises some of the left over curtain fabric.  It’s all layered and safety pinned up, and I’m doing stitch in the ditch machine quilting along the strips.  But what to do in the middle square – that is the question?  Perhaps I’ll stitch around the leaf motives, what do you clever quilters think?  I’m attending the quilt club UFO night on Friday, so I’m hoping the binding will be on so I can hand stitch it down. 

 

Coffee table runner

There is a different (paler) shade of green in the bedroom, and I am really pleased with the latest addition.  Using one of our old former dining chairs, I carefully chose the one in the best condition, and I had to purchase an extra length of the bedroom curtain fabric, we took it down to the local upholsterer.  He did a really good job of recovering the chair, added some extra padding, replaced the webbing, and voila, a pretty matching chair for the corner of the bedroom.  Just the thing to sit on while putting footwear on.  And no, it’s not there to put your clothes on, I told Robin, put them away or put them in the wash.  But does he listen?

  The new bedroom chair

Surrounded with Daffodils

Daffodil Day is almost here and the ladies attending the Levin Cancer Society Coffee Club this morning were only too happy to lend a hand.  Local landowners donate their spring blooms, which are gathered by volunteers.  Our job today, after our usual very filling morning tea, was to prepare the daffodils for sale,  outside at  the back of the building.  There tables had been set up with all the necessary equipment, such as rubber gloves, scissors and a huge packet  of rubber bands. 

Daffodils aplenty

Our job was to put the daffodils in bunches of 10, trim the ends, and secure with rubber bands.  We had quite a production line going, but I did wonder if we would ever finish, as bucket after bucket of daffodils kept appearing.

I’m in there somewhere, amongst all the ladies

I’m pleased that I had thought to bring an apron with me, as we all got wet down our fronts.  Everyone worked really well, with a couple of the volunteers keeping an eye on things, lifting down the filled buckets from the tables and replacing them with more loose blooms.  We didn't mind helping al all, as all of us at the Coffee Club have been touched by cancer.

Daffodil Day is the Cancer Society's annual flagship event and one of the most important fundraising and awareness campaigns in the country. The daffodil is one of the first flowers of spring, and is synonymous with the Cancer Society.  The flowers represents  hope for the 1 in 3 New Zealanders affected by cancer.  Donations received go towards vital scientific research into the causes and treatment of all types of cancer, as well as providing a wide range of support services, information, health promotion and education programmes.  The Cancer Society do a wonderful job of supporting those affected by this terrible disease, after diagnosis, and both during and after treatment. 

Some of the blooms with bent stalks were trimmed right back and the helpers were invited to take a bunch or two of these shorter blooms home.  Mine are adding a splash of colour as they sit on the bathroom windowsill.

Daffodils – the sign of Spring

Spinners and Weavers at the Wool Shed

Packing up the caravan, we headed off to the Wairarapa for the weekend.  As usual, I packed my knitting, and my hand stitching, just in case I had some spare time.  But no handcrafts were done all weekend, although I spent quite some time with my nose stuck in my very interesting library book – I could hardly bear to put it down, wondering “who done it?”. 

We visited  the “Wool Shed” museum in Masterton, which is housed in in two relocated pioneer wool sheds and tells of sheep farming in New Zealand. The first sheep flocks were brought over from Sydney. Australia, and driven around the rugged coast from Wellington to the Wairarapa coast, and currently there are about 35 million sheep in New Zealand.  We were given a sheep shearing demonstration, with the shearer deftly removing two fleeces with seemingly little effort at all.  It must take a lot of skill and years of practice to make it seem so easy, I think

The fleece is almost off

The local Spinners and Weavers group meet regularly at the museum and the ladies were only too happy to show us what they were doing.  They all stated that spinning is a very soothing pastime, and they really enjoy their craft.

Showing us how to spin

A couple of  looms were set up around the museum, and one had a notice stating: “Project in progress, do not touch”.  This smaller one  invited visitors to “Have a Go!”. 

Have a go at weaving

Woven scarves on display

Remember those woollen cloaks from the Lord of the Rings films?  The Wool Shed museum has one on display.  The special fabric used to make the Magic Elven cloaks was woven locally in New Zealand by Stansborough Fibres. They grow their own unique naturally grey wool at their farm just north of Wellington. These rare and unusual grey Stansborough Gotland sheep, are the only flock of their kind in the world and produce fibre which is strong, soft and lustrous.

Elven cloak on display

Barry with Greybeard, one of the Gotland sheep

So if you want to know all there is about sheep, shearing and wool fleeces, this is the place to go.  We found it very interesting indeed.

Eagles – flying high

Tucked away in my sewing room was a piece of eagle fabric, eagles soaring against a blue sky.  I knew that Brent (son of my friend Dot) has a real affinity with the American Bald Eagle and has quite a collection of eagle related items. Perhaps he would like a pair of eagle cushions for his new home?  It didn’t take too long to stitch up a pair of simple cushion covers.

 

Cushions, all done

 

Dot gave Brent his surprise gift recently when he popped up to visit his Mum.  And yes, he was thrilled with them, and he sent a photo showing them looking  good on his black leather couch.  (Just between you and me, Brent reminds me so much of my son Michael, it’s quite uncanny how similar they are).

Brent’s eagle cushions

The magnificent American Bald Eagle was adopted as the official bird emblem of the United States of America in 1782.   Chosen because of it's majestic beauty, great strength, and long life - in the wild, an eagle will live 30-35 years.  A full-grown bald eagle has a wingspan up to 7 feet. They fly up to 30 miles an hour and can dive at 100 miles an hour.  And no, Bald Eagles are not actually bald, the name derives from an older meaning of "white headed".

Stop shaking the Caravan

Eat, sleep, lift her head to meow, and sleep some more.  That is how Muffy passes her day away in the caravan.  We were away for the weekend with our caravan club friends at Paekakariki, on the Kapiti Coast when the big 6.6 earthquake struck at 2.31pm on Friday afternoon.  Its centre was 10km south east of Seddon in the South Island which has been having a lot of earthquake activity lately.  But the tremors were so strong we were sure it was happening right underneath our feet.

We had just finished stocking up at the supermarket with some essential weekend supplies when things started going strange.  Pushing our trolley across the supermarket car park, tremors ran up our legs and the ground started bucking up and down.  It was such a weird feeling.   Holding on the the trolley as our legs tried hard to hold us up, we looked in wonder as the parked cars started bouncing up and down.  Wow – that was a big earthquake! The biggest one we have felt for some time. 

Back at the caravan park we experienced many aftershocks, one after the other, and our caravan shook and swayed each time.  But the myth that animals know when an earthquake is on the way is untrue, especially in Muffy’s case.  As an early warning device for incoming earthquakes, Muffy fails spectacularly.  She didn’t even lift her head to see what was going on.  Just slept blissfully through each and every one.  “Stop shaking the caravan, I’m trying to sleep”, she was probably thinking.  It’s a good life being a cat!

Stop that shaking, I’m trying to sleep!

Town and Country Quilters August Club Night

An enthusiastic group of members gathered last evening to attend the Town and Country Quilters Club Night.  August may well be in  the depths of winter, but there was no sign of wind or rain, thanks goodness.  With the upcoming quilt show in October, there was a lot of business to get through.  Rosters to help with this event were circulated amongst the members, and like most others, I put my name down in a slot or two.  Help will be needed to sell tickets, duties in the kitchen, and being a “White Glove” lady at the show, amongst others. 

Our speaker for the evening was Sandra who is passionate about Zero Waste.  Sandra really practices what she preaches and with chickens in the backyard, a couple of worm farms and compost bins, told us she gets by with using one rubbish bag every few months.   She trotted out all sorts of horrifying statistics about the amount of waste in New Zealand and overseas.  Plastics are the major waste problem worldwide, as the items never actually decompose, they merely break down into smaller and smaller pieces, and get into the food chain. We were all urged to take to heart the mantra of “reduce, recycle and reuse” and do our bit for the environment.   And did you know that the cuddly polar fleece which we sometimes use to back quilts is made from old plastic bottles?  I didn’t. 

Show and Tell perked us all up considerably after all this doom and gloom.  Several of the quilts held up for us to admire had been expertly machine quilted by club member Paula of Rabbits Patch Quilting, who always does such wonderful quilting with her long arm machine.  Here are a some of the quilts which I snapped with my new camera, this is the first time I have really used it so I wasn’t sure how the photos would turn out.  Chloe brought along her warm and cosy looking tartan quilt, using some old shirts, I believe.

Chloe’s tartan quilt

Helen’s Row by Row quilt was a challenge quilt made with her group of Sew Wot friends and has a lovely story.  Each row in the quilt  relates to her journey while undergoing a recent cochlear implant to help improve her hearing.  (I’ll let you into a secret – I’m a very recent  Sew Wot member.  The lovely ladies invited me along to join their group).

Helen’s Row by Row quilt

Helen’s second quilt was done as a Block of the Month quilt by one of our local quilts shops, Cherry Pie Bernina.  Helen does wonderful machine quilting – it shows up so nicely on the dark brown triangles.

Block of the Month quilt

Heather is another Sew Wot member and showed us two lovely appliquéd table runners she had recently completed.  I think they have a Jacobean look about them with all those lovely swirls. 

Heather’s table runners

Cheryl brought along two sporty quilts made with panels, a cricket quilt and a rugby quilt.  Kiwis are known for their love of sports and Cheryl obviously has some sports mad people in her family.

 

Rugby quilt

And lastly, I really loved this soft and pretty rose quilt.  Sarah has made it in celebration of her MILs 90th birthday, who loves roses, we were told.  It is just so beautiful.

 

90th birthday quilt

After a quick supper, I went home from the meeting with my head buzzing, full of all the lovely quilts I’d seen, and ideas of more.  I’d better get sewing, I think.