Sew Wot Tuesday

Our two-weekly get together rolled around again, and this time we met at Carol’s home.  Carol lives down a long driveway, and I have to admit that I couldn’t quite remember which flat was hers, and knocked on the wrong door!  Silly me, I was lucky that Carol was keeping an eye out and rescued me.  Navigation is not my strong point - I’m the type of person who loses their car in the big car parks.  Please tell me that I’m not the only one who has this problem.

Heather, Moira and Carol

With a couple of our ladies away, there were just four of us.  We spent the morning chatting, catching up with news, looking through the pile of quilt magazines, and doing a little stitching.  At least, the others did, I didn’t even get my project out of the bag.  But I did have my two little cot quilts for Show and Tell.

Morning Tea was delicious.  We were the guinea pigs to try Carol’s new savoury pinwheel recipe and they were so nice and tasty, and hot from the oven. So tasty, that one wasn’t enough!

Morning Tea for the ladies

There was no more Show and Tell from the others, so Carol brought out several tops which she had stitched and tucked away, and were waiting for the next step.  The House Quilt was done as a “sew-along” group project, and will be going to a grand-son, I was told.

Carol’s tops, waiting to be finished

This will be my last Sew Wot Tuesday for a wee while, as we are heading off on a three week road trip very soon.  I’ll be sure to pack my stitching bag, but I may or may not have any spare time.  But it is better to have a hand stitching project or two, just in case, I always think..

Healing Hearts for Christchurch

I’ve been working away quietly making some healing hearts blocks for Christchurch, and reflecting on the terrible tragedy which took 50 lives a few weeks ago.  While these people were in their place of worship, men, women and children were shot dead and many others left injured.  Previously, New Zealand had never experienced a mass shooting like this, and now sadly,  Christchurch joins the list of cities where such a thing has happened.

Angels in Gumboots quilt shop put out a call for green hearts, and supplied a pieced heart block pattern.  Green is symbolic in Islam as relating to heaven, restoration, hope and life.  We were asked to surround the hearts in white, symbolizing purity and peace, and is the colour most wear when attending Friday prayers.

Understandably, Angels in Gumboots has had an incredible response, both from Kiwi quilters and others overseas.  Mine have been sent on their way to join the many other parcels arriving at their shop.

A Successful Stitching Day

Yesterday was spent at All Comers Day, a casual monthly stitching day organized by my quit club, Town and Country Quilters.  I took some hand stitching along, my two little baby quilts, and got the binding stitched down on both, so I’m really pleased about that.  I photographed them once I returned home.

For the backings I had a piece of nice warm  Winceyette (flannel) for the blue quilt – I like to use this for backing on quilts for little ones.  It stops the quilt sliding off, and is nice and cuddly.  The pink quilt was backed with a piece of pink seersucker, picked up from the freebie box at club night recently.  These two quilts will be kept here for a while, you never know when a baby quilt may be required, and it's good to have a couple on hand.  Other wise, they may get donated sometime in the future.

Showing the backings

Madalyn, our club President had asked for people to help at the March All Comers Day. The Quiltfest Raffle Quilt needed some willing sewers to sew the donated hexagon flowers together.  Anyone who could spare  1/2 an hour, an hour or a couple of hours to come and help sew would be welcomed with open arms she said.  When I arrived the flowers were laid out on the backing, and pinned in place. And before too long a group of willing workers were sitting around the table stitching all those hexagon flowers together.

Hexagon flowers cascading down

I’d never worked with hexagons so brought along my own projects, plus my packed lunch, of course.  With the bindings hand stitched down on both before the end of the day, I was a happy quilter indeed.

Our groups meets in the Vintage Car Club Rooms, and there was all sorts of activity outside in the car park.   The members were gathering there before they went  off on a ride, showing off their wonderful cars.  I went outside to take a few photos.  I rather liked this one, a Model T Ford, the owner told me.  But he didn’t offer to whisk me away on a vintage car jaunt, so I went back inside to get on with my stitching.  I could just imagine me sitting there like someone really important,  with the wind blowing  in my hair!

How is this for a vintage car!

It was  lovely day out, chatting with club members, getting to know a couple of newer members I hadn’t met before, while we all worked on our favourite pastime.

Pink and Blue Nine Patches

It’s been a busy old week with several social outings to attend, but I’ve managed to do some work on my two little nine patch cot quilts.  These little blocks had been hanging about for ages and I stitched the rows together a while ago as leader and ender sewing.  I can’t even remember why I made all these little nine patches, but it must have seemed a good idea at the time.

An hour or so sitting at the picnic table outside on a sunny day and they were all pinned up, and ready to go.  And while I was thinking about it, I prepared the bindings too.

All pinned up and the bindings prepared

I admit I’m sometimes a bit slow with quilting ideas, but after reading about it for sometime on other blogs, I’ve just discovered that my machine will do a type of Serpentine stitch.  Mind you, it's not called that in the manual, so I didn’t even know I had this stitch variation.  Doesn’t it look pretty?

Pink nine patch all quilted

My hope is to get the blue quilt finished by Friday.  My quilt club has a casual sewing day organized for Saturday so that will be ideal for me to take them along and get the bindings hand stitched down.  I don’t usually bother unhooking my sewing machine from the cabinet and lugging it down to the hall on  these sewing days, and much prefer to take along some hand stitching.

Modern Day Dinosaur

Did you know that New Zealand can claim to have a modern day dinosaur?  We saw one of these living fossils recently when we visited Nga Manu Nature Reserve.  Peering into an enclosure, we saw  one sitting still, as they do, basking in the sunshine.  There were several young ones in another enclosure, but they we too small for us to spot as they hid amongst the greenery. 

Tuatara showing the spines on his back

Tuatara are the only surviving members of the order Sphenodontia, which was well represented by many species during the age of the dinosaurs, some 200 million years ago. All species except the tuatara declined and eventually became extinct about 60 million years ago.  The endangered Tuatara are New Zealand’s largest reptile, with adult males measuring up to about a half metre in length and weighing up to 1.5 kg when fully grown.  The male has a distinctive crest of spines running along the neck and down the back, which he can fan out to attract females or when fighting with other males.

Another rather rare species was the Tecomanthe vine which was climbing all around a frame by the entrance to the tuatara display.  Amazingly, we read that only one plant has ever been found in the wild, on Three Kings Islands.  Luckily it survives as a popular garden plant, and this well established plant was covered in clusters of large cream flowers.

Tecomanthe vine in flower

A charitable trust, Nga Manu Nature Reserve has become a sanctuary for up to 60 different bird species, many free to come and go as they please. It plays an important role in wildlife breeding programmes, working alongside DOC and the SPCA to provide recovery care for injured native birds.  Walking through the aviaries we came face to face with a Kaka enjoying his breakfast.  The kaka is a large forest parrot and feeds on a wide range of fruit, insects and nectar.  His neighbour, the Kakariki,  a small parrot with  bright green plumage and the red pattern on its head was also enjoying the morning sun shine.

Kakariki and Kaka

Some of us walked up the hill to the Lookout.  From here we had great views over the reserve, and waving back at us were our friends down on the flat ground.  The reserve is set in the remains of lowland swamp forest and is full of native birds flying free.  We couldn’t leave without a group photo, and arranged ourselves around the swan sculpture.  As you can tell by Robin’s shorts and the men in hats, it was warm and sunny, and we couldn’t have had a nicer day for a visit to the reserve.

Out enjoying nature

Proudly hanging in the Visitors Centre was a quilt featuring New Zealand wildlife.  It’s always a bonus to see a quilt when we are out and about.

Quilt at Nga Manu

No wonder it looked familiar, I have one just like it at home!  Arranged slightly differently, and done in different shades, they both show case our native birds and yes, that is a tuatara on the quilt.

My quilt at home

Lunch in a local café followed our visit to Nga Manu Reserve, the weather was excellent, the food and company were great, and it was fun to catch up again with everyone.

Time to make a new List

Finally, its time to write my new List of Six UFOs, so I can get back to rolling the dice each week.  Whichever number comes up, that is the UFO I will be working on that particular week.  Looking through my “stuff”, I’m always amazed just how many things I’d previously started and not finished.  I’ve tried to get a bit of variety in my new list, bigger projects and some quicker ones.  So……the new list for 2019 is:

1:  New Zealand Botanical Quilt.  I’m so pleased I just completed stitching the final block, and will now get to assemble it sometime soon.

2:  Sampler Quilt.  This is quite an old UFO which dates back to an Internet Birthday Block Swap I took part in.

3:  Machine quilt two cot quilts.  These were made from my seemingly endless supply of nine patch blocks, (I’ve found plenty more in one of my crates) and assembled a while ago using the leader and ender method.

4:  Selvedge Bag.  I rediscovered this project recently, selvedge blocks were tucked away in an old quilt magazine. 

5:  Christmas Mystery Quilt.  This was started late last year and then I ran out of steam, so it didn’t get finished in time for Christmas. 

6:  Memory Quilt.  When we travelled to England way back in 2009 I took along a good supply of HST and a fabric pen to get them signed as we travelled around.

Six new projects on my list

I can’t possibly wait till Monday to start so I rolled the dice today.  And the project chosen in number three, the two nine patch cot quilts, waiting to be machine quilted.  Goody, it will be great to get on with these little quilts, I’ll be doing simple walking foot quilting.

New Zealand Fuchsia Stitchery Block

My final New Zealand Botanical stitchery block is now completed, designed by Jenny Hunter.   The bright purply-red bell shaped flowers have stamens laden with intense blue sticky pollen.

My final NZ Botanical stitchery block

Photo bombed by Gemma

Kotukutuku  is considered to be the world’s largest fuchsia. In damp forest it can grow to 12m tall and form a trunk over 1m in diameter. It is one of New Zealand’s few truly deciduous trees, losing its leaves in winter in all but the warmest areas. Attractive, small flowers appear between August and December. They change from greenish-yellow to purple-red. The flowers are rich in nectar and are visited by honey-eating birds, especially tui, bellbirds and silvereyes.