Late Again

I know i promised to update a few days ago with glorious pictures, but it’s a good thing to be sewing and not spending time on the computer.  Shows I have a bit of real life, though I do love all my bloggy friends

So, where to start then?  An update on the school stuff?  Had my meeting, the Dean was very prepared, but really there is no solution to Nathan missing Maths, unless they take away the extra courses they gave him. The English teacher was a bit wishy-washy and non specific on what Nathan is getting done, so I will have to follow up with him in a few weeks.  The Dean was going to put Nathan on report to try to improve his behaviour (which isn’t very bad, just a wee bit of mucking about), but even that’s not done yet.  A bit slack I reckon!  I have organised a Maths tutor, so I’ve done my end.

On to sewing?  Here’s a pic of Lilly’s cute quilted coasters..  She’s finished 3 so far, just one more to finish.

I finished 3 quilt tops today, they were all almost done, but needed a few rows added. So Emily is done, no pic of that, the girls cot quilt is done…..

And the nine patch is done…. I love this, it’s huge.  Ian had to stand on the couch for me to take the pic….

I made Cam a really nice sweatshirt, but it’s now in the wash, but he wouldn’t sit still for a pic anyway. 

A few weeks ago I got a lovely package from John (Quilt Dad).  We organised a swap for some Amy Schimler prints I wanted (but of course couldn’t get here), and John got some NZ prints.  Here’s the awesome fabric that he sent.  John, you’ve a star !!

And just to top it all of, here’s some new additions to my stash.

I know most of my International readers would be a bit “meh” at these prints, but you have no idea how hard it is to get designer prints here in NZ. Luckily my local quilt shop is starting to get more of them

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A fantastic day out.

Yesterday I went to a machine quilting class held at my local quilt shop.  I’ve been to a few courses now, and they are all great. This one was really good, I learnt some much.  It’s amazing how much confidence you get just by taking a class.  I really enjoy the interaction with other quilters too.  There were a few people there that I’ve done other courses with, or even tutors who’ve taught me to quilt.  So here’s a few pics of what I learnt

Squiggles and snakes, and some loopy ones…

Water and rocks too….

Some different kinds of leaves…….

Some spirals, squidgy spirals and some wood-grain……

The fan, and putting the leaves and squidgy spirals together to make flowers (my favourite)…

And McTavishes, which were the hardest, and will take a fair bit of practice.

I got a couple of quilting bee blocks done, both blocks are square, I’ve just taken bad photo’s.

A square within a square for Tina. I love these colours, and don’t really have any yellow in my stash (not until the post comes next week).  Still very symmetrical though, I can’t seem to break that habit yet

This block is for Adina, diagonal strips.  I found this challenging to match up the strips on both sides. Love the colours too, another colour range I don’t have much of (I haven’t gone and bought any though).

And a couple of pairs of leather baby shoes for one of the playcentre toddlers, theses are merino lined for warmth.  It’s been ages since I made any of these, it took me a while to remember what I was doing.

To top off the awesome day quilting and sewing, I went to a pot-luck dinner in Wellington and got to meet a whole lot of the Nappy Network ladies.  It was fantastic to meet so many people who i only talk to online.  There are quite a few that I will be making a point of visiting next time I am over the hill. So after such a good day it was late to bed for me, but I got a sleep in this morning, a cup of tea in bed, and Lilly even got me a present while she was out shopping yesterday. 

I’ll be back tomorrow with pics of another quilting bee block I’ll be making tonight, and some pic of the really cool quilted coasters that Lilly has been making.

Ciao

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Lazy

Sorry to all my regular readers, I’ve been too lazy to post.  I’m finding it hard to get back in to things now I’m back from holiday.  I worked so hard before I went away to fill orders to pay for our trip, that now I just really can’t be bothered.

I have nearly finished my One-a-day nine patch quilt.  I was hating it when it was just the blocks, but now that sashing is added I quite like it.  Which is a good thing, because it is meant to stay here.  I’ll see if I can take some pics tonight.  I made another monster softie for Cameron as he liked the one I did for Ariel for the quilting bee. 

Things are busy at home, I have a meeting with the college tomorrow, which I’m not really looking forward to.  We’ve had half year reports, and Nathan’s was ok, but having taken Nathan out of half or his regular classes to do extended ICT they seem to have not bothered to make sure he is still learning the basics like Maths and English. It seems to be up to me to organise extra lessons out of school time to make up for the stuff he is missing.  And one of the teachers was really rude to him about missing class (he was doing another subject), so I had to sort that out.  Freaking education system here sucks!!!  I can’t understand why people are surprised when they ask where I’m going to send Cam to school, and I tell them I’m not planning to.  I don’t know anyone who is very satisfied with the way schools are run.  Anyway I could bleat on about that for ages, so I better get onto another subject.

The garden is growing slowly, we are harvesting silverbeet (chard) and spinach, the brussels sprouts, carrots, cabbages and leeks are all in progress, but nowhere near eating size.  My sister Michelle gave me a heap of seeds when I was at her place, so added to what we already had I think we will only be buying the seed raising mix and one or two more packets of seeds this spring.  We have almost everything we need.  Ian dug up the last of the potatoes on the weekend.  It’s almost time to plant some more.

There were lovely parcels waiting here for me when I got back from holiday, I’ll take pics of all the goodies later

See ya.

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Holiday Post

Okay then, here’s the post of our holiday.  I took Nathan, Lilly and Cameron up to my sister Michelle’s place in Taumarunui (central North Island) for a few days.  The trip up went surprisingly well, no arguing in the car at all We were making such good time that we stopped at the Waiouru Army Museum to have a look at the exhibitions.  I would have taken pics of the kids on the tanks outside but it was snowing by that time   The kids enjoyed having a look around, we were there about an hour and could have easily been there twice that.

On Monday the weather was fine, so we checked out the thriving metropolis of Taumarunui.  We stopped in at the Railway Station and Information office and Cameron was very excited to see they had a miniature railway of the Raurimu Spiral. He’s still going on about it now. After lunch we went down to the river.  They are only a few metres from the Whanganui river at Michelle’s place.  We walked down a track, through scrub and blackberry bushes, then though the native trees at the bottom.  What a stunning sight we were greeted with.

I can’t wait to go back in Summer so we can tube, canoe or swim down the river.

The kids all got on really well, and Cameron found plenty to play with.  The following day was our planned day up the Mountain (Ruapehu).  Here’s what we woke up to. Fog.

Once we got to Owhango to pick up the ski gear it was a lovely clear day.  It was good weather, except on the mountain, where was a bit of cloud in the middle, it didn’t look too bad, so off we went.

By the time we parked, caught the shuttle to the top, it was drizzling.  Ernest, Nathan and Lilly were going down to the learner slopes so Ernest could teach them the basics of skiing.  Ariana, Cameron and I were going to toboggan, so we had to go further up to the toboggan slopes.  The weather further up was atrocious. Pretty much white out conditions. We weren’t having much of a good time.

So we made our way down to the cafe, and waited for the others to come back to meet us.  As soon as they were back I whipped us all down to the car asap.  A good thing too, by the time we got down to the car the rain was quite heavy, and they ended up closing the mountain about 15mins after we left.  About 300 people were stuck up on the mountain till 11pm that night when the snow eased off enough to clear the roads and let everyone down.  We had a lucky escape i think.  Nathan and Lilly had a great time on the learner slopes with Ernest and can’t wait to go again.

The rest of the holiday was just relaxing, the kids roasted marshmallows over a small fire.

Played lots of soccer with the dog.

More playing down at the river…

All in all a good time was had.  I got fabulous meals cooked for me, no housework to do, though I did miss my sewing machine a bit.

We stopped at the Tangiwai Memorial on the way home.

Though it was nice to get away, it was also nice to get home.  I always have fun being with my sister Michelle, and the kids had a fabulous time.

 

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Friday

I’m back from holiday, I’ll be posting tomorrow, with pics, but i need to get back to the sewing machine right now.

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Emily in Progress

Finally dragged my Emily blocks out of storage.  I got them all squared up, and put together.  I ran out of black muslim, so the top and bottom haven’t got sashing on yet.  I’m going to add a red border as well, and black and white striped binding. I feel a bit funny about about these blocks, like the quilts not really mine.  I made the mistake of sending away all the pics of Emily which were printed on cotton, and didn’t save one for me.  I have tried to print another one, but the fabric keeps jamming in the printer. Grrr. So apart from putting it together, there really isn’t much input from me.  I’ve only used 12 of the blocks for the front, which is plenty big enough for a wall hanging.  The other 5 will be either the back or another smaller wallhanging.

I wanted to take the opportuninty to say hi to “Beena” who was the recipient of my Sketchy Spring mini quilt.  I am in awe of her beautiful work.  Benna regularly comes by and leaves lovely comments, but everytime I try to reply, send her and email or leave a comment on her blog, it gets rejected.  I don’t know what’s happening, but Beena, I just wanted you to know it’s really great to see you here, and even though my comments aren’t showing up, I’m still a regular over at your blog too.

Today I’m going to work on my One a Day nine patches.

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A busy Bee-ver

I’ve been trying to get as many quilting bee blocks done as I can before I go away on the weekend.  As of tonight I’m all up to date, I just have the Cottage Bee’s two blocks for July, which only came in the post this week.

First up was Aviva’s 2 Alphabet blocks for Sew Kid 2.

I was pleased with these, both 12.5 inches, as just the alphabet letter was sent, the rest we make from stash.  I have come to the conclusion that my stash is quite deficient in blue, what’s in these blocks is pretty much all I had   I went out to get a few more pieces of blue yesterday (just remnants), and still came home with nice fabric, but no blue.  I must have a mental block about that colour.

Then I worked on Terrie’s butterfly block for Sew Kid 1.

A simple enough pattern it would seem.  But with my fantastic pattern reading skills I came out with a block a quater of an inch too short.  Luckily Terrie is willing to forgive me for that.  Might seem like a small thing, but I know it can throw the whole thing out, and we are (for the most part) working with other peoples fabrics.  For me the daunting part of mucking up a block for another quilter is that most of the fabrics are not available here or very hard to get, and everyone is so far away, so I can’t easily get more.  Cute butterfly though aye?  I did embroider on the antennae later this afternoon.

After that I worked on Kerrie’s block for MishMash.  This is also a sew from stash block.  Kerrie sent a gorgeous piece of Starling print.  I hope she likes the block I came up with, I would like to keep it here

I needed to make a softie to send to Ariel with the spiderweb block.  She was kind enough to suggest a few patterns, so I used one and made this wee toy.

Matt harrassed me to make him some light weight fingerless gloves, to wear while on the computer (i get really cold hands while on the computer too), so I finally got sick of his whining and made hime some.  I used a nice merino I had.  Just used my hand as a pattern.  They are quite good.  I made him pay for my time though, he owes Cam a bus for him Thomas collection in return

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Well Loved

Cameron’s been trying to nick off with Lilly’s bedtime toy.  It started out life as a pink unicorn, sometimes called “hanky”, “honky” or “unicorn.  Tonight he was brushing whats left of the mane.  It horn isn’t looking to flash anymore, and he has virtually no colour left in him.  Lilly and Cam both seem to like it though. Many years ago I got Lilly another one, just i case it got lost, but it was bigger than her one, and she has almost never touched it.

Still looks like new   We let Cam take that one to bed, with his 3 diddy’s (blankets), pinky rabbit, and bluey rabbit.  A bit of a full bed tonight.

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Another rainy Sunday :-(

I had a really busy sewing day today.  There wasn’t much else to do.  Seems like we’ve had a really wet winter so far.  The water tanks are both overflowing, so we must have had quite a bit.

I was feeling generous yesterday and let the chooks out for a scratch around.  I don’t let them free range anymore, as they always find a way into the vege garden, but apart from one of two brief forays down by the house they were mostly content to gather bugs from under the pine trees.  They do have an outdoor run, but it could do with extending.  Poor chooks.

So what did I get done?  Another block for Adrienne, just a simple nine patch.  Nice though.

The other 3 blocks for my Woodland Round Robin.  Here’s a pic of all four of them.

My quilted Edward for the swap

Two blocks for my Park Slope Bear Paw quilt, only 22 more to go.

As well as the two completed blocks I got 200 squares turned into 200 half triangles.  Lilly was great and pressed most of them for me.  She’s a great helper when I’m quilting.  I helped Lilly to put together the first row of her nine patch quilt.  She just needs to finish one more nine patch and then tomorrow we will put together some more rows.  It’s looking really nice.

Ian harvested our first Artichoke today.  We kept procrastinating as we’ve never eaten them before, so we we’re a bit hesitant.  It was FANTASTIC ! Yum, a bit like Asparagus.  Next time we’ll harvest two, so we can have one each.

Cam kept himself amused playing with playdough, pretending to cut hair and making playdough hamburgers.  Later he spent ages playing with a scabby old Meccano set, that has so few parts that you can’t even make anything, but he was quite happy putting nuts and bolts in the holes.  I felt a bit sad for him, that he couldn’t make anything good with it, so I used some of my Fly-buys points to get him a new set.  I’ve been holding off getting him some building toys,as it’s his birthday in a month, but sometimes they need toys for development, not just a treat.  It will give him something nice to look forward to in the mail.  He comes out with me each day to the letterbox to see if there’s something there for him.  There usually isn’t but he likes to unwrap my fabric parcels for me

Tomorrow Lilly and Ruby will be quilting, so I better get some more done while i can.  Later.

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AWOL

I’ve been a bit absent from the blog.  Computer problems   The new computer seemed to be going okay, but then started randomly crashing.  Looks like the outdated version of Pegasus Mail i use isn’t compatible with Windows Vista.  Anyone know of a good mail program that’s not Outlook?  Anyway it’s going for now.  

I’ve been doing heaps of sewing, I ended up making 11 of those little smocket dresses, and still have orders for a few more.  I have plans to open an Etsy shop in a few weeks after the holidays. Matt is going to help me redo my shop labels while he’s home this week.  There are advantages to having a graphics guru or two in the house   I ended up making enough $$ to take the kids away, which was my goal.  I think I will even have enough for the big kids to have a ski or snowboard lesson.  They are pretty excited about going.

I made a block for the Sew Kid quilting bee.  This one is for Adrienne.

I’m really getting the hang of making the drunkards circles now, I’d love to make a whole quilt of them.

My spring mini quilt for the swap arrived.  It’s gorgeous.  Made with beautiful batik’s.  Thanks Gayly I love it!

I made Cam a new polar fleece top to keep him warm on our up coming holiday.  It was a real bargain as I got a huge piece of nice thick fleece for $3 at a local factory shop that is closing down.  I think the cost of making the top was approx 50 cents.  I need to make him a couple more, as one is not enough.  I put a Brontsaurus on the front, as Cam is very keen on Dinosaurs at the moment.  He seems to have grown a lot lately, and only has one sweatshirt that still fits.

I left Cam at playcentre on his own for the first time this week, just for an hour and a half. It was great to be able to come home and sew up some orders I had without interupption.  He was okay without me.  It will be great when he starts preschool for 2 days a week in a month.  I will be able to get heaps done.

I’ve cut out all my fabric for the the bear paw blocks (with the exception of a small piece which I was short by, I have some more coming for that), and have cut 872 pieces so far.  I have yet to decide on what colour for the sashings. 

Lilly has signed up to do a sewing class at the local quilt shop on Wednesday, making quilted placemats.  She has started to gather her own fabric stash

Today I’ve finished my blocks for the Woodland round robin and quilted my Edward Scissorhands for a Tim Burton swap I’m doing.  I’ll post pics later.  I don’t trust the computer at the moment, it already crashed once while writing this post

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