Working on quilts…

I’m working on a few quilts for the shop.  Girly cot sized quilts…

This cute Fairytales quilt, with pictures from Rumplestiltskin, Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Princess and the Pea etc.

Appleville…

Both of these will be finished in a couple of weeks when I’m able to baste and quilt them.

Today I finished off the other pair of Pyjamas for Cam that I started a few weeks ago.

They fit well and are lovely and warm.  Cameron insisted that I take a pic of the “bed slippers” that I made for him today.  Socks don’t stay on in bed so I made these bed slippers out of a small piece of fluffy fabric that I had, it’s similar to minky but with a longer pile and fluffy both sides.  He’s very happy with them!

I’m okay with sitting and sewing while recovering, but pushed it today and hung out a load of washing.  I paid for it later.  Tomorrow I’ll put it in the dryer!

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My girl!!

My gorgeous girl is 14 today.  I’m so proud of her adventurous spirit.

Here’s some pics of her growing up…

Happy birthday Lilly, we love you !!!!!!!!

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surgery over!

A surprising result too. so i ended up with a laparoscopy and laparotomy ( i’m not terribly happy with the new shape of my belly button). it wasn’t a cyst at all. my fallopian tube was blocked, filled with fluid and wrapped around my ovary. they removed the whole mass and it’s been sent away for pathology. it’s not likely to have any worrying results though. so now i’m left with one ovary and tube, nothing else.

i’m  so glad it’s almost over. just the recovery back to normal left to achieve.

 

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Holiday part 2

Here’s another of the neat pieces of art work that were in Gisborne…

The red sculpture above looked totally stunning when lit up at night!

One of the places we had been advised to visit was the historical wharf at Tolaga Bay.  Apparently the wharf is the longest in the southern hemisphere.  I have to say though, while it was pleasant, the drive there was awful (terrible roads) and overall it was a bit disappointing.  We had been hoping there would be a cafe there where we could have lunch, but apart from a holiday park with a shop selling icecream and coffees there was nothing else there.  Luckily I went prepared with a bag full of snacks.

We went on a walk that took us up to a look out and to visit the Cooks Landing place memorial.  I only went three quarters of the way up to the look out before the vertigo kicked in :-)

Looking up the stairs to the look out.

Looking down the stairs…

The Tairawhiti Museum was very cool and well worth the visit!!!

The best part of the trip was Nathan and Lilly getting to learn to surf.  They we awesome and were up on the boards in only about 20 mins.  In all they had 3 days of surfing and had a great time.  Now they would like to buy their own surfboards

You can see from the pics that Cam had a good time on the beach too!!

 

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On Holiday

We’ve been away for while.  We went to Gisborne, on the East Coast of the North Island.  It was somewhere that I (and the kids) had never been before, and we were able to get a cheap holiday home.  We had a great time!  The weather was a bit dismal the first 2 days, but after that it was great.

We did some touristy things, like visiting the Gisborne Museum of technology.  Basically is was a bunch of sheds with a random but interesting assortment of stuff, beginning with this statue that we thought was a homage to the Eiffel Tower

There almost everything you could imagine inside.  Every tool ever made, printing presses, cream separators, one of the first ever photocopiers, a room full of vintage sewing machines!

my favorite was this beautiful Liberty,

and this very cool oven.

There were displays of kitchen and household appliances,

old medical equipment,

sheds full of old fire engines, trucks, cars and tanks.  I guess you were supposed to just look, but we did a bit of touching too.  Shh, don’t tell anyone.

Road signs,

and other random stuff like this pair of legs…

A few old telephone boxes..

Well worth a visit!

Gisborne had an AWESOME skate park.  Conveniently located just a couple of streets away from where we were staying.

The half pipe was enormous!!!

The town was full of fabulous art work.  From sculptures, to paintings and even living woven flowers.  We found these flowers woven in the flax when we were out walking…

Some of the painting on the buildings were so realistic that you couldn’t tell that they were just a plain concrete wall until you got close.

I have lots more to blog about and pics to show, so I’ll split this into two posts.  Come back again to see the rest.

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A finished Quilt – for sale!

Finally a finished quilt for sale.  Not many have been made so far this year.

Made with Riley Blake’s “All Stars 2″ flannel. Huge cot size.

Front

Close up

Back

If anyone is interested here’s the details:

Gorgeously soft and snuggly!
This generously sized cot quilt is made from high quality quilting flannel, front, back and binding.  The batting is cotton, making this quilt 100% cotton, great for babies with allergies to synthetic fabrics.
Approx sizing is 116cm wide by 128cm long, generous for any size cot and can then be used as a top layer for a single bed or perfect for snuggling under on the couch on those cold winter days.
This quilt has not been pre-shrunk, so after the first wash it will take on a neat crinkled and loved look. Machine washable, line dry.
A one-off, handmade quilt, made in the Wairarapa.  Layby available by negotiation.

It’s listed in my Felt store (link on the sidebar) for $120, but if any readers want to contact me direct (email address in the sidebar) I can sell it for $110 direct, without the Felt commission.  You will need to use Felt if you’d like to pay by credit card

Please feel free to share the link for this with any other blog reader or Facebook friends

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I like the drugs…

but the drugs don’t like me   I’d never make a successful addict. After 3 doses the painkillers had me feeling like puking all day yesterday.  Hopefully when I see the doc again tomorrow she will be able to give me some thing that I can tolerate.

I’ve decided that a queen size quilt with wool batting is probably above the limit of what my small sewing machine can handle in terms of bulk.  I’m glad that I’m straight-line quilting my Love quilt, otherwise there would be no room to manoeuvre for stippling.  I guess that leaves me with 3 choices, save the $9000 for a bigger machine, pay a long arm quilter to quilt them or only make quilts up to a double size.  Rock and a hard place it think.  I know my prefered option.

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