What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

I took Nessie to the beach at Stonehaven on Bank Holiday Monday. It was busy with volunteers doing a beach clean-up operation. The tide was out but it was pouring with rain and pretty breezy. I had decided to leave Nessie’s raincoat at home so we both got soaked. At home the wild cherry trees are already dropping their blossom. Because it has been so damp and grey I had not even noticed that they actually had any flowers. In Norwich Nella has been experiencing thunderstorms and heavy rain and so far does not believe that Norfolk is one ...

Autumn has well and truly arrived.  Cool mornings and evenings, the sun is rising later and setting earlier, but we are still enjoying nice crisp sunny days.  It’s time to ring the changes and hang my Autumn quilt up.  I love the rich golden colours in this quilt.  The centre baskets came in a kit sent to me from my pen friend  in South Dakota.  I wanted to make it bigger so put the baskets on point and added borders to make it a wall hanging size.  This was the first time I tried circular spiral machine quilting.

Baskets ...

It was a separate holiday for us and the cat this Easter.  We were keen to attend  the 27th CCNZ National Rally at Masterton.  With a no animal policy at Solway College, we couldn’t take Gemma, so dropped her off at the local cattery for her second only visit to such a place. I must admit it did worry me how she would get on, although the cattery owner assured us she would get the best of care, and would send a text to let us know how she was settling down.  So we said goodbye, placed her in ...

Don't worry, I haven't had a fall.  This is how we remember to alter our clocks when daylight saving comes to an end.  It’s “Spring Forward” at the start, and “Fall Back” at the completion.  This important job belongs to Robin, he is the clock fixer-upper in our home.  I must say that I'm always most impressed that the computers and cell phones can do this task all by themselves!

We've had a busy week.  Robin had his procedure on Saturday morning so we had a drive up to Palmerston North Hospital.  I was well ...

Last weekend was spent with fellow caravan club members at a Park over Property (Pop) on a farm just north of Feilding.  This is where owners make their properties available to NZMCA members for a small fee, offering somewhere safe to park up, quite often a grassed or shingle area.  The owners of these properties are also members of NZMCA (NZ Motor Caravan Association). 

Early arrivals

There is a toilet available for the use of the campers, and the farmer obviously has a sense of humour.  The attached sign reads “Last Dunny for 240kms”.

This way to the loo

Staying ...

The last stop on our South Island Trip was Koromiko – where we started our trip back in mid December, all those weeks ago.  This is a beautiful place, surrounded by totara trees, and the cicadas were having a fine old time, making plenty of noise in the trees while looking for mates.  We were to stay here for two nights while we waited to board the Inter Island Ferry on Thursday.

Staying at Koromiko

It’s no secret that both ferry companies have been having maintenance problems.  We received a text telling us our trip the following day had been ...

We are heading back up the east coast of the South Island, making our slow way back to the Ferry Terminal.  Staying at Christchurch for a couple of days gave us the opportunity to catch up with son Michael again.  And I had so enjoyed our previous visit to Sign of the Kiwi Café on the Port Hills last time we were here, that we collected him from his home and went there for lunch.  It certainly was a long and winding drive up the road.  There were plenty of people there already there enjoying their lunches in the fresh ...

There is plenty to see on our South Island trip, and we are slowly moving on.  The scenery down here in the South Island can only be described as majestic, with the Southern Alps thrusting up like a backbone, down the length of this island.  So what have we been doing?  We spent a couple of  days in Fairlie, home to the famous Fairlie pies.  Yes I know, our holiday does seem to focus a lot on food.  But that’s half the fun of being on holiday, isn’t it.

We knew the pies were popular but I couldn ...

Where have we been since we last chatted?  Moving on from Christchurch we traveled south to Ashburton, a nice straight drive down SH1, and we drove over the longest bridge in New Zealand at 1.7km over the Rakaia River, another braided river.  What is a braided river, you may be wondering? A braided river consists of a network of multiple shallow channels that diverge and rejoin around  braid bars.  This gives the river a resemblance to the interweaved strands of a braid.  This part of New Zealand, Canterbury,  contains 60% of the braided  river habitat in New Zealand.

Driving ...

Any Homer Simpson fans out there?  We stayed the night at Springfield, a small town in Canterbury, at the foot of the Southern Alps.  Believe it or not, Springfield is famous for a large pink donut, but where did it come from?    The  movie studio 20th Century Fox presented a giant pink donut to the town in 2007  to promote the premiere of The Simpsons Movie.  We are not really Simpson fans, but even we know that Homer Simpson loves donuts.

That’s a very big donut

Just 10km down the road was Sheffield, home of the world famous in ...

There is an awful lot to see down here in the South Island, as we are traveling around.   We spent several days in Blackball, an old mining town.  The most famous building here is undoubtedly the pub which has an interesting story about it’s name,  called “Formerly the Blackball Hilton”.  Built in 1910 it was named The Dominion.  In the 1970s the owners changed the name to The Blackball Hilton, as the main street is called Hilton after one of the early mine managers.  However, a threat of legal action from the overseas Hilton Hotel chain caused the name ...

There’s no doubt about it, as we drove past this cute little shop on the way to Greymouth, towing the caravan behind us, I remarked that we would have to return to this shop the next day.  Bright and colourful on the outside, I was sure it would be just as nice inside.

Pink Possum Quilt Shop

I was after some backing fabric for my second piece of traced out stitchery.  Yes, Sue had some of that and cut me a piece, then I had a look around the shop to see what else took my fancy.   There were ...

We have moved on to the tiny settlement of Barrytown and I had an hour or so sitting under the shady awning doing a little stitching. We are camped up on a hill and have a wonderful sea view.

Not only did I finish this tiny little dove from Noah's Ark stitchery, but worked a little longer to start the next design – two kangaroos waiting to hop onboard the ark.

Just a small finish

Sitting outside in the balmy evening with our camping neighbours, we were chatting away and waiting for the sun to go down into the horizon ...

Now that Christmas Day has been and gone, Merry Christmas everyone, I can now show some hand made Christmas gifts which I made for family members.  Firstly, a set of cushions I made or my horse mad grand-daughter Emma.  These were made from a set of panels donated to me.  I machine quilted around the outline of the horses, and around the circle, to make them stand out a little.  Emma’s life revolves around her horses, so I thought they would be right for her.

Emma’s horse cushions

Younger grand-daughter Megan is the proud owner of Gracie, her ...

We have moved on to Kaye and Jan’s home for Christmas, Robin’s young sister and hubby.  They have bought a delightful small holding on rural Richmond a couple of years ago, so this was our first time visiting.   The home is surrounded with lovely gardens, and plenty of fruit trees.  They are fattening up a couple of beef cattle, and Kaye is the proud owner of five hens, two different breeds, white and brown.  The birds have a cozy custom made hen house, and provide daily eggs.

Two brown chooks

Gemma has been having a fine old time ...

I've spent a little time on my first Noah’s Ark Stitchery, and finished one.  It’s only small, but after all, every little bit helps.  I had to go shopping the other day to buy some black Perle no.5 thread as I had run out.

Two rabbits, done

So where have we been on our South Island trip these last few days?  St Arnaud was on my wish list for this trip.  I remember travelling through this tiny alpine village back in 2018 and remarking that I would like to stay here for a night or two ...

Black thread  - that’s what I needed for my traveling stitchery project.  Luckily we found out where the LQS was and I made a quick visit.  I was after Perle No 5 in black, and luckily they had some.  Then while browsing around,  found some nice stripy fabric which could work well as the borders on my Noah's Ark stitchery.  Or not, perhaps I should have waited till this project was completed to see if it would go well with the stitchery blocks.  Never mind, I’ve bought it now.

My purchases

I’m not expecting to make our ...

While packing for our South Island caravan holiday I had to make sure I had plenty of hand work to do.  First, some knitting.  I quite enjoy knitting on car journeys, so I cast on a double knit cardigan/jacket for myself.    I bought the big cone of pure New Zealand navy  8ply, double knit wool at a good price so I’m very pleased with that.  The design is reasonably plain so should be fine for car knitting.

A cardigan for me

And just in case I feel like a change, I gathered up some part balls of yarn ...

This weekend we enjoyed our last caravan club rally of the year, which was held at Rangiotu School, now decommissioned and gifted back to the local community.  A soon as we had arrived, Gemma ran from the car to the caravan, plopped herself on the bed, and was totally relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.

She’s happy to be a caravan cat

After lunch we had to make a mercy dash into Palmerston North as one of the arms had snapped off my reading glasses – a bit of a disaster as we were travelling down to the South ...

This was a big weekend for us, it was Robin’s first time towing the caravan since his knee replacement.  We weren't going too far for the weekend, about 60km or so each .  He managed very well, of course, as well as driving, there was the hooking up to do, the legs to wind down, a bit difficult with his knee not bending very well.  He was on his feet quite a bit for this first trip away and was quite sore and achy when we returned home.  The Red Barn was a “new to us” venue, camping available ...