What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 I awoke to rain, rain and more rain today.  It's the middle of summer so why so much rain?  But as everyone says, it's got to be good for the farmers, and the home gardeners too.  It was raining so hard that the rain drops were running down the window, and Gemma was fascinated with the movement.  Perhaps she can catch one of these things, whatever they are.  But try as she might, those little critters, as she thought, just kept rolling down the window, oblivious to her paw batting away, trying to catch them.  

She can't ...

 Blue is the colour chosen for January for those of us taking part in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC).  As I've got a multitude of UFOs from taking part in previous years RSC I was in two minds whether to start any new blocks this year or not.  But we all know how that turned out, I just couldn't help myself.  I had seen a scrappy quilt top on Lou's blog, and thought, why not.  Just a simple square, bordered on two sides, so it makes a zig zag line when the blocks are stitched together.  Thanks ...

 My children don't live on my doorstep, so it is always so nice to see them when I can.  Son Michael lives in Christchurch, in the South Island, and was up in Wellington recently to stay with his Dad.  We arranged to meet for lunch, I drove down to Otaki, and he drove up from Wellington.  Just as well I got there early, as there was no parking close by, it was a matter of driving around till I found a park in an adjacent street and walk back.  

While I was waiting, several groups of older cyclists arrived ...

Kaleidoscope, such  a lovely name for a group of butterflies, although I quite like the alternative name Flutter as well.  I've just put a top together featuring butterfly blocks.  This completion ticks two boxes this month, first for the Chookshed Challenge, as butterflies was on my list for number seven.  Plus, I made the blocks as part of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, way back in 2022.

I know I've mentioned my former neighbour Dorothy many times.  I received a whole lot of her fabrics when she moved away, including a great pile of her beloved butterfly fabrics.  I ...

Our weather has turned wintry again, with snow on the ranges.  That didn't last long, when the rain arrived, and some wind.  It is still winter after all, it's just that we have been spoiled with calm, mild, sunny days for ages. Luckily, there is a heat pump installed, so there is clean, efficient heating here in my little home.  And it has been perfect soup making weather too.  My latest batch was pumpkin and kumara, so nice and tasty, with added pieces of fried onion and bacon, after it was whizzed smooth.  This was made in the ...

I've just come back from an overnight stay in the capitol city, Wellington.   As I was away a little less than 24 hours, Gemma stayed home alone.  She was left with dry food, wet food, fresh water, and a nice clean litter box.  As she tends to snooze most of the day, I was sure she would be fine.  Although maybe her pussy cat brain would wonder where I was at bedtime?  My blue overnight case was packed, and I was ready to go.

 It's been a bit of a rush, but I'm pleased to say that I've finished my Chookshed Challenge this month.  Number 10 was chosen for July, which was my jungle panel quilt.  This panel was donated to me from my elderly neighbour's stash when she went into a rest home.  I received a lot of children's fabrics, and I'm slowly working my way through them, although there are plenty more tucked away.  There was no piecing involved with using this panel, so it was just a matter of smoothing the layers out and pinning ...

 It was time to stitch up my purple block for Rainbow Scrap Challenge for my boy's donation quilt - that was easily done.  I laid them out on the bed and had a count and discovered I only needed one more block.  So I made an executive decision and made the final block, this time in teal.  Surely the colour teal will be selected in the next month or two, I reasoned.

With these two last blocks done, I decided I may as well  assemble the quilt top.  I don't have room for  a design ...

 Each month for my Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) I've been stitching up oven mitts in a bid to finally  use up my decreasing selvedge collection. The RSC colour this month is red, and I had a small group of red and mostly burgundy selvedge strips to work with.  There were just enough of these to make the two outside pockets on my double handed oven mitt.  There is quite a bit of stitching in these, but at last I was up to stitching the binding down.  I started this job last night, and finished it outside under the Archgola ...

I've been working hard to get a birthday quilt finished.  It all started with a bag of shirts I received from my niece Lisa when my brother-in-law Dennis passed away.  Dennis was  my late sister Kathleen's husband, and I started to make a quilt for their grandson Adam, in memory of his Poppa.  Just a simple four patch, I decided, with red and black frames.  Then my beloved Robin passed away late last year, and this got put on the back burner.

 We were away for the weekend at a caravan club rally, and there was a trip organised  to visit the Christmas Barn.  Of course I wanted to go, how exciting.  We shared cars and 8 of us drove down to see all the lovely goodies.  Lots of other people had the same idea, parking was at a premium, and the barn was packed with lots of customers.

So many lovely Christmas objects inside, all beautifully displayed.  Elegant Christmas trees everywhere, all colour co-ordinated, shelves full of goodies, and the barn was full to overflowing with customers.  There was really so ...

 I have finally finished this pair of socks for me.  This 4ply sock wool is branded Happy Feet, no colour named, just a number, and I received it as a birthday gift last year from Sew Wot friend Mary.    As most of you know, I knit my socks flat, two at a time, and packed the finished socks in my knitting bag on our recent caravan trip planning to get side seam stitched up.  That never happened, and I finally completed this task once we returned back home.  It's about time I finished them.

Although it is now Spring ...

I'm obviously much to busy to do too much knitting while we are on our road trip.  The only thing I've worked on is my pair of pink socks, mostly knitted while traveling in the car.  This pretty yarn was a gift from my daughter Nicky last Christmas, so I'd like to get them finished soon.  They are coming along, I think I'm just about up to the heels by now.   In case you don't know, I knit my socks flat, two at a time.

My pink socks

Not only have I packed my pink ...

 Last weekend we were getting ready to leave for a caravan rally.  Gemma decided to make life difficult for us, with all the hustle and bustle of packing the caravan going on.  "Why not give my people a hard time and hide for a while", she thought.  We were all ready to go and searched here, searched there, to no avail, then searched again.  Robin finally found her curled up and keeping low in a place I had already checked twice!  I don't know why she acts like this, after all she goes away in the caravan once a ...

 This is another long winded RSC finish, which started off as another completely different project, way back when we lived in Upper Hutt.  I found my big bag of batiks, and decided to make Cobblestone blocks instead, and there it floundered again.  Eventually added it to the RSC list and started making Cobblestone blocks in the colour of the month, working away until I had stitched sufficient blocks to give me the required number for a large quilt.

 This blog is brought to you with help from Gemma.  She is excellent at holding the lap top bag in place while I'm tapping away.  And it makes such a good place to have a comfy snooze.

Gemma is a big help

Our four days in Christchurch seeing my son Michael had come to an end, so then it was time to hitch the caravan up to the car and travel slowly back up to Picton to catch the ferry again.  We had nearly a week to do this, so we planned several stops along the way.

One lunch ...

 Our last night in the South Island was quite a worry.  A storm came rolling in as the day wore on, and was fully fledged by night time.  We could swear that the thunder was right over head, and each noisy clap spooked Gemma.  She ran around the van looking for a hiding place, hunkering down on the carpet at the foot of the bed, with the overhanging duvet giving her the illusion of cover.  Lightening cracked around us, torrential rain came down, and the caravan was buffeted all night by strong wind gusts.  Dear oh dear, what would our ...

 We traveled down to Christchurch to spend some  time with my son Michael to celebrate his 60th birthday.  He had a busy week as he had flown up to Wellington to spend a couple of days with his Dad, then flew back down again in time for our arrival in Christchurch.  I had booked a table for dinner on Friday night at the Platform Brew Barn, a riverside establishment in Kaiapoi, quite close to where we are staying at the NZMCA park.