What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 A little stitching, knitting, and shopping, that's what I've been up to lately.  I always seem to have a pair of socks on the go, and these are my current triple knit (12 ply) pair.  Made with white/cream home spun wool, a gift from my friend Merilyn, with added speckled yarn, they are coming along nicely.  Once past the heels, I'm now on the homeward stretch.

 Last weekend we had a caravan trip away to Whanganui, stopping overnight on the way at Duddings Lake.  What a pretty, peaceful place this was.  We decided to camp off power so left the crowded motor camp behind and parked up around the lake on a large grassy area.  There were several caravans and campervans parked here, but plenty of room  between is all.

Our lakeside camping spot

The lake must be very healthy as we noticed plenty of bird life, and the frogs serenaded us in the evening.  How often do we hear frogs, we commented.  Their calls are ...

My knitting and stitching bags have come  away with me on our caravan trip.  I like to do easy knitting on car trips and I’m working on my blue socks.  Once past those tricky heels, the foot portion is all straight knitting till I reach the toes so doesn't need too much concentration.

Sock knitting in the car

Summer holidays means sitting outside under the shady awning working on my stitchery.  I’ve spent several pleasant hours working on one of my Christmas Kiwi blocks, and have now completed the kiwi and the BBQ.  That’s two finished ...

Just in time for Christmas, I've received my new hand crafted quilt ladder.  Robin had found a plan to make one of these on the internet, and asked his Menz Shed builder friend for advice.  While he was in hospital getting his second knee replacement, and the subsequent eight weeks recovery time, Brian the builder took the job over for him.  He measured the timber, cut and assembled the ladder for Robin - how kind of him.  Once Robin could comfortably stand on his knee again, he took over the sanding and the wood staining.  And then brought it home ...

It’s a good day to spend inside today, it’s been raining all day.  Mother Nature is a bit tardy as the season has changed over to Summer, so where’s the sunshine?.  My slow Sunday stitching is coming along well, and I have now finished my first block of four of a cheeky Kiwi enjoying his Christmas Summer holidays.   Kiwi is camping in his Kombi van, cooking over the camp fire.  Yes, we celebrate Christmas in the Summer season here in New Zealand.

Kiwi cooking his dinner

I’m also stitching up a pair of birthday socks.  These ...

It’s another step forward with Noah's Ark – it is now pinned up and awaiting its turn to be quilted.  I went to a sewing day on Saturday and used one of the handy tables for this job. It sure beats crawling on my hands and knees on the floor at home.    Jude shared some of her batting off cuts with me, so one long piece was cut in half and Frankinbatted with my sewing machine.  And low and behold, just the right size.  The navy gingham for the backing was donated from my neighbour Dorothy’s stash when ...

I’m pleased that my Noah’s Ark stitchery blocks are now a top.  They were such fun to stitch, and this project traveled with us during our two months caravan trip around the South Island.  Stitching at lovely campsites after a day of sightseeing over the summer months, it was a very enjoyable project to work on indeed.  Not that they were completed during our holiday – but were slowly worked on when we returned home.  The designs were stitched on two large pieces of fabric, then  cut apart and bordered in different colours. 

While on our caravan trip I ...

Spring has officially arrived in my part of paradise, and along with it came Daylight Saving, so we had to put the clocks forward one hour last week.  I’m always so impressed that the computers and cell phones know how to do this themselves, so it’s only a couple of household clocks and those in the cars  which need to be altered, plus watches too of course.

The last reasonably pleasant days of Winter have given way to the tumultuous Spring weather.  It’s always so much more windy in Spring, it’s been rather wet off and ...

That’s what I've been up to with my hand work, a bit of this and that.  Remember those Noah’s Ark blocks?  Well, I’m another small step forward on this project.  So far I’ve cut the blocks apart, and have been sorting through different colours to border each small stitchery.  These blocks are tiny, although  I had already enlarged them from the original pattern.

Decisions, decisions

I need to find myself another stitchery pattern now.  Although it generally takes me a while to work on these type of things, I really do enjoy this easy stitching ...

I’ve finally completed the last block in my Noah’s Ark stitchery project, which just happens to be the Ark.   Here it is sitting high and dry on   Mount Ararat, with a bluebird perched on top getting her bearings after all that time on the water.

The last block to stitch, Noah’s Ark

Here are all  the blocks together.  I took this project down to the South Island to work on during our ten week road trip.  It was so pleasant sitting outside under the caravan awning stitching away at all sorts of different places.  Since we returned ...

I've been slow stitching on my pair of elephants  for my Noah’s Ark stitchery project.  Such magnificent animals indeed.  Now this block is completed, I only have one more block  to do, so that’s exciting.

Elephants, walking two by two

Goodness knows how I’ve come to be working on three pair of socks at the same time!  This is all secret knitting for gifts so I’ll have to keep knitting away.  Guess all this knitting cuts into my hand stitching time, but never mind, variety is the spice of life, so they say.  As a ...

Sunday mornings here always start with a cooked breakfast, which is Robin’s task.  This morning he cooked up some bacon and eggs.  Always a good start to a lazy Sunday morning when things aren't too rushed.

My stitchery block of Noah and his giraffes needed finishing, so I sat and stitched for a wee while today.  There, that’s one more block from my Noah’s Ark stitchery completed.  I had a count up and there are only two more blocks left to do.

Hello Noah

I’ve also been plodding away on my navy cardigan, I’m ...

It’s always nice to get the chance to sit and do some slow stitching.  I’ve just finished another of my Noah’s Ark blocks, and this one was tiny.  Actually, I had doubled the size of all the blocks, because I wanted to stitch mine with Perle 5 instead of stranded cotton.  So you can image just how tiny this pattern would have been in the original size.  This block contains snails, tiny bees and lady birds, and two very small butterflies.

Insects for the Ark

The other slow stitching I’ve been doing is to hand stitch ...

I’ve finally found time to work on my small Noah’s Ark stitcheries, these are designed by Lynette Anderson-O’Rourke.  I took these away on our South Island trip earlier in the year, and worked on them at various stops on our holiday.  Sadly they have been “out of sight, out of mind” for a wee while.

The first small block completed were a couple of very friendly penguins, holding hands as they walk into the Ark.  Aren't they cute!

Penguins

Next were two strange looking blue birds, clutching a silver fish in their beaks, while each were ...

My Noah’s Ark stitcheries have been on holiday down to the South Island with me, and have now returned home.  I’ve just completed the black and white Friesen cow blocks, complete with a rainbow, one of the girls is happily munching on buttercups.  Plus  another small rainbow block to go over the top of them.

Happy cows

In fact, I’ve completed six of the stitcheries so far.  I thought it would be easier for me to trace the designs on to one larger piece of fabric, and this way has worked out well for me.

Noah’s ...

These little faces have been watching me for a while and I think that was a way of reminding myself I had to get them, and their clothes, finished.

They are a knit pattern from ak traditions. I have made some other patterns from them a long time ago, but found these and thought they were sweet.

The body holds its shape really well as there is a separate fabric insert made to go inside ( like in a cushion).

And then there are clothes to knit.

There are dozens of outfits in a separate pattern book, so I can see ...

A week on from Cyclone Gabrielle's arrival in New Zealand, there are still communities cut off and towns struggling for food, water and communications.  Auckland was hit hard, the wind and rain compounding problems wrought by the floods two weeks earlier - but the brunt of Gabrielle's power was felt mostly by the eastern North Island, in particular Hawke's Bay and Gisborne.  Roading, railway lines  and bridges are damaged, houses and farmland  have been flooded, cars washed away, landslides, power and internet  is still out to many thousands of households, and the pictures on the news are full ...

Slowly but surely, my Noah’s  Ark stitcheries are coming along.  In between traveling and sightseeing I’ve enjoyed some stitching time outside in the warm weather.  Or I should say “hot”, as some of the afternoons have been very hot indeed.  Here is my latest little finish, two lions and two blue birds  waiting their turn to climb aboard the Ark.  I must say that they seem to be a pair of rather strange looking lions indeed.  But Noah chose them, so they must be OK.

Stitching outside in the afternoon

The lion block is the fourth one I ...

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 ...

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 ...