Thoughts and Stitches from my Studio

Hello neglected blog readers! 

I have some big news that some of you may not have heard, the family and I are moving to the South Island. I wrote an email newsletter and in it I tell a bit more about what's happening.

If you'd like to read it, click here.

The reason this poor blog has been neglected for so long is many fold. One of them is that I intend to (finally! Talk about procrastination!) get my own website up and running, and then I'll have a blog on there. So anything I write here, I keep thinking I should save it and write there, it's just that there hasn't happened quite yet. So in the meantime, I'll be writing a monthly email newsletter with thoughts and stitches (rambling words and a few pretty pictures of my work) from my studio. I'd love you to join me in the conversation, you can sign up to receive my email newsletter by clicking here. 

The next big thing on my calendar is presenting at the SAQA virtual conference in about 10 days time.

I'm part of a panel presentation and discussion called 'Art from Oceania'. So if you are a SAQA member, and have signed up for the conference, I'd love to see you there!

And then the NEXT big thing for me is the Great New Zealand Quilt Show, being organised by Aotearoa Quilters. I'm on the committee so have been working away to help bring you this in-person, in-real-life, fingers-crossed-covid-stays-away, three day quilt show. If you are in NZ, you should try and get along, it'll be awesome!

 So that's it for me today. I better get back to packing up my studio. Happy stitching!

PS - Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter!

Goodbye Cerego!

You may have noticed that I've changed my blog header.  And my Instagram bio.  I wouldn't be telling the truth anymore if I'd kept it the way it was.  You see, we've moved off the boat, but not only that, we SOLD her!

My old blog header (in case you couldn't remember!)

Many people didn't see it coming.  To be truthful, I didn't see it coming either.  But when my husband and I decide to do something, we do it.  We discussed selling the boat, it made sense, so we listed it that evening.  And several weeks later, she no longer belongs to us.

Cerego is a big boat, and she is an old boat, and she is a wooden boat.  All things that add up to a fair amount of ongoing work and maintenance that we realised we were not going to keep up with if we weren't living on her.  Plus we really didn't need such a big boat if we were only going to go out on her for weekends and holidays.

We're really happy for the new owner.  He's just the right guy to take over the love and care of her.  And yes, we are a little sad for ourselves.  We won't be able to watch her steam up and down the harbour without some nostalgic feelings.

However...

We then decided we really needed a house instead of an apartment.  Somewhere with a garage for the man, a studio for me, room to park our 4WD 'The Hippo' and the runabout trailer-boat, not to mention our two cars.  Oh, and room for the children of course!  And the dog!  The apartment is great, I love it here, but I had to acknowledge that if we were going to live on shore, then we really should have the full range of conviniences available to us.

So, as I said earlier, once we decide to do something, we do it.  We looked around for a few days, found the house we wanted and within another few days we had a conditional agreement all signed up.

Unfortunately, this means I'll be moving house.  Again.  Setting up my studio.  Again.  Going slightly mad with the stress of it all.  Again.

Happy memories from our time on Cerego.

On a cheerier note, I'm really enjoying reading everyone's name suggestions for my latest heron quilt.  Some are funny, some are beautiful and Daisy's is particularly moving.  Thank you and keep them coming.  You have a few more days before I draw a winner from everyone who participated!

Getting There

I finally feel like I'm getting on top of moving house.  We were pretty spread out - things on the boat, things at my studio, a few things at my mother in law's house.  And to try and get all those things into one apartment took a lot of sorting, throwing out, donating and consolidating.

Slowly but surely things are coming together.  And they seem to happen one corner at a time.  Which is why I'm showing you my kitchen nook and not my studio.  Because although I'm starting to sew again (yay! it feels great) the studio corner not quite photoshoot ready, but the kitchen nook is close enough done.  Last night, hubby and I made and installed the shelf from some old rimu timber we found in the attic (don't worry, landlord was cool with it).  It's doing those little things that are making it into a place we can call home.

It's a rainy day outside.  Ex-cyclone Hola is making her appearance.

The building we are living in is a Heritage Listed building (you can check out a 1915 photograph of her here.)  Which is pretty neat and also means that it has slight oddities.  Like the funny shaped 'window' above my kettle.  The toaster and tea tins sit into a recessed cupboard and then there is a weird little triangle shaped hole above it.  The hole looks into the storage cupboard that we fondly call the man cave, because it's housing the man's tools etc.  But what is the window for?  It has no glass, it's just a hole.

In the photo above, you can see it at the far side when you're looking into the man cave.  Apologies for the 'in the raw' photo, but it's a storage cupboard, it's never going to look pretty!  The triangle shape is because of the roof.  We are living on the top floor and so have sloped ceilings at either side of the house.  These little oddities are making this move fun.  And I guess, in a way, making the transition from living in the boat, with all her weird and wonderful corners, to living in a conventional house again, a little easier.

If anyone is interested in the little town where I live, you can visit this website here.  It's put together by Julie, a local photographer, who can often be seen wandering the streets with her camera.  She has included local history as well as current images.  There are some great up to date photographs of the building I live in too.  

My New Kettle (and Studio)

Following on from my last post, when I heard the news that I no longer had a studio, I wallowed for a little while, then I put the problem out to the universe.  I asked friends and family for ideas and help, and the discussions that followed pushed me to think about what I really would like in a studio if I could have anything I wanted.

The list was long!  It included: water, power, space, light, storage and all the other things artists usually want.  But it also included security of tenure.  I wanted to be somewhere that I wasn't at the whim of other people's decisions.

I had some amazing offers and I want to thank those people, it was humbling to know people wanted me in their spaces, but my husband and I came up with an alternative solution that really ticks our boxes.

A nice sunny spot that's all mine! The curtains are up because the carpets were being cleaned.

We own a rental property a couple of minutes drive from our boat and it has a small flat downstairs.  The woman who had been renting it bought a house so she was moving out.  Then we sold our old house where we lived before we moved onto the boat (yay!).  We stored our furniture in a shed there when we moved aboard - now we would have to rent a storage unit for it.  And our rental property needs some serious maintenance work to the gardens.

So the plan came together like this:  We would take the bottom flat for ourselves, using our stored belongings to furnish it.  It would be my studio, our storage facility, our landside base if we ever wanted to get off the boat (storms, pulling the boat out of the water for anti-fouling etc) and we could also put wwoofers or Helpxer's in to help with the gardens and work on the boat - it always needs sanding and painting in one spot or another!  The best thing about the place is that we own it, nobody can kick me out and I can make as much creative chaos as I like!

There's a little bedroom, bathroom and laundry down the hall.

I'm getting excited about it now.  I wasn't, purely because I've spent several weekends shifting out of the studio and our furniture out of the shed, and the last thing I wanted to do was to shift it all back in again!  But I've taken a week off while I wait to get the carpets professionally cleaned and now I'm rearing to go again.

And I bought a new jug....

The End of a Chapter (we're selling our house)

I started this blog waaaaay back in 2009 and my very second post was about moving out onto our piece of land.  We had purchased a 10 acre (4.4) hectare block with dreams about building a house on it, having a garden, orchard, animals - an enviable lifestyle.

We had built a shed for a tractor and other farm equipment, and eventually we decided to wall the shed in and live in it before we built our house.

Well, we never did build our house.  We liked the shed house so much we made it bigger and better and then built another shed right next to it, then a verandah, then a deck and then another deck.  Oh and we added a studio and fancy laundry (with the best stainless steel bench for painting and dyeing ever!!).

We raised calves, we had chickens.

I bred rabbits and ducks.

There were some sheep for a while and consequently, really cute lambs.  The vege garden went through stages of awesomeness and neglectedness.  We planted about a billion trees.  The kids grew.

And then we decided to move onto a boat!  A bit of a radical lifestyle change but right for us at the time.

Well, we've now lived aboard for almost two years.  Originally I said I'd give it a year to see if I liked it.  I do, and so we are staying put.  Now that we've decided that, we've also decided to sell our piece of land.  We want to close that chapter, free ourselves up a bit financially, and consolidate our lives here on the boat.

There are so many things I'll miss.  The beautiful views, the woodburner, my studio and laundry bench, free-range eggs.  But there are things that I won't miss - the long drive to get the kids to school, battling the weeds, mud in winter, escapee animals.

It feels like the right thing to do.

So, um, if anyone wants to buy a lifestyle block in central Bay of Islands, New Zealand, drop me an email, I can hook you up!

The boat tour. Welcome aboard!

Warning - this is a picture heavy post. 

 Lots of people are pestering me for more pictures of our new home.  And I am nothing if not obliging!  The picture above is Cerego berthed at the boatyard dock.  That's my husband beside her, so you can get an idea of scale.  She is a wooden boat, built in 1943 for the Australian Navy and was meant to be used as a mine sweeper.  She is 20.1 metres long, which is about 66 feet.  The rust is not from her structural bolts - don't worry!

When you climb up the left (port) side you are on this long narrow walkway.  And then you walk around the back (aft - I'm going to be all nautical jargon soon!) and then...

you hit the back deck.  Nothing very exciting here, except a ladder and a hatch.  Ladder leads to top deck, I'll take you up there soon, hatch leads....

down to a storage type locker.  Large, dark and dingy.  It has water storage barrels and other junk in it at present.

When you walk in through the back door, you see the main cabin, which is in the picture above and below.  Above, in the corner with the rubbish bag, is probably where my sewing table will be set up.  You can see the doorway that leads forward to the galley and wheelhouse.

The picture bove is the other end of the same room.  The glass door leads in from the back deck.  The white door is the side door and there is a matching one on the other side.  There is also a matching couch on the other side.  The hatch in the floor is how you get below to.....

the yucky and really rough cabin that will be bunk rooms and play room for the kids.  At the front of this cabin is the door leading to the engine room, you can see that below. 

The areas below decks are where the work really needs to be done.  Panelling and painting and walls and bunks and portholes and light prisms.

So come back up out of the kid's room into the main cabin and walk forward to the galley.  This is the nice part of the boat.  There is a microwave, electric oven, gas hob, decent sized fridge-freezer and, best of all, a good-sized pantry.  The photo below is looking back toward the main cabin.

Carrying on forward toward the wheelhouse, you pass a little narrow (and steep) staircase.

If you head down this staircase (almost a ladder really) you get to the forward cabin.  Another area that needs major work.

This icky looking bunk will go and be rebuilt in a more efficient way.  Lots of painting etc again.

If you turn around, the photo above shows what the back of the cabin looks like - usually without the silly lad making faces!

Above is the wheelhouse.  It all looks 'proper' up here, like what you expect a boat to look like.

What a about a bathroom?  No, we don't have to hose off with saltwater!  Down the other side of the boat (starboard) is a little cupboard cabin.  Internally this sits between the galley and the main cabin.

And inside this little cabin is an almost full sized shower and toilet.  Yay!  If you've ever used a standard boat toilet, you'll know why this is big deal.

Back out onto the back deck, now head up that ladder.

And you reach the top deck.  The photo above is looking back toward the ladder.  This will eventually have a handrail around the sides, and Hubby has plans to put the spa pool up here.....yes, I said spa pool!  We have a little plug in portable one that he thinks we need.  I'm not so sure.

Right at the front of the top deck, you look over and down and you get a grand view of the anchor chains and winch.  You're standing on top of the wheelhouse.

So, I hope you enjoyed the tour.  I'll write more soon about why we are embarking on this adventure.

Where will I put the pets?

Today, if all goes well, and I see no reason it shouldn't, we become the owners of a boat.  A pretty big boat, but not as big as my house.  And that is significant, because the plan is that we move onto this boat and live on it for a while.

WHAT?!  When did this all happen?!  Well, I'm going to write more about this, but one of our first considerations was where do we put the pets?

Part of what decided us to buy the boat was the availability of a cheap berth in a convenient location.  We have two dogs.  Sam is very old and sits on her mat all day, but Emma is younger, dopey and super enthusiastic.  We won't be moored out in the water, so we will be able to step off the side and walk the dogs easily, and Emma will probably go to work with my husband every day.  His work will be a very short bike ride down the road.

So it may take some adjustment, but I think we will manage with the dogs.  We do have options of placing them with friends, but that wouldn't be our first choice.

I think the the cat will transition easily, it will just mean a litterbox.  And hopefully he'll keep the seagulls off the roof!

The chickens, ducks, sheep and cows will either have to find new homes (some of them were planned for the freezer shortly anyway) or we will 'gift' them to our tenants.  That's another thing we have to do, find tenants for our lifestyle block.  Oh man, the list of to-dos is huge!

I will try and post pictures of my new abode soon.

Tweet

I'm not very well, and haven't been for a few days now.  The eyes have almost healed, still have a lump on my forehead - that's almost gone too, but what's bothering me is a nasty cold.  The kids and Hubby had it a week or two ago and I thought I escaped...ha!

So I'm hanging out at home and working on a couple of quilts that have deadlines.  The blue log cabin, and hopefully I'll be able to show you the completed top very soon and this bird one.  I'm showing just a couple of sneak peeks as it's kind of a commission and I don't want to spoil the surprise by too many WIP (work in progress) shots.

Hubby is slowly working on me with the house.  It's a complete dump and needs so much work, but in reality that's the best way to buy a house - it's much cheaper to put in your own elbow grease!  He's also talking me round by designing a second floor studio...oh the water views I'd have...yup, he's a pretty good sweet talker.  I'll keep you posted, but right now I think it's time for another lemon honey drink.

Fabric dyeing a colour transition and big news

These are what I've been doing in my spare time recently - my play time!  I've been wanting to try this for a while and even just doing two has taught me lots.

These were all fat quarterish sized squares of plain white fabric.  I soaked them in a soda ash solution then wrung them out and crammed them into small plastic pottles and poured just enough dye over them to be able to squeeze it through.  It's called low-water immersion dyeing and gives quite a mottled effect.

I thought I'd show you a page from my dye workbook.  It's where I keep notes of all my techniques and recipes and samples so if I want to replicate something again, I have a record of how I went about it.  I think it's really pretty looking!  However the purple and green remind me a little of my eyes....

Oh yes, the bump got better but the eyes got worse.  Kinda scary looking!  (No laughing, Cat!)  I had to go to work today and lots of explaining had to be done!  I told one friend my botox went wrong ;)

Now, on to my impending changes that I hinted at.  Two major happenings - I am applying to study Art next year.  I'm comparing a couple of different courses that I'm interested in, but I'm definitely applying and I'm really excited!

The other thing is that we are trying to buy a new house.  Except that it doesn't really qualify as a house, I reckon it's a dump.  Hubby is desperately trying to make me see it's good points.  That's part of the driveway in the pic above.  There is no way you could get down it without a four-wheel drive and I wouldn't be brave enough to drive it even then.  The pic is of the good part, the other parts I was holding on too tight!  The couple of good things about it is that it's closer to town and it's water-front with a jetty.  Can you tell I'm not as enthused about it as Hubby?  I guess I can see the potential, it's not every day that waterfront property comes along in such bad nick that we could afford it.  But the amount of work to whip it into shape is daunting!  Wish me luck!

Wahoo!! I'm back!

Well, this morning a lovely man came and turned my phone on. Now I'm back on broadband and have a new phone number to memorise. And they only charged me $500 for the priviledge (*gulp*). Yes, $500 is what it will cost you for a new rural phone connection. But let's not dwell on that. I'm just so happy to be back on-line.

We are in our new house. Yay! And I had some beautiful photos to post except I can't find my camera USB cable - it'll still be back at my old place which we are STILL clearing out little by little. I have no idea how people a) organise a complete, all in one day, empty-and-clean house move and b) stay calm and sane and pleasant while they do it!

The chickens are all moved and it only took us two goes to catch them all. Ten hens and one rooster who have now been in their enclosure for six nights. Only two eggs today, which is an improvement on one for the last few days. I think I might have to have a loud conversation about heads and axes outside their cage!

The puppy has been getting more daily excercise than she ever has before as she bounds along enthusiastically after the kids.

And the kids. Well, their first night they were very excited and we were prepared for a wakeful one but, to our surprise, they slept like they always do and every night since has been a settled one. It must be all the fresh air.

Hubby and I are tired and busy but very happy to finally be here. My first morning at about quarter to 7, I went for a stroll to the longdrop outside. Such stillness and peace. It was chilly and misty, the totara trees just shadows looming in the distance. I could hear the stream at the bottom of our property and a rooster far off in the distance. The cobwebs in the grass were outlined in dew and it was such a fantastic feeling to be here. I was filled with greatfulness to have the chance to live in a place like New Zealand and, even better, a place like right here.

Painting - and not the creative type!

Well, not the artistic type anyway. You can be very creative with colours and I thought I was going to have to. We planned to paint the interior of our shed-soon-to-be-house with all the leftover bits and pieces of paint that have been collected in the shed over the years. There was a deep pink, a mushroom grey, an awful apricot.....the list went on. Thankfully alot of those paints were so old they were unusable! Darn!! (not really).

So we ended up with painting our bedroom, the hall and Miss-almost-two's bedroom an off white with apricot tones. Mister-four got an off white with grey tones and we bought one litre of very RED paint. He got his red wall that he wanted! We then mixed some of the leftover red into some almost white and got a baby pink for one wall of Miss-almost-two. I've always hated the whole pink thing for girls, but unfortunately she likes pink - it was the first colour she learnt how to say and I DEFINITELY didn't teach it to her!

Then we had to buy paint for the lounge/living/kitchen area. The kitchen already has strong colours of a sort of denim blue and a buttery yellow so I chose something called 1/4 Spanish White. Another off white (gotta love those versatile off whites!) with yellow tones so it doesn't clash with the kitchen. You can see the kitchen colours in the roller and paint try photo up there actually.

Here's my darling son (terrible photo I know) painting our bedroom. Get them working young I say!


So we were planning to move in this weekend coming, but the weather forecast says otherwise. Pouring rain is not the best for moving furniture in and in fact I'm a little thankful. There was a certain stress level rising at the thought of all I had still to do. Now the pressure is off a little.

Oh - and the dog? Blood test this morning. Then we'll know if we have to do the Vit K thing. She looks perky as, but still could be slowly internally bleeding - horrible thought. Fingers crossed everyone. xx

The Building Continues

Saturday again and so off I went, camera in hand, for the weekly pilgrimage out to the land to see how close we are getting. Dear Husband spent all day with a friend clearing out the shed bay that hasn't been walled in so our (slightly primative) bathroom can go in there.

From the outside it doesn't look much different. The capping has gone on along the roof line and the edging around the windows (I have NO idea of the official building terms for those). But inside......big changes! The electrician has been and done the initial wiring and all the insulation is in, now waiting for the internal cladding. I think my progress shots are now all going to be taken inside.

Dear Son has decided that he would like his walls painted red. He also wants red curtains. And half blue and half red drawers. I'm beginning to think his favourite colour is red!

And while he is busy planning his bedroom, I'm busy dreaming of my vege garden. I get a weekly newsletter from Lynda Hallinan, the editor of New Zealand Gardener magazine. She set herself a challenge to be self-sufficient out of her garden for a year and only spend $10 a week on groceries. Very inspiring, and very useful for people like me, who have only gardened on a small and casual way!

And this has to be one of my other fav gardening sites, Koanga Gardens, Center for Sustainable Living. Kay Baxter, who used to be one of the mainstays at Koanga, has written two amazing books which I wouldn't be without: "The Koanga Garden Guide" and "Design Your Own Orchard", both are available from the Koanga site. They are both amongst the gardening books that I am immersing myself in at the moment, planning and dreaming with growing anticipation for when we move.