Artful Firewood

Following on from my barn quilt and building post, I thought I'd show you something else I noticed while travelling.  This was particularly in Newfoundland (by the way, the emphasis is on the 'land', as in New-fin-LAND, it took us a while to get it and we were gently corrected a few times!)

Newfoundlanders need a good source of heat. It gets cold, like really cold! It was Springtime when we were there, and there were icebergs....need I say more?  Lots of houses use central heating with diesel, but lots also have a fireplace, or even a central heating furnace that uses wood.

And the further North we went, the more we saw of these.

Beautifully stacked firewood. If you live rurally, you can get a permit to go and cut your own firewood, and plenty of people do. Then they take the time to stack it in the most eye-catching piles.  I think it helps that the trees seem to grown straight and with not many branches (spruce?) and so they can cut them into these lovely rounds.

Which are particularly artful when you combine this year's fresh cut with pieces that are older and weathered.

And if you don't have time right then to chop them into fireplace sized chunks, you can store them in trunk stacks.

Or perhaps a tee-pee shaped stack is more your thing? I'm presuming this helps with rain run off?

Some people had sheds, but most just stacked it up in rows in their yard. You jam a pole in the ground at one end, stack a line of wood, almost like a fence and them jam a pole in the other end to stop them rolling away. Efficient and lovely to look at.

We saw them everywhere. On the beach even. That's Labrador in the distance. We were up on the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland on the west coast and the Gulf of St Lawrence is only 18 kms wide at the narrowest point. The sea seems pretty calm compared to the wild east coast.

And out in the forest. I think this is a commercial cutter's stack. Still pretty!

Here's the messiest pile we found. And right behind it was a perfectly stacked line of wood, so I'm presuming this guy just went home for a cuppa inbetween stacks. No letting the team down here!

This wasn't actually firewood, I found it by a shed at the hunting lodge we stayed at, right next to a lake. I think it was old poles that had been a jetty. Still stacked nicely!

Our hunky, gnarly manuka and macrocarpa that we use in New Zealand just doesn't lend itself to this artful stacking. But we can aspire, right? 

Do you take care with your firewood, or is it all just jumbled in a pile under a tarp, or piled into a bin?

Adding to the Fabric Stash

I'm not a big one for buying fabric.  I used to be and, probably like all beginner quilters, I was pretty indiscriminate, buying anything and everything, especially if it was on sale.

Now I make a lot of the fabric I use in my art - usually hand-dyeing and sometimes painting.  And I've culled my commercial stash over time down to fabrics that still appeal.  I use them to make more traditional quilts, gifts, or functional items.  But I still add to the hoard from time to time when something particularly calls my name.  After all, I still love a beautiful fabric!

One of my quilting BFF's and I took a trip to two of our closest quilt shops (an hour long drive) recently when I had to get my machine serviced.  Of course we browsed and of course I heard the siren call of some fabrics.

I think a lot of them are Alison Glass (but they are fat quarters so the selvedges are not always complete), there's a Moda Grunge fabric and the yellow flower print is a beautiful linen.

The Alison Glass fabrics caught my eye first and then I pulled fabrics to fit in with them, then added to the collection from the second shop.  Playing with fabrics can sometimes take me hours, but this pile only took about 30 minutes to finalise.  Something about it worked right from the beginning.

And now I have to find or design a pattern to use them with.  I've been looking at the quilt currently spread on our bed and thinking that it's time to change it up a little, and this collection will be perfect, as long as I can come up with the right quilt design.  Something that makes the most of the fabrics.

So, does anyone have any suggestions?  I'm currently thinking 60 degree triangles, with some triangles big and some made of several smaller ones - varying sizes but all fitting together - if that makes sense.  But if anyone has any other brilliant suggestions - let me know!

Meanwhile, if you need me, I'll be petting my new fabrics.....

Stich and Bitch

One of the most worthwhile things that I feel I've done with the studio and gallery (have a look at my Facebook page here if you want to know more about Opua Arts) is to host a weekly stitch and bitch session.

I just got a tweet from a participant that said, "It's a very special thing you do there on a Tuesday night."  Which made me all warm and fuzzy inside.  Because that's exactly how I feel about it too.

Every Tuesday from 7pm till 9pm we gather in the upstairs space of my studio and gallery and sit and stitch and sketch and knit and embroider and sew and quilt and laugh and talk and pick each other's brains.  There is a regular bunch of women who attend and then there are less regulars and then there are the once-off visitors.  And I advertise it for any creative work, not just stitching.  It makes for wonderful, varied and interesting evenings.

A lot of the women I had never met prior to these sessions but we share a love of hand work and being creative.  That forms a common bond before we even start talking.  And then the socialising effects of tea and biscuits kick in...

There is a little community forming and connections being made and I take a secret pride that they are happening in part because of me.  Yay!  I wanted to give something back to the community, and whilst that outwardly doesn't seem to be a huge thing (no big free children's education programs or public art donations here) I feel that friendships and support networks are being formed and that is no small thing either.  It really warms my heart and makes me smile to see these women who didn't know each other a couple of months ago greet each other with broad smiles and sit down for a good old chat.

Our last Tuesday night was a funny one, with lots of jokes and laughs.  The one before that got a bit deep and meaningful.  Some have been quieter, some smaller, some bigger, some with visitors who could barely speak English, and some with just a couple of us so we could have real heart to heart conversations.

I'm also loving the inspiration I get.  It's like my brain creativity sparks up a couple of notches just by being in proximity to other creatives.  I love my quiet, isolated working times, but I think a group of creatives watching each other work fires creative synapsis is a way isolated working doesn’t.

So if you are local and reading this, come along and join in.  If you aren't so local, are you in some form of group like this, or have you tried forming a social creative group of your own?

Ridiculously gorgeous holiday weekend

I know I live in a beautiful part of the world.  And, living on a boat, have access to the most beautiful of the beautiful bits.  But seriously, The Bay of Islands on Easter weekend (a four day public holiday in New Zealand) was just showing off.

Snorkelling, fishing, exploring, beach walking, shellfish collecting, kayaking, sunset watching.  And just a touch of sewing to round it all out.

I'm a bit quiet round here at the moment because Easter marked the beginning of a two week school holiday.  I can't tell the kids to knock off their screen time if I'm not setting an example, right?  Have a good one, everyone and I'll be back with more quilty stuff in a week or so.

We're all going on a.....

....summer holiday.  No more working for a week or two.

Christmas and New Year's in New Zealand is shut down time.  Schools break for their summer holidays and there are four days of public holidays so lots of businesses close their doors for a week or two as well.

We traditionally break out the tents and sleeping bags and go camping in an Uncle's paddock.  The extended family all come to stay and sometimes friends too.  At one stage this year we had 13 kids running round.

Now that our house is portable, we decided that our maiden voyage could be combined with our Christmas camping expedition.  We cruised up the river and anchored for a couple of nights before Christmas and then motored out into Manawaora Bay where we had organised to borrow a mooring in Jack's Bay.

Borrowing a mooring was the best thing ever.  It let us spend nights camping (it was a short dinghy ride up a tidal creek to get to our usual camping site) without worrying about Cerego dragging her anchor.

This is the little creek at high tide.  I learnt how to operate the dinghy so I could zip back to Cerego if I wanted to.  Living tied up to a dock meant I hadn't needed to use a dinghy yet and it hadn't even crossed my mind that I should learn.  The first day we were up the river, Hubby took his runabout sized boat to work, leaving me on Cerego with the dinghy.  Fat lot of good that was because I didn't know how to use it!  I had my freedom curtailed and I didn't like it one little bit.  I made sure I had my first lesson that afternoon, and actually, it's pretty simple.

The weather before Christmas was a bit grey and dull but it slowly got better and better until we were having the most beautiful days.  The temperature would get up around 27 degrees Celcius, hardly a cloud in the sky and the water temperatures went up too.

This is our sixth year camping in this spot.  The kids look forward to it so much.  There is so much for them to do and now they are getting older and older, they require less supervision and have an even greater range of activities...like mud bathing.

And horse riding.  That's my Uncle in Law leading the horse.  Marshall is a bit of a famous horse whisperer in the area and there are ten or so horses on his property.  It's very relaxing in the evenings watching the horses graze on the hill behind our tents.

This year was the year of the flounder.  The kids discovered they could find flounder in the creek during daylight (usually you go flounder spearing in the evening with lights) so they made or found flounder spears and went hunting and they were surprisingly successful!  And it's the funniest thing to see half a dozen kids crowded round a frying pan devouring a freshly cooked fish - gone in seconds and none left for the adults.

It's becoming a tradition to build one of the Aunties a birthday cake on her birthday.  I say 'build' because we pile up pre-made goodies like pavlovas, eclairs, fruit and we've even tipped out a whole container of ice-cream to use as a base.  That whole tray got eaten with none left for seconds - our annual sugar fix!

Whipped cream shenanigans!

If we needed respite (from noise, kids and hard mattresses) we would spend a night on the boat.  The incredible peace and beauty when we would sit up on the top deck in the evenings was totally soul restoring.

And the top deck was also the perfect place to jump from when swimming!

The water was warm and clear.  

And everyone swam.

Now we are back home safe and sound and restored.  

I am preparing for my next adventure which is a week away at the Manawatu Quilt Symposium.  I have a four day class with Texan quilt artist, Sue Benner and I'm totally excited.  I intend to use mostly my own hand dyed fabrics and the requirements list says to bring 40-60 different fabrics.  I needed to restock my hand-dyes so I used my lazy days in the paddock to dye about 25 yards of fabric all in fat quarter sized pieces.

So hopefully I'll be back to a more frequent style of blogging, and I'm hoping I'll manage to squeeze in some interviews at Symposium for my podcast - watch this space!

Sunrise

Autumn is my favourite season.  And this is one of the reasons why.  The skies just go on and on and on.  Afternoon will give us amazing clouds.  Evening gives us fascinating light.  Then the sunrises...the sunrises can leave you speechless.

A Morning Walk

I'm continuing on the spirit of my last post about appreciating where I live.

Once a week I attend a yoga class.  I drop the kids off at school, squeeze in a walk and then stretch and breath through yoga.  But it's that walk that I want to talk about.  I thought I'd share some photos I took.  It's along the Opua to Paihia coastal track and it's one of the best local walks there is.  Do you think you walk further and enjoy yourself more when you are walking in a beautiful place?  I do.

I don't walk here everyday, but only because I don't drop the kids off everyday.  Bur rather than waffle on I'll let the photographs tell you how beautiful it is.

Thankful

I live in a beautiful place.  Sometimes I forget that and grumble about my dusty car, or my long drive to pick up the kids, or the cow poo on the road.  So I'm making a conscious effort to remember how lucky I am.

I'm lucky that my closest neighbour is more than 100 metres away.

I'm lucky that I see mist instead of smog.

I'm thankful that I can smell fresh air, animals and grass.

I'm lucky that I can keep chooks and collect my own eggs.

I'm lucky that I have no one telling me that my grass is too long/too short/too patchy/too green.

I'm thankful that my view is hills and paddocks and trees.

I'm lucky that I have a beautiful place to call home.

I'm lucky and I'm thankful.

Hand Dyed Thread Lusciousness

These are the hanks of thread I've been dyeing.  

I want to eat them!

(Maybe Suz was right when she left a comment saying they looked like shrivelled Asian delicacies)

They are a beautiful silk cotton blend thread, almost the weight of perle cotton. 

I received a huge hank because that's how they sell it and I started to wind off 10 metre lengths.  Well that lasted for about five minutes - I could see a huge tangle starting.

It turns out you need the proper skein winding tools for that job.  So (gasp in horror if you like) I cut the hank in half and then I can pull out 1.3 metre threads.  I take out 10 at a time and knot them into a bundle and dye them like that.

So, so beautiful.  I can't decide which is my favourite.