Cushion Love

Happy Christmas to you! Or Happy Holidays, or happy whatever (if anything) you celebrate. I hope you and your loved ones receive some of the peace and joy of the season.

I’m going to spend some of the Summer camping with my husband’s extended family, just as we’ve done for the last decade. It’s an unintentional tradition, but one that brings us all great enjoyment. Let’s hope we can keep doing it for another decade or so.

There is no power at the site where we camp, so it’s strictly hand sewing for me if I want to do any stitching. However, I did manage to sneak home on Christmas Eve and put the finishing touches on some handmade presents for my children and my nieces.

My eldest niece on my husband’s side was given the middle name Taraire, which is the name of a native New Zealand tree.

When our son was born, we gave him the middle name of Nikau, also a native NZ tree. And so another unintentional tradition was formed.

The next to be born, my twin nieces, received the middle names of Pohutu and Kawa, which together are Pohutukawa, another iconic NZ tree.

So, when my daughter was born, she in turn received a tree middle name, this time Kowhai, which has brilliant yellow flowers in Spring.

Seeing as I have made patterns for just about all those trees at one time or another, it follows that I could make cushions with those images on them. One for each child - the pohutukawa ones, getting a different stripe of black fabric and a different back. The fabrics all came from my stash as did the buttons. The embroidery is done once from the front then again from the back as bobbin embroidery with a heavy hand-dyed thread on the bobbin.

And they loved them! Or at least they said they did...

Have a safe and happy New Year!

Christmas Gift Bags

I recently spent 10 days in Australia visiting my family.  My parents live on the Sunshine coast, and my siblings - who have spread themselves inconveniently around the rest of the continent - were all converging for a visit.  I thought I better head over too if I wanted to catch all of them (six plus various spouses, nieces and nephews) at once.

The problem is that it's so darn hot over there at this time of year that you can't do much except splash in the pool or visit some place airconditioned!  We had days of 36 celsius (97 fahrenheit) and over 90% humidity.  Urgh.  But hey, I love my family!

While we were there I just happened to visit a fabric store.  Where I found a bundle of six Christmas fat quarters for $3.  I should have bought two because fat quarters make awesome gift bags and I need to replenish my stock.

Fabric gift bags are great because they:

• save time on Christmas Eve when you realise you haven't wrapped half the pressies;
• are reusable so your time investment in making them is repaid over and again;
• save waste - I hate seeing that rubbish sack full of single use wrapping paper;
• look pretty!

I make mine by sewing two fat quarters together WRONG sides together on three sides.  Then turn them inside out and sew RIGHT sides together to make an enclosed seam.  Fold over the top raw edge twice to make a neat hem and sew down.  Sew a length of ribbon to the side seam with a tight zig-zag stitch and you're done.  

You  can see the enclosed side seam and the top hem in the picture above.  I sometimes use ric-rac or twill tape instead of ribbon.  They are more durable but I don't hold as much in my stash.

I make gift tags from old Christmas cards and thread them onto the ribbon before tying it.  Simple!

What do you do to make your Christmases or holiday celebrations simpler?

Christmas Crazies

December is always my yearly speed bump, or judder bar as we call them in New Zealand.  It comes up with a rush, makes you sit up and take notice, and can do some real damage if you aren't prepared.

It's that crazy month of school finishing for the year and all that entails.  Christmas parties and work functions.  We go away camping or in the boat (or both) over Christmas so there is preparation for that.  Christmas presents to make and organise, decorations to sort.  And then this year we added in settlement on our house sale and some illness to boot.  Both my husband and I have had the kind of colds that make you couch bound for three days and now my daughter has a sniffle but she's just grateful that she's stopped upchucking after a tummy bug.  

And if that wasn't enough to send sanity packing, it's that time of year when I start questioning my goals, my achievements....my life.  Why does the end of the year make me wonder if I'm doing what I should be doing, if I'm achieving all I could achieve, if I'm a good and worthy person (just kidding on the last one....mostly).

I need to apologise to all those people who commented on my last couple of posts and who I haven't answered.  I'm using all the above as an excuse.  

This is day 94 from my 100 Days Project.  It's a little bit how I'm feeling at the moment.  

So what am I doing to help myself?  

Forgiving myself for things undone.  

Setting my timer and working on things for 10 mins at the time then setting the timer again for 3 mins to get up and walk and do a tiny bit of tidying up.  

Writing a schedule out for the week and to-do lists and paying close attention to my calendar.

Doing kind things for myself.

Doing a round of 'what we are grateful for' at the dinner table.

What do you do when it all gets a little crazy?

 

Speed Dating for Quilters

Our quilting club holds a Christmas lunch as an end of year celebration.  (Yes, I do know it's March, it's just a reflection on how busy my brain has been lately!).  We paid a modest amount per head and booked a really lovely motel function room, ate good food and had a blast playing a few games.

Here's a picture of a few of us enjoying ourselves - Joy, myself, Mathea and Mathea's MIL (who doesn't quilt, but had a lot of fun anyway).

I organised one of the games - and chose speed dating for quilters!  It was designed to get people talking to others they might not know that well and learn something new about those that they did know.

Each table had eight place settings, four on each side.  I had all the women sitting on the left hand sides of the table as the 'sitters', all the women on the right hand side were 'movers'.  The sitters were given a sheet of paper with sets of questions.  The sitter and mover would ask each other the three questions in a set, write the answers down on the sheet and when I rang a bell, the movers moved on to the next sitter and they asked each other the next set of questions.  I only gave the sitters the questions, but you could give everyone a sheet of paper with the questions - whatever works.

There were three questions in each set.  I tried to mix in a quilting related question in each set, but the other questions were pretty random and fun - like 'tea or coffee?', 'how old were you when you had your first kiss?' And 'if you could be an animal, what would you be?'

I ran the bell about every 90 seconds, but I probably should have given them 120 seconds, which would have given them a little more time for moving places.  And here is a tip, if you have participants who have mobility difficulties, get them sitting on the 'sitters' side of the table.  It was noisy, busy, a little chaotic and a lot of fun!

I've written out the questions in a google doc for you to use if you want to organise something similar for your club.  There are 14 sets of questions, which was enough for 28 participants.  If you had more, you'd have to either write more questions or not have everyone meet everyone else.  

This would be a fun game to play at a retreat or any other function where you need introductions.  During the rest of the afternoon, I would periodically read out some of the answers and we had to guess who had written them.  It made for lots of laughs!

Here's the link for the google doc:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oow85bWgwnZLqQjx6JWeNHnJr6GJiBI3ALsTGxkKhco/edit?usp=sharing

Episode 16 Hand Dyes and Holidays

It's a relatively short episode and I'm all by myself for this one.  Basically I'm practicing my podcasting voice in preparation for Symposium (I'm leaving tomorrow!!!!).  I'm hoping to squeeze in some interviews while I'm down there, but it's busy, busy, busy for everyone.

You'll get to hear a summary of my summer holidays with camping and boating and lots of sunshine (see my previous blog post for pictures).  And I tell you all about my bucket loads of hand dyeing that I did.

Here's my useful or beautiful link for this episode:
http://www.blendoku.com

Blendoku is a game for android or iOS mobile devices.  You use colours to fill in a grid of squares, some colours are given to start with.  It really increases your colour theory skills and knowledge of tints, tones and shades.  And it fills in time when you are in a waiting room and you forgot your hand stitching...

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!

Portholes, Pantomimes and Pukekos in Ponga Trees

The pukekos are a reference to a New Zealand themed version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.  You can read it and hear it here (or sing it in your brain - do you have an ear worm now?!).

This is the time of year when I typically go a bit awol around here, just because life gets a bit full.  I'm not one for going mad, crazy busy at Christmas.  I think there is only so much stress a girl can take and still enjoy the season, so I pick and choose what I'm going to do and where I'm going to turn up to.

Of course, there are some things I just can't get away from.  We've had our kids school prize giving , and the gymnastics display and prize giving.  We've got two pantomimes to go to - Robin Hood and Puss in Boots, one amateur and one professional.  There was the Christmas Parade float to help with (I helped paint kids blue and pin blue dreadlocks in their hair) and work functions to make an appearance at.  More than enough.

The portholes bit of the title refers to the other bit of busyness in our lives.  We typically go camping on my Uncle-in-Law's farm for a few weeks over Christmas (read about last year here).  This year we are doing the same, but we are also steaming the boat out of here and we'll be mooring her in the bay close to the farm.  It's only a short trip, but this will be our maiden voyage apart from the quick sea trial we did when we moved her to this dock.  There are lots of things that need to be done to enable us to go to sea safely, and getting them all done is keeping our weekends full.

One of the biggest jobs is fixing the portholes in our forward cabin.

The portholes were corroded and some were seized and wouldn't shut.  They all need removing, sandblasting, painting, new glass (acrylic), and new pins made.  We are also cutting the holes around them a bit larger for window sill purposes.

This was the one I looked up at when I lay in bed.  I quite liked the verdigris - all that interesting colour and texture.

This was the state of the original bolts.  We need the portholes to be able to shut when we are steaming or in bad weather or we risk everything getting wet in our cabin and, worse case scenario, sinking the boat.

This was the view of the outside of a refurbished porthole.  I had to hold the bolts with a screwdriver while Hubby tightened the nuts on the inside.  Then all the excess sealer get wiped off, we wait till they are all done and dry (and we have more time), and then thy'll get a final coat of paint.  And if you need to get sealer out of your hair, turpentine works.  Ask me how I know!

Crazy Cat Lady Tote and DUQ Cover Girl

I've had a productive week.  I don't know how it worked out like that, but I'm guessing having deadlines helps just a bit!  I've finished writing my midwifery standards review, completed a technical editing project and made a cat tote for a budding crazy cat lady.

My inspiration for this tote came from Pam at Hip to be a Square.  She said it was okay if I was a 'copycat'.  Sorry....couldn't resist.

I made if for my daughter's best friend.  The order was for a bag with cats on it, and her favourite colour is purple.  Done and done.  Shhhh, don't tell my daughter, but I'm making her one too so they can be all matchy matchy.  Didn't you do that with your best friend when you were seven?

Love me a stripey lining.  Just about as much as a stripey binding.

And what do we have here?  My very first magazine published pattern.  And I made cover girl!  Woot!  Now that they've published the photos, it'll come home, maybe in time for Christmas?  It's called 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and is a cute little wall hanging inspired by my favourite seasonal poem by Clement Clarke Moore.

The wallhanging has piecing, fusible appliqué and a little bit of stitchery.  If you are interested in making one of your own (I could imagine it with a snowy white background and red and green houses), you can get a digital copy of Down Under Quilts from here.

I'm working on editing my next podcast with another of my interviews from Festival of Quilts, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with this:

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In the hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there

The children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.
Mom in her kerchief and I in my cap
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter
Away to the window I flew with a flash
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash

The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow
Gave a luster of mid-day to objects below.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer

With a little old driver so lively and quick
Well I knew in a moment, it must be St. Nick
More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came
And he whistled and he shouted and he called them by name

"On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen
On Comet, on Cupid, on Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly
When they meet to an obstacle mount to the sky
So up to the rooftop the coursers they flew
With a sleigh full of toys and St. Nicholas too.

And then in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing, the pawing of each little hoof
As I drew in my head and was turning around
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound

He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back
And he looked like a peddler just op'ning his pack

His eyes, how they twinkled, his dimples, how merry
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry
His droll little mouth was drawn up in a bow
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow

The stump of a pipe, he held tight in his teeth
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when laughed (ho, ho, ho, ho) like a bowl full of jelly (ho, ho, ho, ho)

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread

He spoke not a word but went straight to his work
And filled all the stockings and turned with a jerk
And laying a finger to the side of his nose
And giving a nod up the chimney he rose

He sprang to his sleigh, and to his team gave a whistle
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle
But I heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight
"Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight"

What we did...

...for three weeks.  

Wading at high tide.

Too many riding on the 'gator'.

A birthday in the paddock.

Canoeing on the stream.

Horseriding with the bestest Uncle. 

Toasting marshmellows

Lying around doing nothing.

Admired the view.

Swinging.

Teepees. 

There was also pool swimming, beach swimming, eel feeding, flounder hunting, fishing and lots of smoking of fish, good food, cousins and aunties and uncles and friends, hammock swinging, puddle jumping, stitching, spinning, one collapsed gazebo and a lost then found pair of glasses from falling off the jet ski.  Best Christmas camping trip yet.  See you again next year.