Last you heard from me...

Last you heard from me I was procrastinating by unicorn.  The unicorn is still not finished, but I have a good excuse.  December saw us off to the South Island for three weeks camping.  We came back home for several days over Christmas and then went on our usual summer holiday camp - two weeks in an Uncle's paddock with all the extended family.

On the way to the South Island I dropped my two sewing machines off for servicing.  Today, finally, I'm picking them up.  I've got itchy fingers and am dying to see that unicorn finished!

So here's a few photographs of what we got up to in the South Island:

We took 'The Hippo', our trusty four wheel drive camper to get to those spots less common.

Here she is, unfolded in all her glory on the shores of Loch Katrine. 

One of the most stunning places we got to was up the head of the Godley river.  

Summer hadn't quite reached up there and there was plenty of snow to keep the temperatures down.

And because it was early in the season there was no fire ban so we got to enjoy cooking over flames.  

My son got to gut his first deer.  He wasn't too squeamish and the back steaks were delicious.

The Hippo even got us into Fiordland, which didn't disappoint with it's scenery. 

Nor with it's sandflies!  So we only stayed one night before we scrammed out of there as fast as we could.

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!

Crafting While Camping

I like to have my hands busy.  Sitting still is hard for me and I get itchy if I haven't sewn something for a couple of days.  Anyone else like that?  So camping for three weeks without my sewing machine was going to mean a grumpy me if I didn't have a plan.

I saved up all my hand binding projects, I took some of my hand-dyed threads and an embroidery hoop, I planned to learn how to hand spin and knit and my mother in law took her spinning wheel.  I also planned to take my hand-cranked sewing machine.

Well, best laid plans and all...

Belinda, my hand-cranked machine, just WOULDN'T fit.  So I thought I'd come home again (we don't camp far away and I come home every now and then to do washing and check animals etc) and collect her once I'd finished all my other work, but I never got finished!

We couldn't get the spinning wheel going.  We think it's warped out of alignment as the wheel and the bobbin wouldn't line up and the cord that runs between them (I'm sure it has a name) kept jumping off.  So that wasn't happening either.

And the knitting didn't even get a look in......maybe next year.

But the embroidery got started and was fun.  I loved seeing the colours form up from my hand-dyed silk/cotton threads. It went slowly though because every time I started I had four little nieces wanting to stitch too.  I got them all going on their own little projects (they are all getting embroidery hoops next time I see them), but had to spend time re-threading needles, tying off, and just a bit of untangling!

The hand-binding projects kept me satisfyingly busy and I'll show pictures of them separately as they were mostly samples for my beginner quilt making classes.

And I found a photo my MIL took of me hand spinning with my spindle!  I think I've got the hang of it now.  My yarn is looking less like dreadlocks and more like yarn, but I'm far from finding it relaxing!  I aim to spend a few minutes spinning each day to try and build my skills....I'll let you know.

Thanks for all your comments on my hand-dyed thread giveaway.  It's neat to read what everybody plans and hopes for 2014.  Remember to leave a comment by this Saturday if you want to win some threads - as you can see above, they stitch up into loveliness!

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.

Across the Ditch

Hmm, what to write about first?  Well, I guess I better explain where I've been for the last few weeks.  My Dad turned 70 this year and we decided it was time for a family get together.  We haven't all been together in the one place for about six years!  All my immediate family live in Australia now - I have to break out the passport to go visit my brothers and sisters :(  So our little family crossed the ditch (that's what we fondly call the Tasman Sea) and spent ten days on the Sunshine and Gold Coasts of Australia.

The kids were extremely excited to be having a plane ride - they can't remember their last one.  And the first plane we ride on is a little one from Kerikeri to Auckland, just one seat each side of the aisle, which makes is a bit more exciting.

We had to spend a day in Auckland due to a passport issue.  (Warning: check your passport expiry dates CAREFULLY!  It is not good for stress levels to find out you have an expired passport the day before you fly.)  But we made the most of it with a trip to the museum and a trip up the Skytower.

Dad's party was a great success.  The log cabin quilt I've been working on was presented to him.  My eldest sister made half the blocks and on the back are blocks from members of the family with names, handprints and pictures.  He loved it!

This is my Dad, my step-mum and all my immediate siblings.  I don't know how my half-brother managed to get out of this photo, and my step-sister was the one taking the photo.  Of course there were plenty of little children - all cousins - running around too.

We had a trip to Australia Zoo - the home of the late Steve Irwin.  Not cheap, but really worth it for the kids.  Lots of animal experiences.

And a great show where a 4-metre long croc named Graham (not sure if this is a great name for a crocodile) tries to eat his keepers.

Later in the week we borrowed my parent's camping gear and headed to Great Sandy National Park with two of my sisters and their families.  I got to see a snake in the wild.  I think it's a carpet python - not poisonous.  It was hanging out in a tree where we were waiting for the ferry at Tewantin.

Camping at Great Sandy National Park is only accessible by 4WD because the beach is the highway - a little bit different!

We camped and swam and ate and saw a whale and lots of birds - and cleaned out about 2 tonnes of sand from our belongings when we got back.  So much fun.

And there was the obligatory theme park visit.  But I had cut a deal with Hubby!  I took the kids to the zoo while he went swag (a kind of iconic Australian camping bed and tent all rolled into one) shopping, and he took them to Dreamworld while I went fabric shopping.  I reckon I got the better deal!

Phew!  That's enough photos for one day.  I'll show you the few fabric goodies I picked up another day.  We visited my husbands cousins as well so we really filled up on family on this trip.  Now we are getting back to reality.  It's school holidays for the next two weeks so it's an easy transition really.  It's nice to be home, just a little bit cooler!