Let's have a catch up.

I don't know why I always think I'll have so much more time when school holidays are over.  It's Wednesday, the first week back after a two week break, and I haven't accomplished much off my 'when school holidays are over' list.  One of those things was to finally write a blog post, so I guess I'm achieving something!

Diving back into writing after a bit of a break is always tricky too.  Do I start chronologically from a few weeks ago?  Do I start from today?  Are the blog posts I had planned even relevant now?

Today's strategy is going to be a quick recap of the last couple of weeks to bring you (and me) up to speed on what I've been doing, and then regular transmission will resume shortly...

My kids spent some time with their cousins during the school hols, one of whom turned 13....and is mostly still lovely with shades of teenage moods creeping in.  At one stage I had five kids staying the night on the boat, which actually wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds.  I offered to pay them the princely sum of $3 each in return for making the kids' cabins and play room spotless.  Worth every cent!

Even though it's Autumn, there is the occasional stunner of a day.  Warm enough still to go for an afternoon swim.  You can see what looks like evening sun in the picture above - but it's only about 3pm.  We ate fish and chips after that.

Living in the area that we do, and living on a boat, it kinda follows that my kids will learn to sail.  They've done a couple of learn to sail courses and there is a professional sailing coach who has moved into the area so we are making the most of it.  

They spent the first week of the holidays at sailing camp - this means 9am to 3pm each day!  Yay for Mummy and yay for the kids because they had a blast.  Now they are both really confident little sailors.  They toodled off in the neighbours sailing dinghy the other afternoon all on their lonesomes without an ounce of worry.  I had a proud Mummy moment.

As for me, I've been trying to get a few smaller projects finished.  I made a scrap placemat for my boy to match one I made for my girl a little while ago.  Like the skull and crossbones quilting?

I've been pressing seams open (shock horror!) because I'm making a triangle quilt for a gift.  They will be six inch equilateral triangles and it was a lot easier to construct than I thought.  I didn't starch the bias edges and I'm pleased that I had hardly any stretching at all.  I'll be able to show the finished quilt very soon.

And I've been doing lots and lots of dyeing.  These are threads laid out to dry after rinsing.  

I've purchased a swift (hank holder) and ball winder and was given a measuring skein winder so I've been winding threads like crazy and having a lovely time playing in the dye pots.  More on that soon.

Oh, and I got a haircut.  Not sure how I feel about that.  I was sick of the long hairs everywhere and I guess it'll grow back!  Lots less shampoo use though.

So, that's news for now.  This weekend I'm off to The Great NZ Quilt Show in Rotorua.  Can't wait!  I'm taking my voice recorder and I have at least one interesting interview lined up for the podcast so watch this space.

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.

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!

School holiday stitching

I'm sitting at the local public swimming pool watching my kids burn some energy.  It's school holidays, the two week break between the third and fourth term, and it's shaping up to be a busy one.

I should be at my house, sorting and packing, but there is only so much of that the kids can take before they drive me nuts, so the pool is good for all of us.  They get some entertainment and excercise, and I get some hand stitching time, which is highly therapeutic to my stressed and tired brain.

I'm embroidering on little squares of cotton batting that I hand dyed.  The threads are silk and stranded cotton and are hand dyed too.  Just little circles of different stitches, I guess it's a sampler really. Whatever it is, it's helping me keep my zen.