The highs and lows of the last week

The week started on a high…

The Hand Stitching prize was for my first Gypsy Wife Quilt, the Jen Kingwell classic.

in the middle we successfully fought to save a historic neighbourhood tree…

and the week ended with our cars being broken into. Again. This time they helpfully smashed a window, so thanks to the staff at Smith & Smith, my car windows are now repaired, clean, and I can see through them. Note to self, clean car more frequently!

Anyway, I thought I’d put a “shout out” to the sponsor of one of my prizes from our recent exhibition, The Delbrook Quilt Company of Hastings. They are my go-to shop in the North Island for reproduction fabrics. While they are a couple of hours drive away for me, they are fortunately situated next to a major hardware chainstore. The Hubbie drops me at the gate, then goes gazing at power tools for a while. The longer he stays away, the more fabric I get to buy. Works for me! Once he went for a haircut, and the budget got well and truly hammered.

Delbrook often have a selection of FQ at $5, and always have a big range of fabric on the bolt. They stock modern fabrics, as well as the reproduction fabrics I am currently loving working with. They have regular drop in days, QAL’s, retreats, fabric clubs, and classes.

Unfortunately Delbrook don’t have all their fabric listed in their online shop, so it’s best to either contact them, or go for a drive. I prefer the drive, especially at fruit harvest time. Hawkes Bay Apricots, Figs, Apples…the list goes on. And if you go for a weekend, as we so often do, make sure you investigate the amazing Art Deco architecture of the region, and visit the Napier Museum.  Last time we visited, we got to see a Lalique collection that blew me away. And if your ancestors were present during the historic Napier earthquake, then the permanent exhibition gives insight into the event.

A wintery day at the beach, great for photos, not quite so good for swimming.

Plus there is the attraction of all those pebbly east coast beaches, so different from our west coast, black sand, windswept affairs.

Back to reality, and today is all about getting security lights upgraded, then going for a drive. Greenhaugh Gardens is a Garden of National Significance a few km away, and at this time of the year it is ablaze with Spring colour, including a large collection of Bearded Irises and Clematis. I’m off to have a peak, and get some motivation to carry on weeding my own garden.

Greenhaugh Gardens, Napier Road, Palmerston North.

Later in the week I am off to the Taranaki Garden Festival and the accompanying Quilt Show. Gardens and quilts, the perfect combination.

Have a great week.

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WIP Wednesday, help needed.

Just a quick post, since it is really just an SOS in disguise.

Earlier this year I posted about my dissatisfaction with quilting the same old quilts, the “should” quilts. Well, I have made progress, albeit slow progress, in finding out exactly what I do want to quilt and make.

I finished the Artists Way, and picked up a book on colour to work through next. I have also been educating myself about the periods of art history I enjoy, namely the Arts and Crafts, Nouveau, and Bauhaus movements.

I have also started fabric painting, giving stamping, marbling and salt batik fabric painting a go. More to come on that later.

I decided to approach studying colour by tackling one colour at a time, first up being red. And so I made a little improv quilt, based on a  method I can remember seeing in the last couple of months. It involved making a wonky cross flimsy, then cutting blocks out of the top, to rejoin. But do you think I can find the original tutorial?

So, I am hoping someone can help me out. Can you remember the blogger, or the name of the pattern? If so, please drop me a line, so I can find it, and give credit where credit is due. I am also interested in how to quilt this top, either to add further wonkiness, or contrast with it. Ideas?

And in case you are wondering, yes, the borders are also trimmed to be wonky. Just to unsettle the piece a bit further. Only time will tell if this was a good idea.

Until I hear back I shall go forth and do some gardening, Spring is well and truly sprung here in New Zealand, with wild and woolly weather every day.

Linking up with Sew Fresh and Silly Mama Quilts.

A lick of paint…

I’ve been keeping busy, but not necessarily busy sewing.

I donated my sewing table to Daughter #2 in September. It was my suggestion, as she had purchased a Brother Scan and Cut machine, but had nowhere to put it.

My mood board, including lots of stitch ideas and clippings from old Country Living magazines. Note the yellows and greens popping through.

Of course, when you give away all the furniture in your sewing room, you have to replace it. But first I took the opportunity to do a little painting, just to cover over some of my earlier paint experiments. The studio was initially just concrete block construction, and in a fit or thesis avoidance I once spent a week painting every concrete block a different colour, with metallic highlights! Luckily that was covered in Gib boards and insulation a couple of years ago.

A fresh, spring, green, or as I think of it, “Country Living Magazine meets sewing room”. The other door is to a very petite bathroom.

The previous owners painted all the doors in our house and sheds a lovely (!) teal blue. We are still staring at the teal after almost nine years, along with the fluoro green hallway, and the bathroom whose colour is hard to describe. Why not repaint? On one income we have concentrated on getting the house maintenance back on schedule, repairing the roof, putting in ventilation, painting peeling windowsills, fencing, gardens etc. And we renovated the studio out the back of the garage, which I use almost every day now. I figure my studio brings me more pleasure than a repainted hallway ever would.

The outside door, a nice chalky yellow. Next to arrange is an insect screen to stop unwanted 6 footed critters that somehow get underneath. I have had two weta come in overnight this month alone.

But the time had come to get rid of the royal blue and teal doors, and to solve my storage issues. While I have been quilting for only a few years, I have accumulated a frightening amount of stuff. The NZ$ was pretty high against the US$ there for a while, plus two local fabric stores have gone under or shut due to retirement, offering a once in a lifetime opportunity to enhance my stash….how could I resist?

The new cutting table to the left is the perfect height. I am still looking for an anti-fatigue mat to put next to it. The pantry cupboards are older, and used to store all my PhD stuff. I had so much fun recycling it after I got my degree! 

I was alerted to a sell off of shop fittings which had turned up at the Salvation Army store, and these have proved a prefect fit for a cutting table. The surface is at bench height, so no more sore back from extended cutting sessions, and there are cupboards underneath to store my red, orange, yellow, black, grey and multi-coloured fabric bins. Blue and brown are still sitting on the floor, but I can work around them for the meantime.

Definitely too small, and I haven’t got the insert for the Horn desk, so have had to raise the bed and use my old extension table for now. The curtains were picked up second-hand in Helsinki.

I got my old Horn sewing desk back from  Daughter #2, but The Hubbie rightly pointed out it isn’t a great longterm solution. I quilt my own quilts, and it simply isn’t big enough. I went back to the Salvation Army store, but the desks were all too high (>70cm), so I will be patient and think on this one.

Next to go up, thread racks.

I had a home handyman pop in last week, and we put up some Ikea kitchen shelves I picked up in Brisbane last year. I must admit, I went a little loopy being let loose in an Ikea store for the first time. I’m not usually a person who enjoys shopping, but I could have happily filled a shipping crate and sent it over the sea to home. Please Ikea, come to New Zealand.

So, the room is almost done, but I am happily sewing away again and enjoying the change of colours. I was going to paint the brown back wall, but that can wait until next summer. Instead I will sew some mini quilts for the walls, but more about that next time.

I even shouted myself a new, larger, ironing board.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend, especially here in NZ where we are celebrating Labour weekend. Next holiday is Christmas, not that we’re counting weeks or days right?

A catch up, and 3rd Quarter FAL

It’s been a while, but I have been otherwise occupied applying for jobs (unsuccessfully), nursing my Mum back to health (successfully), and helping run the local quilt club’s Celebration of Quilts (very successfully!).

Mum had a foot operation, which meant a few weeks of inactivity. To say she was a difficult patient is an understatement. As a normally active gardener, taking care of her garden, my sisters, and her neighbours either side, she did not take to sitting down very well. There were frequent cries of “I’m bored” from her recliner, much like those of a child by week 2 of the school holidays. Luckily for us both, she is back on her feet now. Another operation may be in the pipeline, but next time I will take more DVD’s for her, and my sewing machine for me.

The Rose City Quilters Celebration of Quilts was held over the weekend, and was the first time I had been involved, or shown a finished quilt. Since we thought numbers were going to be down this year, I entered both of my versions of Jen Kingwell’s Gypsy Wife Quilt.

Gypsy Wife (the Autumn version) hanging at the Celebration of Quilts 2016.

 

The “Summer version” was finished last year, while the darker “Autumn version” was finally bound and finished this quarter, as one of my third quarter goals.

I was hoping to finish MY Small World in time, but embroidering the quilt is proving very slow. I have decided to aim for 2018 instead. Surely I can be finished by then!

I’m glad to say that I won a prize with the “Summer” Gypsy Wife Quilt, the Category for Best Hand Quilting.

Gypsy Wife (Summer version). Sorry about the photo quality, it was pretty dark inside the hall.

I also entered into the Club Challenge, “Through the Looking Glass”, with a small quilt addressing the recent water quality scares in the Hawkes Bay. This little quilt won a second place, but it was the only quilt in its class, so it sort of had to win something. I enjoyed making it, since it was my first art quilt. I have only pieced quilts up til now, whereas this one had embroidery (E. coli) and minimal quilting (agar plates), and a facing on the back made from the remnants of the tea towel.

Most entries kept to the Alice in Wonderland theme, but a few others also chose to interpret the theme in another way.

It was a pretty exhausting weekend, with set-up alone taking seven hours. I arrived early each day, and stayed until after closing time, along with the other organisers. I have slept extremely well the last few nights! The exhibition was held at the Huia Centre at PNGHS, and was a great venue. My job was to be the Merchant’s Rep, to hang out here….

…while trying not to get too tempted by all the fabric, thread and general quilty goodness on sale.

Some of my favourite North Island Quilt Shops were in attendance, but I held strong, and only gave in to some French General fabric and Aurifil thread….plus a bit of Allison Glass…and Lizzy House.

Okay, so I was only partly restrained! I do try to write a very short mental list of things to look for, but I can only withstand temptation for so long. As the rep, I had to keep visiting the stalls, which meant the temptation kept mounting.

We also had a de-stash table, where Club members could sell off bits of their stash they no longer wanted. There were some”vintage” fabrics from the 80’s, but a large part of the fabric found a new home.

The take-down went much faster than set-up, as we had more volunteers. Afterwards I staggered home, I badly needed to get off my feet for a while.

Today I re-acquainted myself with my sewing machine and sewed two more blocks for my 365 Challenge quilt. I am so far behind I have resigned myself to this being a two year project, but that’s okay.

In closing, while she didn’t win a prize, Daughter #2 entered five of her little art quilts in the exhibition, including the Scary Cheshire Cat, and the X-shaped piece next to it. They were all experiments in new techniques, playing with paint and thread. She received a lot of encouragement from more experienced art quilters at the show.

I hope you have a great week. I will stop eating Ferroro Roche chocolates (congratulations present from my Mum), and get on with the day.