July happenings

Our guild's retreat went well, but sadly I can't show you what I worked on, because it's a secret until our guild's exhibition on 11-12 August.

 After retreat I had a few days at home, and then I flew to Auckland to stay with my mum and dad for a week.  

Mum was keen to show me her Lucy Boston that she'd started during my previous visit in May.  She had asked if I had any blues / teals that could help her expand her colour scheme.  Some of my fabrics above will work well in her quilt.  Others came back home with me.  

I also picked up a few more fabrics for her on my trip around Auckland quilting shops.  I can't guarantee she will use them all, but I think they are all possibilities.

Mum's Lepidoptera quilt is coming along too (pattern by Elizabeth Hartman).  Although mum now wishes she had different background fabric because it's fraying a bit.

We agreed on the fabrics for the purple butterflies.  

While I was there we went for High Tea at Cordis which was just lovely.  There was so much food! And even goodie bags to take home the left overs.

We also went to Mamma Mia 2 which was fun and left us both feeling happy inside.  

I've bought home this William Morris tapestry that mum has just finished.  Nancy's Stitch Studio do such a great finishing job, so I will get them to turn into a cushion.  

Mum has her next design ready to start.  Tapestries can be very satisfying to stitch.  Although the wool seems super chunky at first, there's a soothing rhythm to pulling the needle through the canvas. 

Last, but not least, is this Woolly Zip It Bag by Wendy Williams.  Mum has almost finished the cover and it's looking great.  

I drove back to Wellington because we've bought mum's old car for our sons to use.  The mountains on the Central Plateau looked amazing in the morning sun.  That's Mt Ruapehu above where people will be skiing today - remember it's winter here in New Zealand.

That's Mt Ngauruhoe that some of you might recognise as Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. 

We were only out of the car for a few minutes because it was very cold - only 2C = 35F.  Barely above freezing level.  That's thick frost on the picnic table.  

A trip to Auckland

Last week I had to go to Auckland for work.  It's a one hour flight from Wellington, so it's a nice getaway.  My parents live in Auckland, and my older son is also up there, studying at university.

Mum and I share our love of sewing and quilting, so we visited a few quilt shops while I was there.  We both want to make the Sue Spargo needle case on the cover of the latest Inspirations magazine, so we each bought wool felt and ribbons.  Mum's pile is on the left, and mine is on the right (incase you couldn't guess).

I found the perfect backing fabric for my Peacock at Sunset tapestry so I was happy about that.  It just happens to be Kaffe Fassett of course. I'm going to take it to Nancy's Stitch Studio to be stretched and turned into a cushion/pillow.  They do a great job and it will be much better than I could do myself.

Mum showed me her latest EPP creation.  It's one of the variations of the Mischief Quilt designed by Karen Tripp.  You can find the pattern, templates and paper pieces on Karen's website DIY Addict website here.

Mum is also working on the butterfly quilt by Elizabeth Hartman.  It's called Lepidoptera and mum finds that amusing because she used to work in the zoology department of Otago University and knew the Greek/Latin names of many animals and creatures. I've supplied a lot of the bright fabrics for the butterflies because mum's stash is mainly florals.

Now I'm home and back to hand quilting my Possum Magic quilt.  This quilt was made by a group of friends in a round robin.  You can read more about it here.

I want to enter it into our national symposium which is in October, but entries close on 13 June so I need to work on it every day.

The class placements for Symposium were announced this week and I got into all of my first choices so I'm very happy about that.  I'll be taking classes with Jen Kingwell, Chris Jurd and Deborah Louie.
There's so many other things I want to finish before then though!