Southern Textile Treats

What trip away would be complete without the odd textile treasure snapped along the way. This well dressed cabbage tree was at the bottom of Baldwin St in Dunedin.

Baldwin St has the distinction of being the steepest street in the world. How steep? This should give you an idea.

While we were there several tour buses stopped there for people to view it - I suspect I was the only one who stopped to photographed the cabbage tree. We all walked to the top - one of my boys even ran it! There are obviously a few characters on the street - I loved this letter box.

In Queenstown I was most taken by these two pieces of knitwear - anyone with a pile of orphan peggy squares might want to start stitching them up into coats. This one was retailing for a mere $1600NZ. Obviously they were targeting significantly more well heeled travellers than us! I joked to my husband about buying it for him to wear - and it was then he pointed out the price which had us both shaking our heads in amazement.

Let me know if you are inspired to pick up the needles - there could be a retailer waiting for your work in Queenstown.

Borders for Frida & the Amulets

A few hours of uninterrupted stitching was all it took to get the black borders onto the Frida blocks and to get all the blocks put together. Sunday afternoon's are my favourite time for stitching if I can manage it - the National Radio has it's Arts Programme on so there is always something good to listen to while I am working away. 

I enjoy this part of the quilting process - It's always exciting to see the blocks  start to come together.

The black borders provide a real frame for each of the fabrics and for the block as a whole and make all the colours seem richer.

I'm yet to decide on whether there needs to be another outer border, or maybe even more than one - I suspect so. Something colourful and lush befitting the garden that Frida had with Deigo. It's going to add some real colour zing to our guest bed - assuming I can keep it off my daughter's bed! Mind you I am the one who has recently been given Frida socks, all the way from the US, so if anyone should be wrapped up in it I think it should be me.

My friend who I made the applique quilt for confessed to me yesterday that she had been reading my blog, although not until after she had been given it. She said she was showing it to her mother to try to show her how long it takes me to get a quilt together. Her mother was apparently amazed that there was a quilt on the computer that looked just like the one her daughter owned! Not sure that she managed to convince her of the work involved really but it gave us all a good laugh.

February? Already??

How did it get to be February? This year seems to have raced away leaving my blog floundering in the wake. There has been no shortage of stitching featuring in my activities - first I had the challenge of getting the birthday quilt finished for my dear friend. There were many days of concentrated stitching leading up to us heading to the beach and the odd meltdown when I was convinced that I wasn't going to get there!

Thank goodness Marilyn was able to urge me on when things got hairy with the free motion quilting...

and the lines that just wouldn't stay straight! The quilt came to the beach with me so I could stitch down the binding in the evenings. The only thing not finished was the label which was stitched to the back of the quilt over a gin and tonic (it appears to be fairly straight!) after I had given it to it's new owner on her birthday. I'm happy to say that she loves it.

It was a tight finish to the deadline - never again....famous last words I suspect!!

So what else have I been doing? While up at the beach I played with a bit more eco dyeing. There was a huge eucalyptus tree on the property so it seemed a shame not to do something with all the leaves that were lying around. 

No sooner were we home than we headed to Queenstown for a family wedding - my job was to get the binding onto the quilt for the happy couple - accomplished but without a photo taken. What was I thinking?

Now that I am home, and life is reverting to normal (back to work, all the children back to school including our two boys starting at two different secondary schools on the same day... etc etc) I've turned my attention back to Frida and the amulets. I've started putting sashing between the blocks and getting it all put together. So exciting...

And best of all it's a long weekend here - with a fair wind behind me I hope to have the top all together before work beckons again on Tuesday.

Happy stitching where ever you are - and a belated Happy New Year.