First quilt in a while

I started this quilt while we were in the throes of the Kiwi move. Perhaps I was a little frustrated about not getting to pack my own boxes; I just wanted to keep my hands busy and be in control of something!

It's fitting to show it to you now since it's so in keeping with the scrap-busting mood I've been in of late. So many scrappy projects coming out of the sewing room on a daily basis these days! I can't wait to show you. The fabrics for this quilt were all plucked from my stash and thrown together with long, disjointed angles in mind. Not my usual colour pallet, but I'm happy enough with the result.

I must confess that I didn't get the whole thing done before the big move. I had to wait until our shipping container arrived at the end of March to finish off that teal binding. It actually worked out nicely as this was the project I brought along to work on during my first quilting group meeting back at the beginning of April, just days after the container had been unpacked. The group meets again next weekend and I've already got another - much larger - scrappy quilt ready to stitch during the meeting. Happy stitching!

Hot water bottle cozy

In Dunedin, we talk about the indoor temperature much like Vancouverites talk about the rain, Torontonians talk about the humidity, and Prairie folk talk about the snow. Locals covet their neighbour's heating systems like other people covet their neighbour's perfectly manicured grass. Debates rage on across the city about whether an open fire place really is the best way to heat a home, or whether they're just an open invitation for drafts.

Why the obsession with indoor temperature?

Because, it's cold. That's why.

The climate here is similar to Vancouver's except the houses are generally not properly insulated and double glazed windows were not required until just a few years ago. Our house happens to have some insulation, but that doesn't mean it's warm. Whereas in Vancouver we heated our home to a nice balmy 20 degrees, we're lucky if we hit 16 on a good day here in Dunners...and that's with the heaters cranked. The other morning it was a brisk 10 degrees in our bedroom when we woke up. Brrrr. That's cold.

We've resorted to going to bed with hot water bottles most nights in an attempt to fend off the chill. Abner desperately wanted a cute little cozy for her new bottle and has been reminding me to make one for days now. Over the weekend, I finally got around to it.

She dug through my fabric drawers looking at all the flannel and picked out this bit of pink that I had no other plans for. She amused herself with colouring while I picked out some left over scraps to embellish the front with.

I placed the scraps roughly in the centre and then just started sewing any which way until I ran out of thread. I love how the stitches remind me of a child's scribbles.

I have a feeling I will be making up many more of these in the coming months. They'd make a great gift for anyone newly arriving in Dunedin: "Welcome to Dunedin. Here's a hot water bottle cozy. You're going to need it."

Work in progress: Scrappy quilt

I had no intention of making a quilt the other day. All I meant to do was tidy up some scraps I had kicking around. A little pressing. A little snipping. That's all. Honest.

Well, one thing led to another and suddenly, I had over 600 perfectly cut squares and rectangles on my floor all perfectly sorted by colour.

Okay, okay. There was probably a little more planning involved than I'm letting on. Look, I even did some fussy cutting and I NEVER do fussy cutting because it's...well...fussy.

 

 

I've actually stitched the entire quilt top already, but you'll have to wait a while to see how it all came together.

Personalized lunch bag for Abner

Abner's new teacher asked me to put her name on anything we send with her to school when she starts in a couple of weeks. Of course, I had to turn it into a crafty challenge and try my hand at a little free-style cross stitching. What do you think? So much cuter than marker, eh?!?!

The bag is not new. It's a Threadless design called, "Mr. Cloud's New Scarf" we picked it up from some discount shop in Regina. I had no idea Threadless made anything other than clothing and bags, but when I was searching their site for the link to the lunch bag, I discovered they even make wallpaper, dishes and about a million other awesome things. Must buy more Threadless!

If ever there was a child that was ready to start school, it's Abner. She's already gone for some transition visits and tells me she'd rather be going to school than hanging out with me all day (to which I feign complete offense!). She's recently started reading books to us instead of the other way around and she's mastered the art of tying her own shoes, so now that her name is on all of her stuff, she's all set. Only 21 more days to wait - but who's counting.

The cross stitched chair

Proving once again that with a needle and thread, you can transform just about anything, check out my first completed Kiwi project: a cross stitched chair. Yup. You read that right. I cross stitched a chair. I'm not even the first person to do it (if you can believe it). I got the idea from a tutorial over on My Poppet.

A few years ago my aunt gave me this classic, cane-seat chair (the same aunt who gave me my vintage sewing box and found me my first set of Pyrex bowls). She had it stripped and the caning redone before she passed it on, but it was kind of dull, don't you agree? Because of the intricate weaving of the cane seat, I couldn't imagine ever painting it, so I've been waiting ages for a better idea.

I am in love with the finished results. Though my colours look like I copied the original tutorial, they were actually inspired by Abner's Numbers blanket (which was made with Alexander Henry's Countdown fabric). The pattern is simply meant to look like random patchwork ('cause it all comes back to quilting in the end).

Just look at those neat little x's! With all their crosses going the same direction and all.

Abner helped me use up some of the remaining bits to pretty up the spindles on the chair back. Turns out, tapestry wool frays like nobody's business and doesn't like to stay knotted, so I dabbed a wee bit of clear nail polish on each knot to keep it from coming unraveled. Worked like a charm.

Since caning is rather more see-through than regular cross stitch fabric, the back had to be rather neat, to say the least. This is my attempt at neat. No knots. Just weaving in ends and dabbing on nail polish.

Now that mommy is done making her pose with her chair, Abner is loving the newest addition to her bedroom.

A very Kiwi Easter: Part 2

The rest of our Easter weekend was spent on the road with one of The Dear Sweet Husband's colleagues and his family. They somehow managed to take us on a tour of pretty much the entire south end of the south island all in one weekend.

Our travels took us to touristy spots like Queenstown (what Whistler and Osoyoos would look like if they had a baby), Arrowtown (just about one of the cutest towns I've ever been in - and not just because it had a great fabric store and a killer sweets shop!), and historic Old Cromwell (where the original town was flooded out when a hydro dam was built, so they relocated a few historic buildings before it was too late).

Due to our tour guides' passion and The Dear Sweet Husband's budding interest in rural New Zealand, we also had the opportunity to stop in at some out of the way places like Ohai, Nightcaps, and Wairio where we got to see the complete opposite of a touristy town. Booming or busting - it was all beautiful.

It was a marvelous weekend and so wonderful of our friends to take the time to show us around. For all the new sights and scenery we saw during the weekend, I can't help but be reminded of Canada. So much of the countryside here looks exactly like home. I wish I had better pictures of the scenery to show you...my kid is just too cute not to photograph, so most of the pics are of her instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A very Kiwi Easter: Part 1

We are now a car driving Kiwi family. Yay! We picked up our new-to-us-paid-way-way-way-way-more-for-a-car-older-than-our-canadian-car-but-with-half-the-mileage car on Thursday just before the long weekend.

Our first trip took us out to the end of the Otago Peninsula on one of the scariest (read as most fun to drive) roads I've ever driven on in my entire life. Despite turning into oncoming traffic once, turning on the windshield wipers countless times when I meant to use the turn signal, and getting lost a couple of times on the first day, I'm now completely enjoying driving on the wrong side of the road.

How could you not like it when the road takes you to beautiful places like this, where we spent Good Friday having a picnic in near solitude.

Please pinch me, because I can't believe I really live here.