Quilty Meetings and a Blogiversary Giveaway

I am finally back at a reliable computer and can share some of the wonderful quilty things that have been happening to me while I've been travelling around New Zealand.  Also today is my first blogiversary so make sure you read to the end of this post!
Firstly, my beloved has started to get the quilting addiction in a small way.  He has on more than one occasion, spotted a quilt shop in a new town we're visiting before I have.  He has enjoyed looking for fabrics for a quilt related to his own addiction to antique pocket watches and he has had a great time talking to quilters and visiting certain quilt shops.  From small acorns...
We have visited a lot of places and a lot of quilt shops and I want to share two very special ones with you, one in Hawera in the North Island, near New Plymouth and one in Temuka in the South Island near Timaru.  They are both made special by the people who run them and by their individuality and I urge you to go out of your way to visit them if you are in New Zealand.
We have met a lot of people in our travels and the quilters have been particularly special.  Firstly I met Katrina and you can read about that by clicking here.
The next meeting was with Debbie and I found out how long she had deliberated about inviting me to stay with her and how mad some of friends thought she was.  "What?  You don't know her at all?  You just read her blog?!"  She wrote me a lovely email inviting Al and I to stay and said we weren't to "go all English on her and say we couldn't possibly"!  Debbie lives in New Plymouth and when we arrived we immediately felt comfortable with both her and her husband, Ian.

We had a lovely meal and lots of chat and then Debbie and I went off to Debbie's great sewing room to look at some of her work.  She had a lot of quilts that she was hoping to get finished in the very near future as presents and a lot of work on display in her house - evidence of both her enthusiasm, her skill and her love of bright colours.  I quickly found out that she has a particular dislike of brown.  I loved a stained glass window style dragonfly quilt hanging in the dining room and Al was very taken with a quilt she'd made for Ian that showcased all the things he loves.  In the morning Debbie and Ian had to go to work and left us with the house key and directions to the LQS and some interesting places to explore and walk in the area.  After a lovely day we returned to our temporary home and enjoyed a meal with Debbie and Ian and friends of theirs who had recently returned from a major overseas trip, including time in England.  The following morning was time to say goodbye but I really hope Debbie and Ian will be able to visit us in England when they make their next trip "home" and I'm so glad Debbie had to courage to make the initial invitation to us to stay.
My next quilty meeting was with Michelle and her husband, Stefan.  Michelle was the first person to follow my blog and has been very helpful with my teething problems with it and we have "chatted" by email as well as following each others' blogs.  I was looking forward to meeting her, it seemed quite amazing to me that blogs can lead to these "real" friendships, but I suppose it's just like the old days of penpals but a lot quicker.  We met up in a cafe in Stratford and then had a lovely brunch together while chatting away as if we'd met loads of times before.  Michelle then suggested that, since the sun was shining, we go to Hawera where we could climb the historic water tower for great views of the Taranaki area and, while in the town, visit her very favourite quilt shop.

I was delighted to see that Stefan and Al were getting on really well and had lots to chat about, they didn't even seem to notice that we'd got them into a quilt shop!  The quilt shop in question was one of the two very special ones I promised to share with you. I noticed that Helen over at HoneyBunchQuilting has posted about her visit to Claire Linn's wonderful Cinnamon Lodge (the website is not up and running yet and Claire promised to start a blog too so keep this link for the future) at 220 High Street, Hawera.  I immediately fell in love with both Claire and the shop.  She is a wonderfully friendly and enthusiastic lady and Cinnamon Lodge is a reflection of her.  The fabrics she has were so different from those you see in so many quilt shops.  She had deep, moody reds, Victorian greens, rich earthy colours and gorgeous bits and pieces around the shop to set them all off.  I could have filled my suitcase but decided to let Claire select six fabrics for me which were the "Essence of Claire" and I am going to design and make a table runner using them which will be a lovely reminder of a wonderful day every time I use it.

Michelle and I also bought a panel each which you can see in the photo above.  It had just come into Claire's shop and we're looking forward to seeing what we each do with it.  Michelle and Stefan had to get home to milk the cows and I was really sorry to see them go but Michelle did hint that she is considering starting a quilters' retreat...I hope she does, I'd be her first very enthusiastic customer and I think she'd make a great success of it.

My next quilty meeting was actually a series of meetings, firstly with with Yvonne Roberts, then with the Picton Quilters and then at Timaru mini-symposium and a lovely quilt shop in Temuka so I think I'll write a separate post about that tomorrow.

Finally I met up with Jenny and her husband, Robin.  We were late making our rendezvous due to Friday evening traffic in Wellington but when we arrived in Paekakariki we settled in for a great evening of chat, coffee and pizza.  We certainly made the most of our table in the Beach Road Deli, I hope they didn't mind!

Jenny, Robin, Al and I chatted away about quilts, our holiday and their recent trip to UK and I was delighted that my final quilty meeting was another success.
I am certainly going to continue to keep in touch with all the lovely people I met and hope to be able to see them again, in NZ, in UK and of course in cyberspace!

And speaking of cyberspace, as I said at the beginning, I am celebrating my first blogging anniversary and so I think a little giveaway is in order.  I'll keep it very simple, I'll choose a lucky winner from my followers, new and old, (including the Facebook/NetworkedBlogs ones so please make sure you have a profile and contact details or I can't identify you if you're the winner!) by random number generator on ANZAC Day, 25th April.

Bye Bye South Island

It's nearly time to leave South Island and head back towards the north.  We are just visiting a last couple of wineries....
We have had such a brilliant time in South island and it has been stunning, scenery and weatherwise and in all the lovely people we've met and the things we've done.  Can you believe it has been sunny for the past 12 days?  Kiwis don't believe we had all that sunshine in Fiordland.  (It's not sunny there anymore, they've had a lot of rain in the past few days).  Don't panic about me doing loads of stuff by the way.  You only get to read about the highlights but we try to have at least one lazy day for every active day, often more.  It just doesn't make very good blog copy to write
"...got up late, had breakfast.....sat in the sunshine and read my book......had a cup of coffee....read some more and thought about lunch..... " 
I have had one really bad day and several dodgy mornings (is anyone pregnant only I've been having sympathetic morning sickness?!!) but apart from that I've been doing well and my twisted back thing is now okay too.
We had a lovely time in Kaikoura after the Quilt Symposium in Timaru and reverted to type with eating our way around NZ!  There are photos of plates of food to entertain you with when we get back to Tel's next week.  We started with scallops by the side of the road, then an Indonesian restaurant and finally a 10/10 French Toast breakfast the next morning, with fudge with our coffee, yum. 
We also had some great wildlife spots.  The fur seals were enjoying the sunshine and the pups were playing in the rock pools, very cute.  Then we saw dusky dolphins, just from the roadside.  Absolutely amazing, there were literally hundreds, it was like the sea was bubbling with them swimming, leaping and twisting.  Another on the "awesome" list.  We gave a young German hitch hiker a lift to Blenheim yesterday and he had been swimming with the dolphins the previous day and had a wonderful time.
Time's up on the library computer so I'll sign off and be in touch again when we get to the frantic and densely populated North - only 1 million here in SI compared with 3 million in NI.
Love and hugs.

Thinking Of You

Just a short post to let you know I'm still alive!  I am having a great time in New Zealand and, most marvellously have met up with some wonderful quilters and fellow bloggers.  I will write at length and share the photos when I get to a computer that is
a. on broadband
b. not one I have to feed with dollar coins
c. able to link up with my camera
but I had a wonderful time with Debbie and with Michelle and their respective husbands and quilt shops in Taranaki.  I then went to Picton where I met up with Yvonne who I met on Kiwi Quilters Yahoo group and who invited me to a meeting of the Picton Quilters which was great.  I hope to meet up with Yvonne and some of the other ladies from Picton at the mini-symposium in Timaru this weekend - more photos, I promise.  I also hope to meet up with Jenny when I get back to North Island. 
I have bought a lot of lovely things, planned a lot of projects and not actually done a lot of sewing but that's the way it goes sometimes.  I cannot visit all the blogs I usually follow but please accept my love and best wishes and I hope you are all happy and well and doing marvellous stitching.  I'll catch up with you all and myself as soon as I am able.

Queenstown

We are making our way northwards but still have sightings of snow - on Mount Cook today as we came across from Queenstown to Lake Tekapo.  Tomorrow I am going to the exhibition part (oh, and the shopping part) of the quilt show in Timaru and hoping to meet up with Yvonne and the lovely ladies I met in Picton.  On Sunday I am doing a miniature quilt workshop.  The weather is still gorgeous and forecast to last for a few more days at least so I hope Al will find something lovely to do on Sunday. 
We enjoyed our brief visit to Queenstown, a very, very busy place but with loads to do - not all involving leaping off or out of things.  We actually spent our day yesterday tracking down the locations of some of the photos in a 1930 photo album of somebody's trip to NZ.  We bought it at an antique auction a couple of years ago and it's been a little mission.  We had a successful day so I might eventually "write the book".  I think we would like to spend more time in the Queenstown area, not necessarily in the town itself, on another visit.  We keep thinking that.  Even though we've been so fortunate to have three months for our trip it just seems to go so quickly.  I suppose we're doing more here and seeing more than we have done at home!  We keep querying things about previous trips too.  It's all very well keeping holiday diaries, I need to have them with me on subsequent trips!
We've just heard the General Election is to be on 6 May, now there's a surprise!  Of course we'll just miss it so whoever gets in, it's not our fault.
Love to you all xx

Awesomeness

Here I am back on a computer at last, only dial-up but at least I can give you a quick update of our adventures and say hello.
Hello.
We have experienced the most awesome awesomeness in the past few days. 
We survived Wanaka - gave it a second chance and can see how it is attractive but it just doesn't work for us.  I had 4/10 French Toast and we got overcharged!! 
From there we had a great journey down to Fiordland, stopping in Arrowtown which is a preserved/reconstructed gold-mining town.  There were a lot of Chinese miners brought in and their settlement is very atmospheric.  There are a considerable number of deciduous trees in the area so we had an impressive display of autumn colour which is strange for NZ. 
From there it was onwards to Te Anau, the furthest south we've been in NZ ever.  We have been staying in a backpackers' there for six days and had time to do exciting things and time to relax too, excellent.  Every morning the view of mountains from our room is different, thank goodness for digital photography.  We have enjoyed walks on the lakeside in Te Anau and lots of lovely coffee shops on the one day when it poured and poured and poured - they can have up to 9m (yes, that's metres) of rain in Fiordland - and some epic days out.  I know we go on about the weather but it has been exceptional here.  We were prepared for rain, it being the west coast and autumn but after the one wet day we have enjoyed sun and more sun, even though there was a frost yesterday morning.
On Easter Sunday we went out to Doubtful Sound on a day trip that involved crossing Lake Manapouri, then a coach trip across the Wilmot Pass, then another boat in Doubtful Sound (actually a fjord not a sound at all...)  We saw bottlenosed dolphins, wonderous waterfalls, mountains and miles and miles of empty water.  The quiet when the boat engines were cut was amazing.  Brilliant day out.  We had a stop at the Manapouri power station on the way back (below the fjord, like something out of a 007 film, interesting but not as impressive as nature's creations imho).
Yesterday we took the Milford Road to Milford Sound.  It was a beautiful sunny day and we had the amazing contrast of snow in the mountains and then being too hot in a camisole and shirt at sea level!  Also it was really weird as Milford was so busy.  It's school holidays here and it was a lovely day, as the owner of our backpackers' said, "You drive to the end of the world and find it's full!"  The Milford Road is an adventure in itself, with lots of stopping points for serious trampers or for lightweights like us to get out of the car and take a photo.  We walked to a stunning waterfall, stopped at some mirror lakes, enjoyed the wonders of the mountain scenery and saw a kaka, a mountain parrot.  At Milford Sound we enjoyed a walk along the foreshore and our picnic lunch under a tree where we found out that our insect repellent does actually work and the sandflies didn't fancy having their lunch with us.
Okay, time nearly up.  We've an overnight in Queenstown tomorrow and then another at Lake Tekapo - is that the church you want a photo of Jane?  Hope so!  Then we're in Timaru for a few days and I'm off to the quilt symposium while Al enjoys whatever else the area has to offer.  Eventually there will be photos - we've taken a few!  Hope you all had a good Easter and are happy and healthy.  Lots of hugs,  Lis and Al xxxx

Awesome Day

What a difference a day makes!  We awoke to a dry, if grey, day and after breakfast headed to the Fox Glacier to make the most of it with a walk to the terminal face. 
Awesome is an over-used word here in NZ but I'm going to use it a lot today.  The glacier was awesome, blue ice, massive and the river tumbling down was also blue in places and with chunks of ice in it.  The surrounding mountains were sheer and dark with water falling from them.  Very impressive. 
After a rather yummy steak that Al cooked for lunch we decided to make the most of the dry day with a trip out to Lake Matheson - the famous reflective one.  We were not disappointed. 
We walked through wonderful rainforest with waterfalls and tiny gardens made of mosses and ferns, great birdsong and hardly any people.  There were awesome views of the glacier and the surrounding mountains although the tops of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman themselves remained in the clouds.  We walked all the way around the lake and then got back to a nice cup of tea and a calorie-free slice of cake, enjoyed outside the cafe with views of the mountains.  The sun did peek out - warm enough to be out without coats or fleeces - but not enough to drive off the high cloud.  Truly a great place.  As before, photos to follow.
We're off to Wanaka tomorrow, quite a long drive with the promise of some more awesomeness, particularly the Haast Pass.  We hope your rain also clears up.

From North to South

We finally have access to a computer albeit at $1 for 10 minutes so I'll have to type quickly - please forgive any typos.  We are on the West Coast of South Island now, in Fox Glacier (the village, not the lump of ice although hopefully we'll be going there in the morning).  It is absolutely pouring with rain although it's not chilly.  We have a great room at the hostel here, it has a big picture window so it's like sleeping in the rainforest!
We've been up to all sorts of great things since I last wrote and I have quite a few pictures to add when that is a possibility - not today, sorry.  We had a great time in Taranaki - it's the sticky out bit partway down the west coast of North Island.  We met up with Brian and Jo which was great although Jo is fed up with the hassle of teaching - don't we know about that - and hoping for a different job.  We also met up with some wonderful quilters that I got to know through my quilting blog.  I'll write all about that over on Online Quilting but I just have to say here what a fantastic time we had with Debbie (and Ian) and with Michelle (and Stefan).
We headed southwards, stayed in a wonderful hostel overlooking the sea in Paekakariki and then got the Interislander ferry to Picton on Sunday.  More quilting-related activities followed - a meeting with Yvonne (and Gary) and then a fantastic evening with Yvonne and the Picton Quilters who were hosting a group from Australia.  More photos will appear on Online Quilting asap.
Yesterday we visited the Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki, a fantastic rock formation with which we were very impressed - even though the tide wasn't high enough for the blowholes to be doing their thing.  We also had a walk through the wonderful rainforest to the beach near our hostel - quite mysterious and magical but a bit full of bitey things!  I also managed to twist my back so now I know how Al feels all the time.  Apart for the journey down State Highway 6 today we are taking it easy, just food stops (remember the Cafe de Paris in Hokitika Did & Saz?  We had brunch there today, 10/10 French Toast-style crepes for me, full breakfast for Al) and sightseeing from the car.  The rain has been very wet for the first time on our holiday, other times have been showery and then cleared.  I suppose it is to be expected on the West Coast - it's a bit like Cornwall or West Scotland - and things don't get so green and lush without rain. 
The plan for tomorrow, back permitting, is to walk to the terminal face of the Fox Glacier.  We will be in Te Anau in the Fjords over Easter and I hope I will get more internet access then.  In the meantime, lots of love and hugs and Happy Easter to you all in anticipation.

A Little Bit of Gorgeousness

Here are some photos of that hand dyed fabric I bought at the Pasifika Festival last week:

I'm heading off towards South Island, NZ in the morning and I'm making a few days stop in Taranaki on the way.  I'm very excited (and a bit nervous) as I'm going to be meeting up with some fellow bloggers.  I'll take some photos and post about our meetings as soon as I can, watch this space.

What I Did On Friday Night

Another lovely, sunny day in paradise and after a good evening spent sewing I'm up early and off to visit friends in Tauranga.

I started my Friday Night Sew-In sitting on the verandah in the evening sunshine so I thought I'd get a photo taken to promote a little envy in those of you in the wintery Northern Hemisphere, although I understand there are definite signs of Spring around and that you've been enjoying some warm days in England at least.

I'm working on a quiltlet for my trip project, this one is based on North Island, NZ and I'm using fabrics I bought at The Country Yard near Whangarei in Northland where I also bought a lovely selection of Aurifil threads.

The Country Yard (above) is in a great setting and is a very friendly quilt barn.  There was a quilting group there when I visited and several people also popped in to buy, show and tell.  These are the Aurifil colours I bought for starters and I have to say I am really enjoying using them.

I'm hand sewing and the thread is really smooth through the fabric and doesn't seem to tangle as much as other threads I've used.  I've not brought my beeswax with me so the threads are being tested au naturel!

This is what I got done on Friday night - I came inside soon after the photo (it's Autumn here, with cooler mornings and evenings) and settled down in my dressing gown with some yummy things to eat including Whittaker's chocolate peanut slab and a whole 1 kg punnet of apricots that were a bargain at about $6, plus a couple of bottles of lemon, lime and bitters!

Two adapted log cabin blocks (why the colours look different from one photo to the next I don't know, I took them about 30 seconds apart) and I am going to applique a nikau palm silhouette on top in dark green Fossil Fern fabric.  I've cut out the templates as you can see but I need to buy some of that iron-on double sided adhesive that I saw being used on Simply Quilts this week - my BiL found it on the Sky Living Channel for me and has been recording it, what a star.  Nikau palms are only found in Australia and NZ, here's one:

They're quite iconic trees here and used in a lot of designs.  The young shoots can be eaten and Captain James Cook wrote of doing so, they're called miko.  I'm glad I went for the chocolate and apricots though!

I had a lovely Friday sew-in and now I'm off to look at what others got up to - it's such a great feeling to know this is something happening all over the world, thanks Heidi and Bobbi.

No Weather?

We just want you to know that the Weather Pixie has a server problem and will apparently be back as soon as possible! 

We didn't want you to think that we're hiding the fact that it's getting more and more Autumnal here!  The mornings and evenings are quite cool but it's still getting up to about 21C during the day - although the sun didn't actually come out today!  You can check on this weather map in the meantime.  Yesterday was a bit unusual according to the weatherman and it was only 3C overnight in Christchurch, golly, that's almost frosty.  Actually I went out in bare feet to put the washing on the line and my toes got decidedly icy yesterday morning.

When the pixie is back I'll set her to South Island where it'll be quite a lot cooler anyway - like going up to Scotland in October.  We leave Terry's on Tuesday to head southwards, catching up with some old and new friends on the way which we're really looking forward to. 

We then have about a month in South Island and I hope I can get access to computers to share photos of what promises to be stunning scenery with you.  I'm thinking I really should have brought a small computer with me (yours would have been ideal Sara...), it's easy to get a wireless connection but not so easy to actually find a PC although we've just found out that the libraries here provide free access if you can get the local students to move over.