Beauty in Winter

Here's a picture of the flowers my mum gave me:

They are more gorgeous than the photos shows.

There's a white bulb I think is called Early Cheer with it's distinctive smell
(I always say it's the shortest day then from my birthday onwards it gets better!)
and something white with purple veins that looks like a floral brassica and mauve alstroemeria.

This photo show some light green flax with brownish purple edges.
It provides great structure to the bunch:

I came home to them in my lovely Crown Ducal Jug

which perfectly matched the flowers with it's creams and greens.

This Jug came from our local Hospise Op-shop along with 5 china mugs (made without handles) and number of serving platters and turrens with lids.

I love that way it's elegant without being OTT 'pritzy'. Juga nd mugs look great in summer filled with homemade lemon cordial on ice outside on a pretty tablecloth.

Best be off to bed as I have a 20 month old visitor for the night who may wake and cry for Mum. At home she can scream for a few hours so we'll see what she does for us!

With Uni exams over for her Dad, they're both having a well earned weekend away...but only 30 min drive in case they get called back.

Blessings, Cheri

It's my Birthday and I can study if I want to...

The day was spent at Massey University for a contact course for my Social work course.

It's not to heavy a load for the two days (another one tomorrow) and I enjoy the change of scenery (I only have 8 of these days for the year, the rest of the course is at home, extramurally).

I caught the early bus - out of the house by 7.15am so I can dedicate the day to study and avoid making breakfast and lunch :)

So being my birthday...

 I came home to a house full of excited children awaiting with balloons, cards, presents, chocolate, dinner cooked by hubby with soup by my friend and hot chips from the local, flowers from mum, cake from my Palmerston North Grandma (delivered complete with the required amount of candles:

 

I don't feel terribly old but there's enough candles to be impressive... 

 But not scary for long.

All the helpers for the blowing out.

(Quick to reduce spit factor :} )

33 sounds much easier to remember than the numbers before!

Blessings, Cheri

Sewing and Unpicking Cushions

Today is Thursday and this morning is my study-work time, as I tell the kids, one of whom is home with me today. Hopefully it will be boring enough for her to want to be at Preschool, and to want to be well behaved at Preschool. Madam Four is now one of the oldest left (in NZ you start school on your fifth birthday) and thinks she has a chance at being the boss!

On to the cushions mentioned above:
One day I'll tell you about my friend Chrisy sometime but for now: she made my Mum a quilt and I'm using the scraps to make some cushions to go with it.

This one I'm really happy with.

But...if you have a fine eye for detail you 'll see that squares are all equal, not allowing any seam allowance. I was purposely not taking hours to work things out and got my maths wrong. It was either chop the middle smaller or make other cushions with the triangles. I chose the former as I was so happy with the colours.

Cushion Two

I wasn't happy about the higher contrast of the triangles here but didn't trust my judgement and started sewing. I've now unpicked them and are thinking about using greens:

In the scraps from quilt there was only darker greens of sufficient size so I'm thinking about adding on from my stash (after all there's no rules, are there!). I'm leaning towards the one with gold and red leaves and flowers in the top left corner with the green that's in every corner (which comes from the quilt). Any suggestions?

Best go and use my study-work time to make notes for the assignment I'm writing about social work assessment. A somewhat dry topic but one I recognise as important. The main task is to not get distracted with the interesting bits in the books I ordered from the library!

Also to not get stiff cold fingers while  typing in my sleepout/study

on this almost frosty morning in the Manawatu.

Blessings, Cheri

More on the Quick Coin Quilt...

Welcome and thank you to Catherine of Catalina's Cottage for being my first follower. It's exciting to see 'stats' that show that people from around the world looking. It gives a feeling of connectedness (the social critics would be say it gives a 'feeling' of connectedness without the actuality - but that's another story...)

So to the quilt... and my attempt at machine quilting.  As a novice I wanted a pattern and I discovered the patterns that long arm quilters use called pantographs - I'm not sure what they are if you buy them (!) but they're continuous patterns so you don't have to stop sewing to do the entire quilt (or row in my case).

I downloaded a sample of one for and I would love to give credit to where from but I can't find it anywhere! I'm not sure of the copyright implications of me using it but as I looked some sites today I see that 'nothing is new under the sun' and many of them are similar.

So here is 'Wildflower'.

I zoomed into it on my computer (a HP mini with a little screen!) and then traced one flower and two leaves from it directly off the screen onto some clear plastic off the front of a spiral bound AGM report.

Who needs a light box!

I cut around the template (only a little at first but found it easier in two parts - a flower and a leaf)
I used chalk to trace them onto my quilt and then went for it - free style - and here's the result:

A bit wonky in places but I was happy.

The only problem was that I didn't enjoy it that much...hand quilting is so much more theraputic. Also this was approx. 1m x 1m with no batting and I can't imagine trying to wrestle a big batted quilt under my domestic machine!! I don't think things would be very domestic for long :)

Lastly, it was rolled up and delivered to the teacher on the last day she taught my son with the instuctions that it wasn't a 'precious' quilt and she could use it for anything - baby wrap, change mat, outside picnic rug...she could machine wash it and if it falls apart I'll take it that it was well used and loved.

I'm off now to fill my hot water bottle (the best thing about winter).

Blessings, Cheri.