What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 Not quite a caravan trip, but the next best thing.  I went to visit the caravan club who were away for the weekend at Mt Lees Reserve.  On the way  I stopped off at the very popular Lewis Farms to buy some strawberries.  These are grown in huge tunnel houses so the growing season seems to last for ages.  I bought myself a nice hot coffee too before I continued on my drive north.

Yummy strawberries from Lewis Farms

I arrived at Mt Lees Reserve in time for morning tea, just as well I remembered to pack my folding camping ...

Yellow is the RSC colour of the month, and I've done a little  stitching for my  block sets.  Not much yellow at all in my bag of 2.5in squares to make my framed four patches, but it just had to do.  I'm using those squares up, not cutting new ones.  And I cut some yellow strips for my black and white blocks.

Yellow RSC blocks

I enjoyed a lunch out with friends this week, I have known these ladies for over 40 years, so we go back a while.  Robin and I have been meeting up with ...

 I've finished the last of the blue sewing for RSC this month.    I'm on a quest to use up the last remaining few selvedge strips this year and found a small handful of blue ones.  So, another double handed oven mitt was created.   Just like the pink  ones I stitched last month, there were just enough strips to use on the top of the pockets, and I used dark blue fabric for the rest.  Insulbrite and toweling in the middle, and hessian (sacking) on the back.

 In Rainbow Scrap Challenge land, a new month means a new colour.  And blue it is.  I looked through my small bag of 2.5in squares and selected some with blue tones to make more framed four patch blocks.  That bag doesn't seem to be going down at all, but it must be, ever so slowly.  I know I've said it before, but I really don't like working with 2.5in squares, they just seem so small to me.  And yes, I know, some bloggers delight in working with even tinier 1.5in squares, how do they ...

 The Hawkes Bay is generally sunny and warm, and although we had a couple of chilly nights, the days were glorious.  We spent a couple of days at Napier NZMCA Park and our neighbours were intrigued that we travel with a cat and came over to say hello to Gemma.  

At Napier NZMCA Park

These NZMCA parks always have a book swap and I found this helpful book there, Crafty Girls Road Trip.  Although 10 years old, there is still plenty of information that will be relevant.  I'll keep the book in the caravan for when we are tripping ...

 It's our 41st anniversary so we decided to go out for lunch.  Thanks Dot for the lovely hand made card.

We decided on Speights Ale House in Palmerston North, setting off on a rather drizzly morning.  As the ads say, real men drink Speights.

Speights Ale House

We were soon seated, and checked out the menus.  What to have, that's always the question.  Although I love pork belly, I decided to go with something different, and chose  bacon wrapped chicken stuffed with pesto and cream cheese, and cherry sauce, very tasty indeed.  Robin couldn't go past the ...

 Last weekend we were getting ready to leave for a caravan rally.  Gemma decided to make life difficult for us, with all the hustle and bustle of packing the caravan going on.  "Why not give my people a hard time and hide for a while", she thought.  We were all ready to go and searched here, searched there, to no avail, then searched again.  Robin finally found her curled up and keeping low in a place I had already checked twice!  I don't know why she acts like this, after all she goes away in the caravan once a ...

 We have been busy lately, tooing and froing all over the place.  Last week we met our caravan club friends for lunch down at Denny's in Porirua.    Denny's is a casual, family style restaurant, with quite an extensive menu, something for everyone's tastes.  Our group of 20 was spread out over three tables, and the restaurant was fairly full with other family groups too.  Our members are spread out geographically, some driving over the hill from the Wairarapa, some from the Horowhenua, Kapiti, and the Hutt Valley.  The serious business of checking out the the menus took ...

 Watch out - the pirates have arrived, rattling their cutlasses and flying the Jolly Roger Flag!  These pirates were a RSC start in January this year.  I had a piece of pirate fabric and cut it into squares to make Happy Blocks.  All the colours of the rainbow were not represented in this fabric, so I made blocks bordered with green, red, yellow and light and  dark blue.

Pirate blocks bordered in green

As the  months rolled by the other blocks were made in the appropriate colours, and then I had fifteen.  It was time to assemble them this month, I ...

 I've been (slowly) knitting beanies using some donated wool from a group which does knitting and sewing for those in need.  Beanies for men were needed so from the big box of wool I chose some brown and a smaller ball of cream.  This group does good work for the community but the day of the week they meet doesn't suit me so I've decided not to join them after all.  But of course I needed to pop in and return the beanies to them.  I managed to get three large and one child's beanies out ...

 Robin and I are leading a Caravan Safari with our caravan club friends through coastal Wairarapa.  Taking them along roads not traveled, and places yet to be explored.   The drive took us through some pretty farmland, with plenty of cattle and sheep grazing contentedly.   Our first stop was Alfredton Domain which has overnight free parking.

Alfredton was formed in 1868 and was part of the Small Farms Association.  These days it is a tiny village with a school and a church.  The Domain is an attractive place with ewes and small lambs everywhere.  The calls of our beautiful native bird ...

 We traveled down to Christchurch to spend some  time with my son Michael to celebrate his 60th birthday.  He had a busy week as he had flown up to Wellington to spend a couple of days with his Dad, then flew back down again in time for our arrival in Christchurch.  I had booked a table for dinner on Friday night at the Platform Brew Barn, a riverside establishment in Kaiapoi, quite close to where we are staying at the NZMCA park.

It was time for our monthly lunch with our Super Leisure Group (SLG) friends, and Calvin had arranged for us to meet down at Porirua.  That suited us fine, as on the way I could do a donation drop off at Paraparaumu Beach, on the way to Porirua.  So I packed up some goodies for Foster Hope, and we set off bright and early.  These had been finished some time ago, and were waiting patiently to be delivered.

Three draw string bags for toiletries or pencils

Three toddlers aprons, a woolly beanie and two pencil cases with pencils

Two quilts ...

 What a delightful afternoon we had.  My friend Dot and I attended the Daffodil Day High Tea, a fundraiser for the Cancer Society.

There were raffles on sale, so I purchased tickets in several gift baskets, they always look enticing.  And there was a sales table too, manned by the volunteer ladies from the Cancer Society.  I bought two jars of homemade jam, plus some shortbread biscuits.  All for a good cause.

The beautifully decorated tables soon filled up.  

Fancy cups and saucers were set out at each place setting.  And a little later, the food arrived.  Sandwhiches, and savouries ...

 It seems to have been a long time since I had a RSC finish to share.  In fact, it is a "two for one deal" as it  also ticks the box for the Chookshed Challenge number 3 which was chosen for August.  These selvedge blocks were started in Rainbow Scrap Challenge during 2020 and each month I stitched one in the nominated colour.  I had decided to make these blocks for a tote bag, and also stitched a couple of handles, and sone extra selvedge strips in burgundy for the top of the bag.  Then it was put aside.

Bag ...

 It's been a busy old time lately.  Each month a group of ladies from our village go out to lunch.  It was my turn to organise it this month, and as usual we went to one of the local cafes.  We all enjoyed our lunches and I asked the owner to take a photo for me.  Ooops, the photos seem to be turning out a little fuzzy lately.

Gill, Audrey, Janice, Jan, Jenny and Dot

The cafe has a large collection of English teapots made to look like pretty cottages.  Like most collections, this one started small, then just ...

 You may remember that I stitched pretty little quilt featuring unicorns a while ago.  It started like this, a cute panel that was looking for a new home, courtesy of Sew Wot member Helen.  The unicorns popped into my bag quick smart - I was sure that I could do something nice with them.  Gemma thought so too, as she inspected the panel.

Approved  by Gemma

So I cut the panels apart, sashed them with different fabrics from my stash, assembled the blocks and added a purple border.  Then one sunny day I pinned the three layers together on the patio ...

 The Winter season has ticked over down here in the Southern Hemisphere.  The weather has been fine and sunny, although the temperatures are definately getting much cooler.  We had great weather for our caravan club weekend away.  It was a long weekend with Monday 3rd being a public holiday, King's Birthday weekend to commemorate King Charles birthday.  Although his actual birthday is in November, it is celebrated in June.  Why?  It all goes back to King George 11 and the cold English winter weather, he started this tradition way back in 1748.  He had a November birthday, and announced ...

 We've had a busy old time lately.  Robin had a hospital procedure recently, one of those which require drinking large amounts of horrible liquid before hand - I'm sure many of you have undergone this as well.  Driving up to the hospital early in the morning, he had his paperwork done, changed into a gown, and taken away.  While I waited I spent some time in the hospital cafe with my book, a cheese scone (not the best one I've ever eaten), coffee, my knitting, and my phone, waiting for the call to come and collect him.  The ...