Sunny

Sunny 2006. 'Clickable' picutres. Just to prove I could do it.

Sunday walk (1)

Here's a new series.

The Sunday morning walk photograph.

This one is looking across the heads of Wellington harbour from Te Raekaihau, the penninsular between Lyall Bay and Houghton Bay. It was a beautiful day at 7am. It often is. Shame you couldn't join me.

Celebrating

I put on my new little black party dress* and went to the swim club Christmas party. A few vodka jellies, a little champagne, dinner and dancing 'til very late (early). Great fun! Look what they gave me. Me! Most Improved Swimmer! Me! We only have two trophies...the President's cup, for contribution to club spirit, and Most Improved. Me! Shucks, I wouldn't have done it without the encouragement, support, and friendship of my swimming buddies. Thanks. We were in the water at 8am this morning. Such dedication. The scrambled eggs were pretty good today!

*"Is it too little?" I asked my friend. "Don't be stupid", she said. "They see you in a swim suit at least 3 times a week". We got no secrets us swimmers, no secrets.

No. 2 son played cricket today and it was very exciting. They needed 6 runs, we needed 1 wicket to win. They got the runs before we got the wicket. A bunch of 10 year olds in their bright cricket whites, concentrating hard, encouraging each other, and putting their hearts into the game is a real joy to watch. Next I helped escort a bunch of 12 year old boys to a paint-ball birthday bash. No. 1 son has been friends with Duncan since they were both kindy boys aged 4. How cool is that? We're going to take Duncan out for dinner and to see a play in December. I'm looking forward to it. We've come a long way from pass the parcel!

I've tried and tried to get a 'clickable' photo of Sunny up here to no avail. I can't figure this out at all, at all.

I got mail

There's a large envelope in the letterbox. I recognise the writing on the self-addressed envelope. But they said they'd post the accept/reject letters on 26 November. Could it be early? If the quilt is in, they send a letter. If the quilt is out, the cd and photographs are returned. Heart in mouth, I can feel this envelope is not empty. There's a cd in there.

Rejected by the jurors for the National Quilt Symposium 2007. What are they thinking? This is a fabulous quilt! Never mind, Jude and Jules can have it now, in time for their first anniversary. The whole-view photo makes this quilt look less than square. I should've got the tripod out. I wonder if that had anything to do with it? Unusually, there are no comments included from the jurors, just "the quality of the images sent in for judging did not always do justice to the quilts".

It's kindof ironic that this quilt is rejected. It brings a little story, which I'm not telling, to closure in a way. Never mind little quilt, I love you dearly. I named it Joy.

Accepted by the jurors for the National Symposium 2007. Sunny. Hooray! It's a real honour to get something accepted. I don't envy those jurors. Sunny will now get some loving care to ensure it looks its best hanging in the exhibition in Palmerston North in January.

My third entry, the house quilt which you can get a glimpse of here was a collaborative project with a quilting buddy. The accept/reject news will have been sent to her, along with news of her own two quilts. She is out of town. The envelope will be waiting in her letterbox. We'll just have to wait for her to come home.

Periwinkle

Go see all the pictures at A Year of Colour

What's a girl to do?

Shave, wax, or leave it be? Advice, opinions sought. Does it depend who you're sleeping with? Hmmm?

New version of blogger? Yes or no?

Kiwi chicks, appearing here for no reason at all

Photograph by the Waikato Times

Red

Red collage for A Year of Colour.
The red chair pictures (from Christchurch Arts Centre) are by my friend The Sagittarian who really needs a blog of her own. Nice huh? 

One more Melbourne day

My third day in Melbourne was grey and cool. Plenty of fun to be had though. Out for breakfast (of course). I had the best scrambled eggs I’ve had in a long while, full of sun-dried tomatoes and herbs, with onion jam on the side. Fabulous. Somewhere in Brunswick Street, the place with the tree sculpture.

We explored a few Brunswick St shops, and went to the Rose St craft market. That’s where I bought the green silk in the previous post. Next we went for a drive to Northcote to a well stocked shop named 50s Flashback. Vintage fabric heaven. Okay, there were no bargains that I could see....but look!

Mostly vintage fabrics with a few reproduction prints. I bought that one in the bottom right hand corner. It's destined to be cushions for a black leather sofa of my acquaintance. Went back to Northcote later in the day to the beautifully restored movie theatre to see Little Miss Sunshine. Laughed and laughed. Great movie. Out for dinner (of course) to AOF’s favourite Thai, where I survived the chilli prawns, Thai style. Oh those Aussie prawns, they alone would be reason enough to relocate.

I love exploring Melbourne. But especially with AOF. She sent me home calm and sure of what I want, with a clear vision of the future. Everything has been falling into place since then. Thanks dear friend, for giving me the space to remember who I am.

Quilts of the Day

I washed two quilts today. Here they are pictured drying outside. It's a good day for drying quilts, overcast and a little breezy.

Double Wedding Ring (1998 or thereabouts). 1930s reproduction fabrics, worn and faded now, which adds to its antique look.

Blue Star (1999 or thereabouts). A classic 2-colour quilt in my favourite colour combo. I'm stopping myself from telling you what's wrong with each of them. Quilters always do that. I wonder if other artists do? We learn a little from each quilt we make. I'm still enjoying the learning.
Green yellow treasures, for a year of colour. More yellow in real life than my monitor is showing. A tiny bowl bargain from an asian food warehouse, and a shibori dyed piece of silk, from a craft market . The silk may get worn as a scarf, or maybe cut up and used in some art.

Melbourne (2)

On my second day in Melbourne I had tropical fruit for breakfast and walked into the city.

Note: you should not wear last summers shoes for the first time this summer when you are going to spend the whole day on your feet. You get blisters. It hurts.

I spent hours in David Jones. Hours. I had no idea what time it was, and the morning flew by. I met AOF for sushi, and she took me to Craft Victoria which has a stunning shop, and was showing a work with lacy curtains to wander through and clay dogs. You could add to the exhibition and make your own dog. It was a quiet afternoon in, early dinner at a nearby pub. "Pub" does not do it justice, there were crisp white linen napkins and the food was fantastic, the eggplant and zucchini chips particularly memorable. We got a DVD, I have no idea what it was called, and I slept through lots of it. Long long nights finishing that essay and the quilts sure caught up with me quick.still more Melbourne adventures to come! 

Golden Wedding

My parents have been married for 50 years. The far-flung family gathered in Christchurch to celebrate. We had dinner at Hay's, opposite the Casino. Pictured above, a corsage for my Mum, duck and asparagus crepes, salmon with cherry tomatoes, basil and beans, lemon curd pavlova. Clean, uncomplicated tastes. Beautiful.


We saw a rainbow trout swimming in the Avon river in the middle of the city. Christchurch was pretty as usual, calm and hot, unlike the wintery, gale-ridden Wellington we returned to. I'm going to live in Christchurch one day. Look, here's another Paul Dibble sculpture, Leaf, outside the City Art Gallery.

 

Someone's excited

Elton John is playing in Wellington on 6 Dec. He's not, I'm informed by youngest son, even staying the night in NZ. He's flying in for the show, then off again afterwards in his private jet. Hope Wellington airport is open. Wish someone had taken me to a big concert when I was almost 10. 

Melbourne (1)

I went to Melbourne. Over at Be-mused there's a nice little story about how a friend said she wanted to watch Be-mused buy fabric. That's just how I was feeling. I wanted to watch the food nazi buy food. She's written such interesting posts about her weekly sojourn to Vic Market that I wanted to go too. So she picked me up at the airport, and with a fortifying stop for caffine and mushrooms on toast, off to the market we went.

Custard apple, pretty chillies, and deli delights - Vic Market

"What's that?" I said, pointing at the huge ugly green thing. "A custard apple." "What's a custard apple?" "Buy one" she said, "it's cheaper than chocolate!" So I did. It was huge. It needed to ripen, so we left it for the next day. It was delicious, it tasted like a tropical holiday.

Fresh fish, fresh veges, and hand knitted tea cosys

No-one had responded to either of our pleas for ideas for crafty places to visit, so my tour guide thought of her own. She took me to Zetta Florence, in Fitzroy, a beautiful shop to take the breath away of anyone remotely interested in design and paper....ohh, such beautiful paper, journal style books begging to be written in, stamps, cards, posters and stickers that made me go ohhhhh. I bought a beautiful solid eraser, with 'oops' written on it, which Santa will leave in someones Christmas stocking.

Off we went again to the Artisan Books. Oh my! Of course I bought a book. Don't be silly. I bought "Color by Accident" by Ann Johnston, mostly on the strength of the too few colour pictures. I want to make fabric like that! I declined to purchase "unexpected knitting" which intrigues my non-knitting , non-sewing friend. There were nearby exciting shops too, Industria with recycled industrial bits and pieces for home, Cooks Books which was full of cullinary treasures, Spacecraft for beautiful screen printed linen I will have to learn to live without and funky clothes. Gertrude St, Fitzroy is a wonderful place. I was a very happy Pixie!
More adventures to come.

 

done

3 quilts, finished, photographed, entry forms completed. I hope at least one of them gets accepted. Now I can go to Melbourne. 

I'm going to Melbourne

On Thursday. For a long weekend with AOF.
What should I do there? (Besides the food that is. Doesn't everyone go to Melbourne for food?). Is there some crafty goodness I should not miss?

Oh, yes, the essay is done, the quilts for competition entry are close, very close.....there's hours yet til the plane goes on Thursday, of course I can do it.

Free Hugs Campaign. Inspiring Story! (music by sick puppies)

Here's something to make you smile.

Quilting

I'm quilting. Furiously. Must finish quilts for National Symposium. Entries close 1 November.

Oh, yes. Must write essay too.

Where have I been?

People have been asking. It's nice to be missed. I've spent lots of time at swimming pools. I swam hard at the North Island Short Course Masters meet in Masterton. I swam fast. Faster than I thought I could. My team had a real mixed meet, with people sick and slower than they should have been, but I swam personal best times in every event. It was very exciting, and worth all the hard work. My favourite swimmer at the event was an 85 year old woman who broke a national record in every event she swam. She dove in off the blocks, and she did tumble turns with finess. She is a real character with a big grin, and she had a great time. Now that's the way to grow old!There was food of course. Roast lamb, for 11, at the Greytown Hotel on the way home. Swimmers get hungry, and it was just what we needed.

Goldenrod

For a year of colour. My beautiful 9 patch quilt. 3" nine patch blocks, made by 12 different people. This quilt is a treasure, and I could use it for every week during a year of colour.

Well the last day of September has been dealt to in great style. There was swimming of course...at Karori Pool, bright and early. While we prefer to swim at the Aquatic Centre in Kilbirnie, the Karori* pool is lovely and the change of suburb is a fine excuse to upgrade our breakfast venue. We ate at the Boutique Dining Cafe, a cafe much more stylish than the name suggests. The coffee is great, they happily push tables together for our large party, they remember who ordered what, the food is delicious and usually plentiful enough to satisfy ravenous swimmers. They have live jazz on Thursday nights, I'm sure it would be worth a visit. Many extra coffees were ordered this time, while the relay teams for the national short course championship (next weekend....eek!) were negotiated with military precision. Takes about 100 times longer to sort out the teams than it will to swim the races. Ha!

*(Dear reader who is not from around here, these are suburbs of my beloved Wellington, about 20 minutes apart, if the lights are right, at 7 am on a Saturday morning. Swimming at Kilbirnie is preferable because the pool is bigger, and not so busy, we don't usually swim til 8 am, and it's also closer to home for me. Every now and then some event at Kilbirnie means we must swim elsewhere).

Breakfast at the Boutique Dining Cafe

Later that day there were cocktails with 5 fabulous women at Logan Brown, one of Wellington's best restaurants, followed by their superb 'pre-theatre' dinner. Logan Brown is the kind of hi-brow place that wins major awards. It is perfect in every way, from the beautifully decorated 1920s former bank building it is housed in, the three tiny courses of the pre-theatre menu, the wine list, the doris plum daiquiris...if you have someone to impress, it's the place to go.

Chocolate mousse with raspberry sorbet, plum daiquiri and manhattan at Logan Brown

Now, although the night could have ended in fine style right there, it got even better. We went to see the 2006 World of Wearable Arts Show. You can see some of the entries in a slideshow here at Stuff. It was a truly amazing show with spectacular staging. It was music, dance and theatre. It was a little Moulin Rouge, alien ballet, greek theatre, a kids cartoon, pyrotechnics, acrobatics. It was sexy, laugh-out-loud funny, and made me want to dance. The pacific section was breathtaking. Suzie Moncrief, you're a bloody genius.

The winner, "The Love of Icarus", by Rodney Leong, made of 20,000 plastic collar stays