Travelling and not much Sewing

Well it's been a whole month! In that time I've been to NZ to visit family and friends. Love those people and that place!

Brick Bay north of Auckland

 I enjoyed the cool wet Autumn weather in Christchurch -yes really!

Then a brief trip further South to visit our our son at University in our hometown of Dunedin

Dunedin has some stunning beaches:

Photo credit- this was taken by our daughter!

Good to have two of the siblings together again. The youngest was on a school trip. A music one to Europe mind you, so almost worth missing NZ for!

My husband, me and our eldest

Looking back inland across the estuary

Colour palette inspiration

Local wildlife

The view from our son's college room across the chapel roof

And as if that wasn't enough, we've just returned from Mt Gambier in SE South Australia for Generations in Jazz a fantastic high school jazz festival. We stayed a bit away in the sleepy riverside town of Nelson. We didn't have much time for exploring after all that music, but what we did left us looking forward to returning at some stage.

Boathouses on the Glenelg River at Nelson

With all the travelling I haven't had much time for sewing at all in the last month.

I took the baby cross quilt (as opposed to a cross baby quilt!) I've been making, to Mt Gambier to finish off. I rushed to complete the quilting on the morning we left so I could bind it during the 5 hour car trip -it didn't take me that long!




 Before we went to NZ I had nearly finished the quilting, when I ran out of the variegated thread I'd been using only two rows from the end. None in stock at any shop... so they ordered it for me and it was waiting when I got back from NZ.

Taken at Nelson Ocean Beach, where the river doesn't quite meet the sea any more!

I'm really happy with how this quilt has turned out. I used Katie's tutorial which made it all really quick and easy and the colour palette worked out well. Hopefully the recipient likes it for her wee boy.

Apart from finishing off this quilt I've managed a few bee blocks and that's it.

This is for Kathy for May's Simply Solids block.

Kathy asked for I'm a Ginger Monkey's Scrap Vomit B Block. I already changed some of my initial colours, but overall I'd say this has been a learning experience! I'm not so keen on the colours and I think it's a value problem in the background/corner squares, (do you think so?); but in the end I decided not to remake it again as when it's part of a larger very mixed colour selection it'll be OK and at least the central diamond is defined.

I've also joined another bee for Do.Good Stitches, which is a charity bee making quilts for needy people. I'm part of the "Cherish" Australian based circle. This month we were asked to make two black and white 4x4 blocks. So I cut those out before I went to NZ but didn't manage to sew them together until I got back last week.

I'm looking forward to a sewing day with Liz this Friday, but overall things aren't very speedy at the moment on the sewing front. Slow bloggers of the world unite!