Friday, November 30, 2007

He's my boy!

I'm so proud of my boy! here he is biking his little heart out... you go my son!

Does my bum look big in this?



These are the enormous pants I made for Chrissy last weekend. She is going to be a clown in their end of year drama production next sunday night. They are one and a half metres wide!!!

Works in progress...

I'm feeling so tired tonight. This week just seems to be going to never end!! Last night we had all our painting team to our home in Coalgate and fed them all up to thank them for the great year of work! Some of them went jebboating on the Rakaia which they really really enjoyed. It was a lot of work though, don't know if I want to do that again, especially after a full on working week. Then today David did a 75 km cycle race and James (11) did a 10 km kids Mini-bays. They did great I am so proud of them!
Chrissy has been busy today dancing for her end of year production. Two shows today, and two tomorrow. Reuben is self-destructing again, he is just very tired I think. Hopefully we can get through this weekend without a major meltdown!!
I've been working with a personal coach for about 10 weeks now and am starting to make some headway I think. The trouble is that it is getting harder and harder! It was easy to make the big glaringly-obvious changes, but the real challenging ones are much much harder! Mike is great though (his business is called "Clarity"), I've never met him, he doesn't even live in the same island as me, but we talk on the phone. The thing about a coach is that they don't actually tell you what to do, but as you talk, it kind of becomes obvious to you. Right now I am trying to be real about how I feel about things which is I think one of my life-long failings. I like to think that I am Mrs Incredible and that nothing fazes me, but the reality is that of course I feel sad sometimes, ok a LOT of times!!! especially lately with all the Reuben stuff. Anyway I haven't worked out how to change yet, but the first step is to realise that you have to eh!
I'm going to make a quilt to show how I feel, I've got some grey fabrics and I want to do a mosaic pattern with golden grouting. I think that we can see the beauty in the difficult times of our lives and that is the golden grouting!! Anyway aren't we all just works in progress?? As my favourite saying this year is "Lucky we aren't perfect either"!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Some of the work from Thailand























Here is some of the work that was created from when I went to Thailand. Its great isn't it :)





Monday, November 19, 2007

Kaija's Quilt

Detail of the quilting on the back. Done by the lovely Verina at Cust.


Kaija has been a fantastic friend to my sister Jo this year (she's had a bit of a hard time) so before she went back to the UK I decided to make her a quilt. Here it is....

Busy time making Christmas presents!

This is a table runner I made for Aunty Jean. Its very "Aunty Jean" and I think she will like it. So one weekend, nine presents... its all good!


Also made this quilt. It's a man-quilt! My cutters and ruler had crapped out by that stage so it grew together, not cutting required!! I'm actually really pleased with it. I wanted some polar fleece for the back so I took a blanket out of James' bed (he's eleven) and cut half off it. Then I put the blanket back and waited to see if he would notice. So far he hasn't!!


Had a very productive weekend. This is a very cool bag I made. I'm really pleased with it. It actually looked nothing until I put the buttons on it!



I've been busy making Christmas presents this weekend. Here are five little sewing kits. cool aren't they. I found the receipe for them in a magazine.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

On going having a fun day.....

On Tuesday the rest of our office went to the races. By all accounts, they had a fantastic fun time and I was so pleased for them. I went to school to help out with a camp day with the junior children. We had such a fun time, pitching tents, making banners and doing camp things. After school I popped into mum's to take a wee ipod case I had made for my dad. She was talking about how she wondered about reconciling ones Christian faith with the betting on the races. To be honest, I hadn't even thought about the betting, I was wondering about the drinking and general silliness. I'm just not into that kind of thing to be honest, I quite like to sit quietly and people watch, but I'm not very good and the 'lets go out and have fun' senario. I'm a bit of a party pooper actually (as my family knows). I did have a really great day at school though, I loved putting up the tent (and I loved being good at it), I loved being with Reuben and watching him watch the other children. I loved being able to mummy a little girl called 'Jemesa' who was the only child in school uniform on a mufti day and was crying all day. I loved the fact that she wanted to put her name on our banner and told me that the 'Purple Panthers' (our team) was the best team. I especially liked the way she leaned against me at lunch time! I had a fantastic day. I've been thinking that different people find different things fun and I think that we should be tolerant of each other's choices. To paraphrase a saying... "One man's fun is another man's torture!!!"

My sunflower bag....

Hello there. This is a cheapy conference bag which I have padded and quilted the front of with this fantastic bright sunflower material. I just love the fabric which comes in a whole range. I got it from the lovely ladies in Kaikoura (Hi Viv and Rachel) link to them on http://apatchofcountrykaikoura.com/store/index.php?main_page=about_us. I'm going to use this bag for a present at Christmas. I wonder who the lucky receipiant will be!!!

Sunday, November 11, 2007

New Quilt for my friend Liz.....




Here is the new quilt for Liz. I texted her this morning to say it was ready, did she want it and so she popped over. It was so cool though, because she said she had been having a good cry about stuff and then got my text and realised that God did love her after all! How awesome was that. I'm stoked.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Quilts I've been finishing....

This is the other quilt I finished yesterday. It is for my friend Shenleigh's 40th birthday. I started it about this time last year, and finally finished it. I'm really sick of it now to be honest, but I think in a few months I'll like it again. I still think the colours are beautiful.









Here a close up of the quilt for Lily Rose...




This is the quilt I finished yesterday for Lily Rose. I like the colours and the pattern, but I'm not too proud of the workmanship. I made it out of the left overs from another quilt. Actually I'll get two or maybe three quilts from that first quilt's leftovers.