Monthly Archive

I’m home. I have slept. I have recovered.

The Australasian Quilt Convention was fantastic! All you quilty types need to go!! The only bad thing about it was the lame photos I took -you’ll just have to trust me that everything about it was great, because all the proof I have is blurry. I had the BEST classes! Friendly, happy, competent students make tutoring a breeze and such fun. And the exhibition alone was worth the trip, but once again you’ll have to take my word for it. I don’t know quite what I did wrong but my photos are baaaaaad.
Even the pics I took of some of the fabric I bought are baaaaad…

The best part of the trip was meeting bloggers. I met this one and this one and these ones. They were all lovely and no one was an axe murderer (I’m secretly a teensy bit disappointed about that).
Pixie drove across town in a taxi just to have a drink with me before she headed off on a hot date! Thank you, Pixie; it was above and beyond to put in such an effort for such a brief visit.
Leanne and her mate Melinda and I sat together at the Gala Dinner and scoffed large quantities of scrumptious food while being entertained by equally scrumptious half-naked boy acrobats. Stomper and Crafty took me to a Japanese restaurant on Brunswick Street and we talked about EVERYTHING until we were very nearly kicked out at closing time. I’m not sure the sweet girls working there had heard some of the words we used. After we had worked our way through sex and religion and politics and childbirth, I was just about hoarse. We took photos and Stomper’s seems to be the best - of mine, one was blurry and the other has Crafty blinking and me looking like a startled panda (it was the end of four days teaching; I was knackered). Stomper, of course, looks gorgeous (Crafty, you look gorgeous, too, just asleep). I wish I could have dinner with Pixie every Friday, Leanne and Melinda every Saturday and with Stomper and Crafty every Sunday!

Melbourne is just as beautiful as it has always been. I would love to go there more often.
And Brunswick Street. What can I say? I’d move in today, given half a chance.

Here’s a snippet of what’s coming up next…

Tomorrow is Twelve by Twelve Day. Watch this space.

Twolimeleaves will be a bit quiet for the next five or six days. Tomorrow I’m heading down to Melbourne where I’ll be teaching at the Australasian Quilt Convention for four days. I love teaching, so I’ve been looking forward to this weekend. The BIG bonus is that I’ll also get to meet some bloggy peeps. (I’ll try to sneak some photos of them, OK?) (shhh)

While I’m away, my second anniversary as a blogger will pass. Hard to believe really. Me. Sticking at a project for two years.

In celebration I thought I should give y’all something. So in my sidebar is a little giftette from moi. A pattern for a Good Dog pincushion. Making one of those puppies (heh heh little joke there) is so simple - have a go. Just copy the file and print. The applique design is full-size, ready to use.

Happy pin-cushioning!

Jess and Meggie and Molly and Mary and heaps more of you have been writing these amazing statements. I believe it started here with Suse. They have intrigued me and I have found myself writing my own in my head for days. Mine became further removed from the original concept as I went along. But it made me cry. Time to put it here…

I am from Strong Women. Land-owning, moko-chinned women. Far-from-home, desperate-for-a-new-beginning women. Women who worked hard, physical work, who created, who birthed and buried. Maori and Pakeha, New Zealand women.

I am from Weetbix and Marmite and Vogel bread. But also Mum and Dad making jam in a steamy kitchen, measuring sugar, cutting plums and peaches. From duck and pheasant, plucked by Nanna, shot by Papa, making his own cartridges on the back verandah; from flounder and crayfish, caught by my uncles, drying and cleaning their nets in the sun. From whitebait, feijoas, plums and mandarins. I am from sun-ripened strawberries growing safely under old fishing nets.

I am from a sandpit, huge and deep - built by Dad, digging with my brother; Mole Holes and tunnels to China, shared baths and sandy feet.

I am from freesias, grape hyacinth and roses. But also bracken, ponga and moss. From damp bush tracks, swinging vines, tuis, fantails and bellbirds. From cold, bare legs and sweaty wool-clad torsos; from home-knitted hats and Swan-dris; from canvas packs and scroggin.

I am from a river, deep and dark. The Waikato. Forboding, menacing, comforting, home.

I am from immigrant Presbyterian straightforwardness, threat, control; softened by years to simplicity, inclusiveness, morality. I am from whakapapa, so that my family includes all things and everyone and is everpresent. I am from karakia, prayer for all things - welcome, recognition, gratitude, farewell.

I am from Christmas indulgences. Ceiling-scraper trees that leave sap on the plaster, wooden crates of soft-drink bottles, present-opening that lasts all afternoon (one at a time so everyone can see). I am from my Papa, roasting assorted fowl all morning, revelling in the luxuriousness of our lives.

I am from Nanna. From crochet and knitting, from sewing needles dangerously parked in the back of the sofa, horse racing on a transistor radio. From bags stuffed full of wool and patterns and magazines. The New Zealand Women’s Weekly.
From Choysa tea, arrowroot biscuits, 20 cents to buy yourself a creamy. I am from you.

I am from barefooted primary school days. Hand stands, four-square, school journals, muddy playing fields, thick Education Department crayons. From kids who smelled funny and boys who played rugby and girls in Grandma-knitted cardigans.
I am from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and boater hats and school ties and timetables and Latin verbs and Chapel and matron and The Bursar and The Headmistress. I am from naughty boarders, brothers at St Pauls, sneaking hone early.

I am from wet, foggy mornings with the washing machine sloshing and my mother’s red hands.
I am from homemade clothes, Holly Hobbie-embroidered and pin-tucked. I am from Singer sewing machines, forever patient Teacher-Mother with needle and thread, hours spent looking a patterns and fabric in shops, pinking shears, pins in foam-topped plastic boxes.

I am from rides in the wheelbarrow, a Daddy with strong arms; piggyback rides, a Daddy with a strong back. Wrestling on the lounge floor, pinned in The Scissors hold. Laughing, laughing, laughing. I am from my parents cuddling in the car, flirting in the kitchen, dancing in the lounge. I am from kissing and cuddling and love.

Ko Taupiri te maunga
Ko Waikato te awa
Ko Aotearoa te iwi

Taupiri is my mountain
Waikato is my river
New Zealand is my people

Some people have a hard time saying Sorry. Our ex-Prime Minister had a bloody hard time saying “Sorry”. He choked and gagged on the word for more than ten years. Tomorrow something Very Important is happening in Australia. Tomorrow our New Prime Minister will apologise, on behalf of the nation, to all those Indigenous People who have been wronged by the monstrous policies of past governments of Australia. It will be broadcast live on television and radio and I will join with millions of others in shedding a tear for the pain that has been suffered by so many, for so long and rejoice with them that finally they have been acknowledged.

Edited to add this link to the full transcript of Kevin Rudd’s speech. Good job, Kevin.

This doll I made in a class in 1982. She’s a classic Gibson Girl. I never liked her. She and I just never bonded and she has remained unfinished for all these years, wearing nothing but a petticoat (that I had, nevertheless, lovingly sewed for her). In one of our many moves she broke a leg and somehow that broke the spell over me that said that she had to be Authentic.
So instead of studiously working to recreate an antique doll, today I just dressed her in a post-Punk Victorian Fairy aesthetic ( woooooo! ) and she and I both had a good time. Now I’m in love with her and she looks a damn sight happier than she did yesterday. She even Got Ink, discretely on the back of her neck, in a celebration of Life Outside the Cupboard.

I live life on the edge. The police were on my tail last night.

That’s right, you heard me. The Fuzz.

$60 for an illegal U-turn.

Cos, I’m wild like that.

What a challenge this Twelve by Twelve theme of “Chocolate” was! My goodness, Francoise, you really chose a tricky one and had me thinking hard!
I agonised for weeks and weeks. I came so very close to a literal depiction of a block of chocolate using Attic Windows. I’ve never done that pattern before (mostly because I don’t like it!) and I thought about doing 2″ blocks with velvet soft centres in each square of chocolate. Fruit flavoured soft centres have always been my absolute favourite chocolates.

After a few weeks of intense dissatisfaction with this idea, the many months of Jude’s influence bubbled to the surface and I knew what I wanted to do. Jude’s loving hand-stitches and gently rumpled fabrics floated through my thoughts. I remembered some pieces of cotton velvet that I had in the cupboard. I handpainted this piece with silk paints until it reminded me of all my favourite soft centres - strawberry, raspberry, boysenberry and a smidge of orange.

The background is pieced together from all the fragments of chocolate brown fabric in my scrap basket. There are curves in those seams to make the most of each piece - never a crumb of chocolate should be wasted! The velvet was reverse appliqued behind the background, the edges of the brown turned under and whip-stitched with six strands of hand- dyed floss. Every stitch was as yummy as a bite of chocolate!

It had to be hand-quilted to make the rumples truly rumple, so I used embroidery floss and a large, uneven stitch to make curvy lines of quilting. I was so pleased with way the velvet lifted and formed gentle folds. These folds are stab-stitched in just enough places to hold them. At some point, as I hand-stitched, I decided it needed some more subtle pink in the form of solid lines - machine stitched lines. The batting is cotton and I quilted through the top and just the batting. After the quilting was finished I bagged it with a vliesofix-backed backing fabric, rounding off the corners. The quilt was then turned through and the backing ironed in place.

The little heart in the corner came last! It is satin-stitched in place and then triple-stitched on each side of the satin-stitch. One of my current loves/obsessions is little tags and brandings and labels, snuck into corners of things. This heart is a reference to those and also a reminder that the quilt is a love-note to Soft Centres from Me.