Central Plateau, North Island

Central Plateau, North Island
View from a friend's farm

Friday 14 October 2016

Have you ever COUNTED ???

 

The seams sewn, the seams pressed open, the threads trimmed,and the times you cut blocks to the right size?

I read Carole’s post on Autumn Jubilee, you can read about it   HERE

and thought this would be something easy for me to attempt. 24 blocks, and I have lots of batik strips, so off I went and started to find suitable fabrics. Easy, well some parts were, but doable in the allotted time, finished today, as the  next instalment arrives tomorrow, NZ time!!!Batik strips and scraps

I sorted, cut, pressed,  and did so many HST. Then the plain squares, and the ones with a wee strip for a stem. Purples, naturally, blues, greens, and all shades of oranges and tans.

Autumn Jubilee HST

Autumn Jubilee HST finishedAutumn Jubilee stems and HST

Gradually things all came together, Boris wanted to put in his opinion, and ventured across the small design board.

Autumn Jubilee #1Autumn Jubilee #7

Autumn Jubilee #6

 

Autumn Jubilee #2Autumn Jubilee #3

Autumn Jubilee #4

Autumn Jubilee #5

Sitting, waiting for that morning coffee.The morning light was not bright, a faint glimmer of sunshine helped.

Autumn Jubilee Waiting for coffee

The sun is rising so much further to the East, and we get those shadows on a different part of the lawn. I know there is a huge amount of work to mow the lawns, fell the trees,split the wood, but in reality we live in a beautiful place.

Sunlit trees, October 2016

Quotation of the day , for my friends further North

“ Autumn,

the time when nature colours the leaves with

red, gold and orange,

showing that a leaf can be as beautiful

as any flower”

Greetings from Jean.

Saturday 1 October 2016

Firewood,flowers, and voting

 

The month of September fled by, with the Bloggers Quilt Festival, spring flowers opening up with their glorious colours, and the firewood waiting. Norman came, felled trees, cut the huge trunks into rounds, Anne came, they split, they heaved, and there is the most wondrous pile drying there.

firewood all split 2016

After more branches were cut, there was a lot of small leafy stuff to be burnt. The next morning, ashes still warm, and sparks flew as I stirred it up in the dark.

Burning embers after Norman's felling

One Dutch Iris, more to come, but most are just tall leaves.

Purple Dutch Iris

The banksia trees have small cones, and these were picked up by the thousands!!! and moved to the woodshed. They burn so well,and are what we use in the smaller chip heater that heats all our hot water.

Banksia Cones

The Ixia is one of my favourite spring flowers, tall stem, bright pink, beautiful.

Pink Ixia, my favourite

The top right photo in the collage shows the track,  where the small mountain of glowing ash was, all cleared, raked, ashes died down, and logs all cut and taken to the wood pile, Joyce bravely sat on the quad and threw more to add to that wonderful heap. Happiness is knowing next winter, fires can be lit every morning  or night, without a worry of running out of firewood!!

September collage firewood and flowers

The Bloggers Quilt Festival has shown us amazing talented quilters from all round the world, new friendships made, and from Amy, a wonderful event with so much organisation that we do not see. Here  is my entry  and if you go to          amyscreativeside

   you can see all the categories and entries.

And you will find me here, in the  Small Quilt Category  ., To vote, all you need to do is click on the tiny heart at the top of the entry.

Walter's Mariner's Compass

Then pour a coffee, put your feet up and visit all the other amazing, outstanding entries from so many quilters.

  Again, thank you all so much for your lovely words for Walter and his Compass. They mean so much, and show me  once more  how blog friendships reach across land and ocean.

Quotation of the day, from Colin Powell

“ A dream doesn’t become reality though magic,

it takes sweat, determination and  hard work”

Greetings from Jean