Such a beautiful spray and they do look like the flower on the potato plant - which reminds me I must seek out my Wellies and get into the garden behind the borage plant and see if there are any potatoes in the soil. My granddaughter planted some for me last year and I had forgotten all about them.
I used to have a huge potato vine growing all over the little garden shed that was demolished to make way for my new garden shed/sewing room - this plant is in the garden of a friend.
If you are in the Wellington region and haven't yet been, I can recommend the exhibition at the Civic Gardens, the Shape Shifter sculptures are amazing, interesting and just plain fun.
My son and I had brunch at the cafe at the Dowse then strolled over to have a look.
I don't know what I expected to see, but it wasn't French Knitting, by Mia Hamilton, draped all over a large tree!
Complete with oversize wooden reels.
On a totally different scale was the Robot Army vs The Rabbit Proof Fence by Sean Crawford.
I got between them and the fence - they are about a foot tall.
On a much larger scale, is the Giraffe by Greg Bloomfield - wind driven and so colourful.
And now for something completely different, here is an exquisite wooden vessel by Graeme McIntyre. These were in an indoor display area in glass cases so the items appeared to be floating - I apologise for the flash bounce but without it the colours were all wrong.
The exhibition is open until 18th March, [$5 entry fee] from 10 to 5 daily with a late night on Thursday until 10pm when you would get the full benefit of the many light displays.
Last Thursday was the monthly meeting of Wellington Quilters Guild where the speaker was Clare Smith. She brought along the amazing costume she constructed which was based upon a portrait of a Duchess, the portrait is hanging in the Dunedin Museum.
We were treated to the full details of the difficulties of constructing such a costume, keeping the cost to under $200 and with a deadline of the show that is put on at the end of their year.
Here are the undergarments made previously, the corset and underskirt - and those yards of frill were screen printed by Clare and draped for miles around her garage to dry - nothing like the good old kiwi No. 8 fencing wire spirit is there - but wait until you see the actual dress!
Clare and her assistant putting the necessary padding onto the model, then there was the corset, the frame and then petticoats before the actual dress. No wonder the aristocracy had lots of servants!
It was such an interesting evening, great fun too; we are so lucky to have such talented people willing to share with us.
I am hoping to be able to share with you a couple of quilts made by the Shut-in Stitchers, one is the first non squares quilt that K. has made, she was intrigued by the Re-arranged Triangle technique; one from my 5" squares class.
Make a pair of half square triangles by the method of placing two squares face to face, draw the diagonal line, sew either side, then cut on the drawn line.
Then cut the resulting triangles in quarters -
Re-arrange the triangles to make a dark unit -
Or a light unit -
There is of course another way, by turning the half square triangles to face forward or back, but I don't have a photo of that - and speaking of photos, the colour is weird, these were all the same triangles - maybe the sun went in, or came out!
K. is making a quilt by putting four together using soft colours - I showed her another way to make a block - make four patch blocks and arrange like so -
I have bordered the blue jelly roll cum rail fence and sorted out some leftovers for the backing and I pinned up another quilt ready to machine quilt - still haven't finished the binding of the Puss in the Corner but with luck that will be done on Tuesday when I meet with my stitching friends.
Lovely quote today from Jean Giraudoux, "Only the mediocre are always at their best." - ouch!
Thanks for stopping by,
June
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