Golden summer

The golden weather continues and I'm loving it; there's a catch phrase that You Can't Beat Wellington on a Good Day!! - and that's so true.  Here's a recent sunset, taken by my son using a four year old "point and shoot" camera -

That's the long pier at Petone beach and when you enlarge it you will see the lights of the road to Wellington along the edge of the harbour at the foot of the hills.

I've been doing lots of tidying and de-cluttering around the house so I now have a large pile of 'stuff' in the spare room to take to the Op Shop.

Something I came up with, which the girls had been using in the doll cot, was this cushion -

Very delicate colours now, but this was from the left overs of a skirt and the cushion was made in 1980 so it's very faded from the original

I returned to the UK to see my parents, both of whom had been unwell, and I took this stitching to do on the plane and in airports etc. - those were the days!  I remember my sister-in-law was intrigued by Cathedral Window so we sat on the floor while I showed her how - and she, who swore she would never be interested in patchwork, was hooked!

This shows the basics of the technique when done by hand, a square has the edges turned under, then the corners are folded into the centre and stitched down.  The individual squares are joined with an overcast stitch, another fabric square is placed in the centre of each square and the four bias edges are stitched down.

We made Christmas decorations with them, or pincushions.

There was a spell of very wet weather for a day or so, quite a change - and one morning I saw my two cats, Floyd and Basil, sitting by the cat door - Floyd being the look out with his head out -  checking to see if the rain had stopped?

I showed you the coat hanger full of strips of fabric recently, well I've emptied it!!  Yay!!  This is the start of the top that is finished -

I started it with a large corner square, three inch, then put strips around a la log cabin, decided they were too small so joined several strips a la jelly roll and put them onto the outside - those are the blocks at the top.  Next time I'll show what I did then, because now I want to share with you some of the treasures from my box of lace.

Oh fiddle, I can't seem to get the photos to go side by side.

Anyway, it's a beautiful baby bonnet I think, though it has no means of fastening, maybe it's meant to go over a fabric shell?

I'll leave you with another view at sunset, this time taken from the pier looking towards the Petone Esplanade

and with this quotation - which very soon will not be understood by our grandchildren, "Be like a postage stamp.  Stick to one thing until you get there." Josh Billings

Thanks for stopping by and for your encouraging messages.

We'll talk again soon

June