Clouds, cake and cushion

This was the view on Friday from the top of Mt Victoria, in the far distance beyond Somes Island is Petone hidden in rain.  I went into Wellington about the time Phil was taking this and other photographs - unbeknownst to me - and spent my time gawping at the cloud formations, especially the part to the right that looked like a meringue!

I used to live in Wellington - actually if you took a running jump [a huge one] over the edge just to the left of the cabbage tree you would end up approximately on our house - the stretch of water is Evans Bay, the airport is to the right and the spit of land is Miramar Peninsular, beyond which is the entrance to the harbour and the way to the South Island,

I've made some progress this week, not much on the hand quilting, but almost finished machine quilting the pretty baby quilt with the floral border, and have finished knitting the hot water bottle - quite a coincidence as last week I was wondering if any more were needed, and during the week I received an update from The Hottie Project 2014 so I'm on track - it's half sewn up so will go in the mail this week.

I meet regularly with a couple of friends and this week PJ [who used to blog regularly, hint, hint] was busy unpicking the binding from a wall hanging and turning it into a cushion - with the addition of a picture of a dog -

How attractive is that!

Our hostess for the day fed us some delicious soup and then surprised us with a large cake -

I adore fruit cake - and was the very happy recipient of a large chunk to bring home - I had the last piece yesterday so had managed to make it last five days!

To go with the cake I decided to start serving tea in a china cup instead of throwing a tea bag into a mug

No doubt about it, the tea tastes great and I'd forgotten what a difference a tea cosy makes - and underneath the Op shop cosy ?-

Perfect for a couple of good cups.

No teaching at Arohata for me this week, Judi is back from overseas and happy to go along with Barb so I get the morning off - I can then go along to the meeting of Capital Quilters in the afternoon without having to rush, and to be honest, without feeling tired after my morning at the prison.

It was a most enjoyable meeting, good to catch up with friends and always interesting Blocks of the Month -

Enough of the houses to make a good long Street - and something different for next month -

A good scrap quilt pattern - just ignore the poster behind it, I should've cropped it more, sorry!

The speaker was Norma Slabbert whose quilts are quite distinctive.  She does a lot of research, thinking and planning before making one - check out her website to read all about the quilt she made for her sixty year anniversary....!

This large, very heavy quilt - she favours the medallion style, has raw edge applique and super tiny lines of quilting - it's in her favourite range of fabrics.

She also makes small quilts to try out her ideas before making the full size one, or the series - and she showed one that she said some people don't like - I find it creepy - what do you think?

The roses featured in many of her quilts - and no, that's not a real person underneath!

I took along three of my quilts for Show & Tell, - not recent finishes but medallion or garden quilts was the theme and as many of my quilts are made from five inch squares collected over dozens of years, and flowers feature in the great majority, I could easily contribute to the meeting.  - all of which is leading up to my quote for the day, "If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort". by Weinbaum

To finish, a reminder that it is still winter, even though we're having unusually mild weather [have I put a hex on it?] here's a photo from Phil taken recently at Lake Wairarapa, late afternoon with the mist settling on the water and the temperature dropping......

Thanks for dropping by and feedback,
Take care
June