Blue Sky.

I am hoping the sky will be this blue when I ( we the family ) head off  tomorrow for a short holiday in a much warmer  place. I'll be back with photos and experiences to share just before the end of the month.
 This photo was taken 8 days ago when walking on the beach at Mt. Maunganui.

 Grandson and his parents were here at the weekend so that was pleasing for this proud  Nanny . His speech is progressing so much. He is loving books and sat engrossed while I read him 5 in a row.

 I have packed some hexagons to sew.

Club Show and Tell Quilts.

We are trying hangers  along a railing to display the finished quilts that members bring along to club  for Show and Tell. The building we use for our Tauranga Patchwork and Quilters meetings is shared by other groups and has "stuff" all over the walls ( notices; fire extinguishers ;heaters etc. )  So far it beats the owners having to hold them up, which is what we have done in the past.
 Here are some quilts  from last Friday. 

2 Dr. Seuss ones.

 Monster by Valerie.

Hexagons hand pieced and hand quilted by Shirley.

 A kit quilt made by Neisha .

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I have been laying out completed hexagons in rows and sewing then together.

 Note down the left side I was auditioning plain fabric for a border. It makes a huge difference. I now need to purchase a large amount , so I won't run out. I also need to decide how I will actually do the border. I have made a half hex template that seems promising.

 At last count I had 6 rows of 15 joined lengthwise.

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Share My Flowers.

Family and Friends have been spoiling me, with gifts and cards, visits  and messages.
 These not only look bright and fresh but the rose and the purple stocks are delicately perfumed. Yesterday was the day of the year I go up another number, but don't feel any different.
 I have the flowers away from the fire to prolong their life and will change the water every day. They last time I did this the flowers and especially the foliage lasted for more than 2 weeks. I love flowers in the garden and in the house.

 I have even been sewing. My hexagons are now being joined into rows and I have worked out that a dark plain border improves the appearance greatly. Photos and words about that coming soon.

Sunny Harvest Day.

 Kiwifruit picking 2017.

Thursday was a sunny warm day. After overnight rain the clean up spray got reapplied and the sprayer went through just blowing to try and dry the fruit as it was so calm. Despite the late start we just got finished before dark This photo shows just some of the 25 pickers working flat out. There were 4 tractors pulling bin trailers each carrying  3 bins. 

 The 2nd trailer load of 3 bins has arrived back at the loading area. The 1st 3 can be seen on the left behind with the bin cards ( identification etc ) attached.The other bins are as yet empty, soon  to be filled.

 Some of the pickers were female.

 Pickers from many counties. This man from Iran.

 Note how the bottom of the picking bag unlatches so the fruit gently slides out.

 Some were happy to pose.

The tractor driver and the supervisor smooth the top of the bins and check for any leaves or stalks to take out.

Joey on the forklift ( for lifting full and empty bins and loading the trucks )  just giggled when the back right wheel got stuck. He waited till a tractor came and pushed him out.

One of the curtain sided trucks partly filled with full bins 

Lots of people; lots of fast picking and bag  emptying.

 Well that's done for this year. It was our 36th crop.

Any Fine Day Now.

 The Eurofins fruit sample collector has been this morning and taken our 2nd 100 kiwifruit sample to test for dry matter. The higher the dry matter the more the grower gets paid. Whichever is the best result is the one that is used. ( we get one free sample and pay for any more we request )  The fruit sample gets taken back to the Katikati office where it is cut and dried to get the test results. That takes about 24 + hours.

 We have been told that we are the next orchard after the one they are picking at now, so tomorrow or Friday if it stays fine. A cleanup spray has to be applied and dry before picking starts.

Quilting Retreat.

Yesterday I spent the day ( a very cold one ) with some of my P and Q friends at Retreat. Some ladies stayed over Friday and Saturday night. About half like me just went for all day Saturday. I hope they were warm last night as it was our coldest so far this year.
 8 ladies made a quick jelly roll quilt. All finished their tops in the day.

 A pattern is not really required. Just join all your strips together across the narrow 2.5" ends. Either diagonally or straight. This makes a very long continuous 2.5" strip of fabric. ( One or 2 jelly rolls could be used.or you could cut your own lengths from scraps. )Some ladies added in a 2.5 " square of another bright fabric, just every now and then. You then take the 2 ends and lay the strips side by side and join down a very long seam. This is repeated cutting at the end each time.

The rest of the ladies worked on their own projects . Here are some of them having a tea break.

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AM asked all the club members ( about 85 ) to make one or more of these 12.5" wonky blocks with a solid coloured square in the corner. She got the idea from a  tutorial on The Quilter's table  site. 

 Today I set to and made mine.

 All the blocks to be plain white and a black patterned with a coloured square.

 The blocks will be joined to make several quilts.

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 I finished Grandson beanie and have seen pics of him wearing it .

 *****

 We are meant to be picking our kiwifruit later this coming week.

Foraging.

I've been out foraging......... Well that's not strictly true as it was all on our own property and we planted the respective trees. Anyway I was well pleased to find the last few Avocados had dropped to the ground and were still usable. ( the birds had been into lots of others ) 

 The first sapotes ( custard apples ) looked ready enough to pick a few ( that's the green round ones at the back )

 The persimmons are now colouring up and I know the birds and wasps are into them so I picked some that will ripen inside.

 We are getting this bowl full of feijoas ( pineapple guavas to my Oz friends ) every 3 days . They are strange trees...in that 2 months ago I would have said we will get 50 total, but as they get larger and begin to fall there is a never ending stream of them ( I'm not complaining ).

 Of course the kiwifruit will be ready to pick when it's our turn - hopefully with in the next 2 weeks.

Autumn.

 Autumn crocus flowering now. After so, so, so  much rain anything that survived is doing well. A few late bright zinnias for the bees and butterflies.

 Apricot coloured ones are a bit more unusual.

 All the walnuts fell at once this year during the heavy rain and wind.

 We were without power for 19 hours at the beginning of Easter. I have collected 5 of these green bins full ; that's about 2500 walnuts.

We did our usual successful trip to the Rotary Used Book Fair.

 Laid out on sheets on the cobblestones to dry when the sun shines.

(also shallots drying on the trolley )

 This is the best tree they fall from.....lots roll down the slope beneath the tree. A lot land on the grass up behind the tree which stay clean in the grass.

 The young ones were with us over Easter. Here Grandson is wearing his new vest I got finished for him.

 Here he is defying gravity while building a tower with blocks. He loves the ""Crash, "  part naturally.

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 Yesterday 14 ladies sewed and pressed blocks to make this quilt top which will be our Raffle quilt at our Exhibition in September.

 Dorothy D whose back you can see here pre - cut and packaged all the fabric , so that took her hours before hand.

 It made for a large ,very accurately pieced  group quilt.

Cushion Cover.

Earlier this week when it was SOOOOO wet. I had time to make my Millefiori Block into a 20 x 20" cushion cover.

 It is paper foundation pieced and was started last year when Chris Kenna taught a class with our Patchwork and Quilting Group. Some members are still working to try and make a quilt from their blocks. I knew I didn't have the time for that so opted for something I could achieve in the form of cushion cover. It is only lightly quilted in the ditch diagonally across the web and a few other lines. It might be a spider web or a target.

 The pattern and instructions for this Millefiori or cobweb block are on page 54 in Issue # 79 of the NZ Quilter magazine. ( do note thought that there is an error in the size of one of the pattern pieces given there - not Chris's fault but the printer who changed one part so it would fit in....he/she obviously did not understand the need for accuracy! )

 For anyone from our group reading this, I now have a top 5 item to tick off! Yipee!

 I have started another vest for Grandson using my favourite pattern again. It is easy to dress a little person in and has no right or wrong side, back or front. It is  4 ply pure NZ wool of course.

 I took the photo below last weekend in Auckland at the gardens around the summit of Bastion Point. Mass planting always looks good.

Fun With Grandson.

Recently Grandson has been to visit us and we have been to visit him ( and his Mum and Dad of course ). We played and read books and went on outings. 
     We also planted some daffodil bulbs.

 I had purchased the bag of 50 of these yellow daffodils. I have already planted some here and have more to put in still. Where  best to put them at their place? 

 We decided a large planter near the front door would be a good place for them. I showed grandson what was in the bag and asked him to help me plant them.

 He looked in the bag then disappeared inside and came back with an onion from the pantry cupboard and dropped it in the bag.

 ( he will be 18 months old tomorrow.........now that really amazed me. I know grandparents are easily impressed but I thought that was REALLY smart. )

 Any way we carried on, me digging the holes and Grandson selecting a bulb from the bag and popping it in the hole. His Dad then got some blood and bone from the shed and an extra top up of potting mix across the top.

 Grandson then got his favourite blue watering can ( used to be mine ) and gave them a drink.

 I wonder if the bulbs will remain undisturbed to grow or if they will get inspected at any stage???

 I suggested adding some blue bedding lobelia for over the top till the bulbs come through.

 As I was busy doing this I didn't get a photo.   Here is another one. His Mum has since found a better solution using an exercise hanger on the door jam to hang the swing, not to high off the ground.

A Quilt Top Was Made.

Over the last weekend some of the members of our P and Q group spent 2 days sewing charity quilts. Some of the fabric was donated. My namesake and I decided to work together on a simple design for a quilt to later donate to Women's Refuge.

 We used a table in the back room to lay it out as we went so we could see the pattern emerging.

By the time we packed up on Sunday all the rows bar one were sewn together. One needed a little unpicking .

 The other A took it home and spent 1 more hour perfecting it and tidying the back.

 On Friday we will baste and back it and decide how we want to quilt it.

 It ended up 19 rows by 15 blocks  ( 4" blocks )  or 60 inches by 76 inches.

 We decided against a border and will use a dark blue binding.

 The other A took this photo on a bed but I can't get the pic to rotate so you might have to turn your head.

 The colours in the top photo are it's true colours. A pale lemony straw colour.

 Ill show a photo when it is totally finished.

 Some of the other members worked on boy 's quilts featuring appliqué clown blocks.

More Rain Than We Need.

Since last Tuesday night we have had 276 mls of Rain. That's almost the length of an old school ruler. ( 12 inches  - I don't visualise mls as easily as inches ) That is way more than we needed. 

 When we have heavy rain we have drains and creeks that need constant monitoring. If they get blocked then flooding happens. Behind  and above our property is the Te Puna Quarry Park.( a large catchment area )  It has a large gravel carpark  which drains down into and through our property.

 This shows the water entering our place yesterday afternoon. The top photo shows the  large vertical pipe that redirects the water underground through our place. There is a metal grill ( top rail just visible ) to stop debris going into the pipe  If debris blocks this grill, as it frequently does, flooding then starts across our orchard. The debris which is usually long strips of gum tree bark, big rocks, rubbish, old footwear etc. has to be manually picked out of the top side of this grill which then can be lifted up to let small stuff wash through.To do this one must stand legs apart on the concrete side  facing the big pipe and bend forward to pluck stuff out meanwhile the water rushes by sometimes filling ones gumboots. Or if it is already flooded one has to plunge ones hand down into the unknown to get stuff out.( not good if there is glass hidden in the rubbish ) 

 Normally this is not a huge job and we are both adept at clearing it . When the velocity of water increases as it has these last few days it becomes quite a scary task. ( don't slip and don't have anything loose in your pockets- phone or glasses etc that could fall out; you'll never see it again ) 

 The other night it blocked and overflowed towards this kiwifruit block leaving a trail of rocks ,grit and bark ( mainly wrapped around the posts here )  This grass gets mowed so before that can happen all the rocks have to be cleared or the mower would be blunt or broken very quickly.

 The water runs underground for about 50 metres and reemerges at our front creek, runs under the driveway and exits our property here.

 If we are way over night we always need to nominate someone to check for us if there is heavy rain to do the unblocking .

 We are now hoping for some sun, to dry everything up and let us get back to orchard work.

Other folk in Auckland and Coromandel had lasting flood damage so we feel for them.

 ( Up side ....I got some  more sewing time )