My Local Quilt Group

held a retreat this past weekend. Every-one had a great time, and a lot of the girls made a Jelly Roll quilt.

There was also time for eating and of course drinking! :-)


This quilt top was made by Sue who works at Wendy’s shop.”Wendy was great all weekend helping all those that were making their Jelly Roll Quilts

Another quilt that some of the girls are making is the Disappearing Nine Patch.
I managed to get a few more photos before my camera battery went flat.
Carol won a prize and decided it was a shower cap. Not really sure what it was!
There were a few other quilts being worked on A lovely Batik quilt made by Carole.
Francie worked on her Foundation Piecing Christmas Trees. Click on any photo to see it up close. I haven’t photographed my effort yet, but will do so and post them tomorrow.
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Now I’m ready

to post some photos of my Flower Garden blocks. I didn’t want to post after the first one, as, knowing me, I may not have gotten any more made for a while. They are so nice to make, but I definitely need good light. Pip and I compared blocks on our recent get together and she reminded me to get them posted. The funny thing is we were working on the same block, at the same time.

  

Any tips on pressing applique?

I also made some VERY yummy biscuits, last week. Also from Pips blog. She had gotten it from another blog. I slightly modified my mixture – I think the last 3 people who have made them, have done the same. 

My version of the recipe for
White Chocolate Gingerbread Biscuits – NZ measurements.

• 225g of butter 
• 2  1/2 cups flour
• 1  1/2 cups brown sugar (next time I will cut this down to 1 cup)
• 1 large egg, 
• 1/3 rd cup Golden Syrup
• 1 cup of white chocolate chips/morsels
• 1 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp powdered ginger, 1/4 tsp salt.
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 
• Cream butter & sugar, add egg & golden syrup. Beat together. Stir in dry ingredients until well blended. Add choc. chips.
• Roll into balls and bake on tray lined with baking paper 180 deg. 10-12 mins. Check and cook longer if needed.  
•  
• I was a bit lazy and made them too big, so next time will cut down a little on the size. I don’t feel so guilty eating them when the bickie is small. :-)

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Nearly Forgot

to show a purchase I made in Nelson. A lovely Poncho to knit for me. There were NO patchwork shops to get waylaid in, although it must have been on DH’s mind, as he had a dream last night where I was under a table in a Quilt shop scrabbling with fabric with another couple of women.

Never mind I made up for it when, on the Monday after we arrived home, I met up with a blogging friend Pip who was visiting  her family  in Howick ( she was over on holiday) and had coffee, then visited Patchwork Passion in Onehunga.

 I think Pip had a pretty good spend up, and so did I. It was all her fault!! It will be my first foray into a Modern Quilt ( I hope)

Pip very kindly bought over some gifts for me, which were gorgeous. Some Reproduction fabrics, a Poppy made from felt, a lovely quilty card and a fabulous pincushion from a Sue Spargo design. I was very spoilt.

  That is why I love blogging. I have met so many nice people, and formed such lovely friendships with them.

Until next time….Thanks for dropping by

Back at Last

I have been fairly busy trying to finish off an old WIP  which I won’t show yet, as it looks a bit of a jumble. In the mean time DH and I have had our 22nd Wedding Anniversary. For the first time ever I was asked if I would like to go somewhere for a couple of days. I jumped at the offer, but when we chatted about where to go, and couldn’t agree, I suggested I organise it, and make it a mystery for my DH. He was quite happy about that ( very unusual as DH likes to be the organiser) I had to tell him we were flying, but it was still in NZ which made him a bit nervous. Flying, unless its to Australia doesn’t do much for his nerves. The planes are too small. Any way we took off very early Friday morning to Nelson, and had a wonderful 2 1/2 days there. We arrived home Sunday evening. The mountains with the snow greeted us when we arrived. They are at the top end of the Southern Alps. The weather could not have been more perfect for the 3 days.
A couple of hours after we arrived, we were picked up and taken on a wine tour. A couple of minutes before this photo was taken on a look out, I literally fell out of the Tour van. My heel caught on the step, and I had two men just standing there watching at me fall. I am so surprised I never really hurt myself ( only my pride) as I was holding my camera, and not wanting to break it, rolled onto my side when I fell. The Tour operator said “nice roll and you haven’t even had a drink yet.” We went to 4 wineries and bought 3 cases of wine, which will be delivered home.. Saturday we went to the markets and spent a lovely 3 or 4 hours wandering. This is so different for us, as usually if we go anywhere its for a reason, and we are on a timetable. I managed to go into a fabulous shoe shop and bought 2 pairs shoes.



I had booked a rental car, but then cancelled it, as we were staying so close to the town we were able to walk everywhere.  We wandered around the water front to have drinks and dinner Saturday night.
Sunday we wandered into town again and had breakfast after which we went by cab to the airport. We checked in, then walked about a kilometre and a half to the WOW museum where they used to hold the Wearable Art Show. We saw some of the wearable art from previous years, and they were fabulous, but NO photos allowed. On one side of the Museum they had a display of Classic Cars which was amazing to see.

All in all, an excellent weekend,  the only problem was I couldn’t blog on my tablet. I have been going around in circles trying to sort it, but after one phone call ( to the Phillipines) it turned out to be my browser. All sorted now.
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