Final Instalment of Girls' Big Day Out

After lunch we headed for Taia Textile Gallery, the home of the fabulous NZ Quilter magazine. Ann Scott provided us with lovely tea, coffee juice and bikkies and I was humbly thrilled to be presented with a 'thank you' package from the ladies on the trip. I had no idea that a whip-round had been organised - very sneaky weren't they?

Lorraine had made badges for the trip:
Cool eh? I made some giveaway prizes for people who had different things on their badges. Unfortunately some bits fell off during the trip and I couldn't award one of the prizes. So I decided it would go to the "best stripper". I didn't see it, but on one of the other buses Karen got hot and had to remove one of her undergarments!

Our last quilt stop was at Shed 11 on Wellington's wharf for the Quilt Show & Sale put on by Quiltsellers Ltd. A great display of quality quilts, all for sale, and we were allowed to touch them!
Here are some of us discussing the finer points of one of the quilts:
Part of the display. All the quilts folded on the shelves were allowed to be unfold so they could be looked at:
For tired quilters a great little sitting area:

More quilts on display:
A mystery knight in shining armour came to our rescue and took our group photo:
And here we are:

We stopped for dinner at Fisherman's Table on the way home and this is the view from the restaurant:
The weather was getting a bit squally by then!

Post script:
A few days after the trip I got a 'thank you' bag of edible goodies to distribute to the drivers. Audrey signed the card with "blessings from a very tired person". That just about sums it up!

And an apology:
The photos are poor quality because I didn't realise the lens on my camera was dirty. I must have stuck my sticky finger on it by mistake!

More Girls' Big Day Out

After leaving Masterton we headed south over the Rimitukas. Since we had people whose bodies protest at going around bends I had to take things very slowly over the winding road. A challenge for me because I am known for my 'heavy foot', or as a friend puts it, "You drive like a maniac, Helen." Our next port of call was Thimbles and Threads in Upper Hutt. Sharon, the owner was overseas but she had her staff ready to serve us tea and coffee and see to our every purchasing need! Her husband was very helpful carrying our catered lunch boxes up the stairs to the classroom where we partook of more sustanence. I'm sorry to say I forgot to take out my camera at this stop but I did make a couple of purchases:
The bottom ruler is a 6 1/2" by 12 1/2" non-slip ruler from Creative Grids. Gotta love those extra half inches! The top one is an "Easy Angle" from EZ Quilting. I pretty sure it does the same thing as the Fons and Porter ruler for cutting half square triangles from the same width strip of fabric as the matching whole square that I wrote about in an earlier post, but I haven't tried it yet. As you can see it is still un-opened. I think the Fons and Porter product will also do the Quarter Square triangles as well, so I guess it would have been a better choice (had it been available - not sure if you can buy them in NZ)

Hey, no fabric!

Actually, that's not quite true. I did buy 3 metres of black cotton to play with discharge dying but I got that at Quilters' Lane. I also forgot to say in my last post that Lynn and Debbie from Quilters' Lane gave us a squishy packet to use as a club raffle. Very, very generous! Thanks a bunch.

Girl's Big Day Out

It was our club's Mystery Bus Trip yesterday. I took 33 keen quilt shoppers in 3 mini buses on a trip to Wellington via Masterton. I'll post some photos over the next few days (it might give me motivation to blog a bit more often!)

Here are the troops at 7 in the morning on a grey day in Wanganui (the weather improved, thankfully):

Our first stop for shopping was at Quilters' Lane in Masterton. Lyn Bell and Debbie Joblin had their shop in pristine condition with lots of delicious fabrics for us to drool over. They kindly provided morning tea for us, a couple of slices they said. This is the feast that awaited us:

Club sammies, scones with jam and three slices! After 2 hours of travelling it was a very welcome treat. They really went out of their way to make us welcome. Thanks!!

Here we are, tucking in:

The shop offered lots of cool selections for us to choos from:

And the fabric was beautifully presented:
Audrey won the "bargain of the day". She fell in love with a hand bag that had gorgeous feather trim and negotiated to purchase it!
Not a great photo, but she was certainly a happy customer and we were all envious of her successful bargaining:
Pretty cool bag!

All Strung Out

The first week of the holidays has whizzed by and for once I can claim I have achieved something. I have made more string blocks ready to trim so I will have 80 done. Without borders the quilt top will measure 60" by 75". There are 36 trimmed blocks on the left and 44 waiting to be trimmed on the right. Okay, so the top is not finished. But, hey, I did 44 blocks in 3 days.
On Wednesday I took a reconnaissance shopping trip. I am organising a mystery bus tour for the quilt club and, of course, I had to check out where we are going and how long it will take and all that stuff. My friend Janice drove us in her fab Citroen car and I navigated. We had a ball! I am a bit poorer ( make that quite a bit poorer) but happy that the basic planning is done - not that I need an excuse to go fabric shopping :-)