Fern's flowers

My granddaughter Fern is spending the day with me today, and first thing on the list is running out to the garden to collect some flowers.

and finding a pretty jug to put them in.

Sometimes, around this time of year, other nice surprises can be found in the garden, if you look very quietly and carefully.

My colours today

Some patchwork, easy piecing together 2 and a half inch squares, because I felt like it.

Some spinning, because I had run out of handspun wool for my blanket.

Some James Taylor and Carole King because soon, very soon I shall be listening to them LIVE, and I am VERY EXCITED every time I think about it.

I hope you all have a great weekend with lots of crafting and good times.

Nature

It's not often you come across something very large and wild when you are taking a gentle evening stroll at the beach. This huge sting ray had come into the shallow water and was waiting to be able to swim out again when the tide turned.

I got in very close with my phone and shot a couple of pics, thinking they probably wouldn't be much good,

but I was quite surprised when I downloaded them....

he was just inches away from me, and he had two very big eyes and a very long tail, and I was thinking that he seemed to be as interested in me as I was in him, because as I walked along the beach he followed alongside, and when I turned to walk back the way I had come he did the same. I was quite sad to say goodbye to him, I hope he made it back into the ocean safely.

On the way home I took this pic of the sunset with my phone as well. It was quite a memorable evening all in all.

This Saturday night our orchestra is playing the first concert of the season.

The music is all about 'The Great Outdoors'.

It opens with the Aotearoa Overture by Douglas Lilburn and I wish I could give you a great recording on you tube to listen to, but sadly I only found two videos of the music, one of them is filmed at Te Papa and has lots of background noise and the other is performed by Westlake College and has good sound but is very poor visually.

Lilburn wrote this in 1939 and it is quite nationalistic. We all get very stirred up when we play this. It means something different to each one of us. For me personally I am transported into the native bush of New Zealand, I hear the birds and see the mountains and the rivers...I love it. I find it very 'hand on the heart' stuff !

We then play Weber's Clarinet Concerto, which should be fun, it has been a while since we had a soloist to perform with us.

Finishing with Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony which is always a favorite and exciting to play, especially during the 'storm'. I think of Beethoven writing this when he was happy and on holiday in the country.

Some great music to mark the beginning of Autumn and the start of Easter.

Phoebe's Quilt

Zinnias in the garden,

and the Bougainvillea outside the back door are giving me lots of pleasure, with their pink blooms,

and this too has given me much pleasure this week.

While I was waiting for Noa ( thank you all so much for your kind words on her birth ) to arrive in the last few weeks, I needed to be close to the phone and was able to spend quite a few hours in my sewing room.

Phoebe's quilt is finished ( yay ) and I can now think about the design and fabric for Fern's quilt.

Just lately the ideas keep coming (especially in the middle of the night) and I wish I could closet myself away in my sewing room and work, work, work, until I have them all worked out of my system.

Do you ever feel like that ? It can sometimes be overwhelming and also fustrating when I am unable to work on my ideas...they become suspended in my head in limbo, then jump to life in the dead of the night, and I lie awake wondering if I should get up and go to the sewing room and start cutting fabric feverishly.

Invariably I fall asleep again when I try and count all the quilts that have been started and remain in waiting for their turn to be finished.

Sarah, if you are reading this, take heart....I found the blocks for your quilt the other day and have started working on it again.

New Footprints

She waited until her big sister's birthday,

and made a spectacular entrance,

and we have all fallen at her feet in wonder.

Little Noa, welcome to your very special place in this world. You fill me up to overflowing.

A Zig Zag Blanket

A week or so ago I had a long car trip....I wrote about it here and in those two days sitting in the car I knitted and knitted and unpicked and unpicked.

All in all a very fustrating time, and the reason for all that angst was the fact that I didn't read the knitting pattern correctly. I thought that it was so very simple and memorised it and then just carried on trying to adapt it myself...thinking there was a mistake in the pattern .

Duh, it was only when a good friend showed me that I had missed a KFB in the sequence of stitches that the penny dropped !

I feel SO stupid !!

Meanwhile I had cast on and knitted a few inches of another zig zig blanket...this one from the ripple stitch book that I have.

and now I am not sure whether to unpick this and cast on for the zig zag blanket or carry on knitting this...... maybe I should do both ?

We are still waiting for the baby to arrive....thank you all so much for your kind comments, it can't be too long now !